The 9/11, doubtlessly, had a great impact on the US public diplomacy. It was the time when American officials realized that the USA had a serious image problem in regard to the Arab and Islamic world. Consequently, as soon as the war on terror was launched, the public diplomacy, next to the military forces, became the second most important ‘weapon’ in the battle with extremism. (Zaharna, 2009)
In the aftermath of 9/11, the Bush administration recruited a number of people who, using the most advanced technological innovations begun to ‘sell America to the Arab and Islamic world’. (Zaharna, 2009, p.2) The post 9/11 public diplomacy ‘solders’ such as Charlotte Beers, Karen Hughes and then James Glassman tried hard, but, as we all know, not hard enough to effectively promote the USA’s culture and values in, presumably, Americans’ bloodshed thirsty countries.
Nowadays, barely anyone argues that the US post 9/11 public diplomacy initiatives did not have any downsides. Here, one of Nicholas Cull’s lessons on the future of public diplomacy should be put forward. Namely, that ‘public diplomacy begins with listening’. (Cull, 2009) Yes, America did not want to listen as it was far too important to the officials to ‘get the US message out’ rather then to actively engage with the foreign audience. (Zaharna, 2009, p.3) The two-way communication could not take place because the US officials, simply, neither ‘remembered’ nor ‘cared’ about including a dialogue with the Arab and Muslim audience into their agenda. It should not be a surprise that the US efforts in ‘explaining America’ ended with a fiasco and resulted in an intensification of anti-American attitudes. It’s a shame that Nick Cull was unable to give some lessons to American public diplomacy architects at that time. He, definitely, also would remind the US officials about keeping the public diplomacy in tact with the foreign policy objectives as, according to Cull, ‘the golden rule of public diplomacy is that what counts is not what you say but what you do’. (Cull, 2009)
As soon as Bush administration ended and Obama stepped in, it has been instantly noted that the lesson on public diplomacy has been learned. The offensive character of the US public diplomacy has been replaced with gentle messages proclaiming understanding, respect and dialogue. (Zaharna, 2009) Now, listening, was the world repeatedly used by Obama in speeches and interviews dedicated to Arabic and Muslim audiences. The Obama speech in Cairo and the New Year message to Iranian citizens signify radical change in style from the Bush administration.
Obama speech to Iranian citizens:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HY_utC-hrjI
Clearly, President Barack Obama tries to reach ‘hears and minds’ of Arab and Islamic audiences. Nevertheless, there is still much skepticism regarding Obama’s approach to public diplomacy. The main concern is the chronic disconnection of American public diplomacy from the US foreign policy. Zaharna argues that ‘Obama does appear to have the intention of changing U.S. policies. Until that policy threshold is reached, however, U.S. public diplomacy will remain a precarious balancing act between holding out the promise of change and making that change happen’ (Zaharna, 2009, p. 9) Hopefully, the US President will be successful in improving relations with the Islamic world. However, for now, this still is a pure wish rather then reality.
Sources:
Cull N., Public Diplomacy: Lessons from the past
http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/publications/perspectives/CPDPerspectivesLessons.pdf
Zaharna R.S., Obama, U.S. Public Diplomacy and the Islamic World, World Politics Review, 16 March 2009, available at:
http://www.american.edu/soc/faculty/upload/Zaharna-public-diplomacy-islamic-world.pdf
As is to be eexpected, this is rather a harsh critique of public diplomacy during the Bush era. Indeed there were a number of mishaps and oversights by the teams in charge of US PD at the time (most notably in the case of Charlotte Beers) yet I would question the ability of most governments to respond to an attack such as that of 9/11. It seems to me that REacting in a rational way to a situation as irrational as that was going to be difficult for anyone. What is more, the focus of PD efforts was largely unclear; Were they to try and influence the Islamic world, or the Arab World, or the Western World? If one area had been the focus perhaps there would have been more success, but it seems to me that with the unknown enemy as the perpetrators of the attacks, the US found their PD efforts directed towards another unknown.
ReplyDeleteWith regards to the Obama efforts, look up the podcast of 'Twenty-First Century Statescraft' as I believe it'll be of great interest to you.