Did Kristin Lord Miss the Point?
December 2nd, 2008 by Tariq
Robert Satloff at MESH takes issue with Kristin Lord’s recommendations for U.S. public diplomacy in the 21st century. He says, “In the post-9/11 era, the purpose of public diplomacy is not some amorphous desire to have America better understood or even the more pointed objective of winning the support of international public opinion for U.S. foreign policy…Today, that mission is how to identify, nurture and support mainstream Muslims in the ideological and political contest against radical Islamism….there is none of this in the Brookings report…”
POMED’s summary notes of the event in question can be found here.
Posted in Diplomacy, US foreign policy |
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December 2nd, 2008 at 2:38 pm
The two objectives cannot be separated. If we “have America better understood” and “win the support of international public opinion for U.S. foreign policy”, then that necessarily emboldens moderates at the expense of radical Islamism. Certainly if we achieve the former (no small task) it addresses the latter.
December 4th, 2008 at 11:55 am
I agree with Jason’s comments above. Being understood and empowering moderates are not mutually exclusive. People need to be able to understand who we are and what we believe in, especially with regards to religion, in order to be able to work with us.
We need to be able to do it all and the boring business of how we structure our PD is part of improving how we achieve our goals. Part of the value of what Kristin is proposing is that the new entity would be able to operate somewhat independent of the annual government appropriations process. It would be able to focus on more long-term projects than the State Department can.
Also, the Middle East is not the only part of the world where America has an “image problem”. Russia is a major PD challenge and the Latin American region has also been sorely neglected. We need to be careful to structure our PD so that it can deal effectively with all current and future challenges and not make it Middle East centric.