A Development that shows the need for Public Diplomacy in Contemporary World Politics

The Importance of Public Diplomacy for the United States and its Allies Regarding International Terrorism post 9/11

The impact that the events of September 11th 2001 have had on contemporary world politics cannot be underestimated. The fact that the United States was attacked on its own soil from fanatical, foreign non-state actors not only proved the need for effective techniques to combat international terrorism, but it also proved that public diplomacy strategies had to adapt to a new world, as Bruce Gregory argues:

‘States are not what they used to be. Governance is provided increasingly by political actors above, below, and around the state. Thick globalism, non-state actors, a mix of secular and religious "big ideas," digital technologies, and new forms of communication have transformed the old world order. Network societies challenge organizational hierarchies. Attention – not information – is today's scarce resource. And we confront insurgents and terrorists in a new paradigm of armed conflict fought within civilian populations by contestants with local and global reach.’ (Gregory, B, 2008)

The 9/11 commission provided a ‘three-dimensional’ strategy for combating international terrorism that clearly included aspects of public diplomacy. It stated the need to ‘communicate and defend American ideals in the Islamic world, through much stronger public diplomacy to reach more people... Our efforts here should be as strong as they were in combating closed societies during the Cold War’ (Waller, JM, 2007). All this is very well, but the ‘promotion of American ideals’ after the incredibly unpopular decision to invade Iraq in 2003 is arguably an incredibly difficult task, and a pretty hypocritical one at that.

The Obama Effect:

One way in which you could argue that the U.S has made progress in its public diplomacy is the election and actions of its current President (and therefore it’s Chief Diplomat). Obama has made the decision to pull combat troops out of Iraq, refocus on the Taliban in Afghanistan and made numerous speeches showing his desire to reach out and influence those in the Muslim world. See http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/NewBeginning/transcripts (notice the amount of languages you can see it in) and http://www.whitehouse.gov/video/President-Obama-Gives-Ramadan-Message.

Whether the United States has developed appropriate public diplomacy strategies to deal with the threat from terrorism is up for grabs. However, I would argue that events such as 9/11, the London bombings of July 7th 2005, and the subsequent views of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq clearly illustrate the need for effective public diplomacy on the part of the United States and its allies.

Bibliography:

Gregory, B. (2008), ‘Public Diplomacy and National Security:Lessons from the U.S. Experience’, Public Diplomacy Alumni Association (Formally USIA Alumni Assoc.) http://www.publicdiplomacy.org/100.htm

Waller, J.M. (2007), National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (2004), The Public Diplomacy Reader.