Al Hurra: Fair and Balanced News?
Al Hurra is America’s Arabic language TV station and it is performing with typical Bush administration competence. Intended to bring trustworthy news to the Arab world as an antidote to anti-American...
View ArticlePublic Diplomacy: Sow’s Ear to Silk Purse??
The United States’ public diplomacy program is a shadow of its former self. The days of American libraries abroad, widespread student exchange programs, strong surrogate broadcasting programs, and...
View ArticleU.S. Public Diplomacy: An Impossible Dream?
There has been a surge of interest in public diplomacy in the aftermath of Karen Hughes’ resigning her position as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy. While she received some positive...
View ArticleWhen America Stood Tall: The Berlin Airlift of 1948
Sixty years ago, on June 24, 1948 Josef Stalin blocked all routes through East Germany into the divided city of Berlin in an attempt to force the Western powers (Britain, France and the U.S.) to give...
View ArticleThe Trivialization of Public Diplomacy
When Edmund Gullion, Dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, coined the term “public diplomacy” in the mid sixties it’s unlikely he thought the best way to carry out such a program would be...
View ArticleSpeedo’s the name, Mr. Speedo
Okay, hands up – How many of you were mortified by the first appearance of Sean Connery as James Bond, when, dressed in natty boxer bathing trunks, he saved the even nattier (un)dressed Ursula Andress...
View ArticleWho has charisma? I’ll tell you who: Angela Merkel
In “Schubertiana” one of his greatest poems – and he has written more of them than anyone else alive – the matchless Tomas Tranströmer – incredibly he is a Nobel prize winner who actually deserved it...
View ArticleTurkey: The Rise and Fall of Secular Democracy
Abdullah Gul, President of Turkey, has signed into law a government proposal designed to give the government extraordinary powers of censorship over the Internet, including blocking of specific sites...
View ArticlePublic Diplomacy: America’s Lost Battle
The role of public opinion in the current Ukraine/Crimea crisis is a good illustration of the short sightedness of America’s reduced commitment to public diplomacy, as it continues to have a defense...
View ArticleObama’s Stunde Null
Is Obama trying to become the least trusted president of the US in recent memory? If he is, he doing a very good job of it. Just in the last couple of months he has managed to alienate many of his...
View ArticleCompeting in the Information War
“The speed of communications is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue.” ― Edward R. Murrow In March of 2014 this blog...
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