Dr. Walter R. Roberts, Member of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy
Address at Department of State Senior Seminar, Washington, DC, January 29, 1997
Public Diplomacy! Those of you who have worked in our embassies may be thinking: "Public diplomacy, oh yes, that's what USIS does." Those whose career paths have followed domestic routes may be thinking: "That's what our public affairs office does." My mission today is to convince you otherwise. Public Diplomacy is so central to the success or failure of any policy that what we all ought to be saying is: "That's part of what we all do."
A few of you have spent your careers in public diplomacy, and part of my message concerns you, too. We on the Public Diplomacy Advisory Commission believe that a new set of circumstances affords us opportunities to take our message to new audiences, to engage them in new ways and -- very importantly -- to carry back their views in a timely way to American policy makers.
While we on the Commission choose to call this "New Diplomacy," the concept of public diplomacy is hardly new, nor is it uniquely American. Not so long ago, the concept of diplomacy was generally delineated as a relationship between governments. Diplomats presented their government's point of view to representatives of other governments. The idea that a government would try to reach the people of another country, particularly with political messages, was, certainly until the 1930s, anathema in peacetime.
In wartime, of course, when ordinary diplomatic relations are broken, the attempt to reach the hearts and minds of the adversary goes far back in history. Many instances can be cited in which the messages of one warring party had decisive influence on the adversary's will to fight.
The tabu of trying to reach the people of another country in peacetime began to erode at the turn of the last century when France, in particular, through cultural messages, attempted to create a positive image abroad for the eventual purpose of enhancing foreign policy objectives.
Indeed, for years the cultural directorate in the French foreign office has been the largest and in many respects one of the most influential sections of the Quai d'Orsay. The French have for a long time believed that there is a need to present France to the world; that such activity will enhance French prestige and power, thereby facilitating accomplishment of the more specific and immediate purposes of French foreign policy; and that France's cultural accomplishments have given her a special world eminence and role -- la Mission civilisatrice.
Two events led eventually to the changed nature of diplomacy: the invention of radio and the Bolshevik revolution. When Marconi made it possible for one government to reach the people of another country directly without going through customs and immigration control so that its messages entered the living rooms of homes abroad, a new era had arrived. And when the Soviet government used radio to send political messages in peacetime to citizens of foreign countries, urging them to rise against their own governments, the old concept of diplomacy received a major jolt.
At first, democracies rejected the idea of reaching the people of another country with political messages in peacetime, but slowly it dawned on them that this field could not be left entirely to authoritarian countries, particularly when Nazi Germany not only copied the Soviets but greatly improved their methods. Even before World War II, European democracies began to transmit governmental messages to other peoples, mainly through shortwave broadcasts.
The United States, the leader in public relations techniques, did not follow suit. Not until 1938 did the American government create a small cultural section in the State Department solely to counter Nazi propaganda in Latin America. And not until 1942, after America had entered the war, was the Voice of America created.
After the conclusion of World War II, during which, thanks to new strides of the information revolution, information programs thrived, governments realized that a return to traditional diplomacy was no longer feasible. What had started for these purposes with Marconi had advanced considerably. The idea of reaching the minds of people abroad appeared to be no longer out of bounds in peacetime. Various governments around the world adopted different organizational arrangements to marry traditional diplomacy with public diplomacy. In some cases, the marriage was a close one, in others a more distant relationship existed.
In the past fifty years, aggressive and ingenious employment of public diplomacy achieved a number of outstanding successes. Let me mention two:
The collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. I know that two paramount theories have been advanced. Just prior to the 1992 presidential election, George Kennan wrote an op-ed piece for The New York Times which had the following headline: "The GOP Won the Cold War - Ridiculous." He said that the collapse was due to internal factors and not, as some claimed, because of external military, political and economic pressures. My answer is simple: both theories have great merit but the decisive factor was the information revolution. And my best witness is Mikhail Gorbachev. In a remarkable but surprisingly underreported speech before the United Nations in 1988, Gorbachev said that, due to the communications revolution, "the preservation of any kind of closed society is hardly possible." He knew that the disparity between the information-rich Western media and the information-starved Soviet media exerted such pressure on the Soviet Union for such a long time and with such intensity that all efforts to keep information out collapsed in the end.
Let me pause here to suggest that President Clinton grasped this point yesterday in his press conference comments on China. Speaking to the changes taking place within China, he said:
"They are going through some significant changes themselves . . . economic and political changes. And I believe that the impulses of the society and the nature of the economic change will work together along with the availability of information from the outside world to increase the spirit of liberty over time. I don't think there is any way that anyone who disagrees with that in China can hold [these changes] back . . . just as, eventually, the Berlin Wall fell. I just think it is inevitable."
Austria, as another example of success, undertook after the Second World War a sophisticated campaign to minimize the then-prevalent impression in the allied world that the Austrians, having welcomed Hitler in 1938, had participated actively in fighting the allies, and had played a significant role in the persecution of Jews. Through cultural attractions -- the Vienna Opera, Vienna Boys Choir, Lippizaner horses -- Austria was eminently successful in changing that overall impression. Indeed, not so many years ago, I sat at a dinner in Vienna next to a Polish diplomat who, upon my question of whether he liked being stationed in Austria, answered in the negative. When I asked him why he felt that way, he pointed to Austria's subtle propaganda campaign, which he said made the world believe that Hitler was a German and Beethoven an Austrian.
We still are in the habit of compartmentalizing America's relations with other governments and America's relations with the people those governments represent. In today's world, those distinctions no longer make sense. Public diplomacy in the information age and in the age of global issues is a far cry from modest "public information campaigns" of the past. The tools at our disposal are far more powerful and the skills needed to wield them well are more costly to attain. We must make a transition from traditional thinking about public diplomacy to what the Advisory Commission has dubbed "New Diplomacy." This is about process, not policy. The fact is, the conduct of America's foreign affairs has not changed nearly enough in the Information Age.
Three overriding factors influenced the Commission's thinking in the preparation of its report: (1) the growing power of foreign publics; (2) the transforming changes of the information revolution; and (3) America's edge in utilizing new technologies and our experience with democracy and free markets.
Consider these challenges to traditional diplomacy:
- The spread of democracy means officials are increasingly responsible to
the electorate. Public opinion counts. The foreign minister you cultivate
today may be leading the opposition tomorrow. The support American diplomats
gain for U.S. foreign policies in government ministries won't count for much
if people in the streets are demonstrating against such policies.
- Non-governmental organizations are proliferating and their influence is
growing. The current issue of Foreign Affairs carries an article entitled
"The Age of Nonstate Actors" by Jessica Matthews. She notes the trend of NGOs
to supplant services once considered the exclusive realm of government. Among
other examples, she cites their extraordinarily successful effort to affect
the outcome of negotiations at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
- Regional and/or global issues transcend borders, making nation states less
relevant. How can today's governments protect their citizens from drugs, terrorism,
uncontrolled migration and environmental disasters? All these evils may come
from "outside" a well-organized state, yet citizens may find it more effective
to join an international organization such as Greenpeace than to write a letter
to a parliamentarian.
- The demands of trade and financial markets have forced states -- if they
wish to compete effectively -- to cede sovereignty to international norms
and regulations. Nowhere is this more evident than in Europe. Even countries
outside of the European Union have been forced to change longstanding economic
and trade practices simply because of the enormous influence wielded by the
EU. No doubt similar examples can be found in Asia, Latin America and elsewhere.
- Technology provides near-instantaneous communication in many parts of the world; television has become commonplace. But most important of all: through the Internet and related digital technologies ordinary citizens have the power to communicate with a global audience. Neil Rudenstine, President of Harvard University, believes the Internet is not just another innovation. There are, he says, "certain events along a continuum that represent much more than another simple step in a natural gradual progression. There are moments of real transformation, and the rapid emergence of the Internet is one of them."
- Notice the number of foreign ambassadors posted to Washington who eagerly
seek slots on CNN, Nightline, or the Newshour with Jim Lehrer. They know
such an opportunity could matter more than a routine appointment at the
State Department, because the former gives them a chance to take their case
directly to the American people.
- Dissidents and terrorists share space on the World Wide Web. You can
find Burmese supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi; the Mexican Zapatista home
page and chat rooms run by the Tupac Amaru. When Serbian President Slobodan
Milosevic banned Serbia's only independent radio station, it quickly raised
an international profile on the Internet complete with Real Audio. Our friends
-- and our foes -- have already found their place on the Internet, making
their case to the widest possible audience.
- The framework and dimensions of our relations with other countries have changed. The Embassy is no longer the only or even the most important game in town. Even without the current downsizing, its resources and capabilities are dwarfed by American overseas businesses, by large numbers of NGOs, and even by the impact of pop culture.
- Transform the State Department's thinking;
- Increase public opinion polling and research studies;
- Equip all American embassies with the Internet and related technologies;
- Provide adequate funding for our overseas presence.
- The Advisory Commission recommends that we "transform the State Department's thinking and priorities so that it can deal as effectively with foreign publics as with foreign governments."
- The Commission recommends that USIA increase polling and research studies; we also recommend that USIA give advice and information garnered from these studies on foreign publics to the NSC and other policy planning groups.
- The Commission would like to see all American embassies equipped with Internet access, digital video technology and E-mail.
- The Commission is calling for adequate funding for all foreign affairs agencies.
These facts add up to a new context in which diplomacy is practiced. We see signs of diplomats -- ours and others -- trying to adapt to this new world every day:
These changes and challenges beg the question: how do we go from traditional diplomacy to new diplomacy? Allow me to elaborate on a few of the Commission's recommendations so you may see the rationale behind the Commission's thinking. The four recommendations I find most important -- and most challenging -- are:
By this we mean that public diplomacy is no longer the exclusive provenance of the USIS field officer. The Foreign Service as a whole must recruit officers who have qualities that will make them as effective with foreign publics as with foreign governments. We must offer better training for those officers in media work, technology and language. There should be dedicated space in the evaluation process to assess officers' public diplomacy skills.
In the embassy of the future, in which more officers will engage publics as well as officials, language will be more important than ever. It is tempting in this time of austerity to cut training or shorten it, offer it to fewer officers, or cut incentives for hard languages. This is a short term fix that will create long term deficiencies.
What's good for the corps is good for the top brass. The President should appoint ambassadors who have good media and language skills. Those who don't have them should be offered extensive training to bring them up to speed before going overseas. The Commission has found that too many ambassadors would prefer to ignore the media. Too often, their media skills repertoire consists of "no comment." Each time these ambassadors turn down an interview they miss an invaluable opportunity to take America's case to a larger audience.
Our rationale: policy makers have not focused sufficiently on the importance of local public opinion. Especially in countries hostile to the U.S., it is important to understand the nature of the opposition: this is the first step in overcoming it. Even modest campaigns for public office place a high premium on public opinion polling and focus group work -- not to see who's in the lead but to learn what the public thinks about the salient issues. The purpose is not to let opinions drive policies or interests, but to shape effective policies and information strategies in pursuit of our interests.
For years political reporting has been seen as the sine qua non of an Embassy's activities. Often this is based on a conversation with officials encountered at diplomatic receptions or other corridor conversations. Now we have the capacity to supplement that reporting with a wider sense of what foreign publics think. Reporting officers should write with an eye to conveying timely information on local public attitudes to policy makers -- during the policy making process.
Our rationale: why should a professional diplomatic corps have less than what is considered standard equipment for the average American university student? Many foreign commercial officers are in the embarrassing position of trying to help American businesses gain entree into foreign markets with equipment that is a laughing stock for the businesses they are trying to help. We believe in giving professionals the tools they need to do the job. We want all officers to have desk-top access to the Internet. Every embassy ought to have a home page. E-Mail ought to make it possible to reach not only Washington but colleagues from other agencies in the same embassy, and of course the local audience. The use of digital video conferencing ought to be expanded.
These points are so fundamental it is hard to imagine any serious opposition. Every response we have received from the field has applauded this recommendation. Yet the fact is, the State Department has been slow to implement new technology. Intra-agency communication is still difficult and costly. The thinking has been to sacrifice technological advances in favor of maintaining security. This is a poor trade off. Keeping secrets has nothing to do with communicating with foreign publics.
Our rationale: America's overseas presence has been cut dangerously. Every time we close a post we close a door on America's interests. We are not of the school that believes field officers can be replaced with fax machines. On the contrary, we think no amount of technology can ever substitute for personal contact. We are well aware that not all regions of the world are ready for a digital future and not all countries have open societies. Embassies have always adapted Washington formulas to meet unique local conditions. We would expect them to adapt our recommendations to fit their circumstances.
In a report as short as ours, we were forced to generalize. You may all be able to find specific countries which are exceptions to the rule, but can you really dispute the undeniable global trend that digital and democratic societies are on the rise and that we must meet them on their own terms? Reality suggests there will not be large increases in new funding. Reality and credibility on the Hill also suggest we need to specify ways in which resources should be apportioned differently in this rapidly changing world. For example, we think there are too many VOA language services. We also think we need to set priorities, achieve cost-efficiencies, and do a better job of evaluating U.S. funded exchange programs.
This is a key moment for American diplomacy. A new foreign policy team is in place. Budget hearings will soon be underway. Many key ambassadorships are vacant -- or soon will be. The President, the Secretary of State and other cabinet members, the Director of USIA, and the Congress have a chance to revise the way we carry out America's foreign policy. The Commission is trying to reach as many leaders and diplomats as possible to ensure this happens.
It is being assisted in this endeavor by The Public Diplomacy Foundation, a non-governmental organization, whose mission is to acquaint the American people with the importance of public diplomacy in the conduct of our foreign policy.
One of the most satisfying parts of being a Commissioner is the opportunity to hear from field officers. I value your opinions highly and welcome the chance to hear from you on these or other issues relating to public diplomacy.
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