The Problem

Since the 1990s, Congress has left U.S. public diplomacy (PD) institutions financially strapped and strategically de-emphasized. Staffing and budget shortages within the Department of State—the default home for U.S. PD since the dissolution of the USIA—have pushed much of today’s public diplomacy work to the Department of Defense. PD practitioners are now self taught, mostly through trial and error, in under-staffed and under-funded posts, often leading to ineffective strategies and wasted resources.

Meanwhile, America's ideological rivals are taking advantage of this moment to resourcefully market their value systems. As this happens, America and other liberal democracies continue to lose ground in the war of ideas. The U.S. is widely perceived as overly reliant on military intervention, further undermining the values it wishes to uphold. Traditional liberalism—insisting on the freedom, autonomy, and reason of human beings—cannot win a propaganda war while simultaneously compromising its own values.

Burnishing America's reputation requires an overhaul of traditional PD culture. The old-fashioned, centralized approach of government-exclusive initiatives is poorly suited to today’s world of globalized communication. According to a recent report of the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the Department of State must take specific actions:

PD is the vehicle to cultivating respectful relationships based on dialogue, exchange, and understanding with civil societies worldwide. Its effective practice will allow the U.S. to interact with the greater international community in a way that defends and celebrates democratic values.