To The Secretary

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Trying to get foreigners to like us is the default endeavor of the State Department’s public affairs office, and in my view, it’s largely a waste of time.

—James Glassman,
former Under Secretary
for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs April 16, 2014

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ON A FRIGID WEEK IN EARLY JANUARY 2008, NEWLY elected Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN) stood at the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Oslo, chatting with a group of Norwegian immigrants from Africa, Asia, and the Arab world. Ellison represents one of the most traditionally Norwegian-American constituencies in the United States, but what made his visit noteworthy was that he was the first Muslim elected to Congress (and also the first African-American elected to the House of Representatives from Minnesota). His swearing-in ceremony with a Qur’an once owned by Thomas Jefferson had made headlines.

The Oslo event ran overtime as Ellison fielded questions about how he could represent a country “at war with Islam”; what he thought about reparations for slavery; and whether he was able to speak freely in the United States as someone who criticized Bush administration policies. The embassy, highly pleased, reported that Ellison “helped counter simplistic and irrational anti-Americanism.” 1

This is Norway, a friendly ally. Like many Western European countries, it has welcomed Muslim immigrants who have integrated with varying degrees of success. Events across Europe since WikiLeaks suggest meetings with immigrant communities ought to be an important part of American diplomacy. But American officials don’t always do this effectively.

Cases in point were the misadventures of Karen Hughes, under secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, who embarked on a widely publicized “listening tour,” in 2005 in which she sought out encounters with Saudi, Indonesian, Turkish, and Egyptian audiences. In contrast to the triumphal reports from Oslo, the embassies that arranged Hughes’s visit were mostly silent. They left it to the New York Times and Washington Post reporters who traveled with Hughes to describe the tenor of her meetings. Elite Saudi women disputed Hughes’s notion that their lives needed improving, saying, “Well, we’re all pretty happy.” ² Turkish women confronted her with heated complaints about the Iraq war, “turning a session designed to highlight the empowering of women into a raw display of anger at U.S. policies in the region.” ³ American reporters lampooned Hughes for tirelessly introducing herself as a “mom” and for “her tin-eared assurances that President Bush is a man of God.” ⁴

There are no leaked cables touching on these gaffes and awkward moments. High-level official visits like Hughes’s require reports from embassies—but custom dictates that the visitor clears the cable, making it nearly impossible to offer an unbiased account. Embassy Cairo skirted the issue and reported only on Hughes’s meeting with Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif.⁵ Embassy Riyadh dodged the issue by noting Hughes had brought books for a library and requested more of the same.⁶ Embassy Ankara solved the problem by reporting on Turkish media coverage of Hughes’s visit, which it characterized as fair and factual. The diplomats left it to Hurriyet, Turkey’s influential daily, to describe the scene. “She had some difficult moments when many of the women criticized U.S. policy in Iraq. A KA-DER member . . . called on the United States to end wars that lead to poverty. Hughes responded that as a mother, she also did not like war, but added that sometimes war is necessary to protect the peace.” 7

Embassy reports on the visits by Ellison and Hughes illustrate a long-standing reliance on public diplomacy as a corrective to polish the rough edges of U.S. foreign policy. While all nations understand the need for public relations, Americans may be unique in their persistence in reaching beyond governments to engage directly with the people. Speeches make careful distinction between foreign leaders, who may be out of favor, and foreign people, who never are. Even in countries in which participatory democracy is a pipe dream, American diplomats routinely meet with people far from power, operating on the theory that even if their vote doesn’t count, their opinion might. They reach out to subgroups such as immigrants in Norway, women in Saudi Arabia, and dissidents in Russia. Doing this effectively takes skill and insight. While delivering a message to the foreign ministry, a mainstay of traditional diplomacy, is easy, winning friends for America is harder.

Public diplomacy cannot be a cure-all for unpopular policies. But the habit of forging policy in Washington and tasking diplomats with implementing it sets up a disconnect. Confronted with images of angry foreign crowds burning the flag, policymakers wonder why diplomats don’t do a better job; diplomats wonder why policymakers are surprised by protests and why they aren’t more interested in their knowledge of the local scene.

Diplomats who specialize in public diplomacy have at their disposal a toolkit that offers traditional soft power—academic exchanges such as the Fulbright program and cultural offerings such as jazz ambassadors—and hard power programs, such as international broadcasting in local languages and engagement with media. Visits from prominent U.S. experts from the worlds of sports, entertainment, academia, or politics are essential components of that toolkit, all of which is aimed at increasing understanding and enthusiasm for America.

Public diplomacy falls in and out of favor with policymakers. At the end of the Cold War, Congress saw little need to fund it. Having won the ideological war against communism, it seemed clear that the world was rapidly embracing democracy and free market models. Practitioners argued in vain that public diplomacy is a long-term investment. It is also costly and maddeningly difficult to show results. Cultural programs have been particularly vulnerable to skeptics who are unpersuaded the world needs another American quilt exhibit, another Fulbright grant, or another jazz concert. These critics demand proof that such programs make a difference in global public opinion. They seek to tie public diplomacy programs to one essential question: What can we do about the way the world views the United States?

After 9/11 Washington became obsessed with anti-Americanism. Successive polls taken by the Pew Research Center Global Attitudes Project showed astounding drops in support even from staunch allies, with some approval ratings in the teens or single digits.8 Polls by Gallup and Zogby, which covers the Middle East, produced similar results.

How bad was it? One Pew report showed America’s approval rating in Germany had plummeted from 78 percent in 2000 to 30 percent by 2007. Some shakier allies were even more dubious about the United States. In Turkey, approval ratings were at a dismal 9 percent; and in Greece, another NATO ally, only 34 percent held favorable views of the United States. That drop in Greece was further documented by a February 2010 U.S. Embassy Athens cable reporting that an astounding 73 percent of Greek military officers believed Greece would be better off in a military alliance with Russia.⁹

The Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project in 2008 noted that “in Muslim nations, the wars in Afghanistan and particularly Iraq have driven negative ratings nearly off the charts . . . In the view of much of the world, the United States has played the role of bully in the school yard, throwing its weight around with little regard for others’ interests.” 10

The Pew surveys reported that public opinion in countries less closely linked to the United States was even worse. In Argentina, only 16 percent of the public had a favorable view of the United States in 2007; in Pakistan the total was 15 percent; Egypt was at 21 percent.¹¹ While public opinion polls can be a blunt instrument for measuring fickle and nuanced attitudes, they also can be an important bellwether of dramatic shifts.

Pew surveys revealed complaints that America acts unilaterally; doesn’t take into account the interests of other nations in formulating policy; relies too much on military force; does too little to address the world’s problems, many of which it causes; and has widened the gulf between rich and poor. “On matters ranging from promotion of democracy to globalization to international security, the rest of the world became openly skeptical of America’s word and intentions over most of this decade.” ¹²

Pew’s late president, Andrew Kohut, told a congressional committee that anti-Americanism is an intensively held opinion, which makes it difficult to change, and that “it is no longer just the U.S. as a country that is perceived negatively, but increasingly the American people as well, a sign that anti-American opinions are deepening and becoming more entrenched.” ¹³ Embassy reporting cables substantiate the data and provide context for the low percentages.

The polls, along with growing numbers of anti-American incidents, led panicky policymakers to set up countless panels, commissions, and studies, all charged with fixing America’s public image problem. Almost invariably, Washington insiders convened these efforts without soliciting insights from the diplomats who had witnessed firsthand this global no-confidence vote. The commissions and their conclusions, when contrasted with the reporting cables, expose borderline disarray between Washington and the field.

THE MANY WAYS TO HATE US: TALES FROM ABROAD

After 9/11, Washington may have been seized with the need for outreach to Muslims, but embassies all around the globe were reporting to Washington about the depth and extent of anti-American sentiment that went well beyond the Muslim world. There seemed to be no overarching theme but rather a fury based on each country’s circumstances. Angry mobs torched the U.S. embassy in Belgrade on February 21, 2008, because the United States recognized Kosovo. Populist Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez made outrageous statements that fomented a new wave of anti-Americanism across Latin America. Protestors in Zimbabwe didn’t like U.S. sanctions; Canadian television shows featured plots that emphasized U.S. lawlessness.

Embassy officers were close enough to smell the tear gas and smoke from burning effigies, and some cable writers were enthusiastic in describing the more outlandish lengths to which countries, governments, politicians, and local media would go to tweak the eagle’s beak.

The U.S. consulate in Jeddah reported that a North African astrologer, locally renowned for his accurate forecasts, predicted that President Bush would be assassinated sometime in 2007. The claim was quickly posted to the Islamic extremist Al Sahat website. Internet visitors left prayers, known as doa’a, for the assassination to occur, giving a grim new meaning to the idea of praying for leaders. Within days, the site had recorded more than 24,000 hits.14

In the Gulf region, Embassy Manama reported the good news that commemorations for the Shia holiday of Ashura were less offensive in 2007. “The U.S. and Israeli flags nailed into the street for people to walk on were not present this year.” ¹⁵

In Islamic countries, Friday sermons are a good way to gauge anti-Americanism, and on a March day in Khobar at the Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal mosque, Sheikh al-Qahtani did not disappoint. A consular official sat through his sweeping views of American misdeeds throughout history, starting with the colonists’ slaughter of Native Americans, running right up to the fluctuations in the stock market. He admonished his congregation “never to believe America’s failed propaganda war deceiving Arabs and Muslims alike”; derided what he called failed American efforts to improve its public image in Arab and Muslim countries; and ominously warned that “things may even get worse as long as Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, and Palestine remain fresh in people’s minds.” 16

In Saharan African, U.S. Embassy Nouakchott described a rash of groundless, paranoid press reports of alleged U.S. spying. One news story noted the chargé was seen in the company of a uniformed U.S. military man (a bodyguard), and several papers alleged that the Marine House (a dormitory for off-duty marines attached to the embassy) was a secret CIA prison. Peace Corps volunteers were also accused of spying, and one paper offered proof through photos of the U.S. embassy cafeteria and the chargé at a ceremony for U.N. Human Rights Day. The cause of all this hullabaloo? The chargé had called a recent coup a coup, rather than using the preferred politically correct term, “event.” ¹⁷

Strained U.S.–Zimbabwean relations are nothing new, so a cable from the embassy in Harare shrugged off a protest of a thousand chanting youths bused in from rural areas, wearing matching t-shirts emblazoned SANCTIONS ARE CRIMINAL and carrying professional-looking placards, referring to U.S. sanctions against the government of longtime strongman Robert Mugabe. They booed, pumped fists, sang political songs, and called for war with America. After a strong finish that included taunting the local guard force, the crowd moved discreetly down the street to receive payment.¹⁸

Sometimes, embassies struggled to know where to begin to counter outright lies and disinformation. In one of the more bizarre examples, Tajikistan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs published a pamphlet saying that Afghan farmers began producing opium poppy at the behest of the U.S. government; that Americans profited from this business; and that the United States wished to destroy Persian, Islamic, and former Soviet societies through drug addiction. Embassy Drug Enforcement Administration officers met with the commander of the ministry’s narcotics unit, where they were treated to “an angry tirade from the unit chief, who defended the allegations, claimed they were true because they could be found on the Internet, said the U.S. government had in fact done much worse than the allegations in question, and insulted the embassy officers and the ambassador.” The DEA officers walked out of the meeting.

Not willing to give up so easily, the ambassador went to the commander’s boss, the interior minister, who disavowed the pamphlet, said he had not authorized it, and had not yet had time to examine it. The embassy offered an understated comment: “Old Soviet and more recent Russian propaganda against the United States influences individual officials in Tajikistan. This incident highlights the public diplomacy challenge we face in defending U.S. interests here.”19

Latin America offers an abundance of equally bizarre rhetoric. It’s hard to see why the United States would bother dignifying Hugo Chávez’s utterances with a response. He once compared George W. Bush to Hitler and warned that exporting Halloween to Latin America was tantamount to terrorism; he also told the U.N. General Assembly that Bush was “the devil himself” and had left a smell of sulphur in the Assembly chamber.²⁰

But Chávez had lots of company in the region. Piling on from anti-U.S. stalwarts such as Cuba, Nicaragua, and Ecuador might well be expected, but even Brazil exhibited entrenched, generations-long anti-Americanism. In an analysis of foreign ministry leadership, the embassy noted that one of the three senior-most diplomats was “virulently anti-American, and anti–first world in general. He has advocated extreme positions . . . that Brazil must develop nuclear weapons—and as the senior official in charge of personnel matters, issued a required reading list of anti-American books that has only recently been toned down.” 21

American popular culture—music, films, and television shows—and its commercial orientation rarely represents the best of U.S. culture. American diplomats worried about conclusions Egyptians and Saudis would draw from watching The Simpsons, Desperate Housewives, and Friends.²² And yet, one Saudi television executive told the embassy that American television is “winning over ordinary Saudis in a way that Alhurra (a U.S.-funded Arab-language satellite television network) and other U.S. propaganda never could.” In the ultimate irony, the executive said the programming had been so effective that it was widely assumed the U.S. government must be behind it.²³

Far from the Muslim world, Embassy Ottawa gave a run-down of anti-Americanism Canadian-style on several TV shows. In a humorless analysis, the writer alleged “the level of anti-American melodrama has been given a huge boost . . . as a number of programs offer Canadian viewers their fill of nefarious American officials carrying out equally nefarious deeds in Canada while Canadian officials either oppose them or fail trying.” The writer described episodes and plots featuring CIA rendition flights, schemes to steal Canada’s water, and F-16s flying in for bombing runs in Quebec to eliminate escaped terrorists. The writer, who seemed to have momentarily forgotten that this was merely entertainment, warned that “twisting current events to feed long-standing negative images of the U.S.—and the extent to which the Canadian public seems willing to indulge in the feast—is noteworthy as an indication of the kind of insidious negative popular stereotyping we are increasingly up against in Canada.” ²⁴ The author somehow missed an earlier and much-beloved Canadian show, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, with Rick Mercer’s weekly feature, “Talking to Americans,” in which he enticed prominent American politicians (including governors and presidential candidates) to comment on ridiculous statements designed to show how little Americans know about Canada.

Spy-versus-spy antics in Nouakchott and the latest rants from Chávez in Caracas are amusing and mostly harmless, but it’s quite another thing to read thoughtful reporting from intelligent observers in key countries like Russia, Turkey, or France. Embassy officers described their conversations with sophisticated opinion leaders who showed the depth and complexity of anti-Americanism.

Istanbul media representatives offered a thoughtful analysis of what they described as a deep and potent anger and mistrust of the United States. One editor explained that the views of Turkish youths toward the United States were not fundamentally anti-American but a reaction to Bush administration policies toward the Middle East, Iraq, Iran, and the PKK (the Kurdistan Workers’ Party). Another editor criticized Bush’s use of the word crusade in describing the fight against terrorism, which the public perceived as anti-Islam.25

In 2007, Russian analysts linked anti-Americanism to unpopular U.S. policies, including missile defense. Both pro-Kremlin and liberal analysts told U.S. diplomats that anti-Americanism was popular across all major political parties and helped forge a political consensus in favor of a resurgent Russia playing a more assertive role internationally. They said some Russians see the United States as playing the role of puppeteer, encouraging misbehavior by Poland and the Baltics and trying to set the “new” Europe against Russia’s “old” partners. ²⁶ This distinction between new and old Europe surfaced frequently following the collapse of communism and was often shorthand for a view of a still-divided continent.

Despite the well-publicized U.S. “reset” on Russian relations, prominent Russian analysts told assistant secretary for European Affairs Philip Gordon that U.S.–Russian relations had continued their slide. One asserted that anti-Americanism “was a pillar of Russian foreign policy,” citing Russian public opinion polling that showed the percentage of Russians who believed the United States presented the greatest terrorist threat had grown from 8 percent in 2007 to 26 percent in 2009. Turning to the July 2009 meeting between President Barack Obama and then–prime minister Vladimir Putin, analysts said that while there was a temporary uptick in U.S.–Russian relations, “darker forces” were consolidating. While anti-American sentiment had been muzzled immediately after the meeting, it persisted. The United States was an easy target and kept the Russian people mobilized. The analysts noted that Obama’s speech at the New Economic School in Moscow was seen by only 1 percent of the public, and Russian television only gave “half a sentence” to the civil society forum, another U.S.-run feature of his visit. They concluded gloomily that “Russian leadership had no interest in showing Obama’s visit in a positive light.” 27

In a separate conversation, the political director of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Gérard Araud, offered the U.S. ambassador a French interpretation of Russia’s negative fixation with America. Araud, who had returned from Moscow the day before, described a meeting in which he and his boss, Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy, had barely sat down when Putin launched into “a half-hour anti-U.S. harangue bringing together a catalog of complaints and charges about U.S. behavior.” Araud said “Putin offered up a ‘rambling’ indictment of the U.S., ‘linking all the dots’—U.S. unilateralism, its denial of the reality of multipolarity, the anti-Russian nature of NATO enlargement, the U.S. in Central Asia—as he described a ‘U.S. plot against the world.’ Araud said he could only interpret Putin’s tirade as an expression of pent-up resentment and frustration stemming from ‘hundreds of years of Russian history’ and in particular the humiliation of the immediate post–Cold War years.” ²⁸

Turning to the complexities within the French-American relationship, Araud, who met in 2007 with a congressional delegation led by Representative John Tanner (D-TN), offered a “historical disquisition on the differences between France’s and Britain’s post-war relationship with the United States. He said Britain tries to “ride the tiger,” influencing U.S. policy behind the scenes. “This is what they have tried to do on Iraq: With what success, we might ask?” France, he explained, tries to defend its interests as an independent player. “We’re trying to exist and to exercise our right to have our own opinion, including on how to address international crises. That means that we may agree in some cases—as on Iran where we work extremely closely, coordinating daily. In others, as in Iraq, we disagreed, and still do. This is not anti-Americanism, it is France developing its own analyses and exercising its own policy.” 29

While anti-Americanism was a “pillar” of Russian foreign policy, differing with the U.S. was explained as a “defining element” of being Canadian. In an extraordinary conversation with Canadian Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff’s chief of staff Peter Donolo, Consulate Toronto’s consul general reported on Donolo’s exposition on the importance of differing with the United States.

Donolo went on at length about how important it is to Canadians to be seen as different from Americans. He said this difference “defines us” . . . and noted PM [Brian] Mulroney had been a U.S. “lap dog” in a way even [Prime Minister Stephen] Harper was wary of. He recalled once calling White House Press Secretary Michael McCurry after President Clinton had been “over the top” in praising Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, asking that the president be “less generous lest he hurt the PM politically.” McCurry laughingly said it was the first time a foreign leader had ever asked for less love from the president rather than more. “Things are easier with a Democrat in the White House,” he added, “but we should always remember this need for difference.” He speculated that Canada staying out of the Iraq war might have saved free trade by convincing Canadians that they need not fear political integration with the U.S., so economic integration was less threatening.³⁰

Such subtleties are important in understanding how to think about anti-Americanism and the ways it plays out in different countries and on different foreign policy themes. This kind of information might have been helpful in the many Washington-based discussions on the phenomenon. On any given day, U.S. diplomats will have to deal with the sophistication of a Donolo or an Araud, but also with the crazy accusations of the Tajik narcotics commander. With points of objection this disparate, a local focus, rather than a Washington-directed one, is a better approach.

As a postscript to the examples above, the United States was not the only country occasionally caught off guard by bizarre local reactions to routine diplomacy. When the Swiss embassy in Bishkek decided to celebrate fifteen years of Swiss-Kyrgyz cooperation on development assistance programs with billboards superimposing a small and understated Swiss flag, which contains a cross, over the Kyrgyz flag, which features a stylized interpretation of a yurt, all hell broke loose. A member of parliament angrily asked the prime minister why the Swiss had been allowed to “deface” the national flag. The Kyrgyz government quickly ripped down all advertising; the keynote speaker canceled his participation at the anniversary event; and the Swiss chargé received a summons to the Kyrgyz version of the attorney general’s office. In a meeting with the U.S. ambassador afterward, the baffled chargé insisted the logo had been preapproved by the Kyrgyz National Commission on the State Language. Nonetheless, the angry Kyrgyz parliamentarian had the last word: “If this had been Turkey, there probably would have been a war.” 31

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY: THE WASHINGTON PERSPECTIVE

Countering anti-American sentiment is a fundamental part of public diplomacy, which until 1999 had been the mission of the U.S. Information Agency (USIA). With its slogan “Telling America’s Story to the World,” its work ranged from awarding Fulbright scholarships to broadcasting news through an extensive international network that included Voice of America along with other regional outfits.

Although some would consider this propaganda, the United States has always been ambivalent about that term. Congress passed the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 to forbid the use of U.S. government propaganda within America’s borders, lest the government propagandize its own citizens. The word carries a freighted history, given its association with the Nazi Germany war machine, yet there was consensus in the early 1950s that America needed to be aggressive about countering Cold War–era distortions and disinformation, especially from the Communist world.

By the 1990s, disinformation was also coming from the developing world. One of the most malicious and persistent rumors was the baby parts scandal, in which foreign media accused Americans of stealing babies in order to harvest their organs for ailing U.S. children. The repulsive story cast a pall on legitimate adoptions and became remarkably difficult to refute. The story was fueled by reports that technology was making organ transplants a more common medical procedure, along with the advent of organ transplant tourism (the phenomenon of adult citizens in poor countries willing to sell their organs to wealthy recipients). The idea of stealing babies for their organs became more plausible.

If asked, embassy public diplomacy officers would have denied they trafficked in propaganda, arguing that countering run-of-the-mill disinformation kept them far too busy to engage in darker operations. They would have added that their days were filled with programming, organizing both academic and professional exchanges, cultural representations, and press events for their ambassadors and Washington visitors, along with battling back endless and groundless rumors and misinformation.

Despite the broad range of activities, the end of the Cold War signaled to Congress that there was no longer a need for the agency, and the late senator Jesse Helms led an effort to abolish the USIA, which closed in late 1999. Most of the agency’s 6,400 employees—of whom about a thousand were foreign service officers—were absorbed into the State Department. The broadcasting arm of USIA—with its Voice of America radio in forty-five languages, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in twenty-eight languages, and Radio Free Asia, Radio Marti, and TV Martí—was spun off into a newly created federal agency called the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

The rough road of consolidation is relevant to the leaked cables and anti-Americanism. The cables reveal a State Department struggling to understand public diplomacy and how best to deploy assets of personnel, budgets, and the programs it had unexpectedly acquired.

The State Department was not alone in its quandary. Following fast on the heels of the demise of the USIA, 9/11 made the scrutiny of the nation’s public diplomacy platforms all the more intense. It would be hard to count the number of blue ribbon panels, special commissions, congressional hearings, op-eds, and scholarly reports that focused on what to do not only about public diplomacy in general but anti-Americanism specifically. (Practitioner-scholar Richard T. Arndt counted more than thirty by 2006.)32 In time, anti-Americanism became so exclusively linked to violent extremism from the Muslim world that the concepts became inseparable. To see anti-Americanism through such a narrow lens, and to link it almost solely to a religion not well understood in Washington, set the stage for a powerful misconception. It also meant that public diplomacy risked being judged by an impatient Congress and others solely on its ability to move the needle in public opinion polls.

Both the Bush and Obama administrations tended to view anti-Americanism as the single most alarming feature of the Muslim world, especially in countries such as Pakistan, Egypt, and Iraq. As policymakers focused more on Islam, they became trapped in a cycle in which public diplomacy was linked to anti-Americanism, which was in turn linked to Islam.

Public diplomacy practitioners were quick to point out that post-9/11 studies on public diplomacy were “overwhelmingly interested in what could be done in Washington; very few addressed what happens overseas. The views of the people responsible for implementing public diplomacy overseas were largely absent.” 33 Former ambassador William Rugh wrote that most commission members “had not been career officers with field experience; instead they have been Washington-based policymakers or short-term political appointees.” ³⁴

The many commissions seemed to skate over empirical data from public opinion research, echoed by a few experienced voices that put forward a similar message: the problem lay in U.S. policies, not the messaging programs. Rugh, a public diplomacy officer who served most of his career in the Arab world, wrote that “despite 60 years of U.S. public diplomacy programs trying to reach Arab public opinion, Arab criticism of the United States reached unprecedented levels largely because of disagreement with U.S. policies themselves.” ³⁵

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) took a pragmatic approach, looking into staffing since the 2002 implementation of the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative (DRI), which was meant to remedy years of budget cuts that had left the State Department without the personnel to fill overseas positions. The study found that the DRI, which enabled the State Department to hire one thousand additional employees, had been consumed by the insatiable need for staffing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Public diplomacy positions suffered some of the most severe staffing gaps.³⁶ Several embassy cables support this analysis. Even Embassy Riyadh, surely a crucial post-9/11 operation, wrote, “Our greatest need in Saudi Arabia is for qualified officers and staff to carry out this PD strategy. For most of the past two difficult but critically important years, we have been operating at half strength in terms of American officers, yet we have seen more than one promised public diplomacy hand diverted to other posts. We need to assign language-qualified, at-grade, PD-cone officers to the existing public diplomacy positions at Embassy Riyadh and the two Consulates General in Dhahran and Jeddah. In addition, in order to implement this strategy successfully, we need four new public diplomacy officer positions.” 37

The GAO also focused on the foreign language deficit. Two of its studies from 2006 and 2009 concluded that more officers need to speak more languages—and at higher levels of proficiency.³⁸ In 2003, former ambassador Edward Djerejian had said that within the entire foreign service, only five officers spoke Arabic well enough to discuss and debate issues on Al Jazeera television.³⁹ His observation quickly became the new benchmark for language proficiency. GAO studies bought into the idea of increased language competence, along with more officers and more programs. But the focus on language leaves unanswered the question of why so many Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America, including Argentina, Bolivia, and Venezuela, also have abysmal anti-American numbers, despite the fact that many foreign service officers speak fluent Spanish.

The Office of Management and Budget was even more harsh, rating public diplomacy field operations as “not performing—results not demonstrated.” Its study claimed overseas programs had difficulty measuring impact; that few public diplomacy programs linked budgets to performance; and that there was not a broad overarching U.S. public diplomacy strategy.” ⁴⁰

This deficiency in assessment is striking. While the many commissions in Washington agonized about public diplomacy, few grappled with what metrics might offer an impartial way to judge success. Despite their convenience, public opinion polls cannot be a reliable standard for gauging the effectiveness of public diplomacy actions. Too many variables influence public attitudes, and an isolated incident in one place may pull down numbers everywhere. Nonetheless, it is clear that between 2006 and 2010 the public diplomacy community had not been able to offer its own standards for effectiveness, and in the words of practitioner Joe Johnson, “If you cannot define success, you’ll never succeed.” ⁴¹

THE IMPACT OF CONGRESSIONALLY MANDATED REPORTING

The many panels neglected to examine one important trend: the impact of congressionally mandated reports. By their nature a scorecard-type evaluative report, they unmistakably sound like judgments on the policies, culture, and cooperation of other countries. This reporting work, which draws heavily on embassy staff time, helps fuel anti-American resentment. Even the friendliest nations bristle at the presumptiveness of the United States passing judgment on how they handle sensitive areas such as human rights, religious freedom, and counternarcotics.

One safely retired practitioner wrote, “It strikes many of us as ludicrous, for example, that our small embassy staff in Reykjavik has to devote many hours to preparing an annual human rights report. Instead of repeating, year after year, that the government of Iceland respects in every important particular the liberties of its citizens, they could be out talking to Icelanders about America.” 42 Such brave sentiment emerges from those currently serving who make a similar point by chronicling foreign governments’ outrage.

Embassy Moscow wrote about the blistering reaction to the International Religious Freedom Report, saying that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) sneered: “It seems that the authors decided not to bother themselves with releasing updated information” and called the IRF report “a politically biased document distorting the facts, which deliberately misrepresents the Government of Russia’s stellar record of protecting religious freedom.” ⁴³ The report attacked an increasingly authoritarian Russian government for its treatment of minority Russian religions as well as its judicial restrictions against Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Church of Scientology. The cable writer could not resist a sneer right back, acidly noting, “Since other countries may not be familiar with Russia’s long tradition of inter-faith harmony, the MFA kindly offered to ‘try to help them understand.’”

The French MFA offered a more sophisticated response to the International Religious Freedom Report for France, having within its bureaucracy a bureau focused on religious affairs. The embassy reported that a follow-up meeting to the report focused on methodology, and the French may have won a point, noting that the State Department quoted results of a poll from Catholic newspaper La Croix, which did not use scientific methods. The French also insisted the burqa debate (the outlawing of women wearing burqas in public places) should be left as a judicial matter.

Embassy reporting reveals that the State Department struggled mightily to gain traction on its annual Human Rights Report. The document ended up prolonging discussion of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, which while uncovered in 2003 lingered long after as a convenient example of U.S. hypocrisy.

China bristled at the criticism in its Human Rights Report, which focused on tight government control of dissent, and the detention, harassment, and house arrest of human rights and democracy activists. “We urge the U.S. to examine its own human rights problems and not use human rights as an excuse or publish human rights reports in order to interfere with others’ affairs,” the government stated. “The U.S. practice of throwing stones while living in a glass house is a testimony to the double standard and hypocrisy of the U.S.” 44

The Czech Republic’s prime minister Mirek Topolánek was irate to read that the State Department did not think the Czechs had a stellar record respecting the rights of the Roma (itinerant people of northern Indian origin who face prejudice and difficulty integrating into European mainstream life). “To the report from the U.S. State Department I can only say that a country that allows torturing of prisoners can hardly teach me about how human rights have been violated here.” ⁴⁵

The U.S. embassy in Buenos Aires noted that the Argentine government’s extreme sensitivity to any public criticism whatsoever posed a problem for all the annual congressionally mandated reports, even fairly innocuous ones. “The April 1 release of our perennial Investment Climate Statement, which covers the foreign investment climate here, for example, generated concern within the GOA [Government of Argentina] despite its extremely understated tone. We are working to assuage their unease through private conversations and publicly putting the report in its proper context.” 46

The congressionally mandated reports offer one of the clearest glimpses of the disconnect on anti-Americanism. While idealists may still see the country as the last great hope of the downtrodden, defenseless, and victimized people of the world, its shift in recent years as the world’s foremost military power burdens it with unwelcome publicity about rendition flights, torture at Abu Ghraib, and civilians killed in drone strikes (a report and film of which preceded the WikiLeaks diplomatic release). Not only do the many reports underscore the U.S. loss of credibility, but in countries with single-digit approval ratings, the text of these reports is simply another irritant.

The International Religious Freedom Report, which provides an assessment on the status of religious freedom in every country in the world, presents particular challenges because it illustrates cultural differences. It is a blunt tool with a rigid format that does not allow for context. It leaves Germans feeling that their treatment of Scientologists and the French that their ban on burqas are seen in the United States as equivalent to how the Taliban treats women. A section titled “Improvements in Respect for Religious Freedom” speaks approvingly of some German states’ willingness to allow Islamic religious instruction in public school classrooms—something that would be constitutionally challenged in the United States.

American-style religion, with its televangelist millionaires, Westborough Baptist protests at funerals, anti-Islamic rants by pastors, and eternal court fights over prayer in schools and crèches in town halls, may be something of an acquired taste. Embassies run into trouble translating the U.S. constitutional requirement of separation of church and state in countries that see no need for such separation. Other countries are skeptical the separation exists at all, citing U.S. support for Israel, statements from elected officials that the United States is a Christian nation, and President George W. Bush’s previously mentioned remark of a U.S. crusade against terrorism.

Yet another congressionally mandated report, the International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, exposes the U.S. to gibes that the report comes from a country that fuels demand for drugs and has among the highest number of drug users. Worse still, according to critics, the report is issued by a country where certain states have legalized the use of some drugs, a strategy long advocated by many Latin American countries. Countries wonder why they should continue to work with a partner with such blatant double standards. The reporting template assesses a growing list of countries touched by global narcotics trafficking according to a number of criteria: institutional development, supply reduction, drug abuse awareness, treatment, corruption, national goals, and bilateral cooperation. Some of the countries on the list, such as Afghanistan, undoubtedly pose a threat. Others, such as the UK, Canada, and Germany presumably have adequate laws in place to combat narcotics without scrutiny from the U.S. Congress.

Of course, advocates argue that the virtues of the congressionally mandated reports outweigh imperfections; that the good should not be the enemy of the best. The reports on trafficking and human rights give victims and those who cannot speak for themselves a measure of hope. NGOs also write reports, but none have the universal resources or reach of the U.S. government, which still counts for a great deal. The annual Trafficking in Persons reports seem to come under less attack and have revealed a once invisible group of victims held captive in gruesome circumstances.

Perhaps future rounds of commissions and panels focused on public diplomacy could incorporate more voices from the field and the front lines. They might also explore whether human rights, human trafficking, counternarcotics cooperation, and religious freedom might be assessed in less dogmatic ways that would allow policymakers to preach less and learn more—one of the ostensible rationales for all the reports. But until that happens, it is important for those exploring the roots of anti-Americanism to understand that whatever good the reports might bring must be balanced against the clear opportunity for America-bashing they provide.

THE LEADERSHIP PROBLEM

America’s efforts at public diplomacy are riven with disconnects between Washington and the field that start at the top. Public diplomacy has suffered mightily from poor direction. Three administrations struggled to find and retain adequate leadership, largely because they were unclear about the skill set needed; because finding qualified leaders proved difficult; and in a few cases, because Senate approval was lengthy or uncertain. Underlying all of this was policymakers’ dual uncertainty about the nature of anti-Americanism and the nature of public diplomacy, the tool with which policymakers expected to counter it.

The State Department’s under secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, sometimes dubbed America’s top PR agent, oversees three bureaus: Educational and Cultural Affairs, Public Affairs, and International Information Programs. These three bureaus spearhead the nation’s effort to engage foreign audiences. The Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) handles all manner of youth, academic, and professional exchanges as well as cultural programming. The Bureau of Public Affairs (PA) responds to domestic and international media on U.S. foreign policy topics. It houses the spokesperson’s office and runs the daily noon press briefing, crafts answers to media inquiries, and arranges interviews with State’s top policymakers. The Bureau of International Information Programs (IIP) creates multimedia and digital communications products to promote people-to-people conversations about U.S. foreign policy priorities.

Since 1999 there have been nine under secretaries, interspersed with vacancies of up to fifteen months at a stretch. A report from the Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy noted the position has gone unfilled 30 percent of the time.47 Just as concerning as those long vacancies, the tenure of incumbents has been short, ranging from barely six months (Margaret Tutwiler) through two years, three months (Karen Hughes). There was one under secretary in the waning days of the Clinton administration; four in the Bush administration, and at this writing four in the Obama administration.

Three of the nine had very close connections to the president: Evelyn Lieberman was deputy press secretary and then deputy chief of staff in the Clinton White House; Karen Hughes was a trusted Bush confidante and White House counselor; and Margaret Tutwiler had served as State Department spokesperson and ambassador to Morocco. Three came from industry: Charlotte Beers had been chairman of both Ogilvy & Mather and J. Walter Thompson; James Glassman had been executive editor and/or publisher for magazines such as the New Republic, the Atlantic, and U.S. News and World Report, among others; and Judith McHale was president and CEO of Discovery Communications and creator of the Discovery Channel. Obama appointee Tara Sonenshine had an eclectic career that included ABC’s Nightline, stints at NGOs such as the International Crisis Group and the International Women’s Media Foundation, as well as time spent as executive vice president of the federally funded U.S. Institute of Peace. Kathleen Stephens was a career foreign service officer designated as a placeholder while awaiting Sonenshine’s confirmation (her tenure lasted only two months), and current incumbent Richard Stengel is a journalist with sixteen years of experience as managing editor at Time magazine who also collaborated with Nelson Mandela on his autobiography.

These are all smart people. Every one of these appointees brought impressive accomplishments from lengthy careers—in other fields. Their eclectic professions touched on at least some aspects of public diplomacy—communications, television, advertising, journalism, and publishing. Nonetheless, none had truly successful tenures as under secretary; each struggled to help public diplomacy find a foothold in the State Department; and all failed to make meaningful inroads in combating anti-Americanism.

The State Department publishes an organizational chart on its website, a challenge even for experts in complex structures to comprehend. Critics claim the department has become more unwieldy as it has acquired other agencies such as the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in 1997 and the U.S. Information Agency in 1999, and taken on additional foreign assistance responsibilities from the U.S. Agency for International Development. The secretary of state heads the department, and near the top of the chart are slots for six under secretaries covering political affairs; economic growth, energy, and environment; arms control and international security affairs; public diplomacy and public affairs; management; and civilian security, democracy, and human rights.

It is telling that many of the State Department’s under secretaries for the other five divisions have been career officers, not political appointees. The nine above-mentioned incumbents’ experience pales against distinguished career officers such as Patrick Kennedy, under secretary for Management, or Thomas Pickering, Marc Grossman, Nicholas Burns, and William Burns, all former under secretaries for Political Affairs. These career officers have all been ambassadors. They brought decades of experience at embassies and consulates as well as intensive experience inside the State Department and an in-depth understanding of other key agencies. They knew how to work with the National Security Council and other interagency players such as the Departments of Defense, Commerce, Agriculture, and Energy. They had connections on the Hill, testified before Congress, tackled the toughest policy issues, and met dozens of times with foreign heads of state.

The resistance by all administrations to entrust this key job to a career officer has not gone unnoticed. In frustration at the long-unfilled gaps, a group of thirty-seven former ambassadors and other retired high-level diplomats sent an open letter to Secretary of State Kerry in May 2013 calling for the position to be filled by “a career foreign affairs professional with years of overseas and Washington experience.” 48 To no avail.

The under secretary of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs job may well be harder than its counterpart position in Political Affairs. The latter has boundaries largely defined by tradition and is replicated in most of the world’s foreign ministries. There is a tidiness about the many geographic offices, with desk officers reporting to their office directors and up through deputy assistant and assistant secretaries. This structure is more or less symmetrical with foreign ministries around the world, making the routine communication of day-to-day diplomacy relatively easy.

Public diplomacy, by contrast, is a uniquely American job that usually has no foreign counterpart, because the American approach pulls everything under one roof, from hard-hitting policy speeches to long-term academic exchanges like Fulbright scholarships.

While discontinuity and long gaps have made it difficult to lead the Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs division convincingly, the records of the under secretaries have been checkered by their actions as well as their absences. In a few cases, they have been excoriated by both domestic and overseas media. Communications expert Karen Hughes personified the Bush administration’s conviction that public diplomacy meant opening a dialogue with the Arab world. As mentioned earlier, Hughes gamely traveled to the trouble spots—Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Indonesia. She brought along a young American Muslim student and tried to connect with female audiences, but critics were quick to pounce on what they saw as the cluelessness of her mission.

Philip Giraldi, a former CIA counterterrorism expert, wrote that Hughes blamed the glitches in her listening tour on U.S. embassies and ordered her senior assistants to shake up embassy staffs and demand a more aggressive delivery of the administration’s message. She set up an infamous “echo chamber,” designed to keep everyone on message.49 In a sure sign of discontent, her message to the field, “Karen’s Rules,” was leaked and published in the Washington Post, the Nation, and elsewhere. The memo was given to the Post by a recipient who noted that “if all were well, nobody would have leaked it.” ⁵⁰

The rules reinforced an image of micromanagement—for example, Rule #2: “You are always on sure ground if you use what the President, Secretary Rice, Sean McCormack or Senior USG [U.S. government] spokesmen have already said on a particular subject.” And Rule #5: “Don’t Make Policy. This is a sensitive area about which you need to be careful. Do not get out in front of USG policymakers on an issue, even if you are speaking to local press.”

Even an assessment in the usually pro–State Department Foreign Service Journal was fairly damning. Shawn Zeller, senior staff writer for Congressional Quarterly and frequent contributor to the Journal, wrote that Hughes was seen as too controlling. “Many in the field say that Hughes’s public relations–style approach to public diplomacy reflects the kind of top-down thinking that works better in politics than foreign affairs. Many of Hughes’ initiatives, in other words, started with a dictate from Washington that the field must then follow, with little receptivity to ideas coming from the other direction, they say.” ⁵¹

Charlotte Beers was criticized for an attempt to “brand” America the same way she had earned fame branding Uncle Ben’s rice. And when Margaret Tutwiler suddenly announced her switch from government public relations to the executive suites of the New York Stock Exchange, the timing of her move, which occurred during the week that the first brutal images of abused Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib were released worldwide, raised eyebrows.52 James Glassman, who lasted only seven months, seemed not to believe in the job. He wrote, “Trying to get foreigners to like us is the default endeavor of the State Department’s public affairs office, and in my view, it’s largely a waste of time.” ⁵³

When Judith McHale was rumored to be next in line, the Washington Post’s Al Kamen noted that the job “has been especially difficult given Washington’s reputation abroad.” He shrugged off her lack of diplomatic experience, noting, “We’re reminded that this is a job that involves selling a message.” ⁵⁴

Others were not so sanguine. George Washington University professor Marc Lynch protested that McHale would be “a terrible, terrible selection. The position . . . should go to someone with experience in and a vision for public diplomacy, and who will be in a position to effectively integrate public diplomacy concerns into the policy-making process.” ⁵⁵

Chaos at the top had consequences below. Weak and absent leaders failed to incorporate the newly consolidated division into the State Department’s bureaucracy. The former USIA’s largely civil service component ran academic and cultural exchanges with a firewalled budget and worked for years out of the same building at L’Enfant Plaza, six Metro stops and a considerable walk away from the State Department’s Foggy Bottom. The sense of remaining separate from the State Department was stronger than the sense of working together. ECA program officers and branch chiefs routinely spoke of the State Department as a separate entity. Both civil and foreign service officers were demoralized, having seen their former agency undervalued and dismantled by Congress, only to find themselves white elephants in a State Department that was mystified and bemused by its newfound assets.

A gap in the middle, among public diplomacy implementers, compounded the leadership gap at the top. Like all FSOs, those assigned to hardship and dangerous posts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan serve for only a year. Many were simply not present, since, as the GAO study noted, numerous overseas assignments were going unfilled. A host of other, greater hardship countries are two-year assignments, and the maximum an officer may stay in any country is three years. Given the need to interact with local opinion leaders, nearly all public diplomacy overseas assignments are language-designated, but shortfalls in language skills and the long lead time needed to teach difficult languages compounds the problem. Combined, these conditions created a shortage of experienced public diplomacy officers with language skills and in-depth knowledge of the countries in which their expertise was needed. And the Wikileaks cables illustrate the consequences of that gap.

PROGRAMS IN THE FIELD: FROM MEALS TO IDEALS

For the most part, American diplomats work out of embassies—the lead diplomatic facility that is always located in the capital city. In larger countries, the State Department also staffs consulates, secondary facilities that extend diplomatic reach, headed by a consul general who reports to the ambassador. In some countries, such as Canada, the United States supports not only an embassy in Ottawa but multiple consulates in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City, and Halifax. There is also an American Presence Post (APP) in Winnipeg. APPs are usually single-officer posts with very limited services; they do not issue visas. The State Department also staffs diplomatic missions to international organizations, starting with the United States Mission to the United Nations. Other examples include the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, (OSCE), and the UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). It is possible to have more than one ambassador in a city. Brussels hosts three—one at the U.S. embassy, one at the U.S. Mission to NATO, and one at the U.S. Mission to the European Union.

The State Department expects all officers, including the ambassador, to engage in public diplomacy, and nearly all embassies and many consulates include a public diplomacy section, headed by a Public Affairs Officer (PAO) whose job is to think strategically about assets to be used in public outreach and to plan programming. These officers perform the obvious tasks—running exchange programs, monitoring the media, and writing speeches for the ambassador. The WikiLeaks cables show there is also room for considerable creativity, and those diplomats proposed and organized an ambitious range of events.

Officers at the U.S. embassy in Paraguay attempted to reach a new audience—people interested in environmental issues—by hosting a bird-watching tour on embassy grounds. They pulled out all the stops, inviting bleary-eyed government officials, NGO leaders, and journalists to a 6:30 a.m. pre-breakfast tour led by bird-watching experts. They published a foldout guide, “Birds of the U.S. Embassy Gardens,” that helped visitors identify more than sixty species of birds inhabiting the ten-acre compound. They also assisted with the publication of the companion guide, “Birds of Asunción,” which they distributed to guests. The embassy figured there was just something irresistible about bird-watching.56

A continent away, the three U.S. diplomatic installations in Italy—Embassy Rome, Embassy Vatican City, and the U.S. Mission to UN Agencies—joined forces to spotlight the United States as a leader in the fight against hunger through a “hunger banquet” at the ambassador’s residence. The missions reported that the event divided attendees according to access-to-food proportions found in the world. At the special Thanksgiving reception, 60 percent of the guests were served rice under a tent outdoors; 25 percent ate rice and beans in the residence foyer; and a handful were served a posh meal with wine. The ambassadors wrote that a “hunger banquet might also help soften the USG image in light of the rise in anti-Americanism worldwide . . . and presents an opportunity to discuss humanitarian assistance with embassy contacts not aware of the role the U.S. plays.” 57

In Cuba, where the United States had an Interests Section in lieu of an embassy, the staff tried to turn down the temperature on politics with a baseball-themed Fourth of July reception. Guests dined on hot dogs and popcorn while being entertained with baseball-themed music, videos, and a reenactment of Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First?” Cubans loved the party favors, which included baseballs, baseball cards, and material donated by Major League Baseball.⁵⁸

In the early 2000s, every embassy worthy of the name began hosting iftar dinners, traditionally celebrated to break the fast during Ramadan. In Muslim-dominant countries, these made good sense and had been going on long before 9/11. In countries such as Germany and the United Kingdom, with significant Muslim minority populations, they also worked well. But in countries with few Muslim residents, the dinners smacked of pandering or a desire to check the box on Muslim outreach to satisfy anxious Washington policymakers. They were attended only by Muslim members of the diplomatic corps and interfaith leaders.

Over time, embassies began to look beyond the now-obligatory meal. Embassy Athens and the consulate in Thessaloniki hosted iftar dinners but emphasized to Washington that they were only one element in a sophisticated outreach program to a complex and divided community. While one Muslim community in Thrace dated back to Ottoman times and comprised ethnic Turks, Pomaks, and Roma, it contrasted with a very distinct urban community of recent Muslim immigrants from Albania, the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa. The mission strategy for the Thracian Muslim community focused on exchanges and partnerships with civil society organizations, support for minority rights, and cultural programming, while outreach to the recent immigrant community focused on partnerships with Muslim organizations, religious freedom and refugee issues, and fostering Muslim–host country dialogue.59 This kind of analysis and targeted programming goes well beyond the somewhat superficial thinking on iftar dinners. Embassy London created a counter-radicalization multi-agency working group to improve its understanding of a very complex UK Muslim community. It made the point that one-size-fits-all programming doesn’t work in a single country, or even in a single city. “Programs are shaped to fit particular neighborhood needs and dynamics, recognizing that the diversity of Muslim communities precludes a monolithic set of responses.” ⁶⁰

U.S. Consulate Jeddah wrote that even a short-term event can require exhaustive and elaborate planning. It created an American Culture and Commerce festival from scratch in the Saudi city of Abha. The post hoped the event would engage broader, younger, and harder-to-reach audiences outside major cities and educate Saudis about U.S. culture, education, and commercial partnerships. The four-day event featured a gala VIP opening, English teacher training workshops, presentations on study in the United States and visas, panel discussions, presentations to local businesses, and much more. The post proudly reported that some eight thousand people attended, many of them students. And yet, scant funding from Washington sent the consulate scurrying to find sponsors and partners. Why Washington stinted on an event that seemed to hit all the bells on Muslim outreach is mystifying.⁶¹

Embassy Benin coupled iftar and Ramadan with the idea of service and organized the first-ever community blood drive at the Cadjehoun Mosque in Cotonou in response to President Obama’s call for an interfaith day of volunteer service.⁶² Mauritania brought an American Muslim couple to interact with locals, a foreshadowing of a frequent and popular programming effort to bring American Muslims to audiences overseas.⁶³ But even innocuous events such as iftar dinners can be controversial. Embassy Asmara, operating under some of the most hostile host country conditions anywhere on the globe, reported that the government of Eritrea shut down its iftar dinner, sending a diplomatic note verbale (an unsigned diplomatic note written in the third person) expressly forbidding the planned meal. This came after the embassy’s official protest of Eritrean security forces roughing up a U.S. public diplomacy officer and many of his guests as he hosted a public event at a rented auditorium.64

Embassies far from the Muslim world also tried new forms of outreach. In Buenos Aires, the embassy wrote in November 2008 about its efforts to combat the highest level of anti-Americanism in the Western Hemisphere, a status that had persisted for six years. A cable reviewing attempts to reverse the trend found a formula for success in relentless media outreach (several times a day), focused attention on youth, and augmented involvement with NGOs and community activities. That said, the embassy had a lot of help. Writer Tom Wolfe came for the International Book Fair; figure skater Michelle Kwan met with youth leaders; violinist Joshua Bell performed, as did headliners such as Ozomatli, Toto, Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, the Black Eyed Peas, and reggaeton stars Wisin and Yandel. The State Department chose an Argentine to receive the Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Award and funded exchange projects for the country’s high school students and English teachers. Yet measuring the results of all this activity remained difficult. The post noted, “We are beginning to see our [public opinion] numbers head north again,” falling prey to the use of public opinion polls as a measure of success.⁶⁵

As Buenos Aires’s efforts indicate, public diplomacy costs money, and the cables show embassies thinking beyond the next meal, pitching Washington with programming ideas and funding requests they linked to wider strategic plans to advance U.S. interests. Larger posts, such as Buenos Aires and Riyadh, sent multipage requests for elaborate and multifaceted programming. Smaller posts, such as Paramaribo, looked for amounts as small as $13,350.⁶⁶

Any thoughtful reading of the cables leads to the conclusion that designing public diplomacy is a task for those on the ground, not those in Washington. No Washington panel could anticipate the subtle differences of the Thracian Muslims. A hunger banquet would never work in countries where hosts deem it a point of honor to offer guests their very best—a cold bowl of rice would be an unpardonable insult. It worked in Rome because diplomatic receptions are plentiful and food is never in short supply.

Although anti-Americanism had infinite variations, too much of the public diplomacy toolkit from Washington continued to be standard issue: exchanges, cultural programming, and American speakers. And plenty of embassy proponents of activist programming argued that conquering public opinion was only a matter of adequate resources skillfully used. In a frenzy, posts mounted program after program while Washington continued to pursue a foreign policy that was certain to alienate.

TO KNOW US MIGHT NOT BE TO LOVE US

Given the implacable and pervasive nature of anti-Americanism, it is time to consider the assertion propounded by former Under Secretary James Glassman at the outset of this chapter. Is trying to get foreigners to like us a waste of time?

Perhaps Glassman failed to acknowledge the strength of the American desire to be liked. Obama took up the fight at a town hall meeting in Strasbourg in April 2009. Acknowledging that “there have been times when America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive,” he also chided a uniquely European style of anti-Americanism that clearly annoyed him. “In Europe there is an anti-Americanism that is at once casual, but can be insidious . . . these attitudes have become all too common. They are not wise. They do not represent the truth. They . . . fail to acknowledge the fundamental truth that America cannot confront the challenges of this century alone, but that Europe cannot confront them without America.” 67

Obama’s words were politely received in Strasbourg, but they did not spark discussions back home about whether work to combat anti-Americanism is worth pursuing. Obama spoke for the optimists who believe that anti-Americanism can be conquered. No one is asking (or at least not very loudly) whether the United States should accept that anti-Americanism is the price paid for pursuing unpopular policies. And no one has yet proven that fear of losing the world’s good opinion has ever constrained the United States from taking action. The idea that world public opinion should be part of any policy decision-making process was famously articulated by the USIA’s director, Edward R. Murrow, who said, after dealing with the results of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, “Dammit, if they want me in on the crash landings, I’d better damned well be in on the take-offs!” ⁶⁸ Murrow was arguing that it is unreasonable to turn to public diplomacy practitioners only when it’s too late. They deserve a seat with policymakers at the takeoffs, too. It’s still a valid request today and still ignored.

From Argentina to Zimbabwe, the leaked cables show embassies operating according to a predictable pattern. Posts attempt to gauge the depth and virulence of anti-Americanism, hold earnest discussions with opinion leaders, and then plan programs aimed at moving the needle of public opinion. The underlying assumption is that if diplomats could only perform enough outreach, sit down with enough people, and engage in enough useful dialogue, they could solve the problem. Rather than sound out the depths of the harm caused by disasters such as Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and drone strikes, diplomats appear to have become uncritical believers in the power of their own programs. Happy talk and can-do cables full of public diplomacy triumphs seem aimed to please policymakers rather than educate them on what might be wrong. When in doubt, the common solution is to plead for resources to do even more programming. Too many cables cater to Washington’s insatiable demand for success stories, when a more courageous stance might have been to write about failure and to insist that some of Washington’s policies were so unpopular, no amount of clever programming would turn the tide.

While embassy reporting was energetic—and frequently colorful—in describing anti-Americanism, it was less than candid in pushing back on the policies that caused it or insisting on a seat at the policy table. Yet experienced diplomats such as Richard Arndt insist that “policy is not just a factor, it is the only factor.” If getting people to like us were easy, it would have been done long ago. The fact that it is so hard suggests two alternatives: either work in new ways to achieve it or agree with Glassman that it is a waste of time.

Of course the WikiLeaks operation was itself an example of anti-Americanism. Assange, speaking of his motivations, told the New York Times that the United States had become “the greatest threat to democracy,” with a government and society dominated by the military, its people cowed into conformity by what he called “the security state.” His anti-American views were a magnet for supporters and volunteers drawn from all over Europe who made common cause with him, and U.S. government pressure only galvanized them.

America ought to welcome a discussion that includes outlier and iconoclastic ideas like Glassman’s and others’. Asking uncomfortable questions is the foundation of a thoughtful approach. The dozens of commissions on public diplomacy spurred no revolution in thinking because the usual suspects in Washington cannot or will not think differently. Until someone convenes a panel with diplomats fresh from the field, the sounds of protests still ringing in their ears and the tear gas still smarting in their eyes, we won’t have the dialogue we need to move public diplomacy in new directions.

Such a panel might start with this observation from Anthony Quainton, former director general of the foreign service and former ambassador to Peru, Nicaragua, Kuwait, and the Central African Republic. “We’ve made the assumption for five years now that everyone wants Western-style democracy and capitalism. Well, the reality is that that assumption may be wrong, and then you are really swimming upstream.” 69