Specific programs and initiatives following the Framework’s prescriptions re-veal the works in progress and attendant challenges.
The CSCC: The Challenge of Moving Youth Away from Extremism
State and DoD created an unusual cooperative endeavor, the Center for Stra-tegic Counter-terrorism Communication (CSCC), to seek out those youth especially vulnerable to terrorist recruitment.7 Housed at State, the $5–6 million includes some 40 representatives from the intelligence communi-ty, DoD strategic communications, State PD and political affairs officers—
a mix of Foreign Service, Military and Civil Service officials.8 The CSCC
reports to the PD Under Secretary but works closely with the new Bureau of Counter-Terrorism.
White House Executive Order of September 9, 2011 defined the new arrangement. The Executive Order identified audiences vaguely as “…those who may be susceptible to radicalization and recruitment by terrorist orga-nizations.” The challenge as described in the Executive Order is to draw to-gether diverse governmental and private analytic sources, integrate efforts to counter extremism among federal national security agencies, and
provide thematic guidance for strategic counterterrorism narrative and policies and to respond to and rebut extremist messaging and narratives when communicating to audiences outside the United States, as informed by a wide variety of govern-ment and non-governgovern-ment sources, including governgovern-ment organizations, academ-ic sources, and finished intelligence created by the intelligence community
The CSCC engages with al Qaeda and other extremist groups in Ara-bic, Urdu and Somali, primarily on websites and social media. A digital team provides all the text, poster art, video and other necessary digital support.
All materials are attributed. Native language speakers produce the varied items for varied social media. The State teams use humor and satire as well as efforts to create empathy for innocent victims of al Qaeda violence. While some would argue that making AQ violence salient will only lend support to the intimidation of local populace, CSCC leaders believe the opposite. Thus CSCC output will talk of the violence the AQ organizations bring to innocent civilians. This, too, seems to be a risk worth taking, but surely merits careful evaluation.
The hybrid organization links to the National Counterterrorism Center, and seeks to integrate and coordinate efforts among involved federal agen-cies. This is a tall order for any organization that neither controls the as-sets involved in such enterprises nor has a great deal of funding to lead the way. Even with the White House endorsement, such coordination is difficult (Obama, 2011).
As to the challenge of communicating with potentially hostile audiences, there is a paucity of definitive models or typologies to ferret out potential terrorists. Nor is it easy to claim success when someone doesn’t do something.
However the cost to the taxpayer is very low. Careful evaluation over time will be needed to tell whether the CSCC is successful.
Academic Exchanges: The Challenge of Planning and Prioritization
Since 9–11 funding has roughly doubled for academic and citizen exchanges, international visitor programs and educational and cultural activities of the
Department. Congress, especially individual Congressional leaders, had spe-cial programs that they urged on State, or wrote into legislation as earmarks.
In the past decade, expanded exchanges focused on the Middle East, Afghan-istan and PakAfghan-istan and other frontline states.
Along the way, ECA has developed very creative responses to new trends or needs, including an array of social media and new programs abroad. One new initiative, the English Access Micro-scholarship Program, since 2004 has helped more than 70,000 high school students from disadvantaged sectors in 85 nations develop basic English skills through after-school and summer programs. These students are better prepared to compete for scholarships and otherwise attend college in the U.S. and to contribute to their own nation’s growth.9
To accomplish the demanding agenda and set priorities for the future, ECA has developed a strategic plan that should better relate, if not inte-grate exchange activities with the work of other elements of the Department.
Its time has come. ECA will benefit from at least a three-year look forward to better understand trends here and abroad that might be addressed. A 2011 State Department inspection report also pointed to the need to re-duce stove-piping, improve communication both internally and externally, improve program flexibility and foster greater decision making responsibility lower down in the hierarchy (U.S. Department of State, 2012).
American Spaces: The Challenge of Accessibility
Earlier known as libraries and cultural centers, these physical venues have been, for the past 75 years, the bedrock of U.S. informational and cultural activities abroad, a vital image of American representation around the globe, a common meeting ground for students, scholars, writers, all those who praise and criticize our policies and our society. American libraries and cultural or binational centers have a rich history, and their decline in the past 25 years attests to the decline in U.S. PD presence abroad.
For more than a decade, the Bureau of International Information Pro-grams has been experimenting with new configurations that surmount the limitations of reduced staffs and budgets and increased security concerns. The answers are 498 American Corners and ten science corners around the world.
These supplement 183 Information Resource Centers in U.S. embassies and 30 independently located American Centers. Additionally the field posts pro-vide financial, technical and informational resources to 129 binational cen-ters, sponsored by indigenous organizations. New digital technologies are playing an increasing part in the IIP mix of approaches and providing more
content for the updated American Spaces. The Spaces vary greatly from very small corners in a university library or indigenous cultural center to the flag-ship center run by the U.S. embassy in Jakarta, built at a cost of $5 million and administered for $3 million a year. The Jakarta center, titled “@america,”
showcases the latest in multi-media technology. Eighty iPads, e-readers, and other electronic equipment connect visitors to information resources avail-able via the Internet (McCall, personal communication, n.d.). The mix of outreach to groups in their spaces, the use of virtual spaces and U.S. facilities is evolving. Meanwhile, embassy facilities are not likely to fulfill the need for mutually appealing meeting grounds. Indeed, the fortified embassies of the new era of insecurity inhibit contact with audiences.10
New Technologies: The Challenge of Finding an Effective Mix
The International Information Programs Bureau (IIP) has started to catch up with the non-governmental sector in innovative communication. IIP leader-ship has been justifiably proud of new starts in the employment of commu-nication technologies. With a marketing campaign in 2011–12, the Bureau gained about two million users for each of four websites, on environmental is-sues (“Global Conversations: Our Planet”) representative governance (“De-mocracy Challenge”) entrepreneurial change (Innovation Generation”) and American life and times (“eJournal USA”). These sites are potentially lively ways to reach significant numbers of younger people. As they evolve they will need to develop the spontaneity and authenticity of sites initiated from within a movement or a community. To help target younger people in the host country, IIP provides informational, technical and management support to PD field posts for their Facebook sites. These show greater engagement and appeal. With 600 million Facebook friends and more than half the world with cell phones, audiences of two million for State’s pages are modest and relatively undefined. IIP set a goal of doubling and then re-doubling the number of visitors in coming years (McCall, personal communication, n.d.).
However, this might be not only difficult but unnecessary.
As mobile phone apps and hybrid phone/tablets continue to offer new ways of communication State/IIP will require micro- or meta- audience iden-tification and the skill to condense information and structure it in levels of complexity. Even as broadband and Wi-fi zones spread across the globe, ex-panding the use of imagery and speeding the flow of data, State will continue to need better analytics to assess which ideas are being conveyed, to what effect, with which publics and opinion leaders. The IIP role, especially in view of the multiple IBB platforms with far larger audiences, might be to focus on
carefully defined opinion leaders or active groups in cooperation with U.S.
Missions and not compete with sites that will continue to command far larger audiences.
The International Informational Bureau also conducted a pilot program in 2011 to employ Kindles and other e-readers to the field. An initial round deployed 2,300 units to American Spaces in 169 countries and 3,800 to sup-port ECA’s English Access Microscholarship program in 17 countries. More than 300,000 e-books have been wirelessly disseminated abroad. This ap-proach provides a range of fiction and non-fiction, biography, reference ma-terials and English language learning titles to readers around the globe, and has promise for future expansion.
The Advisory Role of Public Diplomacy: The Challenge of Integrating PD into Decision Making
By recommending a deputy assistant secretary of state for public diplomacy in each geographic bureau, State intended to assure closer ties between PD and policy. With mixed results, experienced PD professionals have served in this capacity for the past three-plus years. Depending on their background and ex-perience, different individuals have brought different skills and relationships with colleagues. The mix has ranged from the daily policy grind to the more strategic dimensions. Based on multiple interviews, there is room for more significant PD inputs across the range of concerns confronting the geographic bureaus, from involvement in policy decisions to long-term planning. Several interviewees essentially argued that serious advice from PD practitioners in the regional bureaus has been pasted on top of other core functions, not fully integrated. This is not the first time such an experiment could dissipate with-out the benefit for U.S. diplomacy.
Similarly, the policy role of the under secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, after a decade-plus, remains unfulfilled. This is not surprising;
even the director of the independent U.S. Information Agency rarely was able, or enabled, to contribute to senior-level National Security Council pol-icy considerations. Other players have looked to USIA, and PD in State, for help on the policy outputs, not inputs. The policy advice of public affairs offi-cers to their country teams has traditionally been more important, depending on personal relationships, but rarely filtered up to the top in D.C. Excellent public opinion and international media analyses continue to provide useful information on the public dimension of U.S. global concerns, but merit more consistent use by policy makers.
The under secretary can do more than propose the orchestration of pol-icy support. S/he can draw on the experience of public diplomacy officers at home and abroad, and should have access to senior counterparts in the White House, National Security staff and the InterAgency. With the available research tools and corps of expertise, the under secretary and staff can make a difference in national security policy coordinating groups when they consider the public dimension of policy choices.. However, realistically, the under sec-retary must stay long enough to build credibility as a policy adviser, and know which issues are most significant for the special expertise of public diplomacy.