USC international relations expert studies the art and practice of negotiations.

VOA State Department correspondent Scott Stearns and VOA Kurdish reporter Motabar Shirwani conducted a wide-ranging interview with U.S. Undersecretary of State Richard Stengel about the Islamic State, Ukraine and Ebola.

It's a shift in the administration’s approach to an offensive already under way in Iraq and Syria.

The State Department is trying hard to counter online propaganda from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The information battleground includes Twitter and video messages, terrain that ISIL knows well. In addition to having too little money and too few people, the department is forced to conform to federal rules requiring that its work be identified as coming from the U.S. government.

Washington needs a holistic counterterrorism strategy that ensures its Arab allies do not use U.S. assistance to perpetuate terrorism and that supports those in Arab societies best able to combat radicalization.

Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Richard Stengel will travel to Kuwait to lead the U.S. delegation for the October 27 conference of coalition partners focused on countering ISIL messaging and combatting violent extremism in the region.

The U.S. State Department is producing anti-Islamic State propaganda to persuade American and other would-be jihadis not to join the extremist group. It’s ham-handed, and often sarcastic, and unlikely to have the intended effect. Why? Because the department fails to understand how Islamic State attracts recruits in the first place.