President Obama’s Foreign Policy: Public Diplomacy Is Front and Center
President Obama’s Foreign Policy: Public Diplomacy Is Front and Center
Our guest blogger is Natalie Ondiak, a Research Associate at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
While the economic crisis in the United States continues to freefall, the Obama administration has taken bold steps to stabilize the housing and financial markets. These policies have been met with applause and condemnation. Meanwhile, some lament that: “On foreign policy, he [President Obama] has only sketched the outline.”
Other Washington foreign policy pundits are worried about the administration’s willingness to engage with Syria and Iran. President Obama’s approach to economics and national security suggest an understanding that these areas are inextricably linked and that domestic and international distinctions and boundaries are less relevant today.
President Obama has signaled that the United States economy is his key domestic priority. Throughout the world, countries think that the United States has a considerable (largely negative) influence on their economy. Nina Hachigian points out that “in an era of globalization, the effects of domestic policy don’t stop at the water’s edge.” Indeed, President Obama’s actions point to the idea that taking bold economic steps is part of his larger foreign policy strategy. In other words, economic security is national security.
On foreign policy, Afghanistan is poised to be one of the Obama administration’s biggest challenges. Yet, Obama seems poised to recalibrate U.S. engagement there. The announcement this week of a civilian surge of development and diplomacy professionals to work alongside U.S. and NATO troops is a massive shift in thinking. Gone are the days of Bush’s foreign policy characterized by saber rattling and military might alone. Indeed, this strategy in Afghanistan suggests that the war must be won, but development assistance with the aim of creating better lives and livelihoods for Afghans is smart foreign policy.
Obama’s foreign policy strategy is heavily influenced by the idea of sustainable security that argues that national security must integrate defense, diplomacy and development capabilities. Fundamentally, sustainable security is about using all tools in the national security toolbox to build a more stable world. A holistic approach to policy issues takes into account the complex linkages between countries in the world today.
Sustainable security seems poised to be the hallmark of Obama’s presidency and this recalibration suggests that the United States must engage with the rest of the world to solve complex problems. This idea will guide not only what President Obama says as a statesman but also what he does. He seems poised to take the lead in public diplomacy and redraw America’s role in the world.
4 Responses to “President Obama’s Foreign Policy: Public Diplomacy Is Front and Center”
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Funny, the picture shows President Obama speaking at an AIPAC meeting. He just did good cop/bad cop with Israeli President Shimon Peres on Iran.
Obama is a much better public face than Chimpy McHitler (thanks to Jay Ambrose for that moniker for Bush), but his policies have a Bush like taint.
Razing of Gaza-silent for 25 days
Offer to turn the page to Iran, while calling them terrorists
Bear hug of Israel
Change? Hardly.
March 21st, 2009 at 11:07 amThis essay closes with the grand implication that because President Obama will wisely link policy with his words that he will “take the lead in public diplomacy.” There is just one problem in this: President Obama can only do so much. While the President has shown an innate appreciation and aptitude for grassroots engagement, he can not “redraw America’s role in the world” alone. If the President could do this, then there would never have been a need for cultural and educational exchange programs, government broadcast facilities, or the United States Information Agency.
Contrary to the title of Ms. Ondiak’s essay, public diplomacy is more clearly not front and center in President Obama’s foreign policy. It is naive to think the President controls everything. Just as the President requires Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi’s support to make things go smoothly in Congress, the President relies on the Secretary of State for effective advice, management, implementation, and support of America’s foreign policy.
As it is, over two months after inauguration, we see little progress by the Secretary on public diplomacy. While she also seems to innately understand the value and purpose of grassroots engagement, the Secretary of State has yet to nominate an Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. This is despite the reality that Judith McHale, the former CEO of Discovery, was selected as the “high-profile woman” about the time of Clinton’s confirmation hearings, a week before inauguration.
There can be two implications made from the lengthy delay, either the role of State in public diplomacy is questioned or the selection of Ms. McHale is being questioned. It is hard to believe that public diplomacy is really “front and center” when the offices, structures and programs within the State Department, across government, and into private and non-governmental organizations lack leadership and direction. In some cases, some of the governmental groups at the center of public diplomacy do not know where they will be physically located if they will exist at all. Is this how a critical element to our foreign policy and national security should be managed?
This essay makes fine enough observations on the President’s foreign policy agenda, but it fails on the assertion that since the President “gets it”, America’s public diplomacy work its “magic”. It is important to understand that however one sees the present and future of public diplomacy, and there are many, many different views on how it should be constituted, there is no visible direction coming from either the President or the Secretary of State, the latter of whom ostensibly “owns” public diplomacy.
Don’t get me wrong, it should be front and center. The Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Congress (from both sides of the aisle, see Senator Lugar’s recent comments at the hearing with former Secretary of State Madeline Albright), and others agree. However, public diplomacy has no auto-pilot and will not magically solve problems of countering accidental misinformation and intentional disinformation. The mechanisms to support the President’s fine appreciation of linking words with actions are already beginning to fragment and fail in the absence of leadership. The President may be poised, but the rest of Government is not and that is a major problem in our foreign policy.
March 21st, 2009 at 3:40 pmMatt,
Good thing Clinton also prefers stability and economic stability to pouring money into Haliburton for resource wars which waste far more resources than they save.
StateoftheD.,
Good cop / bad cop? It seemed to me like Obama’s outreach made Israel show its true colors, in that they would prefer local colonialism — which can’t even be close to sustainable for them unless they manage to disenfranchsie all the Israeli Arabs and gain superpower cooperation — to enforce stability.
Getting Israel and Iran to the bargaining table would be a lot harder if it weren’t for Gaza and Afghanistan. Don’t count your blessings before they are hatched, but I am far less scared than I was during the reign of Bush, Cheney, Bolton, Rice, and the rest of the neo-cons.
March 21st, 2009 at 7:48 pmRahm Emanuel brags of his IDF ties, which are spin. He helped fix military vehicles during the first Gulf War. He wasn’t a soldier, but he loves to leave that impression.
Who’s the anonymous White House staffer that keeps leaking Obama positions to Israeli newspapers? The Obama White House is deeply linked to Israel.
And neocon Dennis Ross is Obama’s Special Adviser for the Persian Gulf, which includes Iran.
March 21st, 2009 at 11:44 pm