A curated selection of public diplomacy-relevant news from a global cross-section of English-language media outlets, including independent, corporate-owned, and state-sponsored sources. The stories featured don't necessarily represent CPD's views nor have they been verified by CPD.
Who Won The Ideology Wars?
There has been a struggle inside Western democracies for arguably two centuries now, certainly intensifying in the nineteenth century with the rise of industrialization, and then again in the mid-twentieth century with battles over the welfare state, and yet again in our time with America's culture wars.
Why almost all Pakistanis hate U.S. policies?
In my "one-on-one" recent meeting with Ms. McHale, the Obama Administration's new Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, in Islamabad, I did not say that "we hate you" - rather went on to the extent of telling her that "you" are callous, inhuman and cruel, and that "you" have no respect for human lives.
India’s ‘Soft’ Power?
Women stormed the Indian Foreign Service bastion six decades ago, but it’s only in the last four years that large numbers of them have signed up. Twenty-four of the 84 IFS officers recruited between 2005 and 2008 were women, ie 29% of the intake.
US Public Diplomacy: An Idiotic Fetish
The most recent example of that peculiarly American vortex where ignorance converges with pedantic arrogance and the crass distortions of special interest lobby groups was the recent creation of a bizarre new post in the US Department of State, the “office of the special representative to Muslim communities.”
Top Ten Bloggables
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs just released a blunt three page article challenging the military's new conventional wisdom on strategic communications. His bottom line -- that words matter less than deeds -- is no different from the top-line recommendations of dozens of reports on public diplomacy over the last few years.
PD101
The State Department’s public diplomacy performance is worth monitoring in particular because the Department has, under Hillary Clinton, once again set out goals for itself to become more involved in interacting with foreign publics, not just governments.
Obama Administration Seeks “Emergency Control” of the Internet
The military’s newly-launched U.S. Cyber Command is a "subordinate unified command" overseen by STRATCOM. Would "message force multipliers" embedded in the media or Pentagon public diplomacy specialists carrying out psychological operations here in the heimat, become the sole conduit for critical news and information during said “national emergency”?
Strategic Communications and the Graveyard of Empires
There seems to be yet another bureaucratic battle brewing in Washington. On one side of the ring, we have a high ranking State Department official, Richard Holbrooke, Special Representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan; on the other, an admiral, Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The conflict is over "strategic communications" in Afghanistan and the so-called "Af-Pak" region.
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