Obsolete Restrictions on Public Diplomacy Hurt U.S. Outreach and Strategy

[Cannoneer No. 4]

More on our embarrassing failures in strategic communications, this time by Juliana G Pilon, Ph.D..

[Smith-Mundt] prohibits domestic dissemination of information designed for foreign consumption, ostensibly so as to ban "domestic propaganda." Yet in this age of instant and global communication, expecting to prevent such public information from reaching Americans is unrealistic and technologically impossible.

In the war on terrorism, this restriction is worse than an anachronism: It amounts to self-sabotage. Until Congress relegates this piece of legislation to the dustbin of history, the U.S. cannot expect to conduct public diplomacy effectively.

*Congress should immediately repeal Section 501.

*The U.S.-funded Alhurra TV should then immediately be permitted to broadcast in the United States. While Al-Jazeera can freely preach hatred and distortion in Arabic to Arab Americans over many U.S. cable systems, it is nothing short of bizarre to forbid a moderate message from reaching the same audience.

*Congress should require all agencies involved in any form of public diplomacy to report these activities to the National Security Adviser for a comprehensive tally.

*Until then, Congress should require the State Department, USAID, and all other agencies conducting public diplomacy to submit or post on the Web an annual report listing all relevant publications and activities so that Americans can be informed of how we are communicating our values and principles as well as our generosity abroad.

*Congress should mandate that all public servants who engage in public diplomacy must receive specific training and should expressly allocate "career enhancement" funds to that purpose.

*Current ambassadors, foreign service officers, USAID employees, and other relevant government personnel engaged in public diplomacy outreach should be required to undergo intensive additional training prior to their next deployment overseas.

*U.S. government grantees and contractors should be required, rather than be forbidden, to inform the public about their activities, contingent on security considerations.

*The U.S. government should expand its efforts to encourage the private sector to engage in public diplomacy activities and to provide citizen ambassadors with relevant information to help them in this task.

Go read it at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Nat...ity/bg2089.cfm

[selil]

I'm left thinking... And?

[Ron Humphrey]

I'm left thinking... And?

Not quite sure if thats an assault on government spin or an effort to make it more effective??

[selil]

I thought the purpose of smith-mundt was to restrict propoganda from the military and empower the press to cover without coercion.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

I thought the purpose of smith-mundt was to restrict propoganda from the military and empower the press to cover without coercion.

MountainRunner explains Smith-Mundt's declared purpose here.

S-M was less about protecting tender American ears and more about getting the message out to counter what was seen as highly effective Communist propaganda and to fix what was seen (not without substantial merit) crappy U.S. propaganda (when it existed).

It has been misinterpreted. The law was never intended to apply to DoD

[marct]

It has been misinterpreted. The law was never intended to apply to DoD

In some ways, that is moot - common law traditions have a way of reinterpreting themselves over the years, and S-M has come to mean no propaganda, period. It would probably take a Supreme Court decision to reverse that interpretation now.

[ilots]

I thought the purpose of smith-mundt was to restrict propoganda from the military and empower the press to cover without coercion.

While this is true, there are some unintended consequences which affect military DoD IO and PSYOP.

[MountainRunner]

I thought the purpose of smith-mundt was to restrict propoganda from the military and empower the press to cover without coercion.

Your impression is not unique, not rare, and not unsurprising. It is, and don't take this personally, completely false. Smith-Mundt did not cover the military. In fact, JFK, when he re-interpreted USIA et al's mission, as presidents are known to do, explicitly left out Defense information operations.

[USIA] staffs abroad, acting under the supervision of the chiefs of mission, are responsible for the conduct of overt public information, public relations and cultural activities -- i.e., those activities intended to inform or influence foreign public opinion -- for agencies of the U.S. government except for Commands of the Department of Defense

The emphasis is mine. To hammer the point, there has been friction between base commanders overseas when base newspapers get into the local population. From at least one Ambassador's POV, this was an information campaign and thus covered under Smith-Mundt (or at least under its notions) and thus under his responsibility. The base commander exercise "command communication" to circumvent this and the 'leak' of information was to be seen as 'unforeseen' and not preventable. (Of course, allowing others to overhear your conversation to influence them isn't new and is something Churchill practiced in Canada and elsewhere before WWII).

As far as "empower", also wrong but not an unsurprising view. It was to protect the free press. S-M was to protect not only the First Amendment right but also the profits. The fear of coercion wasn't there, just the thought of being overwhelmed or marginalized by expected competition from a government news service (feared follow-on leg to shut down papers was implied but not really discussed).

[marct]

Why would you want Propaganda in the United states to be broadcasted. a Channel like al_hurra is certanly not designed for American consumption. I am certanly offended by the fact that the Arab speaking americans like me need propaganda to get our mind straight. its just ludcrious to think that we need propaganda. what are you saying, that we are somehow less americans than you? do we require propaganda to be patriotic?

It's strategic communications. Propaganda is what the enemy produces.

From Wikipedia

Propaganda [from modern Latin: 'propagare', literally "extending forth"] is a concerted set of messages aimed at influencing the opinions or behavior of large numbers of people. Instead of impartially providing information, propaganda in its most basic sense presents information in order to influence its audience. The most effective propaganda is often completely truthful, but some propaganda presents facts selectively to encourage a particular synthesis, or gives loaded messages in order to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. The desired result is a change of the cognitive narrative of the subject in the target audience.

Hi Canoneer,

The key here is the phrase "a concerted set of messages aimed at influencing the opinions or behavior of large numbers of people". Propaganda is regularly unleashed on the American public by politicians and special interest groups, it is not just the property of an amorphous "enemy". Furthermore, calling what the US Government, as a whole, produces Strategic Communications" is somewhat of a misnomer - Brownian Semantics (aka mindlessly wandering all over the semantic map) would be a better term .

Abdul, you raise a good point, but let me toss one back at you. Part of becoming an American involves adopting certain attitudes and perceptions (it's one of the reasons why I won't take out US citizenship - I'm an inveterate monarchist ). These perceptions and attitudes fit in with that idea of "a concerted set of messages aimed at influencing the opinions or behavior of large numbers of people" or propaganda.

Now, I'm not saying that that means that you, or anyone else, has to adopt specific attitudes towards specific events (like believing that the Iraq war is a "just war"). Those types of specifics aren't required by the oath of citizenship, and propaganda aimed at establishing them is certainly subject to question. At the same time, the de facto restrictions imposed by current understandings of S-M have a tendency to muzzle one source of "facts" in an ongoing discussion in US society - something that actually is against the attitudes implicit in the oath of citizenship.

This is even worse when you get into the problem of language (something Canadians know all about !). The founding fathers of the US assumed that all public discourse would always be in a common language and that citizens would learn that common language. For a whole slew of historical reasons, there are now large parts of US society who do not speak English (the assumed common language) well enough to fulfill their obligations as citizens so there is a real problem. In Canada, we solved this partly by adopting a policy of official bilingualism (read "illiterate in both official languages" ). In the US, language is still a hot button issue and I doubt that we will see an official bilingual (or multi-lingual) policy at the federal level. So, how are citizens going to fulfill their obligations if they can't access large parts of the debate?