From: wolda002@umn.edu
Date: Mon Sep 14 2009 - 19:42:47 EDT
http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/article.aspx?id=4300
Under the Influence: Getting Strategic Communication Out of the Cave
Andrew Bast | 11 Sep 2009
As adaptive and creative as the United States claims to be, one would think
that, eight years after 9/11, the foreign policy establishment would have
come up with a workable way to communicate its strategic message to the
rest of the world. It hasn't. Call it the $10 billion bungle, because
that's a reliable estimate of how much the U.S. has spent since 9/11 on the
effort.
Bringing the dilemma to the fore is a scathing indictment issued by
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen in the latest
issue of Joint Forces Quarterly. Mullen's broadside goes after the entire
"strategic communication" community, known as "Strat Comm," taking
practitioners to task for doing too much strategy and not enough
communicating of the reality that is American foreign policy.
"Our biggest problem isn't caves," he wrote, referring to the secretive
hideouts where al-Qaida supposedly engineers its public relations messages,
"it's credibility." The problem, according to Mullen, is that the U.S.
isn't backing up its words with actions.
His outrage likely stems, at least in part, from the fact that, in
strategic communications as in many foreign affairs duties of late, the
Department of Defense is picking up the slack for the State Department. At
least in theory, State is responsible for communicating the country's
message to the rest of the world. Yet, when it comes to public diplomacy,
for years there has been a lack of leadership. The Bush administration
tried to remedy the situation by creating the Office of Global
Communications, but the office accomplished little before it was
subsequently shut down. And according to a Government Accountability Office
report, since 2001, the position of undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and
Public Affairs has been empty for about 40 percent of the time.
The new head of the office is Judith McHale. For two decades she worked at,
and then led, Discovery Communications, a "nonfiction media company." Since
taking the public diplomacy job at State, she has made some interesting
points. In June, for instance, she said, "This is not a propaganda contest
-- it is a relationship race. And we have got to get back in the game." She
also talks about bolstering the U.S.'s credibility around the world and
"forging an ethic of common purpose." That almost sounds convincing, were
it not for the enormity of the task before her, which turns such platitudes
into mere window-dressing.
As so often in the institutions of American foreign policy, the heart of
the problem is the patchwork system of varying agencies, departments, and
offices all working at cross purposes to the same end. As the GAO states in
its most recent report on the subject, "A lack of leadership has
contributed to agencies independently defining and coordinating strategic
communications programs." This is where McHale will have to turn platitudes
into action.
Ultimately, however, with his healthy dose of straight-talk, Adm. Mullen
really gets to the heart of the matter: No matter what kind of message you
try to send, if the policy isn't there to back it up, then you might as
well be shouting into a cave -- and an empty one, at that. Referring to the
Great White Fleet that sailed the world in the beginning of the 20th
Century, Mullen says that President Theodore Roosevelt did not need a
public opinion poll to make that decision. Likewise, "We didn't need a
'strat comm' plan to help rebuild Europe." Credibility, he says, is only
earned over time. And words have to be backed up with action.
President Barack Obama's overtures have of course changed the way the rest
of the world views the U.S. But on this somber anniversary, it's important
to remember that America's image problems were not created by any single
president, nor will they be undone by one administration alone. Billions
more dollars will likely be spent in the ongoing effort. And rather than
crafting an appealing message, perhaps the best remedy to the bungle that's
been underway for eight years is to simply work on explaining exactly what
it is that we're doing.
Andrew Bast has reported from four continents for several publications,
including Newsweek and the New York Times. His weekly WPR column, Under the
Influence, appears every Friday.
Photo: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen (Defense
Department photo).