The U.S. Foreign Offices

We often get reminders that a new Administration in Washington means new leadership at U.S. Embassies overseas. Within a year of taking office, an incoming President generally will have nominated (and the Senate approved) new Ambassadors for all major overseas postings. In many foreign government establishments, these appointments are highly anticipated events, more closely watched than any foreign envoy’s arrival on Washington’s Embassy Row. Read More

The Widening Public Diplomacy Chasm

Permit me, if you please, to put on my hat as a former White House staffer and USIA manager to tell you what I read into Judith McHale’s becoming the next Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy. Ms. McHale brings with her an impressive record as former president of Discovery Communications, and it is true as has been noted that she has no public diplomacy experience. But neither did many of the now-storied USIA directors of yore, who are recalled fondly. Read More

Inflaming Public Opinion

Further evidence that President Obama is prepared to take some political heat at home in order to improve America’s standing abroad comes in the form of his decision on torture photos. Read More

The Big Speech

Barack Obama soon will make his second overseas trip as President, visiting Egypt, Germany and France. Although Obama differs from his predecessors in many respects, some things are true of any Presidential visit to a foreign country. The people at the White House who plan the trip want to set a theme, they want a memorable speech or public event, and they want good images. There is no reason for Obama’s media advisers to think any differently. Or is there? Read More

PD as Global Therapy: Can the Family of Nations Get Along?

The nascent Obama era has captured the imagination of people everywhere who believe that the foundational aspects of international relations involve human, not economic, interests, and that those interests involve healthy dialogue. That has led to a pushback from those who suspect that Obama is, well, a wimp. Read More

Lugar to the Rescue: Senate Committee Backs ‘Science Envoy’ Plan

Ralph Waldo Emerson famously lamented "How much of human life is lost in waiting" and observers of U.S. public diplomacy these last few months could be forgiven for saying the same thing. While other areas of government have something to show for the first one-hundred days of the Obama administration, formal public diplomacy initiatives have been hard to find. Read More

China’s English-Language Media: A Case of Over-Confidence

When will China ever learn? It’s not how loud you speak, or how many times you say something, but what you say that counts. Reports that the Communist Party of China (CPC) has launched a new English-language newspaper, the Global Times, should be greeted with the usual mixture of delight (yet more evidence of the Chinese jumping on the public diplomacy bandwagon) and cynicism (yet more evidence of the Chinese jumping on the public diplomacy bandwagon). Read More

(Not) An Indie Film

There’s nothing quite as satisfying as a good patriotic cry. Russians and like-minded Ukrainians are lining up these days to see a movie, “Taras Bulba”, that allows them this public pleasure while undercutting Ukraine’s separate national identity. A real “twofer” for the movie’s sponsors, the Russian government. Read More

In PD, Obama Shows That Style is Substance

The more things stay the same, the more they change. An American president traveled to Iraq to praise American soldiers for giving that nation time to stand on its own feet. He told Muslims that the United States respected their religion. He expressed his commitment to an American military presence in Afghanistan. And he refused to back down from regularly violating Pakistani sovereignty as he fights anti-American forces there. Read More

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