Until recently, Beijing’s policy in Afghanistan could be characterized as masterful inactivity: It sat on the sidelines of a war that it wanted neither side to win. But the late September visit by security chief Zhou Yongkang, the first by a senior Chinese leader in almost five decades, is the most visible sign that the US 2014 withdrawal date is bringing that spectator status to an end.

While Iran's weapons and financial aid to the Taliban often make headlines, Tehran's soft power efforts in Afghanistan at the expense of U.S. interests are largely overlooked. According to Davood Moradian, former senior policy advisor at Afghanistan's Foreign Ministry, Iran spends $100 million a year in Afghanistan on funding media, religious and cultural organizations.

“Min hem ya neem,” bellowed the baritone Kurdish Hamlet. To be or not to be—always a good question to be asked of any public diplomacy venture.

While still evolving at incredible speed, the current use of social media is a dramatic step in the right direction that can help make the counterinsurgent successful at providing truthful information to the public before the insurgent can distort the perception of the event.

Part 1 of this post can be found here. 

Leveraging Social Media When the Shooting Starts

After insurgents launched multiple, simultaneous attacks inside Kabul’s government and diplomatic areas on April 15, many in the media were quick to label the attacks as a “Taliban Tet Offensive”. The media’s reference was to the 1968 Tet Offensive, which involved tens of thousands of North Vietnamese regulars and thousands of Viet Cong irregulars. The communist guerillas attacked the length and breadth of South Vietnam from Hue in the north, to the Mekong Delta to the American Embassy in Saigon (Garamone, 2012).

India must remain the “land of the better story”. As a society with a free press and a thriving mass media, with a people whose creative energies are daily encouraged to express themselves in a variety of appealing ways, India has an extraordinary ability to tell stories that are more persuasive and attractive than those of its rivals.