Passé Public Diplomacy?

Allow me to repeat what I have been saying for years: That, as "public diplomacy" is increasingly becoming an instrument of, throughout the world, countries' foreign policy, especially among "emerging" powers, the United States, which coined the term/activity in the Cold-War mid-1960s is, gradually abandoning it. It is no wonder that there currently is only an "acting" Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs at the State Department, at a time that India and China (among other countries) are pushing PD as an essential part of their international outreach.

I recall a British Embassy-sponsored dinner at a Georgetown restaurant, some years ago, to which I was kindly invited, with the topic of conversation "strategic communications." I sat next to an Obama administration official, a not-so-young social-media guru, proud to say that he was on the "seventh-floor" of the State Department. We chatted politely about foreign policy; but "public diplomacy" was Greek to him. It was all about "the new social media," his expertise. And why not? (I should note that when asked, by the British official who was the honored guest at the dinner, what I thought of strategic communications, I answered, perhaps too honestly, "an offense against the English language." And I had only drunk one glass of red wine).

As I follow China's "public diplomacy," I am convinced that its bureaucrats have read, as a blueprint of what they should do, Nicholas Cull's magisterial "The Cold War and the United States Information Agency: American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy, 1945-1989" word for word -- while being unaware of how much our world has changed in this new century. Or more accurately put, they are afraid to venture into the uncharted information territories created by our new century as there are no "instructions" for it. So, we have Confucius Institutes overseas and worldwide Chinese-government TV programs - while, at the same time, Internet "firewalls" on the Mainland.

The economic crisis in the U.S. has made Americans worried about their bills, not whether "they hate us" overseas, especially now that Osama Ben Laden is gone. Engagement, "smart power" are the Obama/Clinton buzzwords for overseas outreach, not "public diplomacy," which sounds oh-so-20th-century and is still incomprehensible/totally irrelevant to many economically struggling Americans. To left-leaning PD "experts" the term  also smacks of the Bush II-era, when "W" discovered, at a rather late date, that "hearts and minds" abroad could be an important factor in the so-called "war on terror."

Moreover, with PD now part of the State Department bureaucracy (The United States Information Agency, created at the height of the Cold War in 1953, was consolidated into the State Department in 1999; it was was supposedly "in charge" of public diplomacy until its elimination), PD is just another bureaucratic "function" (like issuing visas). Nothing special requiring a separate agency.

So, while PD is becoming increasingly passé, as a term and activity in the U.S., it is -- ironically -- fashionable among "emerging powers."  Advice for young people interested in international affairs: when you get, if you wish (rather than reading classics or studying foreign languages seriously) your M.A. in "Public Diplomacy" from an American learnery of "higher education" at tremendous cost, be sure to apply for an overseas job. You might even earn a decent salary, given the state of the dollar. I suggest your try North Korea.