Anti-Americanism and the Limits of Public Diplomacy

Stephen Brooks

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317363408
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Diplomacia y tratados

Contrary to the view held by many who study American foreign policy, public diplomacy has seldom played a decisive role in the achievement of the country's foreign policy objectives. The reasons for this are not that the policies and interventions are ill-conceived or badly executed, although this is sometimes the case. Rather, the factors that limit the effectiveness of public diplomacy lie almost entirely outside the control of American policy-makers. In particular, the resistance of foreign opinion-leaders to ideas and information about American motives and actions that do not square with their pre-conceived notions of the United States and its activities in the world is an enormous and perhaps insurmountable wall that limits the impact of public diplomacy.

This book does not conclude that public diplomacy has no place in the repertoire of American foreign policy. Instead, the expectations held for this soft power tool need to be more realistic. Public diplomacy should not be viewed as a substitute for hard power tools that are more likely to be correlated with actual American influence as opposed to the somewhat nebulous concept of American standing.

1 The Belief in Brandenburg Gate

On June 4 of 2009 President Obama gave a much anticipated speech before an audience of students at Cairo University. Entitled “On a new beginning,” the president made clear that his remarks were addressed to all of the Muslim world. He spoke of the need for “mutual respect” and of the need to “listen to each other; to learn from each other” (Obama, 2009, June 4). The president cited the Koran five times, each time referring to it as the Holy Koran. He spoke glowingly of Islam’s contributions to learning and civilization. President Obama acknowledged and identified faults in American foreign policy, in particular in relation to the Muslim world. His speech—a speech that was interrupted roughly twenty times by applause from what clearly was an appreciative audience—began with the Arabic salutation “assalamu alaikum” (peace be upon you) and ended with the same blessing in English. It was a speech that was intended to let his interlocutors throughout the Muslim world know that a page had been turned in their relations with America. It was intended to influence hearts and minds.

Four months earlier, at the 45th Munich Conference on Security Policy, Vice President Joe Biden had announced a new beginning in his country’s relations with Europe. “I come to Europe on behalf of a new administration…that’s determined to set a new tone not only in Washington, but in America’s relations around the world” (Biden, 2009, February 7). Biden repeated the Obama administration’s promise to end interrogation techniques that critics characterized as torture, to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center, and to respect the rights of those suspected of terrorist activities. These were issues about which his Western European audience felt passionately and that had led to former president George W. Bush frequently being compared to Hitler and to charges that his administration was a sort of unilateralist criminal regime when it came to international law and human rights.

Biden’s mention of these issues was intended to send a signal that the dark days of America being a sort of rogue state when it came it international law—to repeat, this was a routine characterization of the Bush administration in the European media—were over. “[W]e’ll engage. We’ll listen. We’ll consult. America needs the world, just as I believe the world needs America.” This language was intended to comfort Europeans, some of whom had literally danced in the streets when Obama’s election was announced the previous November. Biden’s emphasis on the tools of diplomacy, the need for and virtues of multilateralism, and his mention of issues dear to the hearts of most European leaders and citizens were precisely what his listeners expected and wanted to hear. “We also are determined to build a sustainable future for our planet. We are prepared to once again begin to lead by example,” declared Biden, adding that “America will act aggressively against climate change and in pursuit of energy security with like-minded nations.” His speech was intended to refurbish America’s image among traditional friends and allies who, over the previous several years, had grown rather estranged from the United States.

One month after Biden’s speech in Munich, it was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s turn to persuade Europeans that they were right to believe, in her words, that “the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States has given new hope to the world.” Indeed, the Nobel Prize Committee would use much the same language when it awarded Obama its Peace Prize later that year. Secretary Clinton’s speech in the European Parliament to about one thousand European Union interns and young bureaucrats came at the close of a world tour that had taken her to Tokyo, Seoul and the Middle East. Billed as a town hall meeting, Clinton fielded nine questions on subjects that included the Israel-Palestinian conflict, climate change, terrorism, human rights, and differences between the American and European systems of government. Her description of Europe as a “miracle” and “this grand experiment…indeed impressive to those of us who have followed it from the other side of the Atlantic” were gratefully received by an audience that gave her a standing ovation. Her warm reception and the relative informality of a town hall meeting with future European leaders stood in sharp contrast to the absence of warmth and, indeed, occasional frostiness that had characterized the transatlantic relationship during the administration of George W. Bush.

The charm offensive continued that evening. Secretary Clinton flew to Geneva where she met her Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, at an event intended to show Russians, Americans and the world that a new administration in Washington also meant a fresh start in Russo-American relations. In fact, Vice President Biden had already made a point of this in his Munich speech. “It’s time to press the reset button,” he said, “and to revisit the many areas where we can and should be working together with Russia.”

The reset button metaphor was at the center of Clinton’s meeting with Lavrov that evening in Geneva. The Secretary of State presented the Russian Foreign Minister with a palm-sized yellow box that had a red reset button in the center. Before cameras that beamed the image to the world, Clinton and Lavrov held it between them, symbolizing a new start in relations between their countries. The photo-op might have proven to be less memorable had it not been for the fact that the Russian word on the box was misspelled. Instead of perezagruzka, meaning “reset,” it read peregruzka, signifying “overcharged.” This ironic faux pas did nothing to detract from the determination on both sides, if especially on the American, to signal that a reset in their relations was needed.

The President’s Cairo speech, Vice President Biden’s speech in Munich, and Hillary Clinton’s Brussels town hall meeting and reset moment in Geneva had in common their deliberately public nature. They were high-level, carefully planned moments in a campaign of public diplomacy that was very central to the foreign policy of the Obama administration. The previous several years had seen a sharp decline in America’s image across much of the world. Guantanamo and the waterboarding of suspected terrorists had become lightning rods for foreign criticism of America. The decision to go to war in Iraq without either UN or NATO sanction was preceded by enormous demonstrations in the capitals of Western Europe and was widely seen in the Muslim world as confirmation of anti-Muslim sentiment in America. Public opinion surveys showed that in many countries of the world the United States was believed to pose a greater threat to world peace than Iran or North Korea, two of the three countries that President Bush had designated the “axis of evil” in his 2002 State of the Union address. American foreign policy was widely viewed as unilateralist, bullying, driven by economic motives, and based on a premise of American superiority.

Restoring America’s image abroad was not an end in itself. It was seen as a means toward the achievement of the Obama administration’s foreign policy goals. The investment in public diplomacy was, as it always is, in large measure instrumental and based on a key premise. That premise was that if certain countries and populations were less hostile in their sentiments toward the United States and less suspicious of its motives, then American policies, interests and ideas would be more likely to meet with success. It is marvelous and gratifying to be loved and admired. But as is true of other tools of foreign policy, the point to public diplomacy is to create circumstances that improve the likelihood of achieving a country’s economic, security and other foreign policy goals.

Even before the election of Barack Obama, efforts to restore America’s image had begun. On July 24, 2008 Obama gave a speech in Berlin with the Victory Column as backdrop. (As an aside, he had wanted the speech to be at the Brandenburg Gate, but the German authorities said no.) It was an image viewed by hundreds of millions of people throughout the world, one that certainly was intended to influence perceptions of him among presidential candidate Obama’s fellow citizens during an election campaign, but that was also intended to introduce the world to a man who might become president of the United States. In his speech entitled “A World That Stands as One,” Obama created a great distance between his ideas and the foreign policies of an administration under his leadership, and those associated with the presidency of George W. Bush. “No one nation, no matter how powerful,” he declared, “can defeat [major global] challenges alone.” His speech was replete with ideas, promises and sentiments guaranteed a warm reception among Europeans. “[W]e must come together to save this planet…. Let us resolve that all nations—including my own—will act with the same seriousness of purpose as has [Germany], and reduce the carbon that we send into our atmosphere.” He went on to say that torture must be rejected and the rule of law respected, clearly intended as criticism of Bush administration policies. The language of his speech was inclusive and multilateralist, one might even say globalist. Obama referred to himself as a proud American and “citizen of the world.” “Partnership and cooperation among nations is not a choice,” he said, “it is the one way, the only way, to protect our common security and advance our common humanity.” His speech closed with an aspiration worthy of the idealistic note that Obama’s campaign slogan, “hope and change,” was intended to strike. He called on “People of Berlin and people of the world” to “remake the world once again,” as had been done after the devastation of World War II. The tone and language, let alone many of the actual proposals made in Obama’s Berlin speech, could hardly have been more different from those associated with the Bush administration.

Early reports suggested that if the aim was to influence hearts and minds abroad, the president’s words had produced their intended effect. Chicago’s Grant Park may have been the epicenter for celebration the evening of Barack Obama’s election, but there was also much rejoicing and literally early morning dancing in the streets of Paris and some other European cities when his 2008 victory was confirmed. Just days after his inauguration on January 19, 2009, President Obama was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. His selection as the 2009 winner, only the third sitting American president to receive this award, was announced on October 9, 2009. In announcing President Obama’s selection, the Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Thorbjørn Jagland, spoke of Obama’s “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples” and made specific reference to his “vision of and work for a world free from nuclear weapons.” The Nobel Committee chairman quoted Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu, who had declared that Obama’s words and actions had already “lowered the temperature in the world.” Jagland went on to say that “Obama’s diplomacy rests on the idea that whoever is to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.” Embedded in this praise was an obvious reference to and repudiation of the style and substance of the Bush administration’s foreign policies.

Obama’s 2008 speech in Berlin was surely an important factor in his nomination and ultimately his selection as the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner. Indeed, chairman Jagland made specific reference to this speech which, in his words, demonstrated Obama’s internationalism. “States must commit themselves to international law and universal rights,” said Jagland, “The world [has] moved away from unrestrained nation states towards greater internationalism.” On climate change, human rights, nuclear weapons and issues of war and peace, Obama’s commitment to the idea of a global community, declared chairman Jagland, gave more reason for hope than existed before his presidency.

The reasoning of the Nobel Committee was very much in tune with sentiment among opinion leaders throughout Western Europe. After several very frosty years while George W. Bush was in the White House, most of Western Europe’s elites were relieved by the victory of Barack Obama over John McCain and held high expectations for the new administration. Obama also managed to move the needle of mass public opinion in this part of the world. Surveys carried out for the Pew Center’s Global Attitudes Project found that the percentage of respondents having a favorable image of America increased significantly across Western Europe, returning to levels that had existed early in the Bush administration. Public opinion in the Muslim world and in Asia, however, was much less likely to have been moved by Obama’s election (see Table 1.1).

The new president very clearly was more popular, in many parts of the world, than his predecessor. But views of US foreign policy and of America did not change as much as many had expected, nor was the change uniform across countries. Moreover, the restoration of America’s image across the world proved to be short-lived in some countries and regions of the world that are strategically important for American foreign policy. Finally, it is not at all clear that increased positivity toward president Obama and the United States in Western Europe and some other regions of the world resulted in foreign policy successes that would not have occurred had foreign elite and mass opinion been more negative.

Table 1.1 United States Favorability Ratings, Selected Countries
Percentage responding “favorable” to, “Do you have a favorable or unfavorable view of the US?”

Nation	2002	2005	2009	2014
France	62%	43%	75%	75%
Germany	60%	42%	64%	50%
United Kingdom	75%	55%	69%	66%
Pakistan	10%	23%	16%	14%
Egypt		30% (2006)	27%	10%
Turkey	30%	23%	14%	19%
China		42%	47%	50%
Russia	61%	52%	44%	23%

Source: Pew Research Center (2014)

Since Harry Truman’s speech on October 23, 1946, every American president has addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Indeed, this has been an annual event since 1982. Perhaps in part because these speeches have become set piece occasions for the president to speak to the world community, they tend not to be particularly memorable. There are some exceptions, including President Kennedy’s 1961 speech, in which he elaborated on many of the themes that had been presented in his inaugural address. Public diplomacy at the level of a major speech by the president requires the attributes of theater if it is to have the impact that is hoped. In the television era Congress provides this theatricality for the president’s annual State of the Union address. The UN General Assembly, where the president and any speaker appears at a simple lectern, with the backdrop of a green marble wall and without flags, familiar faces, a grand entrance and exit, or frequent and enthusiastic ovations from his party faithful, lacks these attributes. Other international venues, however, do not.

In choosing Berlin for his 2008 speech, Barack Obama was clearly aware of the importance of venue in public diplomacy. This was the site for arguably the two best known presidential speeches made outside the borders of the United States. John F. Kennedy spoke there in 1963, giving a speech that history remembers as an iconic moment in the Cold War. It was short, lasting only about five minutes. Kennedy’s audience included an estimated 1.5 million Berliners who gathered in the streets and squares to see the president pass by, many of whom massed in front of the Brandenburg Gates to hear him speak. Here is how a journalist for The Guardian described the day:

Schools were closed for the day and most shops, offices, and factories gave their employees half a day off. Many onlookers were crying as the President’s column passed by. One man sat up in a bed which had been brought into the street….

About two hundred thousand people crowded into the Rudolf Wilde Platz for Mr. Kennedy’s speech. People fainted by the dozen in the heat, though there were enough hearty ones left to cheer his every statement that their families and friends beyond the wall probably heard without the aid of radio and television which the Communists were doing their best to jam.

(Crossland, 2009, June 27)

The president’s immediate audience was the people of Berlin and Germany, a city and a country divided by the Cold War. But his message was intended to reach people throughout Europe. It was broadcast on the Voice of America and shown on television stations in many countries of Western Europe, in addition to extensive coverage in the foreign press. Just as the Berlin Wall became the physical embodiment and chief metaphor for the Iron Curtain that Winston Churchill described in his 1946 at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, President Kennedy’s Berlin speech became the symbol for American leadership and resolve in the global fight against Communism.

Twenty-five years later, President Ronald Reagan visited the same location where Kennedy had expressed American solidarity with the people of West Berlin in proclaiming “Ich bin ein Berliner.” The hegemony of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe was already facing mounting challenges, particularly in Poland. In...