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International Education MattersA
Forum for Issues Pertaining
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"Diplomacy is
key to winning the war on terrorism" As the 9/11 commission's report has stated and The Oregonian noted in a recent lead editorial ("The chapter you shouldn't skip," July 29), the struggle against terrorism may hinge on the ability of the Untied States to field a more effective diplomatic effort. While military force will play an important role, terrorism is not finally a military problem and will not yield to a military solution. It springs from troubled societies where political debate is stifled and modernity unwelcome. Standard diplomacy -- the institutional relationships between governments -- will prove invaluable in rallying many of our allies. But it will prove less effective in the Middle East where, with the exception of Israel, none of the states' governments can claim democratic legitimacy with its own people. In these countries the United States will need to pursue a different kind of diplomatic effort, what is known as public diplomacy, if it hopes to diminish the now thriving recruiting grounds of terrorism. We must persuade Arab and other Islamic publics that we have not declared war on Islam, that we do not promote democracy in every region but their own, and that we can assist the frustrated majority to fulfill their wishes for more responsive government and more open societies. Few things would go further in knocking the ground out from under terrorist recruiters. No treaty with an unrepresentative government can do this. Instead, we must use the tools of public diplomacy; exchange programs, American libraries, academic conferences, cultivation of the local press, magazines in local languages, radio programs and Web sites. It will be slow work. The good news is that it can be done surprisingly inexpensively. Doubling the current public diplomacy budget would cost about as much as building one B-1 bomber -- and may reduce the need for that bomber. Instead of increasing its public diplomacy budget, though, the United States has been, in this crucial conflict of ideas, unilaterally disarming. Since the late 1980s we have slashed staff, closed offices, shut public libraries and ceased publication of magazines. We have cut exchange budgets, starved speaker programs and cancelled book programs. In the 1980s the United States had more than 800 American public affairs diplomats. We now have approximately 600. In real terms we have cut our public diplomacy budget in the field by roughly 25 percent. One example: In 1990 the United States had 10 public affairs officers and scores of local hires in Morocco, three separate posts and two public libraries. We now have four Americans and about 20 Moroccans. We have closed to the public the libraries that gave generations of Moroccan students their first taste of the United States and have closed one post altogether. We have reduced almost every means we have of reaching out to others. And now we seem baffled that other people don't understand us. It seems incredible that we could lose a public relations war to Osama bin Laden, but in many areas where there is a vacuum of positive information about the United States that is exactly what we are doing. As damaging as any of these, has been the ill-conceived merger of our former public diplomacy arm, the United States Information Agency, with the State Department in 1999. This merger shattered the structure that made possible a coordinated and effective public diplomacy effort. Few public affairs officers and none of the embassy public affairs offices now work in the direct chain of command of their own bureau. Likewise, the Washington offices that design and administer many of our public diplomacy programs are located two miles from the office of the bureau director. Personnel in these offices wander through eerily empty halls that once thrived with a vibrant, coordinated effort to tell America's story to the world. Though the struggle against terrorism will, in most ways, differ greatly from the Cold War, it will have important similarities. It will likely last for decades and military force will play a crucial role in keeping it in check. But, as with the Cold War, it will finally prove to be a battle of ideas, a struggle between visions of the future. If we are to win these battles and help people seize their best future we must begin to compete and we must begin now. Jack McCreary and Steve Holgate are retired U.S. Foreign Service officers with long service in North Africa and the Middle East, now living in Portland. This file was updated on August 20, 2004 |
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