By: Jeffrey Gedmin & Craig Kennedy. America’s public diplomacy stinks.
Its time to learn some lessons from the Cold War.
There were calls for an end to "U.S. warmongering." Washington had been
overtaken by "a small clique of hate-mongers", claimed one speaker.
American unilateralism was denounced. The United States itself had turned
into "a state of holy terror", argued another speaker. The current
administration was bent on a new "world war", contended still another.
No, these are not statements from a recent anti-war, anti-Bush rally. They
are remarks given at a 1949 conference, convened to condemn U.S. policies
toward the Soviet Union. Prominent literary and artistic figures from the
United States and Europe, including Aaron Copland, Norman Mailer and
Dimitri Shostakovich, played an active role. So when a senior French
minister today calls the American President a "serial killer", or when a
counterpart in Germany compares the U.S. leader to Adolph Hitler, it may be
useful to remember that such strident expressions of anti-Americanism are
hardly new.
The United States today has a public diplomacy crisis-not just in the
Islamic world, but in the heart of Europe. America's traditional
allies-those who stood with it in the fight against communism-are turning
against the United States in droves, and little is being done to stop or
even slow this anti-American stampede. Instead of stumbling about trying to
explain America to the world, the United States needs a serious campaign to
open European minds to our positions. And, in order to determine what this
campaign should entail, it may be useful to draw lessons from history.
After World War II, U.S. officials were forced to think hard and creatively
about how to respond to a vigorous Soviet-sponsored peace offensive. The
American challenge was to win hearts and minds in Europe. The result was,
among other things, the Congress for Cultural Freedom, counter-conferences
over the next two decades, the political opinion magazine Encounter and
crucial alliances with leading intellectuals like Melvin Lasky and Sidney
Hook. The Ford Foundation and other charitable organizations were enlisted
in a concerted effort to portray American culture in a fair and positive
light. While it is true that some intellectuals abandoned their communist
sympathies over time, they did not shed their cultural anti-Americanism.
One Ford Foundation official noted in 1959 that Europeans "spent a lot of
time worrying and stewing and griping about American domination, about the
inferiority of our values and so on." This campaign, now often maligned
incorrectly as a "CIA front", did not win over every European intellectual.
It did, however, nurture a nucleus of thinkers and activists who were open
to American ideas and willing to engage in serious discourse on the major
issues of the day.
once again. In the early-1980s, one poll showed that half of West Germany's
population was eager for more independence from the United States, and
nearly two-thirds opposed the stationing of new missiles on German soil. As
the peace movement gathered steam across Western Europe, Kenneth L. Adelman
lamented in a 1981 issue of Foreign Affairs that "a penny wise and pound
foolish" strategy of public diplomacy had resulted in "America's
disengagement" from its closest allies. Josef Joffe, writing that same year
in those same pages, argued that "the few premises still shared by
Europeans and Americans are dwarfed by the many disputes where they clash
not only over tactics but over Weltanschauung." Perhaps not coincidentally,
the successful public diplomacy of the 1950s and 1960s was abandoned in
favor of softer, less controversial approaches like the Fulbright program.
This was one of the more foolish errors of our time.
Some Americans and many Europeans would like to explain the rise of
European anti-Americanism today simply as personal loathing of George W.
Bush. But the current round of problems in U.S.-European relations did not
begin with Iraq. French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine was complaining
about the American "hyperpower" in 1997. Capital punishment, it was alleged
in the 1990s, represented evidence of America's cultural inferiority, just
as the Clinton Administration's rejection of the anti-landmine treaty was
proof of America's unilateral tendencies and disdain for international
agreements. Though the United States had a kinder, gentler secretary of
defense in the 1990s, the German weekly Der Spiegel complained nonetheless:
"Americans are acting, in the absence of limits put on them by anybody or
anything, as if they own a blank check in their 'McWorld.'"
Recognizing that the United States was losing public support in Europe and
elsewhere, Clinton, in the final year of his presidency, established the
International Public Information Group. Part of its mission was "to address
misinformation and incitement" about the United States and its foreign
policy objectives. Today, the Bush Administration has followed suit,
establishing a White House Office of Global Communications. "I'm amazed
that there is such a misunderstanding of what our country is about", the
President himself has remarked. "We've got to do a better job of making our
case."
than ever. America and Europe have already grown apart in some ways, quite
naturally. The September 11 attacks transformed the foreign policy debate
in the United States and generated healthy arguments about America's global
priorities, the relevance of Europe and the purpose of the Atlantic
Alliance. For our west European allies, the end of the Cold War meant the
end of Cold War dependence. "Old Europe" has sought to renegotiate its
relationship with the United States ever since the Berlin Wall fell 14
years ago. It is important to think creatively about how the United States
should engage Europe in the post-Cold War, post-9/11 world.
To address the fundamental source of this problem, both sides must
recognize that the argument contained in Robert Kagan's Policy Review
essay, "Power and Weakness", is right. In important respects, America and
Europe have parted ways. There are serious differences indeed, not only in
tactics but Weltanschauung. In a recent survey of American and European
public opinion, 79 percent of Europeans and 88 percent of Americans said
that they believe major transatlantic cultural and social differences
exist. On the necessity of war to deal with serious international problems,
less than 50 percent of Europeans (as opposed to 88 percent of Americans)
believed military force could be a means for achieving justice.
But there is some silver lining within this dark cloud of public antagonism
toward the Unites States and its policies. Europe remains an important
strategic partner of the United States, as evidenced by the twelve European
countries that supported America in the Iraq War. Great Britain retains its
special relationship with the United States, and NATO has found a credible
role in Afghanistan. Attorney General John Ashcroft and German Interior
Minister Otto Schily have become close partners in crafting a common
domestic counter-terrorism plan. European Union policy has shown signs of
convergence with the United States on the containment of Iran's nuclear
program. In promoting global free trade, moreover, despite fierce
competition, there is still far more that unites America and the European
Union than divides them.
anti-Americanism in Europe? Will a future British or Spanish or Danish
prime minister be willing to put his political life on the line if the
United States does not make at least a modest effort to dampen public
antipathy to American policy? Though winning hearts and minds in the Muslim
world is undoubtedly necessary, remaining indifferent to those of our
European allies is a terrible risk to run. After all, psychology is just as
important as politics and ideology in understanding the current European
milieu. Thomas Friedman has argued publicly that, in the context of the
Muslim world, a feeling of humiliation is perhaps the most underrated
factor in foreign policy. If this is so, then envy and resentment,
especially in the case of our European partners, surely can be counted a
close second.
Post-Cold War Europe has its ambitions. It yearns to be an equal partner to
the United States while, at the same time, it knows its capabilities,
especially in the military realm, continue to lag far behind. It is
incumbent upon Europeans to address this imbalance of power by building
themselves up and not tearing America down. Yet the United States must also
do its part to make the disparity in capabilities more palatable by
building a base of support for active engagement with America. Candidate
George W. Bush once spoke of the need for a "humble" approach to the world.
More than a hundred years after Teddy Roosevelt coined the phrase,
Americans still have much to learn about speaking softly and carrying a big
stick.
Revitalizing Public Diplomacy
The United States should adopt four tactics to advance its strategy of
stemming the loss of public support among Europe's elites and common
citizenry. First, senior officials must accept that public diplomacy is an
integral part of U.S. foreign policy. There should be a clear understanding
of the need to address legitimate European concerns. The signal that such a
campaign for public opinion is crucial must originate with the president.
engage in serious debate with America's critics abroad. This nation's
allies complain that top U.S. officials were conspicuously absent in major
capitals during critical moments of the Iraq debate. In March 2003, the
British magazine, the New Statesman, observed with disappointment that
Secretary of State Colin Powell "rarely ventures out of the country." In
addition to increased travel among administration principals, the U.S.
government must ensure that it has ambassadors in key countries who are
willing and able to participate actively in local debates over U.S. foreign
policy. Delivering canned speeches and hosting ceremonial events are not
enough; America's ambassadors must have the rhetorical skills to debate
their nation's critics in all international public fora, including
television.
Third, adequate financial resources must be made available. Adelman noted
this problem in 1981: "Since 1954", he wrote, "the number of American
information officers in Western Europe, individuals whose task it was to
explain U.S. policies there, had declined by 80 percent." Proponents of
this draw-down argued that sufficient information about the United States
was already available through private sources and independent media (the
same arguments made nearly two decades later when the State Department
finally subsumed the U.S. Information Agency in 1999). Such arguments fail
to convince. In 1994, Walter Laqueur wrote in Foreign Affairs that a single
company like Philip Morris spent more on advertising in one year-$2
billion-"than the combined budgets of all U.S. agencies, official and
semiofficial, engaged in public diplomacy." Since then, resources have
further dwindled, as the need for public diplomacy has sharply increased.
Finally, the United States needs a renewed debate on what form effective
public diplomacy should take. Unlike the marketing campaigns of Philip
Morris, the primary goal of U.S. public diplomacy cannot be merely "to
sell" the product of American foreign policy; it must offer explanations
of, and facilitate open debate about, the ideas underpinning those
policies. This kind of approach represents the United States at its best
and gives Americans the best chance to persuade others of a particular
policy's merits.
of Madison Avenue advertising executive Charlotte Beers immediately
following the September 11 attacks to serve as the Bush Administration's
top official for public diplomacy. Powell defended her appointment at the
time by saying, "There is nothing wrong with getting someone who knows how
to sell something. We are selling a product. We need someone who can
re-brand American foreign policy, re-brand diplomacy." Besides, he added,
"she got me to buy Uncle Ben's rice." By the time Ms. Beers resigned last
year, this slick new style of marketing America had made little headway
with U.S. allies and ambivalent Arabs.
Traditional diplomacy can only go so far. The United States must bring its
case to European publics more effectively, both to advance their
understanding of U.S. policies and to support those European political
leaders and intellectuals who are willing to take the increasingly
unpopular stand of backing America. In each of the ten countries that
supported the U.S. position on Iraq, public opinion was mostly unified and
strongly opposed to the U.S.-led intervention. It may be that more
effective public diplomacy, increased shuttle visits by top officials and
clearer, more cogent explanations of U.S. positions could at least mitigate
the hostility that erupted recently against the United States. In the case
of Iraq, a senior White House official conceded to one of us, "It was the
American President versus Saddam Hussein, and the Iraqi dictator won in the
court of world opinion."
This was not for lack of ammunition on the American side. The United States
has undertaken many "Europe-friendly" initiatives, and communicating them
during this same period would surely have helped win the struggle for
European public opinion. President Bush conferred with the Europeans on
Bosnia and Kosovo during his first year in office and refrained from
withdrawing American troops. He followed Europe's advice again with regards
to Russia, pursuing greater partnership and constructive dialogue with
President Vladimir Putin. In addition, Bush has launched a major initiative
to combat aids in Africa. He has called for a major increase in the foreign
aid budget. He has worked assiduously to reach out to America's Muslim
community, repeatedly declaring that the war on terror is not a conflict
with Islam itself. The President has paid his country's UN arrears,
announced the United States would rejoin UNESCO, tackled Afghanistan's
problems with a multilateral coalition of ninety nations and sought, at
least initially, to resolve the problem of Iraq at the UN Security Council.
That little of this news has penetrated European debates was sorely evident
when the Italian newspaper La Repubblica described President Bush as
"Texas's 'eternal youngster'", arguing that he sees the world as "his
family ranch, full of mustangs to tame with America's lasso."
to knock down slander of the United States in a comprehensive and timely
fashion. Misled by their own media and mischievous politicians, many
Europeans still believe Americans have tortured prisoners at the Guantanamo
Bay facility. European outrage exploded after the Pentagon mistakenly
released a photo showing prisoners shackled and blindfolded-reasonable
precautions taken while the detainees were being transported. Everyone
seemed to hear voices like those of Spain's El Mundo, which decried
Guantanamo as reminiscent "of the torture centers in Eastern Europe during
the Cold War." No one seemed to hear the voices of Red Cross workers and
French and British representatives who had visited the detainees and found
no evidence of mistreatment at all, as Joshua Muravchik noted in the
December 2002 issue of The American Enterprise.
Even in influential European circles, considerable misinformation persists
about America and the looting of the Iraqi National Museum, about alleged
U.S. atrocities in Afghanistan and about America's role in Saddam Hussein's
weapons of mass destruction program. When a Vanity Fair reporter
mischaracterized an interview conducted with Deputy Secretary of Defense
Paul Wolfowitz in May 2003, headlines around the world proclaimed that a
top U.S. official had finally admitted the truth: the intervention in Iraq
was really about American greed for oil. It should be the job of American
public diplomacy to challenge such shoddy journalism before popular opinion
on a given issue is allowed to solidify.
Traditional diplomacy is not quick and deft enough to address these
challenges, Foreign Service Officers frequently lack the necessary skills
for such tasks, and institutional constraints often inhibit "rapid
reaction." On a range of issues-such as the need for pre-emption, the
development of international law, the prospect of reforming the UN Security
Council and the idea of what precisely constitutes an "imminent" threat in
the post-9/11 world-a substantive transatlantic debate is desperately
needed and long overdue. These sorts of challenges require serious
intellectual combatants. This means a critical mass of writers, thinkers
and diplomats who can engage editorial boards, join the television
talk-show circuits, participate in Internet chat-rooms, operate
websites-not to mention debate Europe's scholars, business leaders and
university students alike. Above all, it means developing a broader,
nonpartisan network of like-minded individuals on both sides of the
Atlantic who are dedicated to the cause of keeping the idea of the West and
its ever expanding community of liberal democracies alive. Though times
have changed, and the context may be different, institutions like the
Congress of Cultural Freedom once worked. Perhaps it is time to consider
what additional lessons history can offer.
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JOINT BALTIC AMERICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE, INC.
Representing:
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American Latvian Association, Inc.
Lithuanian American Council, Inc.
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