More than twenty years after the War on Terror, the US should realise the need for public diplomacy through dialogue, rather than resorting to propaganda Opinion | ialmarashi
Reflections on the two-decade ‘War on Terror’ have focused on the failings of American strategy in Afghanistan, the legacy of drone strikes employed by the US, and whether the threat of Al-Qaeda has been contained.
The term “public diplomacy” was coined in the 1960s to describe aspects of international diplomacy other than the traditional diplomatic interactions between national governments. As a strategy, public diplomacy focuses on the ways in which private, societal institutions, groups, and individuals in one country communicate and interact with citizens of other nations.
“In the corporate world, once a ‘brand identity’ is settled upon, it is enforced with military precision throughout a company’s operations. At its core, branding is about rigorously controlled one-way messages, sent out in their glossiest form, then sealed off from those who would turn corporate monologue into social dialogue.”
Both Republican and Democrat administrations failed in this regard. A successful US campaign would need to have emphasised two-way messages. The body that practices public diplomacy needs feedback from its target audiences. The Trump administration’s travel ban and disastrous attempts to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict did not improve America’s image, either. It did not seem this was an issue that the former American president even cared about, as he was more obsessed with his personal image than his nation’s.“Soft power grows out of both U.S. culture and U.S. policies. From Hollywood to higher education, civil society does far more to present the United States to other peoples than the government does.
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