Why No Change Ten Years On?

When I was growing up in India, the U.S. Information Services used to serve as ambassadors of American culture, ideas, and ideals. That entire approach to diplomacy was shuttered after the Cold War and even after 9/11 remains moribund. – Fareed Zakaria, “The Post-American World” Since 9/11, the U.S. military for the first time has dramatically expanded its effort to communicate with foreign audiences. But this has created new problems…[and] this “mission creep” has gotten way out of hand. Read More

Doubting Dubai’s Doubters

The schadenfreude surrounding Dubai World’s request for a partial debt standstill is understandable, however lamentable. Dubai has the unfortunate timing of having experienced its tremendous evolution, and subsequent stumble, at the peak of populist displeasure with leveraged driven growth. The lack of specifics surrounding the crisis is partially Dubai’s fault. Read More

Cricket Diplomacy and Pakistan

Amid the debates about American aid to Pakistan, and the public diplomacy attempts to gain Pakistani "hearts and minds," there is one measure which would gain Pakistani support: Cricket Diplomacy. Read More

Take a Bow

Now that the big Asia trip is history, it’s natural to judge it on the basis of known results from its biggest portion — Obama’s three days in China. For the American president, there were no obvious breakthroughs on exchange rates or trade, climate or human rights, so maybe this visit was not the most successful. On the other hand, viewed in the context of America’s recent history with East Asia, there was a certain welcome absence of drama. Expectations were managed, there was no brinkmanship. Maybe that could be considered an achievement. Read More

Public Diplomacy and the Legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority

Yesterday, the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) made a public statement accepting the call of the French president Nicolas Sarkozy for a Middle East peace conference and his offer to host this conference. In his statement, Abbas emphasized that a condition for holding the conference must be a total freeze of settlement expansion in the Palestinian territories. Read More

You Can Bank on It

An overseas trip by a U.S. president is always costly, logistically challenging, and full of colorful backdrops. President Obama’s trip to Japan, Singapore, China and Korea is no exception. If anything, there will be more excitement than usual, since it is his first trip to the region as President and there is still tremendous foreign public interest in this appealing, young, intelligent leader, his inspiring speeches, and his photogenic wife. Why, then, is the mood so downbeat among the U.S. press corps — the “traveling press” — as they begin covering this trip? Read More

Talking about Public Diplomacy In The Middle East

CAIRO --- I’ve spent the past week in Syria, Qatar, and Egypt, primarily to proselytize about public diplomacy. In Syria, in a Damascus University lecture (carried by Al Jazeera Live) and a lengthy interview on Syrian National Television, I made the case that Arab states do an exceptionally poor job of conducting public diplomacy and that their standing in the global political community suffers as a result. Read More

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