The network paradigm of strategic public diplomacy.

Key Points

* Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. public diplomacy has followed an ineffective information strategy borrowed from the Cold War.

* For U.S. public diplomacy to be effective today, it needs a more strategic approach for communicating simultaneously with diverse publics on a global level.

* Network is the new model of persuasion in the international arena and will define America's effectiveness as a new paradigm of public diplomacy.

With the nomination of Karen Hughes as the new undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, the United States has the potential to embark on a new and more effective phase in its communication with the international community, particularly with the Arab and Islamic world. Hughes' close working relationship with President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and other advisers in the administration's inner circle qualifies her as a communication heavyweight. If she uses this asset, she can transform the old model of public diplomacy used during the Cold War into a more strategic approach.

To date, the United States has been stuck in a one-size-fits-all model of public diplomacy derived from the Cold War period. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, forcefully surfaced the need for a public diplomacy. The perceptions of foreign audiences have domestic consequences, and public diplomacy, a government's tool for communicating with foreign publics and changing negative perceptions, quickly became the buzz in Washington after the attacks.

In the rush to get America's message out, officials relied on the same approach, tools, and mindset in fighting terrorism that had earlier been used to fight communism. The 2002 National Security Strategy ranked "the war of ideas" second only to the military offensive. The "battle for hearts and minds" became the charge, and the Arab and Islamic world was the target audience. The message was American values, and democracy and freedom were the antidote to stopping the spread of terrorism.

As in the Cold War information battle, the U.S. government rolled out an arsenal of heavy weaponry; a State Department fact book, The Network of Terror (December 2001); an Arabic youth pop music station, Radio Sawa (March 2002); the first international U.S. advertising campaign, the Shared Values Initiative (October 2002); an Arabic youth lifestyle magazine, Hi (July 2003); and an Arabic-language television satellite network, Al-Hurra (February 2004). All capitalized on the innovative, interactive features of advanced communication technology, but all were government-run media productions in a region with a long experience of exposure to such information sources. All were arm'slength public diplomacy in a region that values people and faces, not facts and figures. Thus, the information battle strategy and mass media tools that worked so effectively in bringing down the Berlin Wall suffered a sandstorm of criticism and ridicule in the Arab world. While the United States focused on presentation of policy, the audience focused on policy, period. The more Washington sought to downplay the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the situation in Iraq, the more disingenuous U.S. public diplomacy appeared to the Arab public.

The truly glaring irony was that while the White House vigorously sought to use public diplomacy as a tool for articulating U.S. foreign policy, it made its tool deliberately apolitical. Rather than explaining national interests and clarifying for detractors why the United States was following its policies--and thereby "lessening tension and undercutting terrorist networks like al-Qaida that exploit [those policies]," as Ambassador David Shinn contended--Washington sought to explain U.S. values. Promoting American values merely prompted others to defend and reassert theirs.

After three years of the most intense and expensive public diplomacy campaign in U.S. history, a Pentagon advisory panel admitted the obvious: America has a credibility crisis, and Washington lacks a "working communication channel" for reaching the Arab and Islamic world. The report also dispelled a major argument that the administration had been using to explain the rise of anti-Americanism in the Middle East: "Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather our policies."

Perhaps not so coincidentally, the report--submitted in September 2004--was not publicly released until after the presidential elections. Since the report's release, the administration has adopted a radically new approach of mending fences with traditional allies and cultivating relations with uncertain ones in the Arab world. Public diplomacy has once again become a "top priority" of U.S. foreign policy.