Tips for Success: U.S. Public Diplomacy for the 21st Century

The 21^st century has changed the game of public diplomacy by injecting more players and new tools. During the first twelve years of the new century, the U.S. has learned several lessons about how to succeed in public diplomacy with these new rules. Alec Ross presents one of the lessons – the lesson that technology is a neutral tool. Developments in the Middle East during and after the Arab Spring highlighted that technologies can be used to enforce existing ideologies. They are just as potent for protesters as for authoritarian governments. A second lesson is that public information is global information. The traditional separation between U.S. public diplomacy and public affairs is impractical and illogical.

Knowing all of this, U.S. public diplomacy faces a host of challenges, ranging from organizational issues to the rise of citizen diplomacy. A condensed list might look like this, with each item building on the previous:

• National strategy
• Organizational issues
• More stakeholders

The first challenge is the lack of a national strategy for public diplomacy. Many observers have commented on the Obama administration’s philosophy of engagement. As Bruce Gregory notes, it is not entirely clear what engagement should mean. He cautions that it has many opportunities to fail, for instance if engagement reinforces negative stereotypes.

The second challenge includes the organizational issues inherent in how the U.S. conceptualizes public diplomacy. Nakamura and Weed note that the hierarchy of public diplomacy officials implies a lack of importance. They write that making the PD leader an undersecretary reporting to the Secretary of State makes public diplomacy seem inferior to traditional diplomacy. Another related issue is the ambiguous role of other agencies such as the Department of Defense and USAID. Without a national strategy to guide coordination, messages might be mixed and/or conflicting.

Finally, the third overarching challenge is the influx of public diplomacy stakeholders. The traditional diplomats are no longer the only actors. Aside from civil society groups and the private sector, average citizens are empowered by their technologies. The current administration embraces people-to-people diplomacy. As Gregory points out, citizen diplomacy might not always accomplish the government’s goals. American citizens’ opinions could likely contradict U.S. foreign policies. On a related note, U.S. public diplomacy practitioners have not yet grasped the nuances of networks. Ross calls networks a “defining feature in the new global power structure.” Not understanding the structure and dynamics of networks will be very damaging to U.S. public diplomacy.  

To resolve these problems, Gregory asserts that the United States needs to transform the way it does public diplomacy. This transformation includes changing the mindset of always needing to be in control. U.S. public diplomacy needs to insert itself into the global networks of citizens and civil society. Top-down or one-way communication is no longer an option.

One of Gregory’s main points is absolutely on target. The U.S. needs to devote more resources to evaluating its efforts. The difficulty of measuring success is a problem for any state. A different approach could be spend more time evaluating programs before they are implemented. Questions to ask include: Which agency is best equipped to address this need? How can other state agencies and public diplomacy actors complement their efforts?

Another solution is to be prepared for international developments. Ross says that public diplomacy practitioners must respond to the disruptions in international relations caused by technology. The U.S. should take this notion a step further by preempting the disruptions. Gerald Howarth, Britain’s Minister for International Security Strategy, spoke yesterday at CSIS. His speech centered on defense, but the major points can easily be applied to public diplomacy. Howarth spoke of “meeting challenges upstream.” What he meant is that so many world events come as a surprise. If the U.S. were to devote more resources to research, in Washington and abroad, there would be greater potential to anticipate. In addition, focusing so much attention on one region at the expense of others is a flawed concept. After the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. turned its attention to an area of the world that it had previously ignored. Having its pulse on every region of the world could let the U.S. be proactive rather than reactive.