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January 13, 2010 11:15 PM, 2 Comments, 1 Recommendation
The diverse threats that confront the U.S. and our allies cannot be managed through a country-centric approach. For State to be effective and relevant, it needs to evolve and become both a Department of State and Non-State. ...
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December 29, 2009 3:34 PM, 2 Comments, 2 Recommendations
Nine years ago we went to war with the enemy we had, not the enemy we wanted. For several years after 9/11 we struggled to comprehend how military superiority failed to translate into strategic victory. We created labels like "irregular" and "hybrid" to describe adversaries that did not conform to our structured view of international affairs shaped by the second half of the Cold War. ...
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December 29, 2009 3:31 PM, 3 Comments, 1 Recommendation
This article is cross-posted at the George C. Marshall Foundation. Also at AOC's IO Blog. On December 1, 2009, President Obama announced his Afghanistan strategy and what immediately followed was an expected and unoriginal cacophony of sound bites based on... ...
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September 17, 2009 8:00 PM, 2 Comments, 5 Recommendations
The absence of leadership leads to meandering efforts and poor use of resources. This is a core issue behind the Congressional examination into Defense strategic communication activities - a warranted development considering the lack of leadership ...
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September 14, 2009 5:53 AM, 3 Comments, 5 Recommendations
Discussion over the fate of Foggy Bottom usually focuses on the tenure of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the troubles of public diplomacy, and the rise of special envoys on everything from European pipelines to Afghanistan and Pakistan. But Americans would benefit more from a reassessment of the core functionality of the U.S. State Department. ...
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September 10, 2009 11:18 PM, 11 Comments, 7 Recommendations
Some in Congress have unilaterally decided that 2010 is the year America's public diplomacy will stop wearing combat boots. Sounds good, right? This is the future most, including analysts and the military, have wished for. The military has been the unwilling (if passionate once engaged) and often clumsy surrogate and partner for the State Department in representing the US and its interests in Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere around the world through what the House Armed Services Committee now calls "military public diplomacy." In some regions, State is almost wholly dependent on Defense money and resources to accomplish its mandate. ...
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September 1, 2009 1:00 PM, 2 Comments, 3 Recommendations
"...we must recognize that much of the value of a European recovery program will lie not so much in its direct economic effects, which are difficult to calculate with any degree of accuracy, as in its psychological political by-products." ...
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August 31, 2009 8:03 AM, 19 Comments, 16 Recommendations
There's nothing new here. Yes, it's damn important, but it's not new. Really, the biggest weakness of the article is not in what it fails to represent, but what it misrepresents. The argument that we can't or shouldn't organize to a process is hollow and exposes the fact that good old bureaucratic in-fighting is what really keeps us from getting better at this. ...
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August 18, 2009 9:53 AM, 3 Comments, 5 Recommendations
Between this issue with USAID, the recent report by State's Inspector General on the dysfunction in the Africa Bureau, State's absence in the current imbroglio over the militarization of public diplomacy, the Administration, State and Congress should take a very close look at a Department that is successful in limited areas despite itself. ...
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July 29, 2009 7:30 PM, 4 Comments, 11 Recommendations
American public diplomacy wears combat boots. The Defense Department necessarily, if unwilling and clumsily to begin with, stepped in to fill a gap left by an absent State Department. Today, the situation is different with Defense running increasingly sophisticated efforts, often with the collaboration and support of State and other entities within the Government. ...
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July 21, 2009 11:45 AM, 0 Comments, 12 Recommendations
What many critics of the BBG may not know is that the Board has not had its full compliment of 8 members (plus ex officio member, the Secretary of State) since August 2004. With the departure of Ted Kaufman in December 2008 (to take Vice President Biden's Senate seat from Delaware), there are now only four sitting members, just enough for a quorum. The Board has been without a Chairman since Jim Glassman vacated it 10 June 2008 to become the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. ...
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July 14, 2009 10:19 PM, 6 Comments, 3 Recommendations
Purpose of public diplomacy is to identify, empower, encourage (and possibly equip) self-organizing systems. The self-organizing systems engaged should be those that currently or potentially support, directly or indirectly, the foreign policy objectives of the public diplomacy-sponsoring actor. The support networks of groups that oppose or compete with the same foreign policy objectives should also be engaged as minds can be changed. ...
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July 9, 2009 10:53 AM, 9 Comments, 1 Recommendation
To let the American public get updates to the President's speech via SMS is dangerous and, presumably, equivalent to Al Qaeda and Taleban propaganda. No wait, those messages come through just fine so it must be worse than that and even Iranian, Russian, and Chinese Government propaganda ...
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July 6, 2009 10:39 PM, 3 Comments, 4 Recommendations
A newly released report from the Department of Defense may be the first to specifically consider the role of science and technology efforts supporting the broad range of SC activities across the whole of government. ...
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May 26, 2009 5:11 PM, 2 Comments, 5 Recommendations
Judith McHale was sworn in as Under Secretary of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs this morning of May 26, 2009. This means it’s finally time to update the Under Secretary tracking spreadsheet. Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy Sworn In Resigned... ...
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March 24, 2009 2:54 PM, 4 Comments, 0 Recommendations
The world increasingly operates on perceptions created by the "Now Media" environment. Governments must fully take into account these perceptions in the forming and conducting of foreign policy. From the perspective of the United States, the simple and essential fact... ...
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February 24, 2009 4:00 PM, 2 Comments, 7 Recommendations
“The world today can be much better understood if you think of it from the perspective of regions and not states,” said Gen. Jim Jones For all the debate over how and if the State Department will engage foreign publics,... ...
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January 23, 2009 2:05 PM, 12 Comments, 4 Recommendations
To say that the inauguration of President Barack Obama is an opportunity to change the trajectory of America's global influence and leadership is an understatement. We are, in fact, at a pivotal course change potentially more impactful than any in... ...
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June 24, 2008 10:31 PM, 0 Comments, 1 Recommendation
Strong words from the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. Strong and brutally honest. The Commission, an organization reporting directly to the President, has submitted a report unlike any other before it. Not the Government Accountability Office, the Congressional... ...
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April 8, 2008 8:48 PM, 2 Comments, 0 Recommendations
My article in Serviam, the magazine dedicated to "Stability Solutions in a Dangerous World," is out. I mentioned it before, but now you can read the whole thing. It's intended to be thought provoking, which it is. By the way,... ...
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February 25, 2008 4:13 PM, 2 Comments, 0 Recommendations
Like Mark Twain's "death" in 1897 (he died in 1910), reports of AFRICOM's demise may be exaggerated. Concerns that AFRICOM hasn't been thought out or is unnecessary aren't supported by the actions and statements of those charged with building... ...
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July 23, 2007 8:51 AM, 4 Comments, 0 Recommendations
The Autonomous Coordinated Organic Reconnaissance Network speaks for itself. (Graphic courtesy SWJ, seeded by this post)... ...
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