When I entered the Foreign Service in 1979, my class of 16 new Public Diplomacy officers was taught to cultivate “the Foreign Service manner,” the habits of diplomacy — listening, accurate reporting, careful speaking, and a certain care in asking questions without an edge. So much of Public Diplomacy is about “telling,” it’s good to…
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Events more than seven decades ago prompt this short Memorial Day meditation for Public Diplomacy. On September 15, 1942, the aircraft carrier USS Wasp (CV-7), supporting the Guadalcanal campaign, was 170 miles southeast of San Cristobal Island in the Solomons. It was mid-afternoon on an active day of air operations — planes launched and planes…
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I needed some cheer on this rainy Friday in Washington, and I found something that put me in a better mood. A government report. American Spaces, the collection of places where people overseas can learn about America, are growing faster than the weeds in my yard. Last year, visitor numbers increased to 58 million —…
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As the subject of Russian disinformation comes increasingly to the fore, it is worth remembering Herb Romerstein, who headed the U.S. Information Agency’s Office to Counter Soviet Disinformation and Active Measures from 1983 to 1989 and was the foremost American expert on this important subject. Herb, who died in 2013, had been a “kid communist”…
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In China, a Public Diplomacy officer is at dinner with officials. The host remarks, “we’re always amazed how sex can gum up American politics.” His tablemates chuckle. “And tax returns!” They chuckle some more. A Foreign Service officer attending a festival in Nigeria sits next to a member of the National Assembly. The parliamentarian asks,…
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You may not think this column relates directly to public diplomacy but, in fact, it is all about public diplomacy. Certainly when President Obama was award the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, it was considered a public diplomacy coup. Just being considered for the prize these days is a public diplomacy victory. Indeed even in…
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Next Thursday, May 3rd, the world will celebrate Press Freedom Day. For America’s publicly-funded international broadcasters, the challenges have never been more formidable. Both Reporters Without Borders and Freedom House recently issued annual reports citing steady overall declines in press freedom globally in the past dozen years, with the Middle East and Eurasia registering the…
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I am increasingly persuaded that the effectiveness of U.S. official Public Diplomacy depends not just on messages, programs, or technology, but also on the strength and health of the Foreign Service. This article is more about the Foreign Service than about Public Diplomacy per se, but these factors need to be part of the whole…
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The name of the American poet and short story writer Stephen Vincent Benét (1898-1943) should be known to all Public Diplomacy practitioners. When war came, he tirelessly applied his gifts to the American cause, so ardently that he died from overwork in 1943. A giant in American letters in the late 1920s and the…
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Dr. Michael Schneider, the director of Syracuse University’s D.C. Public Diplomacy program, calls our attention to an update on the topic of China’s “sharp power” thrust. The Journal of Democracy carries a set of eight articles on “China in Xi’s new era” examining the country’s internal changes in the wake of the 19th Party Congress, its expanding global ambitions, and its…
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