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US PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AND INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING DURING DESERT SHIELD AND DESERT STORM, 1990-91
JAN 31, 2006 - 2:08PM PDT
Posted by Nicholas J. Cull
Via http://tbsjournal.com/Cull.html

This Peer-Reviewed article by Nicholas J. Cull, professor of Public Diplomacy and director of the Master’s in Public Diplomacy in the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, was originally published in the Spring 2006 TBS Journal. Abstract This article reviews the performance of the United States Information Agency (USIA) during the Gulf Crisis and War of 1990-91. It pays particular attention to the role of USIA as a major participant in the Inter Agency Working Group on Public Diplomacy, to Voice of America broadcasting and USIA's counter disinformation work. In its conclusion, the article contrasts the effective US use of public diplomacy during this period with the problems encountered following 9/11 drawing attention to the amalgamation of USIA into the State Department in 1999 and the downgrading of public diplomacy which accompanied it. Introduction Since the terrorist attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001 much hot air has been vented and angry ink spilled on the subject of the failings of American public diplomacy.(1) Reports routinely note that the United States was not always so ill-equipped to address public opinion around the world. From 1953 to 1999 the US benefited from the presence of an independent United States Information Agency charged with the task of conducting international advocacy, broadcasting and information activities and coordinating the US government’s exchange programs. This case study will look at how USIA and its key charge Voice of America operated during the Gulf crisis and war of 1990 and 1991 and in so doing show a little of what was lost when the Clinton administration, under pressure from Republicans in the Senate, folded the agency into the unsympathetic arms of the State Department in 1999. US policymaking during the Gulf Crisis and War—Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm—was dominated by media considerations. Washington displayed a marked eagerness to apply the supposed lessons of Vietnam. This time the US presence would firmly be associated with an international coalition, supported by multiple UN resolutions, and strictly limited in its scope. US planners assumed that sustained American losses would undercut domestic support for the war and hence planned a largely aerial campaign with a brief ground war at its end. The war saw intense media management, as the US government established a system of pools to coral foreign and domestic journalists covering the fighting and deployed psychological warfare against their enemy. One of the enduring images of the Gulf War would be the dusty columns of Iraqi troops surrendering while clutching air-dropped leaflets and safe conduct passes. It is not remembered as an especially heroic episode in the history of the domestic US media; rather, coverage seemed superficial and dominated by an uncritical patriotic agenda. From the US military point of view, this was a triumph.(2) Unlike the case of Vietnam, theatre media and psychological operations for Desert Shield and Desert Storm were not the task of the United States Information Agency, but rested with the Defence Department. USIA, however, played a…... FULL TEXT
 
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