To commemorate the publication of the new “Handbook on Public Diplomacy,” the Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication is hosting a series of webinars featuring some of the authors who contributed to the volume.
In this episode, longtime Senior Foreign Service Officer and former Charge D’Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Paris Mark Taplin discusses his chapter on how public diplomacy has become fully integrated into the practice of diplomacy in recent decades, as well as current challenges for public diplomacy from the perspective of a career diplomat.
To commemorate the publication of the new “Handbook on Public Diplomacy,” the Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication is hosting a series of webinars featuring some of the authors who contributed to the volume.
In this episode, Drs. Alister Miskimmon and Ben O’Loughlin will discuss their chapter about the role of strategic narratives in the practice of public diplomacy, as well as the challenges countries face today in telling their stories effectively.
To commemorate the publication of the new “Handbook on Public Diplomacy,” the Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication is hosting a series of webinars featuring some of the authors who contributed to the volume.
In this episode, Drs. Katherine Brown and James Pamment discussed the links between public diplomacy and national security issues through the prism of each of their chapters, as well as contemporary issues more generally.
Intended for teachers of diplomacy and related courses, here is an update on resources that may be of general interest. Suggestions for future updates are welcome.
Bruce Gregory
Affiliate Scholar
Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication
Sean Aday, ed., Handbook on Public Diplomacy, (Edward Elgar, 2025). In this just published handbook, Sean Aday (George Washington University) has assembled a wide-ranging collection of chapters on theory and practice in diplomacy’s public dimension by a globally distributed array of scholars and scholar/practitioners. Scene setting chapters offer assessments of public diplomacy’s conceptual boundaries, soft power, strategic narratives, and literature on gender in diplomacy and nation branding. Subsequent chapters offer fresh perspectives on state-sponsored public diplomacy: Britain, China, Russia, India, Brazil, Mexico, South Korea, Australia, the United States,African digital diplomacy, and Arab public diplomacy. Still other chapters focus on topics and issues — AI and public diplomacy, sub-state diplomacy, cultural diplomacy, science diplomacy, sports diplomacy, metrics and evaluation, disinformation, conflict in Gaza and Ukraine, and much more. This handbook is a major contribution to the study and practice of diplomacy. Aday’s introduction is available through open access. Some pages are accessible at Google books here. The eBook edition is available here.
2. Bruce Gregory, (George Washington University), Diplomacy’s public dimension.
3. Nicholas J. Cull, (University of Southern California) ‘What’s past is prologue.’
4. Alister Miskimmon (Queen’s University Belfast) and Ben O’Loughlin, (Royal Holloway, University of London), Strategic narrative and public diplomacy.
5. Nadia Kaneva (University of Denver) and Cecilia Cassinger (Lund University), Gender matters in public diplomacy and nation branding.
PART II TRADITIONAL MAJOR POWERS
6. Emily T. Metzgar (Kent State University), USA: Commissioning public diplomacy.
7. Robin Brown (Archetti Brown Associates), British public diplomacy.
8. Zhao Alexandre Huang (Université Gustave Eiffel), China’s public diplomacy.
9. Cliff Mboya (University of Johannesburg), China in the new public diplomacy.
10. Anna Popkova (Western Michigan University), Russian public diplomacy and the public diplomacy of dissent.
PART III GLOBAL SOUTH AND ASIA
11. Yarik Turianskyi (Chamber of Commerce and Industry, South Australia) and Bob Wekesa (University of Witwatersrand, South Africa), Conceptual and pragmatic perspectives on African digital diplomacy.
12. Gazala Fareedi (Southfield College Darjeeling, India), Indian public diplomacy.
13. Fabiana Gondim Mariutti and Daniel Buarque (Universidade de São Paulo), The Brazilian way.
14. César Villanueva Rivas (Universidad Iberoamericana), The traditional paradigm of public and cultural diplomacies in Mexico.
15. William Lafi Youmans (George Washington University), Arab public diplomacy in the United States.
16. Mohamad Rosyidin (Universitas Diponegoro), Indonesia: Preserving reputation abroad.
17. Hun Shik Kim and Seow Ting Lee (University of Colorado, Boulder), Public diplomacy in South Korea.
18. Caitlin Byrne (Griffith University), Public diplomacy for modern Australia.
PART IV TOPICS/ISSUES
19. Robin Fichtner (University of Fribourg) and Diana Ingenhoff (University of St. Gallen), Beyond borders.
20. Niedja de Andrade e Silva Forte dos Santos (University of Lisbon), City diplomacy.
21. Alberto Royo i Mariné (Special envoy, Catalonia), Catalonia’s foreign affairs.
22. Hyesun Shin (Hongik University, Seoul), Cultural diplomacy in Northeast Asian countries.
23. Kendra Salois (American University), Music/hip hop diplomacy
24. Karen R. Lips and Meredith L. Gore (University of Maryland), Science diplomacy.
25. Shawn Powers (US Department of State), International Broadcasting: From Marconi to TikTok.
26. Ramesh Ganohariti (Leiden University) and Sascha Düerkop, Sports diplomacy of non-politically sovereign territories
PART V SPECIAL FOCUS: EMPIRICS AND MEASUREMENT
27. Amelia Arsenault (US Department of State). The measurement dilemma in public diplomacy.
28. Diana Ingenhoff (University of St. Gallen) and Jérôme Chariatte (University of Fribourg), Reframing public diplomacy.
29. Natalia Grincheva (LASALLE University of Arts, Singapore), Digital soft power.
30. Sameera Durrani (University of Technology, Sydney), Schisms in nation brands.
PART VI SPECIAL FOCUS: DIGITAL DIPLOMACY AND DISINFORMATION
31. Elyse Huang (University of Texas, Austin), SNS diplomatic communication model.
32. Efe Sevin (Towson University), Digital agenda-setting.
33. Erik C. Nisbet and Olga Kamenchuk (Northwestern University), Unpacking the psychology of adversarial state-sponsored disinformation campaigns and implications for public diplomacy counter-strategies.
PART VII SPECIAL FOCUS: PD, WAR, AND NATIONAL SECURITY
34. James Pamment, Martina Smedberg and Elsa Isaksson (Lund University), National security and public diplomacy.
35. Katherine Brown (President and CEO Global Ties U.S. and Georgetown University), Losing hearts and minds.
36. Rhys Crilley (Glasgow University), Public diplomacy in the age of war.
37. Ilan Manor (Ben Gurion University of the Negev), From Gaza to Crimea.
38. Philip Arceneaux (Miami University of Ohio), People-to-people exchange programs.
PART VIII DIPLOMATS’ PERSPECTIVES: BRIDGING THEORY AND PRACTICE
39. Thomas Miller (Retired US Foreign Service Officer, George Washington University), Lessons from Zelensky.
40. Mark Taplin, (Retired US Foreign Service Officer, George Washington University), Diplomacy comma public.
American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) and The Foreign Service Journal, March 2025. American diplomacy is in crisis. US foreign affairs practitioners and their families in the second Trump administration are facing extraordinary challenges: cruel and arbitrary personnel actions, funding and federal hiring freezes, a deluge of lies and disinformation about their work, a dismantling of the US Agency for International Development, DOGE staffers targeting data bases and agency websites, grant freezes that leave Fulbright and other international exchange participants stranded abroad, a climate of fear at the US Agency for Global Media, and more. In this chaos, leadership is coming from AFSA, the nonpartisan union and professional association of the US Foreign Service, and its Foreign Service Journal (FSJ). AFSA President Tom Yazgerdi’s “President’s Views.” FSJ’s Editorial Board Chair Vivian Walker’s and Editor-in-Chief Shawn Dorman’s “Letter from the Editor.” AFSA’s “2025 Resource Hub.” AFSA and the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE)’s lawsuit challenging the dismantling of USAID. AFSA et al., v. Donald Trump et al., an emergency motion to stop destruction of evidence at USAID, and AFSA’s “Press Center.” US diplomats serve administrations of both political parties. AFSA and FSJ are not foreign policy advisors. They champion justice and due process in the employment conditions of US diplomacy’s practitioners and needed reforms in diplomatic practice. What is happening now is not reform. It is a radical ideologically motivated assault on the people and institutions of US diplomacy.
Sarah Arkin, Daniel Langenkamp, Lula Chen, and Evan Cooper, “State Department Reform Under the Second Trump Administration,” March 6, 2025, Stimson. In this timely report from the Stimson Center think tank, four contributors, practitioners and scholars, offer ideas for improving US diplomacy and State Department operations. In “Modernizing Public Diplomacy,” Sarah Arkin and Daniel Langenkamp, the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy’s executive director and senior advisor, discuss staffing initiatives, funding priorities, timely engagement through new media and global Media Hubs, investment in AI, data-driven research, knowledge management and training, domestic engagement, and US Agency for Global Media reforms. In “Improving Data Utilization,” Lula Chen, research fellow at the think tank fp21 and a research scientist at MIT, examines a variety of ways the State Department can improve its use of data to enhance planning, decision-making, and diplomacy. In “Making Efficient Cuts,” Stimson research analyst Evan Cooper argues that instead of “broad, sweeping cuts to the bureaucracy” State should focus on consolidating duplicative positions, e.g. some special envoys, and adjust the “diplomatic footprint” to match foreign policy priorities.
Matthew K. Asada, “Lessons Learned From the Gulf’s Hosting of the Global Mega Events FIFA 2022 Doha and Expo 2020 Dubai,” Gulf International Forum, 2025. In this update of his paper, “An Inter-Event Comparison of Two Historic Global Mega Events” (CPD Perspectives, USC Center on Public Diplomacy, 2023), US diplomat Asada examines five lessons learned from the 2020 FIFA World Cup and Expo 2020 (World’s Fair) and two subsequent “global mega events” hosted by Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE): Doha’s International Horticultural Exposition (Expo 2023) and Dubai’s “Conference of the Parties climate conference (COP 28). Asada argues lessons learned in planning, physical infrastructure, human capital, and diplomatic experiences in these events have application for the 2026 FIFA World Cup — to be hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico — and the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
Charina Chou, James Manyika, and Hartmut Nevin, “The Race to Lead the Quantum Future,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2025, 154-167. The authors, senior executives at Google, argue that as attention focuses on advances in AI “the next computing revolution” — quantum computing, quantum communications, and quantum sensing — will transform the global economy and national security. The article describes basic differences between existing computers that use bits (0 and 1) as separate basic units of information and quantum computers that use qubits (systems that operate simultaneously in states 0 and 1). Quantum computers promise enormous computational advantages with implications for encryption, code breaking, scientific innovation, and economic growth. But quantum computers also face development and application challenges, risks, and unknowns. The quantum future will take years to achieve. Getting there involves visa, immigration, and export control policies; collaboration between academic institutions, industries, and governments; generational investments in talent and resources, and “farsighted international diplomacy.”
Kristin Anabel Eggeling, “Evocative Screens: Ethnographic Insights Into the Digitalization of Diplomacy,”International Political Sociology, Vol. 19, Issue 1, March 11, 2025. In this cutting-edge article, Eggeling (University of Copenhagen and Danish Institute for International Studies) assesses findings from her ethnographic fieldwork in Brussels (2018-2023) on how digitalization relates to diplomatic practice. Her research focuses on the many ways Europe’s diplomacy practitioners relate to screens (e.g., smartphones, personal computers, projection surfaces in meeting rooms). How associations with screens provide insights into their lived experiences. And how they “capture pragmatic rituals, professional priorities, and formal procedures just as much as personal anxieties, power struggles, and informal relations of competence and trust.”
In the vast literature on digitalized diplomacy, this article stands out for many reasons. (1) An innovative theoretical grounding in Sherry Turkle’s concept of screens as evocative objects that both help us know and understand (effect) and serve as companions to our emotional and social lives (affect). (2) Its stories about how diplomacy practitioners use screens and how these stories illuminate discourse on diplomacy in the digital age. (3) An examination of how micro-dynamics of technological change shape diplomatic practices. (4) Its “normatively grounded evidence” of how diplomats perceive technologies and emotional factors that affect their diplomatic practices. (5) Its clarity and narratives that put compelling evidence-based stories first and abstract theory second. (6) Its claim that diplomacy is no longer mediation of estrangement between polities; it is mediation of estrangement between polities and their digital devices. (7) Its conclusions regarding the blending of “analog” and “digital” diplomatic practices. (8) Its agenda for further research. Scholars and practitioners will find much to consider in these insights and ideas.
Willoughby Fortunoff, Cheryl Martens, and Jenny Albarracín Méndez, “A Space for Kinship in City Diplomacy: Re-imagining Sister Cities Amid Global Migration,”The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, Online publication January 6, 2025. Fortunoff (Harvard University), Martens (Universidad San Francisco de Quito), and Méndez (Universidad de Cuenca Ecuador) examine ways sister cities bridge diaspora and origin communities in the context of migration between Ecuador and the United States. Their article poses three research questions. (1) Is the sister cities exchange model antiquated or has it been under resourced and underestimated? (2) What factors influence their effectiveness as sister cities in fostering long term collaboration? (3) Which stakeholders have been involved in and excluded from sister cities relationships? The article opens with a discussion of the power dynamics of mayors and local governments as substate actors in international partnerships, sister cities’ relationships in the context of international relations kinship theory, and the historical “rise and retreat” of sister cities partnerships. Field research was conducted using semi-structured interviews in Quito and Cuenca and quantitative survey data in 2024. The authors conclude both cities lack institutions rooted in the sister city movement of the 20th century. Yet both are aware of the need for city diplomacy and have international relations offices responsible for a range of diplomatic activities. City officials tend to prioritize short term political and project specific objectives of mayors, however, overlooking the benefits of a re-imagined sister cities approach grounded in a diaspora-led and kinship-based model. Recent sister city relations between Cuenca and Peekskill, New York, a city with a large Ecuadoran diaspora, they argue, points to a strategy for empowering diaspora and migrant communities in sister city relations.
Charles A. Goldman, et al., Intellectual Firepower: A Review of Professional Military Education in the U.S. Department of Defense, RAND Corporation, 2024. In this report, RAND describes the Defense Department’s vast Professional Military Education (PME) system, compares military educational institutions with civilian institutions, analyzes strength and limitations in policies and practices, and identifies opportunities for improvement. Unlike the State Department, US military services for generations have valued and committed substantial resources to professional education. They treat education as bodies of knowledge and habits of mind that foster “breadth of view, diverse perspectives, critical and reflective analysis, abstract reasoning, comfort with ambiguity and uncertainty, and innovative thinking, particularly with respect to complex, ill-structured or non-linear problems.” Training, in contrast, focuses on instruction that enhances “capacity to perform specific functions and tasks.” (CJCS Professional Military Education Policy, here). Education and training overlap, but they are treated as separate and essential career long development requirements.
A few years ago, respected senior US diplomats began to argue that State should “take a cue” from PME here and here. Think tanks advanced the case for professional education in diplomacy here. State responded in 2023 with its first learning policy here and a core curriculum here. Today, incentivized career-long professional education in US diplomacy remains more aspirational than real. Resources are slim. Clearer distinctions between education and training are needed. Nevertheless, for the first time there is increasing recognition in US diplomacy that mentoring, on-the-job experience, and training are insufficient. RAND’s study of PME offers insights into its value and potential.
Peter Lohman and Dan Spokojny, “From Strategy to Action: Rethinking How the State Department Works,”War on the Rocks, February 21, 2025. Lohman (US State Department Foreign Service Officer) and Spokojny (founder and CEO, fp21) argue US diplomacy faces a paradox. The State Department is brimming with highly knowledgeable foreign affairs experts whose impact is diluted by bureaucratic inefficiencies and an organizational culture too reliant on “educated guesswork and ad hoc implementation.” The authors develop several evidence-based claims. (1) State’s traditional approach to policymaking prioritizes plans and planning that fail to incite specific, coordinated operations in the field. (2) State should adopt, teach, and refine clear methods of “policy engineering” capable of translating planning and expertise into action and continuous policy adaption. (3) State should adopt a department wide method for policy engineering and classes on its application in the Foreign Service Institute’s core curriculum.
Rémi Meehan, “Tweeting for Influence: Analyzing France and China’s Cultural Diplomacy on Social Media: A Mixed Methods Approach,”European Review of International Studies, Online open access publication date, November 8, 2024. Meehan (CERI-Sciences Po, Paris) examines how France and China use cultural diplomacy on social media to expand their power. His article is grounded in several conceptual claims. Cultural diplomacy can be defined as a core subset of public diplomacy, “a state-supported effort to explain itself to the world through history, education, and cultural exchange.” The term “digitalization of cultural diplomacy” better describes how states engage on social media than “digital diplomacy,” which problematically assumes it is a separate diplomatic instrument. Stephen Lukes’ three-dimensional power framework (decision-making as observable power, agenda setting, and “secur[ing] willing consent by shaping and influencing desire and beliefs”) provides a useful theoretical context for his empirical analysis. Meehan uses VADER sentiment analysis, word frequency analysis, and thematic analysis to analyze more than 67,000 tweets from the French and Chinese Ministries of Foreign Affairs and their state-sponsored cultural organizations — Institut Français, Alliance Française, and Confucius Institutes. His research examines differences and similarities in their cultural diplomacy.
US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. For more than 75 years, this bipartisan, presidentially-appointed Commission has advised presidents, Congress, the State Department, government agencies, and the American people. Its members are drawn from a broad cross section of civil society professionals. The Commission’s statutory responsibility is to assess activities intended to understand, inform, and influence foreign publics and increase public understanding of these activities through reports and informed discussion of public diplomacy issues and events. The Commission’s annual and special reports — containing evidence-based recommendations and comprehensive program and budget information — are an enduring and essential resource for officials, lawmakers, practitioners, scholars, and citizens at home and abroad. Past reports can be accessed at the Commission’s State Department website here. For those interested, the Commission’s 2023 special report on Public Diplomacy and DEIA Promotion: Telling America’s Story to the World can be found here.
Geoffrey Wiseman, “The United States and Fragmented Multilateralism: Bookending a Century of US Ambivalence Towards Formal International Organizations,”Third World Quarterly, Published online March 3, 2025. Wiseman (DePaul University) assesses four factors that contribute to understanding a century-long ambivalence in US relations with the United Nations and other formal international organizations: (1) the actions and personalities of UN Secretaries General, (2) partisan preferences and career paths of US Permanent Representatives to the UN, (3) the UN’s location in New York City and the US role as its host country, and (4) the influence of epistemic communities, civil society groups, and high-profile individuals. His practice theory approach illuminates variations in US multilateral diplomacy from the liberal internationalism of Woodrow Wilson to the populist nationalism of Donald Trump. Added insights in this article derive from his assessment of diplomacy and politics in the context of an intersecting international and domestic dynamic — and the debate about a decline in the influence of formal international governmental organizations (FIGOs) and the rise of informal international governmental organizations (IIGOs), e.g., OPEC, the BRICS, the G-7, and the G-20. Public diplomacy scholars and practitioners will find of particular interest its attention to correlations between the politics and policies of US presidents and US membership in and withdrawals from UNESCO.
Albert O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and State, (Harvard University Press, 1970). A half century ago the acclaimed social scientist Albert Hirschman (Columbia, Harvard, and Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Studies) published this slim volume on the difficult moral, political, and personal choices faced by professionals in dysfunctional and misbehaving organizations. Some choose exit — sever ties with the organization. Others choose voice — advocate change from within through communication, grievances, and reforms. Loyalty, he argued, seeks to limit exit so that voice can play an influential role in bringing about change. Hirshman wrote when the Vietnam war was generating difficult choices in government and civil society organizations. His ideas are worth revisiting as individuals and groups face difficult choices today.
David Sanger’s latest book highlights the global struggle for supremacy between the U.S., Russia and China and the critical choices facing the world in this volatile era.
George Washington University hosted a discussion with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Sanger on how the Trump administration is redefining the United States’ role in the world.
SMPA professor Frank Sesno, who is also the executive director of the GW Alliance for a Sustainable Future, moderated the discussion on Sanger’s latest book, “New Cold Wars: China’s Rise, Russia’s Invasion, and America’s Struggle to Defend the West.”
“I’m looking forward to our conversation, which will range through your book, how we’ve gotten to where we are, what’s changed and what we’ve seen in recent days,” Sesno said.
Sesno began by highlighting the shifts in U.S. foreign policy during the Trump era. He pointed to key events, such as the tense exchange between President Trump and President Zelensky in the Oval Office, Vice President J.D. Vance’s controversial “random country” remark about France and the UK and Trump’s blunt approach to territorial disputes.
“The Trump administration in very short order has upended alliances, sort of redefined friend and foe,” Sesno said. “Is this a new world disorder?”
Sanger responded by noting that Trump’s foreign policy approach mirrors the older model of great power politics, where the U.S. asserts its dominance through raw power rather than relying on post-World War II institutions like the United Nations.
“I think it raises a couple of questions. The first is, is this the new world? In other words, if there was a system that was built after World War II, which was essentially a system about why it is that the world would operate by international law, by institutions like the UN, or whether it would be a world that would go back to great power politics,” Sanger said.
He pointed to Trump naming President William McKinley, who favored tariffs and led the U.S. during its territorial expansion in the late 19th century, as a leader he greatly admired.
Sanger said Trump believes that post-World War II institutions constrain U.S. power and prefers a system where the U.S. asserts its dominance. This approach relies on “raw power” rather than resolving disputes through international institutions.
Sesno then asked, referencing the title of Sanger’s book, if America is struggling to defend the West.
“Until 45 days ago, I would say we have had, from World War II on, a national policy that ran across Democrats and Republicans to do exactly that, defend the West,” Sanger said. “Now, an interesting question of what his (Trump’s) concept of the West is versus what their concept was,” Sanger said.
He explained when Truman established the North Atlantic Treaty Organization over 75 years ago, the goal was for NATO countries to unite in defense of Western values. Over time, the definition of the West expanded to include countries like Australia, Japan and South Korea, all strong democracies with different systems. NATO itself also grew, with countries like Sweden and Finland joining, even if they weren’t originally part of the alliance, as they shared similar Western values. Sanger said Trump is thinking in spheres of influence.
He said with Trump’s goals, an argument could be made that he’s gaining short-term tactical gains, such as a U.S. firm gaining control of the Panama Canal ports. But Sanger said it’s coming at the cost of alienating key allies like Canada and Europe.
“We have done more to alienate the Canadians with whom we run our North American defense system in the past 45 days, and it may take decades to rebuild that,” Sanger said.
He shared an experience from a trip he took to Germany recently where he heard Friedrich Merz, who is likely to be the next chancellor, express his goals to make Germany independent of the U.S.
Sanger explained leaders in Canada and European countries feel uncertain about the U.S. ‘s shifting political landscape and feel that Trump represents a broader political movement rather than an isolated force.
“This comes at the cost of something much bigger, which is that we are in a world in which our alliances are our great expansionist power,” Sanger said. “That we’ve got tight allies who will step in for us, who’ve got bases around the world and the capability to go handle it. A Europe that combined is 450 million people, a combined world’s second-largest economy, that’s all of enormous value and you’ve got to begin to think, are the individual wins of getting the Panama Canal back into the hands of American investors, worth scrapping all of this?”
The fifth of IPDGC’s monthly series hosting international ambassadors to learn about their country’s approach to public diplomacy.
Date and Time
Monday, March 3rd 2025
5:00 – 6:00 PM ET
Address
School of Media and Public Affairs
5th Floor Studio
805 21st St NW, Washington DC 20052
Snacks and refreshments will be provided
* Doors will close at 5pm
The series will explore two related themes:
Savvy diplomats understand that to succeed in advancing foreign policy goals in Washington it is not enough to communicate in strictly government-to-government channels; they must act as public diplomats, engaging a range of audiences to influence perceptions. The interplay between public diplomacy actions and policy goals is frequently addressed from a U.S. government perspective, or in treating foreign governments’ actions in a third country setting, but this series explores Embassies’ engagement with the U.S. public.
What does it take to be an Ambassador assigned by your government to Washington, DC? What sort of personality, background, and skills are required? Once assigned, how does an Ambassador prepare for their assignment, and once here, how do they continue a process of learning about their country of assignment? Most importantly, how does an Ambassador assigned to Washington connect with America outside the beltway? If every savvy diplomat is a public diplomat, then how do Ambassadors remain connected with the broader American public?
About Our Speaker
Pjer Šimunović is Croatia’s Ambassador to the United States since September 2017. Before assuming his Ambassadorship, together with a career in international affairs journalism and academic research he served in various high-level positions in the Croatian Government, in the fields of national security, defense and diplomacy.
He was Director of the Office of the National Security Council, Ambassador to Israel, Defense State Secretary in charge of defense policy, National Coordinator for NATO and Assistant Foreign Minister, heading Division for International Organizations and Security, Political Counselor at the Embassy in Paris, and Deputy Director of Analytical Department in the Foreign Ministry. During his career in journalism, he worked with the BBC World Service in London, with the magazine Europ in Paris, and with the Croatian daily ‘Večernji list’ in Zagreb, covering the collapse of Communism, crisis and war in the former Yugoslavia, and European and Transatlantic affairs.
A regular speaker on the security issues at many international conferences and seminars, he is the author of a range of studies and articles published in the leading international journals, dealing with the arms trade and defense industry, post-Communist national security, NATO enlargement, defense transformation, international peace-keeping and stabilization operations, counter-terrorism (including: ‘Making of an Ally – NATO membership conditionality implemented on Croatia’, The Journal of Transatlantic Studies, Spring 2015; ‘A framework for success – contextual factors in the UNTAES operation in Eastern Slavonia’, International Peacekeeping, Spring 1999; ‘The Russian military in Chechnya – a case study of morale in war’, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, March 1998).
Ambassador Šimunović holds an M.A. degree from the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, and a B.A, degree in the Comparative Literature and Italian Language and Literature from the University of Zagreb. He is born in Split, Croatia, in 1962. Ambassador Šimunović is decorated with the title of Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur de la République française.
