The Field: Where Foreign Policy Succeeds or Fails

Public Diplomacy Today

Part 4

By Patricia H. Kushlis and Patricia Lee Sharpe

Foreign policy needs and goals are defined in Washington, but foreign policy succeeds or fails in the field.  Attention is sought.  Criticism is met.  Competing influences are neutralized or co-opted. Friends are made. Alliances are built.  Goals are achieved—or not.   It helps hugely when policy is intrinsically attractive.  Being militarily strong helps, too, up to a point. Overwhelming strength is often resented.  It becomes, paradoxically, a disadvantage to be adroitly overcome, since no other country wants to appear to have been coerced.  But raw power flaunted or sheathed, even the U.S. can’t go it alone in today’s world.  Public diplomacy’s role is to move governments by inspiring their citizens to see American goals as good for them, too.

The Trifecta:  Information, Culture, Education

Public Diplomacy in the field, at post, works both directly and indirectly.  It aims simultaneously for immediate and longer term impact, the two time lines corresponding roughly to the two branches of traditional PD work: information and culture.  Sometimes the information function is confused with the manipulations better known today as propaganda, although PD’s need for reliability and credibility makes it more akin to journalism.  Cultural programs are often dismissed as frills, expensive indulgences whose impact is difficult to measure, which is true, but only because conventional polling is at its weakest when assessing qualitative phenomena and complex interactions. Straddling the two, though not customarily administered as such, are the educational programs which involve knowledgeable Americans interacting with foreign audiences, short trips to the U.S. for promising mid-career foreign citizens, youth exchanges, academic exchanges like the Fulbright program and even, until recently, university linkages. 

Informational, educational, cultural—these are the co-equal mutually-supportive elements of an effective PD program.  Properly orchestrated, they enhance the overall American image, making the U.S. better understood and more attractive as an ally.  They create lasting links between individuals and institutions, which keeps doors open and ensures a hearing when tough or sensitive issues need support.   They provide, via all media platforms, relevant, accurate and timely information to foreign publics whose mobilization is critical if American foreign policy goals are to be met.

Planning for Success

Because every country is different—even Canada and the United States differ in ways that would call for modulated communications strategies—a Washington-dictated, one-way, one-size-fits-all approach to public diplomacy, however tempting it might seem to bean counters, doesn’t work. Therefore, once Washington establishes policy priorities, experienced, skilled, perceptive  and imaginative field officers must be trusted to devise ways to sell it. 

In the past, USIA posts were required to submit an annual country plan assessing the state of the bilateral relationship, describing (in cooperation with the entire mission) how the post proposed to nourish the relationship while promoting, according to carefully specified strategies, Washington’s policy priorities and, last but not least, requesting the financial, human and material resources to do so.  Expectations for evaluation and feedback were built in.   Naturally big posts in big countries enjoyed more staff and bigger budgets.  But all posts in all countries were guaranteed sufficient resources—Public Affairs Officer plus American and/or locally-hired personnel; a vast range of highly-responsive, Washington-based backup services; firewalled budgetary authority; the wherewithal to run a full service American Center; an appropriate inventory of up-to-date equipment; and, last but not least, PD-controlled vehicles—to offer a high-quality, well-balanced, year-round program that could and would put America in the best possible light.  

The State Department has a habit of bemoaning the lack of administrative skills among its high level officers—and yet, at every post, there was, for decades, a whole cadre of field-tested managers who were also Foreign Service Officers: the public diplomacy people.  Even fairly junior officers had managerial responsibilities, and anyone who wanted to be a Public Affairs Officer had to be an adroit CEO, a dollar-squeezing CFO, a supervisor with a knack for delegating, a program coordinator, a cultural impresario, a human resources geni, a master of media, a public relations whiz, a social psychologist, a linguist, a self-confident performer—and make it all look smooth and easy to the public, which is why, perhaps, the typical State Department officer found it so difficult to appreciate what those public diplomacy colleagues were doing.  Even today there are calls for outside hires to supply the State Department with managerial talent.  Meanwhile, the superb managers that State acquired when it absorbed USIA, were ignored or devalued.  Many, therefore, retired prematurely.  Although a very few prospered and even became Ambassadors, Deputy Chiefs of Mission or Consul Generals, most public diplomacy operational skills are in a state of disuse bordering on atrophy and will soon be lost, except as recorded in the memoirs of better times. Talk about squandering capital!

The Information Imperative

Someone has to figure out how to make American policy goals accessible and attractive.  Someone has to counter the inevitable misinformation, disinformation and plain old misunderstandings.   That’s what information officers do every hour of every day, when they aren’t feeding media reaction to Washington and the Embassy’s front office. So IOs act and react, using deft combinations of all available media. On an easy day, things work according to plan.  As often or not, a government falls, a leader dies, an earthquake flattens a city, another country throws a monkey wrench into the works—and an IO needs to react quickly, reporting the latest developments and hoping for guidance in time to stay ahead of the game.  Sometimes there is no guidance. Improvisation is necessary.  An experienced IO usually makes the right guess.  PAOs and IOs also advise ambassadors and consuls on whether and how to meet the press.  They create talking points, they write speeches, they turn bad news into good press. They also make the Ambassador look good.

Educational Programs

Two flagship educational programs funded by the U.S. have been the least affected by the shattering of a once coherent public diplomacy enterprise.  The Fulbright program is a two-way exchange of academic researchers, professors and students. The International Visitor Program brings foreigners nearing career peak to the US for two to four weeks of escort-led professional appointments interspersed with tourism.   In very different but complementary ways, each program fosters familiarity with America and Americans that usually translates into useful long term good will. Yet Fulbright and International Visitors programs hardly scratch the surface of what can and should be done. They lack the multiplier effect of lasting institution-to-institution ties that typically result from multi-year university-to-university linkages or even ongoing classroom to classroom exchanges between high schools, both lost in the consolidation shuffle or thereafter.  Institutional relationships also have the advantage of increasing the number of Americans with a deeper knowledge of our increasingly interconnected world. 

Finally, it makes a certain sense to include under the educational rubric the recruiting of  academics and other experts who contribute their knowledge, in person or via interactive media, to address issues or themes needing attention in a given country.  Knowledgeable Americans may also be asked to join seminars or conferences with local scholars or government administrators or judges or—well, the range of counterparts is practically infinite, depending on the knowledge gaps the field post deems it important to fill. 

Cultural programs

Cultural programs are the easiest to describe and the hardest perhaps to understand.  Why must the U.S. government spend good money to send writers, musicians, dancers or exhibits of art and photography around the globe, especially when American pop culture permeates the world?  For one thing, pop culture is not universally admired.  It’s often seen as violent and sex-obsessed.  Arts programming counteracts that image and cements relationships with cultural leaders, who have considerable influence in the many countries where the arts are more highly valued than  generally in America.  What’s more, many a politically important relationship is rooted in a confidence-building mutual appreciation of some poet or violinist or photographer.    

Private Sector Dividends

The success of the international visitor program depends on private citizens in cities all across the country.  They volunteer to help foreigners understand what makes America America .  These are the people who firm up schedules, who accompany visitors and their official escorts to local appointments, who show them the sights and invite them to dinner.  There’s been an attempt to dignify these efforts by coining the term “citizen diplomacy,” but this is a mistake.  The true value of volunteers is the volunteers themselves, not as diplomats, but as representative Americans whose friendly helpfulness quickly dispels the negative stereotypes perpetuated by popular culture. The most appreciated reward for volunteers: enjoyable stimulating encounters with fascinating people.  But a little more personal recognition for an important job well done might also be in order.

With the big ticket cultural items, private support is also essential.  Transporting and housing a theatre company or an orchestra or a dance ensemble is very expensive.  Nobody finds it amiss if a corporation sponsors a performance with a few discreetly placed banners or a display ad in the program.  However, and this is very important, even the most generous sponsor doesn’t get to choose the performance or control the invitation list. Public diplomacy is about activities orchestrated for the primary benefit of furthering America’s interests abroad. Each recital, each lecture, each press conference, whatever its intrinsic interest, plays a part in this larger purpose.

The Heart of Public Diplomacy

The heart of a public diplomacy program abroad has always been the American Center, a welcoming full service information operation with a good collection of American books and journals and banks of computers and a congenial professional staff to help each visitor, whatever his or her rank, make the best possible use of them.   To save money in recent years, American Centers have been closed and materials have been transferred to a minuscule “American Corner” in a local library. Studies indicate that usage suffers badly, which should surprise no one.  Other studies show that the use of American information materials housed in fortress embassies falls by 85%.  Either people can’t get in at all---or they’re unwilling to put up with elaborate security barriers that come across as insulting. 

Without a center or a library, PD also loses an important in-house program venue for conferences, films, exhibits, discussions, English teaching---and even holiday parties.  No local person says with a smile and good memories, “And there’s the American Center!” while showing visitors around the city.  Even when policy issues vex bilateral relations, the U.S. reputation for intellectual achievement, for cultural vitality and for high quality education shines out from the American Center.  When economically  disadvantaged students have free access to these facilities, the American Center says something valuable about American society.  Above all, an American Center declares that America wants to engage the world on an intellectual and cultural level, not just with missiles and Special Forces.  Yes, it costs money to run an American Center.  But it was, and could be again, money well spent, if the State Department’s budget and regard for public diplomacy were what it should be—and if security experts were willing to cooperate.

Note:  We promised four segments to Public Diplomacy Today.  There will be five.  The next and last will appear next week.  Meanwhile, here are links to the three previous segments:

1.  PD Today: What It Is, Why It's Needed and How It Could Work Well for America Again

2.  PD Today: A Profession within a Profession

3.  PD Today: Deconstructing the Interactive Shibboleth