APDS Blogger: Jennifer Green

Washington, D.C. -- We are just so excited to be in a place where others understand the term “public diplomacy.”

The “we” I am talking about is the delegation of 18 public diplomacy graduate students from the University of Southern California, on an inaugural trip to Washington, D.C. to meet with professionals working in our field at various organizations. The goal was to broaden our awareness of careers in public diplomacy, and to build connections and opportunities between the East and West coasts.

Obama has ... significantly improved America’s image and consequent “soft power” around the world. (The Pew Global Attitudes Project found that since 2008 the number of people with a ‘positive view’ of the US has climbed from 37 percent to 54 in Indonesia and from 42 percent to 75 percent in France...

During the past several years, Chinese audiences have flocked to see American movies such as Kung-Fu Panda, much to the alarm of China’s political leadership, which has recently made clear that it is not inclined to surrender any terrain on the global cultural battleground.

For the first time, international audiences were able to watch the State of the Union Address live on U.S. embassy and consulate websites. Our missions in Cambodia, Japan, Nepal, Thailand, and Turkey had among the highest views of the webcast, and more than 60 posts amplified the speech on social media platforms, where they engaged their online communities via Facebook and Twitter.

For liberals hoping for perhaps a less militarist message and a focus on diplomacy and soft power rather than the use of force as lodestars of American power ... well, last night wasn't quite their evening. That whole "changing the mindset" of U.S. foreign policy that Obama talked about in 2008 may have to wait a few more years.

For years, Hosni Mubarak and other Arab leaders relied on a straightforward mantra: “It’s me or the Islamists.” American presidents and other Western leaders shuddered at the word “Islamists” and embraced their thuggish allies. What could be worse than Islamists?

U.S. public diplomacy followed that pattern. Over the years, there was some splendid rhetoric from Condoleezza Rice, Barack Obama, and a few others, but the “public” at which public diplomacy was aimed was always carefully limited to exclude the Islamist community.

The U.S. force size in Asia-Pacific will increase...not to prepare for some Cold War-style showdown with a rising China... Obama seems to mean it when he talks about America's "Pacific Century," and putting a military presence there is a great way to extend U.S. hard as well as soft power.