Category: Bruce Gregory’s Resource List

Intended for teachers of public diplomacy and related courses, here is an update on resources that may be of general interest.  Suggestions for future updates are welcome.

Bruce Gregory can be reached at BGregory@gwu.edu

Martha Bayles, “News They Can Use,” National Affairs, Number 46, Winter 2021.  Bayles (Boston College) weaves an account of recent political controversies in US international broadcasting with an overview of how the missions, structures, and methods of its media networks have evolved and intersect.  Details of Trump loyalist Michael Pack’s destructive leadership of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) and her critique of Congress’s abolition of the Broadcasting Board of Governors lead her narrative.  Her tapestry includes assessments of the VOA Charter, the origins of RFE/RL, a brief case study of VOA and Radio Free Asia’s broadcasts in Cambodia, the “intense, sometimes bitter rivalry” between VOA and the grantee networks driven by scarce resources and desire “to shift the stigma of being a ‘government mouthpiece,’” and her analysis of how America’s journalism norms have changed in commercial and government sponsored media.  Bayles’ blended approach to surrogate broadcasting puts a useful spotlight on how all USAGM networks, including VOA, cover events in other countries as well as news about America.  Broadcasters, as they do endlessly, will debate her perspective and the fine points of her thought-provoking article.  General audiences will find it an informed, easy to understand summary of key issues and useful historical context for the deluge of national news stories on US broadcasting in the last year of the Trump presidency.  

British Council, Soft Power and Cultural Relations Institutions in a Time of Crisis, Researched and written by International Cultural Relations (ICR), London, January 29, 2021. This 65-page report, commissioned by the Council and prepared by an ICR team led by Stuart MacDonald (ICR) and Nicholas Cull (University of Southern California), is an in-depth assessment of the UK’s cultural relations infrastructure and broadly comparable cultural relations organizations and practices in 12 other countries (Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea, Sweden, Turkey, and the US) and the European Union.  The report was written for the Council as a “competitor analysis” intended to provide knowledge and implications for policymakers in the UK who are transitioning to new relationships outside the EU and dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.  It has broad empirical and conceptual value, however, for scholars and practitioners.  The report’s descriptive information (structures, methods, funding levels) and quantitative data are presented clearly and systematically.  Its findings are grounded in extensive interviews with a variety of experts.  It devotes considerable attention to definitions: soft power, cultural relations, public diplomacy, relationship building, influence, attraction, competition.  It poses and explores a set of fundamental questions about soft power and cultural relations raised by the research.  It concludes with a literature review and discussion of its methodology.  This important report is sure to spark spirited debates in classrooms and policy meetings of practitioners.  One key issue derives from the report’s definition of soft power and problematic premise that soft power and cultural relations are categorically different.

Center for AI and Digital Policy (CAIDP), “Artificial Intelligence and Democratic Values: The AI Social Contract Index 2020,” December 2020.  The CAIDP, founded in 2020 under the auspices of the Michael Dukakis Institute, seeks to ensure that AI research and national policies are fair, accountable, and transparent.  Its AI Social Contract Index 2020, developed by a team of international experts, analyzed AI in 30 countries and ranked ordered their performance.  Germany ranked first for its promotion of public participation in AI policymaking, strong standards for data protection, and AI policy efforts within the EU.  Canada, France, South Korea, and others ranked in the second tier.  The US was placed in tier 3 “because its policy-making process is opaque” and lack of strong laws for data privacy.  China ranked in tier 4 because of its use of facial recognition against ethnic minorities and political protesters.  The report lists five key recommendations to guide policymakers and the public.  See also “Artificial Intelligence Cybersecurity Challenges,” European Union Agency for Cybersecurity,” December 15, 2020.  (Courtesy of Len Baldyga)

“Geoffrey Wiseman Joins DePaul University as Endowed Chair of Applied Diplomacy,”  January 8, 2021, DePaul Newsroom.  The Grace School of Applied Diplomacy at DePaul offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs designed to prepare “a new generation of diplomats” who will pursue careers “not only in the foreign service, but in their work as business people, scientists, artists, community organizers, activists, clergy and educators.”

Thomas Kent, Striking Back: Overt and Covert Options to Combat Russian Disinformation, (The Jamestown Foundation, 2020).  The former president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty argues that Western responses to Russian disinformation have been weak, uncoordinated, too reliant on defensive measures, too reluctant to confront and expose Russia’s actions, and too constrained by fears of “becoming propagandists ourselves.”  His book is a call for a campaign that stresses democratic values and includes more aggressive messaging to the Russian people by governments and non-government organizations.  It includes a series of recommended actions for governments and democracy activists and an assessment of the ethics and practicality of covert actions. 

Diana Ingenhoff, Giada Clamai, and Efe Sevin, “Key Influencers in Public Diplomacy 2.0: A Country-Based Social Network Analysis,” Social Media + Society, January-March 2021, 1-12.  Ingenhoff, (University of Fribourg), Clamai (University of Fribourg), and Sevin (Towson University) use a two-month data set of Twitter-based communication to identify key influencers in Austria, Switzerland, and the Netherlands and assess their role in shaping country images.  A key assumption of their study is that in the digital age, non-state actors, citizens, and individual users can interact directly with local, national, and international authorities and create public diplomacy content.  The authors contend their analysis offers insights into “how opinion leaders can play a more dominant role than states or other political actors in creating and disseminating content related to country image.”  They also assert their research “demonstrated a theoretical and empirical link between social media communication campaigns and audiences’ perceptions of countries,” which can be used to assess the influence of other public diplomacy projects.  Their study uses quantitative and qualitative methods, which are helpfully explained at length, and includes a useful list of references.  

Diana Ingenhoff and Jérôme Chariatte, Solving the Public Diplomacy Puzzle— Developing a 360-Degree Integrated Public Diplomacy Listening and Evaluation Approach to Analyzing what Constitutes a Country Image from Different Perspectives, CPD Perspectives, USC Center on Public Diplomacy, November 2020.  Ingenhoff and Chariatte (University of Fribourg) discuss their conceptual model for analyzing how public diplomacy, different types of publics, and five country image components contribute to the formation of country images.  The first part of the paper examines relevant literature and the elements of their model.  Then they explore its application to Switzerland’s country image using survey data to analyze perceptions in five countries (Germany, France, Italy, the UK and the US).  They conclude with an assessment of the limitations of their empirical study and suggestions for future research.

Journal of Public Diplomacy, Korean Association for Public Diplomacy (KAPD).  JPD is a promising new journal devoted to public diplomacy scholarship and practice.  Launched by KAPD, it is the initiative of Editor-in-Chief Kadir Jun Ayhan (Ewha Womans University) and Associate Editors Lindsay Bier (University of Southern California), Efe Sevin (Towson University), and Lisa Tam (Queensland University of Technology).  Its goals are (1) to publish articles devoted to theoretical and empirical research on public diplomacy that will contribute to the discipline of international relations, and (2) to provide a venue for discussions and exchanges of views among scholars, policymakers and practitioners.  JPD is a double-blind peer-reviewed and open-access journal to be published biannually online in June and December, beginning in June 2021.  Additional information and author guidelines are accessible on the Journal’s website.

Jill Lepore, If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future, (Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2020). Harvard University historian Jill Lepore, acclaimed author of These Truths and seemingly almost weekly essays in The New Yorker, has mined MIT’s archives to tell the story of the 1960’s corporation that anticipated the uses of computer modeling for campaign politics and psychological warfare.  It is largely the story of the personalities who founded Simulmatics, including notably its head of research, Ithiel de sola Pool, and their consulting work with politicians and government agencies.  Although her book devotes considerable attention to the firm’s role in John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign and the Pentagon’s counterinsurgency operations in Vietnam, it also captures an era when an early generation of communications scholars and behavioral scientists helped to shape USIA’s public diplomacy strategies and public opinion research.  Her pages contain highly readable accounts of Pool’s life and work, Simulmatics’ contested relations with Eugene Burdick (The Ugly American), and the influence of communications theorists Harold Lasswell and Paul Lazarsfeld.  In Silicon Valley, Lepore writes, “the meaninglessness of the past and the uselessness of history became articles of faith, gleefully performed arrogance.”  This “cockeyed idea” isn’t original, she continues.  “It’s a creaky, bankrupt Cold War idea . . . The invention of the future has a history, decades old, dilapidated.  Simulmatics is its cautionary tale.”

Juan-Luis Manfredi-Sánchez, “Deglobalization and Public Diplomacy,”  International Journal of Communication,15(2021), 905-926.  Manfredi-Sánchez’s (University of Castilla-La Mancha) central claim in this article is that “deglobalization” – characterized by a downturn in flows of trade, services, capital, and people; the rise of populism and nationalism; a global pandemic; and new barriers to cosmopolitanism – has undermined the foundations of public diplomacy.  “Deglobalization assumes the principles of an anarchic society in which the tools intrinsic to public diplomacy are put to an unfair use.”  For example, journalistic information is converted to propaganda.  Social media campaigns support disinformation.  Culture is used “to break and reconstruct historical links suiting the present.”  Using Nicholas Cull’s public diplomacy taxonomy (listening, advocacy, cultural diplomacy, exchange diplomacy, and international broadcasting), Manfredi-Sánchez explores the consequences of deglobalization for each category of practice using a variety of examples and arguments from a broad range of scholarship in communications theory, diplomacy studies, and international relations.  He concludes by pointing to two areas of research in which these ideas can be tested: the immediate and long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and whether nation branding is compatible with the political and economic structures of deglobalization.  The full text can be downloaded.  (Courtesy of Francisco Rodriguez-Jimenez)

Michael McFaul, “Dressing for Dinner,” November 25, 2020; “Sometimes You Get Another Chance,”December 14, 2020;  “Sell It Again Uncle Sam,” January 13, 2021, American Purpose.  In three articles drawn from his forthcoming book, American Renewal: Lessons from the Cold War for Competing with China and Russia Today, McFaul (Stanford University, former US Ambassador to Russia) offers ideas on democratic renewal, combatting illiberalism and disinformation, and ways to improve the performance and institutions of American diplomacy.  Transforming America’s democracy at home “towers above all other objectives” in what he calls the “global ideological struggle between democracy and autocracy, liberalism and illiberalism, and open and closed societies.”  Many ideas on his long list of proposals are “devoted to improving public diplomacy, strategic communications, and U.S. government-funded media.” 

(1) Expand the portfolio of every US diplomat to include public diplomacy and strategic communications. 

(2) Strengthen the authority, resources, and staff of the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs (R).  Broaden its purview to include State’s Bureau of Democracy Human Rights, and Labor “so that democracy, human rights, public diplomacy and strategic communication become more integrated.”  Change the name to Under Secretary for Global Engagement, Democracy, and Human Rights and, because “symbolism is important,” relocate its offices to the “seventh floor.”  

(3) Upgrade the Global Engagement Center to bureau status to be “run by an assistant secretary and radically expanded to be able to expose, deter, and slow the spread of anti-American disinformation.”  Strengthen its ties to American social media companies. 

(4) After four disruptive years, rebuild the talent in the US Agency for Global Media’s organizations.  RFE/RL, Radio Free Asia, Radio Farda, Cuba Broadcasting, Middle East Broadcasting Networks, and the Open Technology Fund should be completely independent, with nonpartisan boards and funding channels comparable to grantees of the National Endowment for Democracy.   

(5) Consider transforming VOA into an organization affiliated with the Corporation of Public Broadcasting with the sole purpose of broadcasting news – “in essence an American version of the BBC.” 

(6) Radically expand all educational exchanges, short-term leadership training programs, and yearlong fellowships at US and European universities. 

(7) Finish the work of amending Smith-Mundt restrictions on domestic dissemination to increase the State Department’s “focus on explaining U.S. diplomacy to the American people.” 

Walter Russell Mead, “The End of the Wilsonian Era: Why Liberal Internationalism Failed,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2021.  With his typically clear writing and analysis, Mead (Bard College) discusses his reasons for why the Wilsonian liberal international order project has failed.  Many supporters of President Biden want to put Humpty Dumpty together again.  Mead wishes them well.  They may have continued success in Europe.  But elsewhere their prospects appear bleak.  Why?  The return of an ideology-fueled geopolitics in which Russia, China, Iran and their allies view Wilsonian ideals as a deadly threat.  Destabilizing new technologies that undermine democracies and empower authoritarian regimes.  Historical patterns of empires and civilizational states that have been as enduring and attractive as the European model of peer state rivalries.  Fixating on past liberal order glories will not be productive for team Biden.  It will need to focus on American foreign policy as a coalition affair between Wilsonians, Hamiltonians, Jacksonians, and Jeffersonians.  That said, Mead contends, nothing in politics is forever, including the current “Wilsonian recession.”  “The Wilsonian vision is too deeply implanted in American political culture, and the values to which it speaks have too much global appeal, to write its obituary just yet.”

Hedvig Ördén and James Pamment , “What’s So Foreign About Foreign Influence Operations?”  Lines in the Sand Series #1, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, January 2021.  Ördén and Pamment (Lund University) question the utility of “foreignness” as a criterion for distinguishing between legitimate and illegitimate influence operations.  They argue it can be helpful in a narrow set of cases “where there is overwhelming evidence of state-based, hybrid, and irregular warfare” – and in protection of democratic institutions, such as in elections.  But, more broadly, defining influence operations as illegitimate simply because they are carried out by foreign states, by foreign citizens, or in terms of foreign interests is insufficient.  Their paper develops the reasoning supporting these claims and briefly discusses alternative approaches in judging how to effectively combat influence operations.

Mark G. Pomar, “A U.S. Media Strategy for the 2020s: Lessons from the Cold War,” Texas National Security Review, Vol. 4, Issue 1, Winter 2020/2021.  In this call for the Biden administration to revitalize US international broadcasting, Pomar (University of Texas) draws on experiences and insights from his career as a Russian studies scholar and practitioner with Voice of America, RFE/RL, and IREX.  US broadcasting’s current difficulties, he argues, are a consequence of (1) “ill-conceived” 2017 legislation that created a powerful CEO and eliminated the bipartisan Broadcasting Board of Governors, (2) the Trump administration’s appointment of Michael Pack as CEO, and (3) failure to develop a media strategy relevant to today’s global challenges.  His article covers a lot of historical ground, primarily as it relates to what can be learned from the capabilities and methods of RFE/RL during the Cold War.  He devotes attention to former Senator Joe Biden’s crucial role in maintaining RFE/RL’s mission and corporate structure at the end of the Cold War.  The task ahead, Pomar argues, is to create a new national security directive that articulates a bold vision for US broadcasters, correct the legislation creating a powerful CEO, preserve the independent status of RFE/RL and other surrogate broadcasters, develop a comprehensive media strategy, hire leaders with journalistic and area expertise, and pass legislation that protects the journalistic independence of US broadcasters.  His article is drawn in part from a forthcoming book about international broadcasting during the Reagan and Bush administrations.

Anna A. Velikaya and Greg Simons, eds., Russia’s Public Diplomacy: Evolution and Practice, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).  Velikaya (The Alexander Gorkachev Public Diplomacy Foundation, Moscow) and Simons (Uppsala University, Sweden) have compiled essays that examine three questions.  What is Russian public diplomacy exactly?  What are its activities, past and present?  How effective are its numerous public diplomacy programs?  Contributors address a broad range of topics: nation branding, soft power, digital diplomacy, science diplomacy, the role of civil society, and cases of Russian public diplomacy in international organizations, Southeast Asia, the Baltic Sea region, Latin America, and the Middle East.   For an informed review that describes the book as “essential reading,” points to similarities between Russian and US public diplomacy, and summarizes strengths that outweigh its limitations, see Vivian Walker, “Insights Into Russia’s PD Challenges,” The Foreign Service Journal, October 2020, 73-74.

US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, “2020 Comprehensive Annual Report on Public Diplomacy & International Broadcasting: Focus on FY 2019 Budget Data,” February 2021.  As has been the Commission’s practice in recent years, almost all of its 287-page 2020 report consists of strategy documents, budget data, and program descriptions prepared by State Department and US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) practitioners.  There is a wealth of descriptive information, systematically organized and illuminated by excellent graphics, which will be useful to Congressional staff, public policy researchers, scholars and students.  Particularly helpful are budget graphics showing 2019 spending by region and overseas mission, and annual spending from 1980-2019 in actual and adjusted 2019 dollars. The Commission’s oversight responsibilities are found primarily in four pages of recommendations (pp. 15-18) for the White House, Congress, State Department Bureaus, and USAGM.  Many have been updated from previous Commission reports.  Included are the following: (1) resurrect the NSC’s Information Statecraft Policy Coordinating Committee, (2) implement findings of a recent Strategic Resource Review intended to balance resource allocations with foreign policy priorities and eliminate inefficient and duplicative activities, (3) integrate educational and cultural affairs programs more fully into the policy planning process, and (4) undertake restorative measures in the wake of efforts to politicize USAGM’s journalists and breaches of the Congressionally-required broadcasting firewall. 

Recent Blogs and Other Items of Interest 

Mike Anderson, “Five PD Favorites,”  February 1, 2021, Public Diplomacy Council. 

Anne Applebaum, “What Trump and His Mob Taught the World About America,”  January 7, 2021, The Atlantic. 

Matt Armstrong, “Neglected History, Forgotten Lessons: The Struggle or Minds and Wills Relies on Leadership First, Organization Second,”  January 14, 2021, NSI. 

Emma Ashford, “America Can’t Promote Democracy Abroad. It Can’t Even Protect It At Home,”  January 7, 2021, Foreign Policy. 

Donald M. Bishop, “Eight Steps to a Stronger US Public Diplomacy,”  December 13, 2020, The Hill. 

Elizabeth Braw, “The United States Needs a BBC,”  January 28, 2021, Foreign Policy. 

Elizabeth Cornelius, “Q&A With a Council Member: Leonard J. Baldyga,” February 7, 2021, Public Diplomacy Council. 

Laura Daniels, “How White Supremacists Use Soft Power,”  February 5, 2021, Lawfare. 

Ciarán Devane, “The Power of Experience and Shared Values,”  December 2020, British Council. 

Patrick Duddy and Michael Shoenfeld, “Biden’s Facing a Diplomacy Deficit Going Back Decades,”  February 1, 2021, CNN. 

Daniel Immerwahr, “History Isn’t Just for Patriots,” December 27, 2020, The Washington Post. 

Richard LeBaron and Dan Sreebny,  “Biden Administration Should Act Fast to Bolster People-to-People Exchanges with the Middle East,”  December 4, 2020, Atlantic Council. 

Robert M. Gates, “The World is Full of Challenges. Here’s How Biden Can Meet Them,”  December 18, 2020, The New York Times. 

Paul Farhi, “Radio Free Europe Fires a Prominent Russian Journalist – and the Kremlin Smirks,” December 16, 2020, The Washington Post. 

Jeffrey Feltman, “To Rebuild the Foreign Service, Avoid an ‘Amnesty’ and Promote Functional Roles,”  December 28, 2020, Brookings. 

Jamie Fly,“How Biden Can Undo Damage to U.S.-backed News Outlets That Counter Authoritarian Propaganda,”  December 24, 2020, The Washington Post. 

Robert D. Kaplan, “The Greatest Humanitarian You’ve Never Heard Of,” January 24, 2021, Foreign Policy; Max Boot, “A Guide to Repairing Our Image Abroad and Replacing ‘the Ugly American,’” January 26, 2021, The Washington Post. 

Molly McCluskey, “Their Doors May Be Closed, But Embassies Are Still Showing People the World,”  January 26, 2021, Smithsonian Magazine. 

Emile Nakleh, “A New US Approach to the Muslim World,”  December 14, 2020, The Cipher Brief. 

Rachel Oswald, “Congress Ditches State Department Bill After Fight With Ivanka Trump,”  December 23, 2020, Roll Call. 

Sagatom Saha, “Let 100 Foreign Services Bloom,”  February 1, 2021, Foreign Policy. 

Anton Troianovski, “Russia Pushes U.S.-Funded News Outlet Toward Exit,”  January 21, 2021, The New York Times; “Meeks, McCaul, Kaptur, Kinzinger, and Keating on Threats to U.S. International Broadcasting,”  January 22, 2021, Press Release, Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Selected Items (in chronological order): Trump / Voice of America / USAGM 

Brian Schwartz, “Trump Loyalist Michael Pack Plots Final Purge at Federal Media Agency Before Biden Takes Office,”  December 7, 2020, CNBC 

“Inspector General Statement on the Agency for Global Media’s Major Management and Performance Challenges,”  December 2020, Office of Inspector General, Department of State. 

David Folkenflik, “VOA Director Forced Aside in Drive to Embed Trump Loyalists Before Biden Era,”  December 8, 2020, NPR; Paul Farhi, “Voice of America Interim Director Pushed Out by Trump-appointed Overseer in Final Flurry of Actions to Assert Control,”  December 8, 2020, The Washington Post; Pranshu Verma, “Trump Appointee Sidelines V.O.A. Director Before Biden Takes Office,”  December 8, 2020, The New York Times. 

Paul Farhi, “Trump Appointee Who Oversees Voice of America Refuses to Cooperate with Biden Transition Team,”  December 8, 2020, The Washington Post. 

Jon Allsop, “The Fight for Voice of America,”  December 9, 2020, Columbia Journalism Review. 

“Engel Statement on Appointment of Robert Reilly as VOA Director,”  December 9, 2020, US House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs; Jessica Jerreat, “USAGM Says Robert Reilly to Return as VOA Director,”  December 9, 2020, VOA News; “Robert R. Reilly Returns to Role of VOA Director,”  December 9, 2020, USAGM; Alan Heil, “U.S.-Funded Global Media: an Uncertain Future,”  December 10, 2020, Public Diplomacy Council.

 “Trump Has Launched An Eleventh-hour Assault on Voice of America,”  December 10, 2020, Editorial, The Washington Post. 

Amanda Bennett, “I Was Voice of America’s Director. Trump’s Latest Pick to Run the Organization is Dangerous,”  December 11, 2020, The Washington Post. 

David Folkenflik, “New VOA Director Arrives With Baggage: Anti-Islamic and Homophobic Writings,”  December 11, 2020, NPR. 

Margaret Sullivan, “Restoring the Voice of America After a Trump ‘Wrecking Ball’ Won’t Be Easy.  But It’s Worth Saving,”  December 13, 2020, The Washington Post. 

“Press Release: Voice of America Staff Protest Appointment of New VOA Director,”  December 14, 2020, Government Accountability Project; Courtney Buble, “Anonymous Voice of America Employees Protest New Acting Director,”  December 15, 2020, Government Executive. 

Bill Gertz, “Michael Pack Fiercely Defends Overhaul of Voice of America and other U.S. Broadcast Outlets,”  December 14, 2020, The Washington Times 

Alan Heil, “A Fresh Look at U.S. Overseas Broadcasting,”  December  18, 2020, Public Diplomacy Council. 

Paul Farhi,“Trump Appointee Names Conservative Allies to Run Radio Free Europe and Cuba Broadcast Agency,”  December 18. 2020; “USAGM CEO Names New Leaders for RFE/RL, OCB,”  December 18, 2020, VOA News. 

Joe O’Connell, “Give Listeners a Reason to Tune In,”  December 21, 2020, The Washington Post. 

Jessica Jerreat, “COVID-19 and Defense Spending Bills Target USAGM Powers,”  December 22, 2020, VOA News. 

David Folkenflik, “Trump Appointee Seeks Lasting Control Over Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia,”  December 30, 2020, NPR; Brian Schwartz, “Trump-appointed Federal Media Agency CEO Blasted in Letter by Radio Free Europe Leaders,”  December 30, 2020, CNBC. 

“Targeted Inspection of the U.S. Agency for Global Media: Journalistic Standards and Principles,” Office of Inspector General, US Department of State, December 2020. 

Rob Bole, “USAGM Is A Unique, Underutilized Foreign Policy Tool,” December 28, 2021, MountainRunner.us 

Kim Andrew Elliott, “US International Broadcasting: The Demolition of Credibility,”  January 6, 2021, The Hill. 

Paul Farhi, “Voice of America Employees Protest Order to Broadcast Pompeo Speech, Calling it Propaganda,” January 8, 2021, The Washington Post; Whistleblower complaint, Address by Secretary of State Pompeo at VOA headquarters endangers public health and safety, Government Accountability Project, January 8, 2021; David Folkenflik, “Voice of America CEO Accused of Fraud, Misuse of Office All in One Week,”  January 8, 2021, NPR. 

“Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Gives an Address at Voice of America,” January 11, 2021, Youtube video, 33 minutes. 

Karen DeYoung, “Pompeo Calls on VOA to Trumpet American Exceptionalism as Journalists at the Service Warn of Propaganda,”January 11, 2021, The Washington Post; Nicole Gaouette, Jennifer Hansler, and Kyle Atwood, “Pompeo Accuses VOA of ‘Demeaning America’ in Speech that Whistleblowers Blast as ‘Political Propaganda,’” January 11, 2021, CNN Business; Laura Kelly, “Pompeo Feud With US Global Media Agency Intensifies,” January 11, 2021, The Hill; Jessica Jerreat, “Pompeo Defends Changes at USAGM Under Trump Appointee,” January 11, 2021, VOA News. 

David Folkenflik, “Voice of America White House Reporter Reassigned After Questioning Pompeo,”  January 12, 2021, NPR; Paul Farhi, “Voice of America Reassigns White House Reporter After She Sought to Question Mike Pompeo,”  January 12, 2021, The Washington Post. 

Tia Sewell, “Trump’s War on the U.S. Agency for Global Media,”  January 12, 2021, Lawfare. 

Dan De Luce, “Voice of America Journalists Demand Resignation of Top Officials, Protesting Sidelining of Two Staffers,”  January 14, 2021, NBC News; Jessica Jerreat, “Whistleblowers Demand VOA Director Resign Over Pompeo Speech, Staff Moves,”  January 14, 2021, VOA News. 

Paul Farhi, “Controversial Head of Voice of America Resigns Hours After President Biden Takes Office,”  January 20, 2021, The Washington Post. 

David Folkenflik, “Trump Ally at Voice of America Replaced by News Executive He Recently Demoted,” January 21, 2021, NPR; Paul Farhi, “At Voice of America, a Sweeping Ouster of Trump Officials on Biden’s First Full Day,” January 21, 2021, The Washington Post; Jessica Jerreat, “New Acting USAGM Chief Begins Undoing Predecessor’s Policies,” January 21, 2021, VOA News. 

David Folkenflik, “USAGM Chief Fires Trump Allies Over Radio Free Europe And Other Networks,” January 22, 2021, NPR. Paul Farhi, “Former Voice of America Overseer Hired Two Law Firms to $4 Million No-bid Contracts,” January 25, 2021, The Washington Post; “Voice of America Overseer Spent $2 Million Investigating Employees, Complaint Alleges,” January 19, 2021, The Washington Post.

“Meeks, McCaul Applaud Removal of Controversial USAGM Leadership,” January 25, 2021, Press Release, Committee on Foreign Affairs. 

David Folkenflik, “Trumpism at Voice of America: Firings, Foosball and a Conspiracy Theory,”  January 27, 2021, NPR. 

Robert R. Reilly, “Voice of America’s Dysfunction Corrupts News Organization’s Mission,”  February 4, 2021, The Washington Times. 

Byron York, “America’s Lost Voice,”  February 4, 2021, Washington Examiner.

“RFE/RL Welcomes Back Jamie Fly as President,”  February 4, 2021, USAGM.  

Gem From The Past 

Antony J. Blinken, “Winning the War of Ideas,” The Washington Quarterly, Spring 2002. 25.2 (2002), pp. 101-114.  Two decades ago, six months after 9/11 and three years after USIA’s merger with the State Department, recently appointed Secretary of State Blinken made a case for rebuilding public diplomacy.  He framed his ideas in the rhetoric and context of the day.  His change agenda included many perennial and still valid recommendations.  Some of his ideas were innovative and prescient.  (1) Prioritize public diplomacy in the foreign policy process.  (2) Strengthen research on public opinion.  (3) Develop a rapid response capability.  (4) Refine the role of ambassadors to focus more on public diplomacy.  (5) Emphasize language and communication skills in the assignment of ambassadors and all senior embassy officials, and provide them with regular media skills training.  (6) Create US presence posts outside foreign capitals.  (7) Enhance strategies for using the Internet.  (8) Develop, support, and leverage the expertise and credibility of outside partners.  (9) Expand highly effective exchange programs.  (10) Work with the private sector to develop message campaigns.  (11) Deploy technology and trade as “strategic weapons in the war to win hearts and minds.”  Blinken’s article is worth another look as he undertakes his new responsibilities.  

An archive of Diplomacy’s  Public Dimension: Books, Articles, Websites  (2002-present) is maintained at George Washington University’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication.  Current issues are also posted by the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy,  the Public Diplomacy Council,  and MountainRunner.us.

Intended for teachers of public diplomacy and related courses, here is an update on resources that may be of general interest.  Suggestions for future updates are welcome. 

Bruce Gregory can be reached at BGregory@gwu.edu

Anne Applebaum, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism,  (Doubleday, 2020).  Applebaum, respected journalist, historian, and public intellectual, looks at challenges to liberal democracy, the appeal of nationalism, and ways political allies, civil servants, and media voices enable populist autocratic leaders.  She draws on insights of Julian Bender (La Trahison Des Clerks) to examine the role of today’s intellectuals in the rise of authoritarians.  She enlists Cicero, Hamilton, Jefferson, and the highly relevant Hannah Arendt, in illuminating the susceptibility of many citizens to “the new reality.”  Authoritarians succeed in large measure, she argues, because “pamphleteers, bloggers, spin doctors, producers of television programs, and creators of memes” are crucial to their public image.  Her book stands out in the growing library on democracy’s travails.  See also, Applebaum’s essay, “The Voice of America Will Sound Like Trump,”  The Atlantic, June 22, 2020.  News reports and opinion columns on VOA and its parent organization, the US Agency on Global Media (USAGM), have mushroomed this summer.  A selected list is included below.  Based on numerous interviews, most on background, she discusses the statements and actions of Michael Pack, the USAGM’s controversial new CEO, and speculates as to his motives and agenda.

Dan Balz, “America’s Global Standing Is At A Low Point. The Pandemic Made It Worse,”  July 26, 2020, The Washington Post.  The Post’s senior political reporter looks at how Trump’s shattering of a “70-year consensus among U.S. presidents of both political parties” has created perceptions abroad of the US “as withdrawn and inward looking, a reluctant and unreliable partner at a dangerous moment for the world.”  His lengthy assessment is filled with polling data and assessments from a broad range of perspectives.

Jorge G. Castañeda, America Through Foreign Eyes, (Oxford University Press, 2020).  Mexico’s former foreign minister sets his meditation on America in the context of a long line of visitors (de Tocqueville, Dickens, Bryce, Naipaul) with the intent of writing a sympathetic foreign critique for American readers.  His book provides deeply informed perspectives on American exceptionalism, American culture, the nation’s shortcomings, a dysfunctional democracy that renders its “uniqueness” no longer self-evident, “Apple and Wall Street,” American pragmatism and hypocrisy, race and religion, and a menu of problems: increased inequality, drugs, immigration, mass incarceration, the death penalty, guns, and other challenges.  Castañeda brings a half century of friendships and government relations with Americans to his “foreigner’s assessment of what is going wrong and how it might be fixed.”  He is optimistic that America’s soft power resources (technology, food, entertainment media, universities, and research labs) will remain strong.  But for a world growing weary of Trump and his enablers, America’s best hope is to confront its misplaced obsession with exceptionalism, its race and wealth inequality, and its “breach of contract with liberalism and tolerance.”

“Ethics in Diplomacy,”  Public Diplomacy Magazine, USC Center on Public Diplomacy, Issue 23, Summer 2020.  This edition of PD Magazine offers a variety of brief articles on conceptual, historical, topical, state-based, and practice-based inquiries into the place of ethics in public diplomacy.  They divide into four categories.  What should ethical diplomacy look like?  What are important ethical considerations?  What can be learned from the past?  And ethics during a pandemic.  Edited by USC students, PD Magazine blends the work of students, scholars, and practitioners.  It is entering its second decade as a publication that focuses broadly on issues and trends in diplomacy’s public dimension.  Congratulations to all.

Adam Garfinkle, “The Erosion of Deep Literacy,”  National Affairs, Number 43, Spring 2020.  Garfinkle, (founding editor of The American Interest), begins with Canadian scholar Harold Innis’s useful observation that “sudden extensions of communication are reflected in cultural disturbances.”  Thoughtful 20th century public diplomacy practitioners learned from Innis in the early days of television.  Garfinkle builds on his thinking to argue that today’s pervasive IT devices have comparable transformational impacts.  They include democratization of users and written language, diffusion of cultures, and the promise of different cognitive capacities.  Another impact, in the thinking of UCLA neuroscientist Maryanne Wolfe, may be the loss of “deep literacy.”  By this she means engagement with an extended piece of writing that enables a dialectical process with its text and meaning.  Such engagement can empower creativity, nurture capacity for abstract thought, strengthen the ability to pose and answer difficult questions, refine our capacity for empathy, and produce a revolution in the brain that has potential payoffs for understanding history and politics.  Garfinkle explores the meaning of Wolfe’s claim in the ideas of thinkers, past and present, and its relevance to today’s populism and political extremism.  Loss of deep literacy can be one explanatory factor, he argues, in approaching a range of theoretical and practical questions confronting leaders, strategists, diplomats, and communication theorists.

Robert M. Gates, “The Overmilitarization of American Foreign Policy: The United States Must Recover the Full Range of Its Power,”  Foreign Affairs, July/August 2020.  The former US Defense Secretary makes an evidence-based case that the United States has become too dependent on military tools as it seriously neglects diplomacy and other nonmilitary instruments of power.  To address a fundamental mismatch between ends and means in US foreign policy, he proposes an array of strategic and structural reforms.

(1) Place a stronger and bureaucratically transformed State Department at the core of the nonmilitary tool kit.

(2) Strengthen economic power (multilateral institutions, foreign aid) as a smart way to court partners, pressure rivals, and compete with China’s Belt and Road Initiative.  The US relies too heavily on economic tools (sanctions, tariffs) just to punish adversaries.

(3) Create “a new top-level organization—akin to the USIA on steroids and located within the State Department but empowered by the president—to enable consistent strategic communication using all available venues.  It would oversee all traditional and electronic messaging, including social media, and all public statements and other communication efforts by other parts of the U.S. government relating to foreign policy.”

(4) Take the offensive in cyber warfare “from time to time” to give authoritarian governments “a taste of their own medicine.”

(5) The structure created by the National Security Act of 1947 has “outlived its usefulness” for the whole of government approaches to foreign policy issues that are now routine.  The NSC is incapable of providing necessary “day-to-day management and operational and budgetary integration and coordination.”  What might do the job, however, is obscure apart from his chimera that a “restructured and strengthened State Department would serve as the hub for managing all the spokes of the government involved in directing nonmilitary resources to address national security problems.”

The article is drawn from Gates’ recent book, Exercise of Power: American Failures, Successes, and a New Path Forward in the Post–Cold War Period  (Knopf, 2020) in which he expands briefly on his view that “The U.S. strategic communications effort is a joke.” Why?  “Multiple entities are involved in this arena – the White House, State, Defense, Treasury, and the CIA, to name just a few.  For the most part, each goes its own way, with its own issues and emphasis.” (pp. 402-403).

Haroro J. Ingram, Persuade or Perish: Addressing Gaps in the U.S. Posture to Confront Propaganda and Disinformation Threats, Program on Extremism Policy Paper, George Washington University, February 2020.  Ingram (George Washington University’s Program on Extremism) has three objectives.  First, he discusses malicious influence activities of state and non-state actors that threaten “not only the stability and security of nations but democracy itself” – and the related problem of deficiencies in the US government’s ability to deal with these threats.  Second, he profiles a century of “inconsistent” US approaches to the role of “persuasive communication” in foreign policy and national security.  He follows with a deep dive into his central organizational focus, the State Department’s Global Engagement Center and its immediate predecessors.  Third, he makes four recommendations: the need to learn from America’s past influence efforts, the benefits of developing an overarching paradigm to understand a “spectrum of threats,” the importance of “overt attributed US government messaging,” and a strategic interagency structure similar in intent to the Reagan Administration’s National Security Decision Directive (NSDD 75).  Ingram’s historical overview is a useful predicate for thinking about current change agendas.  His paper is limited, however, by its predominant attention to threats, organizational solutions, messaging, and influence model practices.  Missing is discussion of opportunities, solutions grounded in transformative policies and actions, and relational model practices.  See also Haroro J. Ingram, “Pandemic Propaganda and the Global Democracy Crisis,”  May 18, 2020, War on the Rocks.

Haroro J. Ingram and Alexander Guittard, “Revamping America’s ‘Soft Power’:  The Case for Centralizing America’s Messages to the World,” July 20, 2020, Foreign Policy Research Institute.  The authors (affiliated with George Washington University’s Program on Extremism) contend that “a central agency for American public messaging is urgently needed” to “recalibrate American influence efforts.”  They build on former Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ recent call for a “top level organization . . . to enable consistent strategic communication” and Ingram’s longer paper, Persuade or Perish, listed above.  Their agenda emphasizes threats by malign external actors, the US government’s bureaucratic deficiencies, a new “independent agency of the State Department,” centrally managed “media buying and dissemination on non-U.S. government-owned or sponsored channels,” and development of “overarching doctrine and training in the tradecraft of persuasive communications.”  Their paper replicates recurring themes and approaches in countless past reports on US diplomacy’s public dimension.

H-Diplo/ISSF Roundtable 11-16 on Diplomacy: Communication and the Origins of the International Order,  H- Diplo, May 18, 2020.  Thomas Maddux (California State University Northridge) introduces this discussion of Robert F. Trager’s Diplomacy: Communication and the Origins of the International Order,  (Cambridge University Press, 2017) with a carefully constructed overview of its central focus and summaries of insightful comments by four reviewers: Todd H. Hall (University of Oxford), Marcus Holmes (The College of William & Mary), Brian Rathbun (University of Southern California), and Anne Sartori (MIT).  Trager (University of California, Los Angeles) responds in closing comments.  Trager’s book uses data from British Foreign Office communications between 1855 and 1914 to examine the role of communication in diplomacy with emphasis on “costless exchanges” (e.g., private discussions between two foreign ministers) and “costly signaling” (e.g., moving troops to a border).  The reviewers, who unanimously praise Trager’s work, offer suggestions for further consideration.

— Reasons why writing by diplomats may not convey their thinking exactly (Sartori).

— Constructivist and psychological questions on “the human element of diplomacy” relevant to Trager’s “assumption of rationality” (Hall).

— Questions about the role of intentions in diplomacy and the subjectivity of potential costs (Holmes).

— Issues relating to how “irrational emotions” affect diplomatic communication (Rathbun).

Their reviews do not ignore, but treat too lightly such issues as the relevance of 19th century diplomacy’s context, methods, and communications technologies to those of the 21st century.  And, if Trager’s study usefully points to the value of actors signaling intentions through “costless communication” in private, as the reviewers contend, what are the implications for “costless communication” in public?  (Courtesy of Donna Oglesby)

Glenn Kessler, Salvador Rizzo, and Meg Kelly, Donald Trump and His Assault on Truth: The President’s Falsehoods, Misleading Claims, and Flat-Out Lies, (Scribner, 2020).  Before he took over the Washington Post’s “Fact Checker” feature in 2011, Kessler was a well-regarded Post foreign policy reporter.  This adds considerably to the book’s value.  A collaborative effort by the Post’s Fact Checker team, this book can be mined for insights into the mechanics of fact checking and “Pinocchios,” read selectively as a compilation of self-contained chapters (e.g., Trump’s biggest whoppers, Trump on Trump, Trump on immigration, Trump on impeachment, Trump on the coronavirus), or read as an organized description and interpretation of Trump’s disregard for truth.  The book provides clear analytical distinctions between falsehoods, misstatements, and lies, as well as observations on their implications: exploitations of grievance, strategies of foreign leaders, the “illusory truth effect,” and other consequences.  Kessler’s chapter on Trump’s foreign policy treats his falsehoods, disturbing ignorance on international issues, and false narratives.  He concludes with thoughts on Trump’s methods, his impact on the media, choices of voters and Democratic leaders, and America’s future after the “most mendacious president in American history.”

Sarah Kreps, Social Media and International Relations, (Cambridge University Press, 2020).  In this brief, cogent, and well-written book, Kreps (Cornell University) assumes that social media can now be treated as an actor in international relations.  She then discusses questions that follow from this assumption.  What social media features attract foreign interference?  Are democracies more susceptible to information warfare than authoritarian states?  How can information operations and the Internet be used as instruments of war?  How do states assert digital sovereignty?  What new technologies, such as AI, threaten democratic vulnerabilities, and how can democracies respond?  Diplomacy scholars and practitioners will find particularly interesting her thinking on public opinion, traditional notions of the marketplace of ideas, social media as instruments of manipulation and weaponized information, how emerging AI tools lower barriers to entry in propaganda campaigns, and the contrasting values of AI and low technology tools in responding to them.  Kreps’ central argument is that social media are undermining longtime advantages of democracies in international relations such as public accountability and effectiveness in policy formulation, governance, and war.  Her book seeks to explain these phenomena and discuss responses to them.  (Courtesy of Donna Oglesby)

Christian Lesquene, “Ministries of Foreign Affairs: A Crucial Institution Revisited,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, Volume 15, Issue 1-2, March 2020.  In his introduction to this special HJD issue, Lesquene (SciencesPo) makes compelling arguments for why there are so few comparative studies of Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MFAs).  Scholars prefer to study exciting new institutions.  MFAs have lost their monopoly in whole of government diplomacy.  Their low transparency creates barriers to scholarly study. The role of MFAs is difficult to discern in many nondemocratic states.  Most practitioner accounts are self-referential and lack analytical distance.  He then explores reasons why it is precisely because MFAs have lost their monopoly that new research is needed.  Scholars must better understand diplomats in today’s MFAs and how they are recruited.  MFAs are at the center of new practices and communication methods in diplomacy.  And research on MFAs can usefully contribute to scholarship that theorizes diplomacy and IR through the mindsets of practitioners.  Lesquene’s clear and well-organized overview (accessible in its entirety online) provides a detailed agenda for future research, a bibliography, and cues to the claims and contributions of 11 articles in HJD’s special issue.

Laura Mills, “Empire, Emotion, Exchange: (Dis)orienting Encounters Of/With Post 9-11 US Cultural Diplomacy,”  Cultural Studies, published online June 22, 2020.  In this probing critique of US cultural diplomacy and its Youth Exchange and Study Program (YES), Mills (University of St. Andrews, UK) makes four claims.  First, post 9/11 cultural diplomacy is disorienting because cosmopolitanism and affective elements in YES recruitment materials demonstrate how empire, and its elements of power and control, are revealed in what is seemingly benign and unquestionable.  Second, the entanglement of emotion, empire, and exchange can “(dis)orient” participants through elements in YES orientation sessions and program handbooks.  Third, the seductive simplicity of an imperialist America frame problematically obscures government and performance complexities, tensions, and contradictions within the YES programs.  Fourth, challenging characteristics of empire and these disorientations opens the way to a creative re-imagining and reorientation of post 9/11 US cultural diplomacy.  Her article is grounded in the views of Michel Foucault and other scholars on how power relations are embedded in institutions and human interaction, Sara Ahmed and others on affect, and the literature of Franz Fanon and a host of writers on cosmopolitanism and colonialism.  Throughout, Mills cites numerous examples of language and practices in YES programs and program materials.  Cultural diplomacy practitioners will find her writing and theoretical logic demanding.  But it will reward as it summons a rethinking of their programs and methods.  Her article previews her forthcoming book, Post-9/11 US Cultural Diplomacy: The Impossibility of Cosmopolitanism (Routledge).

Amy Mitchell, Mark Jurkowitz, J. Baxter Oliphant, and Elisa Shearer, “Americans Who Mainly Get Their News on Social Media Are Less Engaged, Less Knowledgeable,”  Pew Research Center, July 30, 2020.  Pew’s researchers find that the one-in-five Americans “who rely on social media for news are less likely to get the facts right about the coronavirus and politics and more likely to hear some unproven claims.”  US adults who turn to social media for news tend to be under 30, have lower levels of education, express less concern about made-up news, and are less likely to be white.  See also Margaret Sullivan, “This Was The Week America Lost the War on Misinformation,”  July 30, 2020, The Washington Post.

“Pandemic Diplomacy: Living Up To Our Ideals,” Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2020.  Three articles in the Journal’s summer edition shine a useful spotlight on the pandemic, diplomacy’s public dimension, and whole of government diplomacy.

— Jimmy Kolker, “COVID-19 and Global Health Governance,”  34-37.  Ambassador (ret.) Kolker lived whole of government diplomacy when, after a 30-year Foreign Service career, he led UNICEF’s HIV/AIDs section (2007-2011) and served as assistant secretary for global affairs in the US Department of Health and Human Services (2014-2017).  He urges the US to engage fully with the global community on pandemic and other health issues – and offers six practical recommendations directed at WHO, the UN Secretary General, the National Security Council, and the Department of State.

— Donald M. Bishop, “Disinformation Challenges in a Pandemic,”  38-41.  Retired FSO Bishop (now the Bren Chair of Strategic Communications at Marine Corps University) draws on three decades of public diplomacy experience in his assessment of the pandemic crisis, Chinese and Russian disinformation, and “hidden disinformation.”  He argues that “PD needs to be recharged, and it must join whole-of-government policy deliberations at the highest level.”

— Jian (Jay) Wang, “Rethinking Public Diplomacy for a Post-Pandemic World,”  42-44.  The director of USC’s Center on Public Diplomacy discusses the pandemic’s impact in the context of pre-existing global trends and offers suggestions for rethinking PD: take a network view, integrate the digital and the physical, expand city diplomacy, and invest in PD reskilling and upskilling.

David Shimer, Rigged: America, Russia, and One Hundred Years of Covert Electoral Interference,  (Alfred A. Knopf, 2020).  Shimer’s (Oxford University) aims in this book are (1) to examine a century of covert electoral interference by Russia and the United States, and (2) to analyze Putin’s 2016 interference in the US election as the evolution of past practice.  He defines covert electoral interference as “a concealed foreign effort to influence a democratic vote of succession” that takes two forms – changing ballots and changing minds.  His book makes four arguments.  First, it discusses the contours of interference by Moscow and Washington from the end of World War I to the present.  Second, it explores similarities and differences.  Both countries interfered to support or defeat candidates to promote individual change.  But Russia interferes to weaken democracies; the US has interfered to strengthen democracies.  Third, Russia’s 2016 interference was a direct continuation of past patterns of practice.  Fourth, digital technologies have irrevocably empowered hostile actors.  Shimer’s well written and deeply research book is remarkable in several ways.  Its on the record interviews with senior Obama and Trump national security officials are illuminating.  As is his deep dive into President Obama’s response to Putin’s 2016 strategy and its consequences.  He supports his arguments with new empirical material in case studies of KGB interference in the US and Europe and America’s overt democracy promotion activities at the end and after the Cold War.  And in case studies of US covert interference in Italy and Cuba (1947-1948), Iran and Guatemala (1950s), Japan (1950s-1960s), Guyana (1963), Chile (1964), and Serbia (2000).  Americans who may think covert interference is just a Russian playbook will find well researched evidence to the contrary in Shimer’s excellent, fact-based book.

Recent Blogs and Other Items of Interest

Michael Allen and David E. Lowe, “The Congress for Cultural Freedom and the Power of Ideas,”  June 28, 2020, The American Interest.

Mike Anderson, “Five PD Favorites,”  July 27, 2020; “Five PD Favorites,”  July 21, 2020;  “Five PD Favorites,”  June 9, 2020, Public Diplomacy Council.

Matt Armstrong, “The William Benton Scholarship,”  July 21, 2020, MountainRunner.us

Donald Bishop, “We Do It Ourselves In Our Own Capital,”  June 18, 2020, Public Diplomacy Council.

Miriam Berger, “The Pandemic Has Damaged the Appeal of Studying in the United States for Some International Students,”  July 23, 2020, The Washington Post.

William J. Burns, “‘Never More Adrift’: William J. Burns on Repairing the Damage Trump Has Done,”  June 10, 2020, World Politics Review; “Polarized Politics Has Infected American Diplomacy Foreigners aren’t laughing at us. They pity and discount us.”  June 8, 2020, The Atlantic.

“Diplomacy in Crisis: The Trump Administration’s Decimation of the State Department,”  July 28, 2020, Democratic Staff Report, US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

“Fulbright Grantee Letter of Appeal to the Fulbright Program: Request to Revised the US Fulbright 2019-2020 Policy and Response to Covid-19 Pandemic,”  May 5, 2020, Change.org.

Alina Dolea and Efe Sevin, “Integrating Scholarship Fields for PD: ICA/ISA Joint Panel,”  July 7, 2020, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Robbie Gramer, “Pompeo’s Attack on ‘1619 Project’ Draws Fire From His Own Diplomats,”  July 17, 2020, Foreign Policy; Nahal Toosi, “Pompeo Rolls Out A Selective Vision of Human Rights,”   July 16, 2020, Politico; Michael R. Pompeo, “American Diplomacy Must Again Ground Itself in the Nation’s Founding Principles,”  July 16, 2020, The Washington Post.   

Gavin Grindon, “This Exhibition Was Brought to You by Guns and Big Oil,”  May 26, 2020, The New York Times.

“How Objectivity in Journalism Became a Matter of Opinion,”  July 16, 2020, The Economist.

Mark Jacobs, “Exceptionalism Redux,”  n.d., Evergreen.

Lara Jakes and Edward Wong, “U.S. Diplomats Struggle to Defend Democracy Abroad Amid Crises at Home,”  June 8, 2020, The New York Times.

Hannah Knowles, “Top Democrats Launch Investigation Into the Late Night Firing of the State Department Inspector General,”  May 16, 2020, The Washington Post.

“A Letter on Justice and Open Debate,”  July 7, 2020, Harper’s Magazine; Jennifer Schuessler and Elizabeth A. Harris, “Artists and Writers Warn of an ‘Intolerant Climate.’ Reaction is Swift.”  July 7, 2020, The New York Times.

Michael Luo, “How Can the Press Best Serve a Democratic Society,”  July 11, 2020, The New Yorker.

Colum Lynch, “It’s Not Just Trump. The World Worries America is Broken,”  June 18, 2020, Foreign Policy.

Rachel Gandin Mark, “Film Diplomacy in the Time of COVID-19,”  May 27, 2020, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Michael McCarry, “Looking at Foreign Students Through the Prism of National Interest,”  July 10, 2020; “Fulbright, China, and U.S. Presidents,”  July 20, 2020, Public Diplomacy Council.

Peter McPherson, “APLU Statement on New ICE Policies on International Students,” July 6, 2020, Association of Public & Land Grant Universities.

Matin Modarressi, “Stamps and Spies: The CIA’s Involvement In Postage Design,” July 21, 2020, War on The Rocks.

Joseph S. Nye, Jr., “Can We Recover Our Soft Power?”  June 9, 2020, The Hill.

Michael Peak, “Where Now for International Higher Education,”  May 2020, British Council.

Elizabeth Redden, “Trump Targets Fulbright in China, Hong Kong,”  July 16, 2020, Inside Higher Ed.

Dalibor Rohac, “Public Diplomacy and the Risk of Overmoralizing,”  June 23, 2020, TheBulwark.

Daniel B. Shapiro and Daniel Rakov, “Will Zoomplomacy Last?”  May 18, 2020, Foreign Policy.

Michael D. Shear and Maggie Haberman, “Trump Removes State Dept. Inspector General,”  May 16, 2020, The New York Times.

Tara Sonenshine, “American Prestige Hits Rock Bottom,”  June 26, 2020, The Hill; “Americans Should Fight Propaganda Like We Used To,”  June 1, 2020, DefenseOne.

Mark C. Storella, “An Argument for US Health Diplomacy,”  June 29, 2020, The Hill.

Nahal Toosi, “Adversaries Delight in America’s Convulsions, While U.S. Diplomats Despair,”  June 2, 2020, Politico; Conor Finnegan, “US Diplomats Struggle to Navigate Racial Protests, Trump’s Messages, Charges of Hypocrisy,”  June 2, 2020, ABC News.

Dick Virden, “To Restore Our National Reputation, We Must Return to Our Core Values,”  May 27, 2020, MinnPost.

Ed Vulliamy, “‘Rockers and Spies’ – How the CiA Used Culture to Shred the Iron Curtain,”  May 3, 2020, The Guardian.

Vivian S. Walker, “Talking to Strangers: Public Diplomacy At a Distance,”  May 11, 2020, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Matthew Wallin, “The Soft Power of American Protest,”  June 29, 2020, American Security Project.

“What the US Coronavirus Response Says About American Exceptionalism,”  July 8, 2020, PBS Newhour.

Selected Items (in chronological order): Trump / Voice of America / USAGM

Kathleen Parker, “Knowing Steve Bannon Shouldn’t Stop a Qualified Official from leading the VOA,”  May 19, 2020, The Washington Post.

Matt Armstrong, “The Significance of Trump’s Hostility Toward VOA,” [7-minute video]

Alan Heil, “Leadership Changes at VOA and the BBC, the Two Largest Western International Multimedia Networks,”  June 9, 2020.

The Editorial Board, “New Boss May Test Voice of America’s Credibility,”  June 16, 2020, The New York Times.

Jon Allsop, “Trump, Michael Pack, and the Complicated Role of Voice of America,”  June 17, 2020, Columbia Journalism Review.

Kim Andrew Elliott, “Repoliticizing Voice of America,”  June 17, 2020, , “VOA: Voice of Ambiguity,”  July 7, 2020, The Hill.

Brian Schwartz, “Sen. Bob Menendez Calls for State Department Inspector General to Investigate Federal Media CEO Michael Pack,” June 23, 2020; “Federal Media Chief Michael Pack Installs Trump Loyalists to Leadership Posts, Memo Says,”  June 17, 2020, CNBC.

“RSF [Reporters Without Borders] Alarmed by Abrupt Dismissals of US News Agency Heads by Trump-appointed CEO,”  June 18, 2020, RSF.

Martha Bayles and Jeffrey Gedmin, “It’s Not Broke! And You’re Not Fixing It!”  June 18, 2020, The American Interest.

Jeffrey Gedmin, “The ‘Wednesday Night Massacre’ in U.S. International Media,”  June 19, 2020, TheBulwark.

Editorial Board, “Voice of America and Other U.S. Government Media Have Always Been Trustworthy. But Here Comes Trump,”  June 19, 2020, The Washington Post.

Alan Heil, “An Unprecedented Shakeup at U.S. International Broadcasting,” June 20, 2020; Robert Chatten, “An Open Letter to Amanda Bennett, former VOA Director,”  June 20, 2020, Public Diplomacy Council.

“National Press Club and NPC Journalism Institute Statement on U.S. Agency for Global Media,”  June 20, 2020.

Josh Lipsky and Daniel Fried, “US Government Broadcasters Have Long Advanced the Cause of Freedom. Now They’re Under Threat,” June 23, 2020, Atlantic Council.

David Folkenflik, “Citing a Breached ‘Firewall,’ Media Leaders Sue U.S. Official Over Firings,”  June 24, 2020, NPR.

Byron York, “The New Voice of America Breaks His Silence,”  June 25, 2020, Washington Examiner.

William Powell, “Lawsuit Highlights Potential Threats To Independence at U.S. International Broadcasters,” June 26, 2020, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

“Radio Free Trump: Decapitating America’s State-funded Media,” June 27, 2020, The Economist.

Senators’ Letter to Michael Pack,  July 1, 2020.

Susan Crabtree, “Michael Pack Stands His Ground Amid D.C. Firestorm,”  July 2, 2020, “As Critics Rage, Pack Aims to Pierce China’s Info Firewall,”  June 26, 2020, RealClear Politics.

James Jay Carafano, “Michael Pack Will Need to Tackle America’s Great-Power Problem,”  July 6, 2020, The National Interest.

 “U.S. Judge Rules in Favor of CEO of US Agency for Global Media,”  July 7, 2020, VOA News.

Paul Farhi, “Voice of America Faces Loss of International Journalists as New Overseer Lets Visas Expire,”  July 9, 2020, The Washington Post.

David Folkenflik, “U.S. Broadcasting Agency Will Not Extend Visas For Its Foreign Journalists,”  July 9, 2020, NPR.

“USAGM Reviewing Foreign Journalists Visas,”  July 10, 2020, VOA News.

Editorial Board, “Failing To Renew VOA Foreign Staffers’ Visas Would Devastate One of Its Core Functions,”  July 10, 2020, The Washington Post.

Michael Pack, “Fixing Uncle Sam’s Global Broadcasting Arm Is More Important Than Ever,”  July 8, 2020, New York Post.

Martha Bayles, “An Abuse of Power,”  July 13, 2020, The American Interest.

Alan Heil, “Leading U.S. Members of Congress and Media Organizations Support VOA Foreign Journalists Whose Visa Renewals May Be At Risk,”  July 13, 2020, Public Diplomacy Council.

 Ken Bredemeier, “US Court Blocks Government Media Chief from Replacing Technology Fund Board,” July 21, 2020, VOA News.

Spencer S. Hsu, “Appeals Court Blocks Trump Administration Takeover of Organization Fighting Digital Censorship and Surveillance,”  July 21, 2020, The Washington Post.

Susan Crabtree, “Trump Stands By New Broadcasting Chief With Veto Threat,”  July 22, 2020, RealClearPolitics.

“USAGM Announces Investigation Into ‘Long-term Security Failures,’” July 24, 2020, VOA News.

Jessica Jerreat, “Temporary Visa Reprieve for VOA Thai Journalist,”  July 24, 2020, VOA News.

“CEO Pack Launches Investigation Into Pro-Biden VOA Content, U.S. Election Interference,” July 30, 2020, USAGM Press Release.

Helle Dale, “‘Severe Security Failures’ In This Federal Agency Need To Be Investigated,” July 30, 2020, The Daily Signal.

Kim Andrew Elliott, “The Voice of America’s Visa Conundrum,”  July 30, 2020, The Hill.

Daniel Lippman, “Deleted Biden Video Sets Off A Crisis at Voice of America,”  July 30, 2020, Politico.

Spencer S. Hsu, “Trump Administration Is Crippling International Freedom Effort By Withholding Funds, Officials Say,”  July 31, 2020, The Washington Post.

Gem From The Past 

Edward W. Barrett, Truth is Our Weapon, (New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1953).  As former Defense Secretary Robert Gates and others turn to the magical idea that a “restructured and strengthened State Department” could integrate, coordinate, and direct nonmilitary activities, including strategic communication, it is useful to dust off one of the better books that deals with the subject.  Barrett, a Newsweek journalist who had served in OWI, returned to government from 1950-52 as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs.  He was tasked to serve simultaneously as director of President Truman’s newly created National Psychological Strategy Board.  Truman and the NSC gave Barrett and the State Department responsibility for “coordination of policies and plans for the national foreign information program and for overt psychological warfare with the Department of Defense, with other appropriate departments and agencies of the U.S. Government, and with related planning under the [CIA].”  After eight months of bitter interagency quarreling, Truman gave up on coordination by the State Department.  We occasionally did “some good,” Barrett recalled, but overall it was an impossible task.  For the next 70 years occasional attempts to adopt a State Department coordination model met a similar fate.  Presidents and reformers, who periodically considered interagency coordination, typically looked to White House and NSC models.

Among Barrett’s lessons learned: (1) Presidents should have as permanent members of their top staff “a special assistant with the functions of ‘persuader-in-chief.’”  (2) These presidential aides should “function as coordinator-in-chief of government-wide psychological planning.”  (3) All such coordinators should regularly attend Cabinet and NSC meetings and have the full confidence of the president.  (4) Avoid “too much Washington masterminding of complex tactical problems that could be solved by first-rate men in the field.” (5) Information specialists should participate in the top policy councils of the State Department.  (6) Major government reorganizations invariably lead to “near stagnation of effort while countless bureaucratic characters struggle for months with mundane problems of office space, organization charts, liaison arrangements, budgets, and controls.”

An archive of Diplomacy’s  Public Dimension: Books, Articles, Websites  (2002-present) is maintained at George Washington University’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication.  Current issues are also posted by the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy,  the Public Diplomacy Council,  and MountainRunner.us.

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Intended for teachers of public diplomacy and related courses, here is an update on resources that may be of general interest.  Suggestions for future updates are welcome.

William J. Burns, “A Make-or-Break Test for American Diplomacy,” April 6, 2020; “The Damage at the State Department Is Worse Than You Can Imagine, But It’s Also More Reparable,”  March 12, 2020, The Atlantic.  Retired US diplomat and former Deputy Secretary of State Burns makes two key claims in these articles.  In April, he argued the post-pandemic world will “turbocharge trendlines” that were already complicating America’s role in the world and pose the greatest test for US statecraft since the end of the Cold War.  He examines potential traps in looking ahead and warns that America cannot expect to “reboot a normal that has long been corrupted.”  In March, Burns took aim at a “sluggish, passive-aggressive, risk averse” State Department, which faces deeply rooted challenges in addition to the demolition brought about by “the venality and vindictiveness” of Donald Trump.  The State Department in a post-Trump presidency will need to rebuild quickly and differently.  Burns’ strategy is centered on what State can do for itself apart from the White House and Congress (“reshaping antediluvian approaches to leadership, management, recruitment, and performance”), pushing accountability downward in Washington and outward to ambassadors, rediscovering “the honor and purpose of career professionals” exemplified in the Trump impeachment hearings, rebalancing national security policies and budgets, and reversing the post 9/11 militarization of foreign policy 

“James Carville on Why Foundation CEOs Need to Fund a ‘Wartime Communications’ Force,”  The Chronicle of Philanthropy, March 26, 2020.  Carville (political consultant, Louisiana State University) calls on risk-takers and “our most talented communications minds” in the foundation community – a “Dream Team made up of top leaders from Hollywood, technology, advertising, public relations, polling, and behavioral psychology” – to stand up a wartime strategy to convey messages about what to do and what not to do in the COVID-19 pandemic.  Carville’s model is the World War I era Committee on Public Information led by George Creel.  Although the Creel Committee was “guilty of excesses,” (on this he is informed by LSU journalism professor John Maxwell Hamilton), it was also highly successful in promoting war bonds, food conservation, and military enlistment.  It’s a time for action, Carville writes energetically, in his appeal to ten of America’s largest foundations across the political spectrum.  (Courtesy of Donna Oglesby)

Andrea J. Dew, Marc A. Genest, and S. C. M. Paine, eds., From Quills to Tweets: How America Communicates About War and Revolution,  (Georgetown University Press, 2020).  The editors (all associated with the US Naval War College) have compiled a welcome collection of case studies on how information, political narratives, media, and communication technologies have shaped the way Americans have communicated in wartime.  Essays by 17 contributors divide into five chronological sections arranged to reflect episodes of armed conflict, changes in technologies, and political context.  Many are by scholars ranging from Marc Genest’s chapter on newspapers and Committees of Correspondence during the American Revolution to Steven Casey’s (London School of Economics) chapter on the Korean War to Andrea Dew’s chapter on communication in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Two are by former public diplomacy practitioners.  Martin Manning’s chapter looks at the role of the press and the telegraph in the Civil War, and Judith Baroody examines communication strategies in the Persian Gulf War.  Without taking away from the wealth of useful analysis and historical evidence the authors provide from US history, the collection would have been strengthened by at least one chapter on relevant ways in which Europeans and Native Americans communicated in wartime during the century and a half that preceded the American Revolution.  

Kingsley Edney, Stanley Rosen, and Ying Zhu, eds., Soft Power With Chinese Characteristics: China’s Campaign for Hearts and Minds,  (Routledge, 2020).  In this timely volume, Edney (University of Leeds), Rosen (University of Southern California), and Zhu (City University of New York) compile essays by scholars who examine how China has attempted to use soft power strategies since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012.  Part 1 contains chapters on the soft power debate in China, the ironies of soft power projection in the age of Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, and China’s use of diasporic media, cultural diplomacy, Sino-Hollywood negotiation, branding, and Confucius Institutes.  Chapters in Part 2 include regional case studies of China’s soft power strategies in Europe, the Americas, Africa, Japan and South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong.  A closing chapter looks at how East Asians view a rising China.  The volume includes a foreword by Joseph Nye who contends that “China now represents the most important test case for the practice of soft power.”  He shares the authors’ view on the need for a reappraisal of the soft power framework adopted in China’s official doctrine more than a decade ago.  See also Martha Bayles, “Hard Truths About China’s ‘Soft Power,’” The American Interest, March 30, 2020. 

Mark Hannah, “Stop Declaring War on a Virus,”  War on the Rocks, April 17, 2020.  Hannah (Eurasia Group Foundation) examines the negative implications of using war rhetoric to frame the US government’s response to the pandemic coronavirus.  Borrowing from British philosopher John Austin’s thinking on speech acts as “performative utterance,” Hannah argues declaring war on a virus goes beyond descriptive or interpretive framing to bring about three new realities: “a self-injuring pivot from international cooperation toward belligerent nationalism; short-term economic interventions that are not necessarily likely to transform into lasting reforms; and an inflation of the concept of war which potentially undermines the rule of law.”  In so doing, it distorts the nature of the threat, makes political abuse of power more likely, enables the firing of government health officials insufficiently supportive of presidential wishes and priorities, and squanders international goodwill.  Hannah also makes use of Rosa Brook’s thinking on “Fighting Words” and arguments on “the many ways in which the distinction between wartime and peacetime is nontrivial” in her book, How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything.

Daniel Immerwahr, How To Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States, (Picador, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2019).  Immerwahr (Northwestern University) takes the reader on an absorbing and illuminating ride through the history of American expansion – from 13 colonies on the Atlantic seaboard to a colonial empire in the American west and beyond, to today’s “pointillist empire” of territories, tiny islands, and some 800 military bases worldwide.  It is a work of serious scholarship that also seeks to entertain.  Immerwahr tells three stories.  The subordination and displacement of Native Americans.  Colonization beyond the continent in the 19th and early 20th centuries.  And the replacement of colonization with globalization.  His intent is not to weigh forms of oppression or use empire as a pejorative.  Rather, he seeks to show how territorial expansion matters, positively and negatively, in understanding United States’ history as the history of an empire.  It is a narrative of hard power projection combined with a gold mine of anecdotes and personalities that give life to hidden influences of soft power through language, inventions, science, education, music, sports, popular culture, and the arts.    

Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes, The Light That Failed: Why the West is Losing the Fight for Democracy,  (Pegasus Books, 2020).  Krastev (Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna) and Holmes (New York University) – two scholars who embraced the “illusion’ that the end of the Cold War signaled “an Age of Liberalism and Democracy” – explore a question attributed to Barack Obama: “What if we were wrong?”  They look first at the appeal of the illusion.  Then they examine the cascade of illiberalism, populist xenophobia, insurgent movements on right and left, and “resentment at democracies canonical status” in Europe, Russia, and the United States.  Their aim is not a comprehensive account of the anti-liberal revolt.  It is to examine one under-appreciated aspect: widespread grievance over “the way (imposed) no-alternative Soviet Communism, after 1989, was replaced by (invited) no-alternative Western liberalism.”  Their thought-provoking book is an assessment of this grievance and a strong critique of the way democracy was promoted as “inescapable orthodoxy.”  It examines the perception held by many after the economic crisis of 2008 that western elites did not know what they were doing – and growing resentment against the “palpably sincere reform-by-imitation” approach (“copycat Westernization”) of post-Cold War democratization. 

Jan Melissen, “Diplomacy’s First Challenge: Communicating Assistance to Nationals Abroad,”  Policy Forum Article, Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies, February 2020.  Melissen (Leiden University) examines the growing importance of consular diplomacy in the eyes of citizens and parliamentarians and the need for foreign ministries to develop a better understanding of increasingly intertwined “consular” and “diplomatic” spheres. They must break, he argues, from a tradition that compartmentalizes consular work and views it as “second rate.”  His thinking is grounded in assumptions that there is “enormous scope for improvement” in government-society relations and that foreign ministries face greater challenges in communicating with their citizens abroad than in delivering services to them.  Middle power countries “with a decidedly global outlook,” he contends, understand and articulate this view especially well.  The article develops three claims.  First, governments too often mistakenly treat consular work as marketing to product-oriented end-users than providing services to citizens.  Second, foreign ministries struggling with digital technologies must adopt a coordinated multi-channel communications approach.  Third, they must show greater appreciation for how domestic and foreign dimensions of consular diplomacy are linked to so-called “big issues” in foreign and security policies.

Martha C. Nussbaum, The Cosmopolitan Tradition: A Noble But Flawed Ideal,  (Harvard University Press, 2019).  Diplomats occupy a central place in the cosmopolitan tradition.  That said, scholars wrestle with an abundance of self / other questions.  Is diplomacy necessarily group and governance-based or present anytime someone claims to represent or mediate any aspect of society?  What are the ethical duties of diplomats to the national interest and universal human rights?  Under what conditions is public diplomacy best served by monologue or dialogue?  In her meditation on the relative claims of nations and the world, Martha Nussbaum (University of Chicago) helps us understand normative and practical issues in diplomacy.  Chapters on Cicero, Hugo Grotius, and Adam Smith illuminate historical approaches to self / other tensions.  Subsequent chapters address questions about pluralism and globalism born of today’s deep interconnectedness (supply chains, disease, climate, migration, knowledge, disinformation).  Nussbaum’s closely argued “Capabilities Approach” forbids a “me-first tub-thumping nationalism.”  She defends an international politics that is truly cosmopolitan and grounded in moral duties to others and the worth and dignity of all.  But she also recognizes the practical and normative importance of the nation.  Normatively, she argues, the nation “is the largest unit that is an effective vehicle of human autonomy, and accountability to people’s voices.”  Practically, nations have great power as places where “both duties of justice and duties of material aid are made real.”  Her book prompts serious reflection on “how we ought to think about the relative claims of the nation and the world.”

Charles Peterson, “Serfs of Academe,” The New York Review of Books, March 12, 2020.  Peterson, a Harvard Ph.D. candidate in American Studies heading for a post-doc at Cornell, examines professional, economic, and public policy consequences of the explosion of adjuncts in America’s colleges and universities.  His review essay of 11 books summarizes data showing the extraordinary rise in contingent faculty, a corresponding decline in tenured faculty, the rise in numbers and salaries of university administrators, the policy plans of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and challenges in organizing instructors in higher education.  Books reviewed include: Joe Berry, Reclaiming the Ivory Tower: Organizing Adjuncts to Change Higher Education,  (2005); Herb Childress, The Adjunct Underclass: How America’s Colleges Betrayed  Their Faculty, Their Students, and Their Mission  (2019); Kim Tolley, ed., Professors in the Gig Economy: Unionizing Adjunct Faculty in America  (2018); and Suzanne Mettler, Degrees of Inequality: How the Politics of Higher Education Sabotaged the American Dream  (2014).

Sarah Repucci, “A Leaderless Struggle for Democracy: Freedom in the World 2020,” Freedom House. Last year was the 14^th consecutive year of decline in political rights and civil liberties, Freedom House analyst Repucci states in the organization’s latest annual report on trends in global freedom.  Leading indicators are India’s turn to Hindu nationalism, China’s violations of basic freedoms of Uighurs and Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, and an “unsteady beacon of freedom in the United States.”  Her detailed report discusses countries where leaders are using extreme policies in assaults on minorities and pluralism.  Notable instances include Israel, Spain, Austria, and Hungary.  The Trump administration’s inconsistent commitment to democracy and human rights is reflected in its critique of adversaries (Venezuela, Iran) and the pass given to leaders in other countries (Russia, North Korea, Saudi Arabia).  Her report includes recommendations for supporting emerging democracies.  See also Jen Patja Howell, “The Lawfare Podcast: Freedom House on ‘Freedom in the World.’”, March 24, 2020.

Thomas Rid, Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare,  (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020).  Thomas Rid (Johns Hopkins University) defines active measures as the methodical output of intelligence services that contains an element of disinformation and is intended to weaken an adversary.  His book discusses case studies of active measures divided into four historical waves: (1) the Soviet Union’s “Operation Trust” led by the Cheka’s Felix Dzerzhinsky in the 1920s and 30s; (2) Soviet and East German disinformation and the CIA’s “political warfare” in the early Cold War; (3) expansion and refinement of Soviet active measures in the late 1970s and 80s; and (4) digital age disinformation beginning in the 2010s.  Rid makes three main arguments.  First, at scale disinformation campaigns are attacks against political systems that rely on custodians of factual authority.  Second, moral and operational equivalence between East and West in using covert active measures occurred only in the decade after World War II.  Third, digital technologies have fundamentally changed disinformation.  Rid devotes most of his attention to Russian disinformation campaigns, especially its digital operations.  He gives far less attention to the CIA’s “cultural freedom” and “political warfare” activities.  USIA’s Senior Policy Officer on Soviet Active Measures Herb Romerstein makes a cameo appearance.  Rid warns that weakened democracies are less resistant to active measures and more likely to deploy them.  “It is impossible,” he argues, “to excel at disinformation and democracy at the same time.”  See also David Ignatius, “The Russians Manipulated Our Elections. We Helped,” April 24, 2020, The Washington Post.  And Rid’s Lawfare podcasts, Part 1 and Part 2. 

Elizabeth Shackelford, The Dissent Channel: American Diplomacy in a Dishonest Age, (Public Affairs, 2020).  Shackleford, a former career Foreign Service Officer, gives her account of the US failure to speak out against widespread violence and government atrocities in South Sudan.  Her book combines a critique of President Trump’s foreign policy, her story of US Embassy Juba’s efforts to evacuate US citizens and conduct operations in a country in crisis, and an assessment of the State Department’s internal dissent channel.  She used the dissent channel to protest Washington’s “failure to take a stand for the values of human rights and justice, when doing so could make a difference.”  Her bleak conclusion, as quoted in Robbie Gramer’s FP review, is the dissent channel “means something, perhaps.  It’s a message of sorts. One could generously describe it as a type of departmental suggestion box, though it would be more accurate to picture it as a shredder.”

Gregory M. Tomlin, “The Joint Force Needs a Global Engagement Cycle,”  Joint Forces Quarterly, 97, 2nd Quarter, 2020.  Tomlin (Commander, 1st Battalion, 37th Field Artillery, Joint Base Lewis-McChord, formerly with Joint Staff J2, and author of Murrow’s Cold War) makes two central arguments.  First, he proposes adding the concept of non-lethal engagement, using information-related capabilities, to the Defense Department’s current definition of “engagement” in joint doctrine, which focuses on combat operations.  His expanded definition “would clarify how military information operations could influence individuals and audiences not associated with an adversary.”  Second, he calls for a new six-phase Global Engagement Cycle (GEC) that would connect a commander’s nonlethal engagement guidance and intent with the use of information-related capabilities and functions to achieve short and long-term objectives in the information domain.  Tomlin supports his conceptual ideas with a range of examples and recommendations relevant to the activities of combatant and functional commands, countering cyber-attacks and weaponized uses of social media by adversaries, and implications for planning and operations.

Geoffrey Wiseman, “Diplomacy,” in Dirk Berg-Schlosser, Bertrand Badie, and Leonardo A. Morlino, eds., The Sage Handbook of Political Science, Vol. 3, Chapter 71, 1193-1213, (Sage, 2020).  In this deeply informed chapter, Wiseman (Australian National University) makes five inter-related claims.  First, diplomacy’s ideas and practices have a multi-millennial history.  Second, this history is “characterized by perpetual and productive tension between continuity and change,” and an under-estimated capacity for adaptation.  Third, traditional state-based diplomacy is growing in importance.  Fourth, diplomacy, now more “complex” in theory and practice, exhibits bilateral, multilateral, polylateral, and omnilateral dimensions.  Fifth, “Diplomatic Studies” is now a “rich and expanding” sub-field in international relations and the broader global discipline of political science.  Wiseman’s essay is valuable for its clarity, global perspective, insights on theory and practice, and the quality and scope of its literature review.  Scholars and practitioners will find plenty to ponder.  For teachers and students, it is a concise and comprehensive overview of key historical and current issues in the study and practice of diplomacy.

Recent Blogs and Other Items of Interest

Nick Ashton-Hart, “Online Meetings Are Transforming International Relations,”  April 13, 2020, Council on Foreign Relations.

Ilan Berman, “Trump Puts U.S. Public Diplomacy on Notice,”  April 17, 2020, The National Interest.

Corneliu Bjola and Ilan Manor, “Digital Diplomacy in the Time of the Coronavirus Pandemic,”  March 31, 2020, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Geoff Brumfiel, “As the War on Terror Winds Down, the Pentagon Cuts Social Science,”  March 17, 2020, NPR.

“Nicholas Burns: Why Does Good Diplomacy Matter?”  March 23, 2020, Podcast Transcript, Harvard Magazine.

Zselyke Csaky, “Dropping the Democratic Façade,” Nations in Transit 2020, Freedom House.  

“China v. America: Expelling Journalists Is No Way To Fight A Pandemic,”  March 21, 2020, The Economist.

Chris Coons, “America’s Diplomats Deserve Our Respect,”  March 16, 2020, The Hill.

Melissa Cooper, “‘Till Death Do Us Part’ – Relationships for Women in the Foreign Service,”  March 10, 2020, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training.

Timothy Egan, “The World Is Taking Pity On Us, Will American Prestige Ever Recover?”  May 8, 2020, The New York Times 

Erin Gallagher, “William F. Buckley and Argentina’s Dirty War: Burson-Marsteller’s Plan for Improving the Public Image of the Argentine Junta,”  May 4, 2020, Columbia Journalism Review.

Robert Gosende, “Yale Wolf Richmond: A Tribute,”  March 29, 2020; Yale Richmond, March 29, 2020, The Washington Post.   

Robbie Gramer, “Pompeo Emerges as Point Man In War of Words With China,”  May 1, 2020; “Pompeo Criticized for Failure to Communicate on Coronavirus,”  March 17, 2020, Foreign Policy.

Paul Haenle and Lucas Tcheyan, “U.S.-China Cooperation on Coronavirus Hampered By Propaganda War,”March 24, 2020, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Lucie Levine, “Was Modern Art Really a CIA Psy-op?”  April 1, 2020, JSTOR Daily.

Joseph S. Nye, Jr., “Covid–19’s Painful Lesson About Strategy and Power,”  March 26, 2020, War on the Rocks. 

Emily Rauhala, “Expelling U.S. Journalists During Coronavirus Crisis, China Doubles Down on Media War,”  March 18, 2020, The Washington Post.

Melissa Reynolds, “Communication Failures In a Pandemic Can Be Catastrophic,”  March 18, 2020, The Washington Post.

Josh Rogin, “State Department Cables Warned of Safety Issues at Wuhan Lab Studying Bat Coronaviruses,” April 14, 2020; “The U.S.-China Propaganda War Is On Hold, But Not For Long,”  April 2, 2020, The Washington Post. 

Jennifer Schuessler, “Will a Pandemic Shatter the Perception of American Exceptionalism,”  April 25, 2020, The New York Times.

Efe Sevin, Kadir Jun Ayhan, Diana Ingenhoff, “Measuring Country Images: Four Lessons from South Korea,”  March 23, 2020, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Juan Siliezar, “Reporting on the World Between Two World Wars,”  April 13, 2020, The Harvard Gazette.

Nancy Snow, “Japan’s Government Has Failed Coronoavirus Communications Test,”  February 21, 2020, Nikkei Asian Review.

J.Brooks Spector, “Covid-19: Diplomats in Limbo as US State Department Dithers,”March 22, 2020, Daily Maverick.

Jian (Jay) Wang, “Public Diplomacy in the Age of Pandemics,”  March 18, 2020, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Jian (Jay) Wang and Sohaela Amiri, “5 Takeaways on U.S. City Diplomacy During the COVID-19 Crisis,”  April 14, 2020, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Trump / Voice of America / USAGM

• Paul Farhi, “White House Attacks Voice of America, Claiming it Promoted Chinese Propaganda,”April 10, 2020, The Washington Post. 
• Elizabeth Williamson, “White House Mounts Heated Attack on a U.S. Government Media Voice,”April 10, 2020, The New York Times.
• Steve Herman, “Trump Threatens to Force Congress to Adjourn Over Stalled Nominees [includes VOA’s response to Trump criticism],”April 15, 2020, VOANews.
• Matt Armstrong, “Managing the Problem: VOA, Smith-Mundt, and Oversight,”April 15, 2020; “Understanding the White House’s Attack on VOA,”  April 14, 2020, MountainRunner.us.
• Steve Herman, “Trump Threatens to Force Congress to Adjourn Over Stalled Nominees [includes VOA’s response to Trump criticism],”April 15, 2020, VOANews.
• Alan Heil, “White House Criticism of VOA, Unprecedented in Its 78 Year History,”April 16, 2020, Public Diplomacy Council.
• Colbert I. King, “Trump’s Attack on the VOA Reeks of McCarthyism,”April 18, 2020, The Washington Post.
• Helle Dale, “Trump’s Attack on VOA Over COVID-19 Shows Need For New Agency Chief,”April 18, 2020, The Heritage Foundation.
• John Fund, “Why Has the Voice of America Become a Voice of Confusion?”April 19, 2020, National Review.
• Brian Schwartz, “Sen. Bob Menendez Accuses Trump Media Agency Nominee Michael Pack of Possible Self-Dealing, Illegal Activity,”April 20, 2020, CNBC.
• Geoffrey Cowan and James K. Glassman, “Trump’s War on Voice of America Is All About Him, As Usual,”April 22, 2020, Los Angeles Times.
• Ben Schreckinger, “What’s Behind Trump’s Fresh Push To Wrest Control of Voice of America,”April 22, 2020, Politico.
• Thomas Kent, “Congress Needs to Clarify Mission and Oversight of Voice of America,”April 28, 2020, The Hill.
• Paul Farhi, “Pence Staff Threatens Action Against Reporter Who Tweeted About Visit to Clinic Without Surgical Mask,”April 30, 2020, The Washington Post.
• Brian Schwartz, “Senate Foreign Relations Committee Plans To Meet Next Week On Embattled Trump Nominee Pack,”May 7, 2020
• Patsy Widakuswara, “Trump’s VOA Criticism Shows US-Funded News Doesn’t Mean US-Approved,”May 7, 2020, VOANews.com.
• Catie Edmondson and Edward Wong, “With Push From Trump, Senate Moves to Install Contentious Filmmaker at U.S. Media Agency,”May 8, 2020, New York Times. 

Gem From The Past 

Alan L. Heil, Jr., Voice of America: A History,  (Columbia University Press, 2003). Tensions between political leaders and US international broadcasters were present at the creation.  In 1943, a year after the Voice of America went on the air, The New York Times’ Arthur Krock wrote a column arguing that a VOA broadcast had undermined allied negotiations with Italy’s King Victor Emanuel and threatened the lives of American soldiers.  Following a public rebuke of the broadcast by an outraged President Franklin Roosevelt and a showdown at the White House, senior VOA broadcasters in New York, James Warburg, Joseph Barnes, and Edd Johnson, lost their jobs in a major shakeup of the Office of War Information’s Overseas Branch that also included replacement of its director, playwright Robert Sherwood.  Accounts of these and many subsequent episodes at the crossroads of journalism and foreign policy can be found in Alan Heil’s now classic history.  Heil, who had a significant role in achieving VOA’s Charter legislation, wrote a narrative filled with personalities and informed interpretations of salient issues in US international broadcasting.  At a time when broadcasters are facing Trump administration attacks, one more chapter in a long saga, it remains an excellent and timely read.

An archive of Diplomacy’s  Public Dimension: Books, Articles, Websites  (2002-present) is maintained at George Washington University’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication.  Current issues are also posted by the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy,  the Public Diplomacy Council,  and MountainRunner.us.

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