The Voice of America and the U.S. international broadcasting community as a whole could use structural reform and more money. But that’s not why they appear to be failing miserably. No. The real failure is that they lack conviction. And without that, they will continue to appear irrelevant.

On January 8, heavies from the White House and U.S. intelligence and security sectors arrived in San Jose, California [...] to examine a pressing, worldwide problem: “How can we make it harder for terrorists to leveraging [sic] the internet to recruit, radicalize, and mobilize followers to violence?”

Resources need to be part of a broad strategy, interagency coordination and solid metrics for evaluating impact. But funding can improve a key tool in the U.S. foreign policy toolbox: public diplomacy. The present level of funding is simply not enough to match the challenge that terrorism poses.