By PHK
As my former Foreign Service colleague John Brown observed in The Huffington Post last week, several puff up Karen Hughes articles have appeared in the national media in recent weeks.
These articles feature one-on-one interviews with the Under Secretary herself. The AP photo accompanying one in The Houston Chronicle is especially noteworthy because of the near dourness of her expression: this is not the face of a lady pleased with her situation in life. Neither is it the photo I would have chosen to accompany a make-the-interviewee-look-good article if I wanted to portray a picture of the individual bathed in an aura of confidence and success.
Since the administration’s media policy does not appear to allow one-on-ones for reporters – or heaven forbid bloggers - who might write less than favorable stories, I have to wonder whether these half-dozen or more pro-Karen reports are part of an orchestrated campaign to make the Under Secretary look good in front of the home town crowd – deservedly or not. One might also ask whether they were ginned up by members of her public affairs staff or herself as – ahem – going away presents before she edges toward the exit - although she denies the rumors that she’ll be leaving any time soon.
"Smoke and mirrors" or real accomplishments?
From my perspective, Ms. Hughes tenure at State has been too heavy on “smoke and mirrors” and too light on accomplishment. What troubles me is that here’s someone who has the president’s ear yet has done little to restore or expand the still tattered US public diplomacy infrastructure at home or abroad. What’s particularly aggravating is if Hughes can’t – or won’t – make the big push needed to develop, or recreate - depending on your perspective - the infrastructure required to make a real difference given her proximity to W, who can or will? What I’ve seen for the most part are a series of almost timid half-measures often introduced with great hoopla – but with few bold new strokes and lack of accompanying funds to make them work really well.
Sure maybe 80 - 90% of the America’s “image problem” is W and his militaristic approach to foreign policy so one can argue that what Ms. Hughes does, or doesn’t accomplish in public diplomacy infrastructure restoration won’t make a difference. But even after he’s gone – and especially after he’s gone – the US will need a robust public diplomacy infrastructure in place to help repair the damage and ensure that the world knows our policies have changed and how. Hopefully for the better.
Meanwhile, there are more public diplomacy staff vacancies (22% to 16%) this year than there were last – according to the General Accountability Office’s July 2007 public diplomacy report. Also according to the same GAO report, State’s public opinion surveys are far too broad to help support or shape public diplomacy campaigns and programs. This, GAO stated, is in sharp contrast to far more targeted approaches of the Pentagon and even USAID.
Winging US public diplomacy
No wonder then that Hughes makes decisions based on her own hunches not facts or wings it – as Juliana Giran Pilon characterized it in World Politics - and runs US public diplomacy programs out of her hip-pocket: she has scant reliable evidence to base them on and an understaffed staff in the field and in Washington to make them work properly.
But couldn’t Hughes have fought even a little harder for State Department funds to support more targeted research that would aid the spending of scarce public diplomacy dollars more effectively?
It seems to me that Ms. Hughes “new” public diplomacy initiatives are often updated retreads launched under new names, usually a paucity of funds and – as suggested above - lack of research to support their potential efficacy. A few other initiatives are new, untested and sometimes controversial. Take, for instance, her new Youth Enrichment Program (YEP) initiative which has recently drawn US media attention because some (don't ask me the percentage, I don't know) of its funding has been designated for summer camps for 8-14 year olds run largely by NGOs or other entities in their home countries.
Regardless, Ms Hughes’ public affairs staff usually introduces new “old” or new “new” initiatives in the US with great fanfare for the unstated purpose of making the faltering administration and Ms. Hughes in particular look good - as if these programs really were doing something of significance. Somehow she always seems to have enough public affairs staffers around to get her message out in these United States.
These accompanying pr initiatives are all too reminiscent of the preverbal roll-out of the newest SUV off Detroit’s beleagured assembly line.
In all fairness, no such trumpet fanfare happened with YEP. Until Farah Stockman’s Boston Globe article on August 18, this $6 million one-time funds initiative remained out of sight and beneath the media radar screen.
I’m not sure why YEP summer camps became the focus of Stockman’s article – whether by Hughes’ design to show off her latest toy or because Stockman was looking for a “hook” to hang the interview on and ran with the kiddy camp portion because she thought it would be controversial and hence news worthy
Overall, however, most of Ms. Hughes’ requests for budget increases have been in the “slow freight” category of educational and cultural exchanges. These funds, by the way, are fire walled off by Congress – they cannot be used, for instance, to dig a swimming pool for Embassy Baghdad or even to speed up passport issuance for you and me.
Increases in the regular educational and cultural exchanges budget make sense. These funds were gutted during the mid-1990s in the Cold War’s aftermath and even now have not been restored to pre-Cold War levels. I agree, however, with Patricia Lee Sharpe that it’s short sighted to focus them almost exclusively on the Muslim world; the US does and should also have interests elsewhere. At the same time, I have a sinking feeling that qualified staff to make even these programs run smoothly at home and abroad is not what it should be.
YEP, YEP
YEP might have fallen in the exchanges funding category, too, but this didn’t happen. The YEP funds come in the form of special projects and unsustainable money (a total of $6 million over three years). YEP is also not about exchanges or even one-way trips to the US for a select few. Further, decisions as to how YEP funds are spent and allocated are made in a far more politicized fashion than for exchanges. In reality, money for summer camps for the very young are just a part of YEP’s portfolio.
Kiddy summer camps are, of course, the focus of Farah Stockman’s report in her August 18 Boston Globe Hughes interview. Yet, to me this article raised more questions than it answered. So does the single page descriptor on the State Department’s special YEP webpage. Just Google YEP and you’ll find it – but the links which should describe the program in more detail, don’t. Instead, they point to information for American kids who just might be interested in learning about the world or an eventual State Department career.
Betting $6 million on a hunch or is there supporting research?
I’d really like to see the political socialization research that supports Ms. Hughes contention as reported by Stockman that “By the time kids get to high school, their impressions are already pretty well shaped” so, therefore, she decided the US should target the 8-14 set. That’s what I mean by saying that program decisions are based on Ms. Hughes’ predilections not grounded in fact-based research. Links to such articles or studies would be very nice.
I thought that political attitudes and values were usually formed during adolescence and were primarily influenced by family and school over time. Oh, well, maybe that’s just in the US and Europe. Research has shown that fundamental political values can change over the years even for adults (post-WWII Germany is the prime example) but usually not overnight or as the result of three days to two weeks at a youth camp run by a local NGO, the Peace Corps or even the US Embassy itself.
The State Department’s Youth Exchange Office targets 15-17 year olds as do private international youth exchange organizations here and abroad. Although in some instances, like the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange Program, some participants are a few years older. The European Union has its own youth exchange program targeted at Muslim majority countries around the Mediterranean. It pairs European and Mediterranean youth groups whose members often – according to the Europa website – are involved in work camps and educational projects in North African and other non-EU country Mediterranean villages. The EU program, by the way, is confined to 15-25 year olds. The model has had a long and successful history in Europe among Europeans, but even so, Europa’s Mediterranean basin initiative has been evaluated recently and adjustments are being made – according to Europa.
Meanwhile back at Foggy Bottom
It seems to me that even $1 million is a lot to bet on programs based on no discernable research and no long term chance of sustainability. Then tack on another $5 million for expansion over the next two years and the questionable use of funds becomes even more questionable.
Yet America’s public diplomacy infrastructure continues to suffer – caught between a paucity of funding, a still too bifurcated uncoordinated organizational structure and the heavy hand of the office of security which in its zeal to protect American diplomats and staff from potential terrorist threats also keeps them from doing their jobs abroad.
I’ll bet the US could reopen several libraries, cultural centers and its own English teaching programs for $6 million and not just spend it on a one-time summer camp fling for junior jocks – females or males. And those libraries could include special children’s sections as well.
Now that’s a novel idea – except that these popular children's sections had been abolished before I joined USIA in 1970. Don’t ask me why. I don’t know – presumably the budget. Yet if the legislation and sustainable funding existed and State had the will to negotiate cultural agreements, some of these institutions once established would likely pay their own way – or a good part of it.
Before I forget, someone needs to tell Ms. Stockman that not all of the countries included in YEP are “Islamic” as she indicated in her article. Few, if any, of the 14 (one of the 14 is not a country, it is Gaza and the West Bank) she labels as Islamic countries subscribe to Sharia Law - in fact, the only one I see on State’s YEP list that even includes Islamic in its name is Pakistan. Further, Kenya, the Philippines and South Africa are predominately Christian while Nigeria’s population splits in half between Muslims and Christians.
I’ve learned that the total number of YEP countries is to expand, or has been expanded, to around 18 – but considering the far larger number of countries in the world with substantial Muslim populations – and this includes India with the world’s third largest - even $6 million over three years is a drop in the bucket.
Credit should go where credit's due
And while, I’m nitpicking an otherwise thought-provoking and timely article, The Boston Globe also characterized WhirledView as a public diplomacy blog and credited me as running it. I appreciate the reference to WV and the compliment, but as you may have noticed, we post on a variety of topics in addition to public diplomacy. Many posts concern national security and world affairs (hence the name), but not all. Moreover, I cowrite WV with colleagues Cheryl Rofer (a retired nuclear scientist from Los Alamos) and Patricia Lee Sharpe (a retired FSO with a public diplomacy specialty like me). They deserve every bit as much credit for writing and running WV as I do.