Although the PWE  document that I linked to in Part 1 talked about political warfare during wartime the resonance of the idea in twentieth century international politics emerged from the blurring of the distinction between war and peace.  Particularly with rise of communism and fascism political warfare was understood as the continuation of war by political means, with the end being the overthrow of the enemy.

One theme that is found in Henry  Kissinger’s writings (eg 1957, 1979)  is the problem of international relations in a period  of ‘revolutionary international relations’  where the states-system lacks shared standards of legitimacy.  Peacetime political warfare emerges from this contestation of  legitimacy.

In a recent book John Owen provides additional context for this.  He looks at patterns of forcible regime change in the period since the sixteenth century and argues that we can see waves of regime change. These  are tied to ‘transnational ideological networks’  (TINs) that promote different models of legitimacy.  These networks are symbiotic with states and seek to influence their actions.  He identifies four main waves of contestation;   around state and religion 1510-1700, between absolutism and liberalism 1770-1870, the contest between Communism, Fascism and Democracy, 1910-1990 and between Islam and the state from 1923.  Regime change occurs as different TINs use states to overthrow foreign governments and as non-TIN regimes strike back.

Owen concludes by looking at the possibilities for future waves of regime  change. He examines the possibility of  struggles involving a Hugo Chavez inspired Bolivarist movement and an authoritarian capitalism network.  He is sceptical  about an authoritarian capitalist network arguing that it lacks an   ‘unifying ideology’.  But what he does see around the post-communist areas of Eurasia is ‘one of the most robust and well funded sets of TINs in history’ that is the ‘[l]iberal governmental organizations, linked to the European Union and United States’, that seek to spread liberal modes of governance.  In Owen’s view  the possibilities for forcible regime change stem from the conflict between a liberal democratic TIN and authoritarian capitalist states in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.   From this point of view the complaints that authoritarian regimes make about being under attack from the West and its democracy assistance industry are correct.

The PWE document makes the point that there are different modes of acting towards friends and enemies

The attitude to the enemy and to his subject peoples is belligerent; the attitude to friendly and still independent peoples is persuasive. One is disruptive behind the lines of the enemy; the other is conciliatory in the councils of our friends. One requires the mentality and techniques of subversion; the other, in open relationship, means frankness and information. The one seeks to destroy the confidence of the enemy; the other seeks to win the confidence of friends.

The PWE paper also makes the point that action towards friends and enemies make use many of the same communication techniques.

Contemporary Western public diplomacy  in some parts of the world it has elements of both these approaches.  Diplomatic practice has long experience in dealing with policy ambiguity so this is more of an issue for the academic effort to build a better understanding of public diplomacy.   Conceptually we need to manage the coexistence of two modes.

In a later post I’ll come back to see whether the concept of political warfare can help to elucidate the proper place of ‘strategic communications’ in the range of foreign policy instruments.

Kissinger, H.A. (1957) A World Restored: The Politics of Conservatism in a Revolutionary Era. London: Victor Gollancz.

Kissinger, H.A. (1979) The White House Years. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson/Michael Joseph.

Owen, J.M. (2010) The Clash of Ideas in World Politics: Transnational Networks, States, and Regime Change, 1510-2010. Princeton, N.J: Princeton U.P.

What readers of this blog may find particularly interesting are the comments by Tony Brenton, the British Ambassador at the time, speaking on The Radio 4 Today programme this morning. He makes the point that one of the embassy officials implicated in the incident was also responsible for support for Russian NGOs including human rights organizations and the result was that the Putin Regime used this as pretext to attack foreign supported organizations.

I suspect NGO liaison looks like an ideal cover for an intelligence officer but it also means that if your intelligence activities are compromised so are all your contacts.

I’ve commented before that dealing with undesirable foreign PD is a neglected topic – could be an interesting paper there.

As popular uprisings spread across the Arab world in 2011, the administration faced its most important and high-profile democracy challenge. While the advance of political change in the Arab world could be a watershed moment for the region, it also threatens to jeopardize various American economic and security interests. The U.S. policy response has been correspondingly mixed, combining support for democratization where it appears to be occurring with a willingness to continue close ties with seemingly stable authoritarian governments.

The Obama team’s overall engagement on democracy support is multifaceted and significant, and is rooted in a set of guiding principles that have helped revitalize the U.S. profile on the topic. At the same time, the administration downplays democracy and human rights in a number of nondemocratic countries for the sake of other interests. This inconsistency represents a familiar pattern rather than a change in U.S. policy.  The difference is that today, in response to growing multipolarity, the United States has moved away from any single, overarching foreign policy narrative rooted in the idea of remaking the world in the image of the United States.

The democracy agenda creates a need for traditional diplomacy – high level interventions in support of democracy – but also a range of public engagement activities that involve aid  agencies and civil society actors.  This is an area where the distinctions between diplomacy, public diplomacy and development become extremely blurred.

As public diplomacy develops in the academy we are tending to place greater weight on public diplomacy as aspect of diplomacy but I think that this creates a danger of missing the way that the requirements of communications around conflict affect the way that national external communications are conceptualized and practiced.

As a starting point  what is Political Warfare?  From Psyops.org a 1942 memo from the British Political Warfare Executive: The Meaning, Techniques and Methods of Political Warfare.  This is one of more historically informed and nicely written government documents that you are likely to come across.  The PWE was the  Second World War  organization responsible for propaganda to enemy and occupied countries.  It had responsibilities for coordinating white, grey and black propaganda.  Political Warfare is sometimes seen as the equivalent of Psychological Warfare in the American lexicon.  The memo describes he motives of political warfare

In terms of foreign policy, when the normal channels of diplomacy are blocked, political warfare becomes the instrument of appeal to the people within enemy or enemy-occupied countries. It is also the indispensable adjunct of Economic Warfare, since, when the limits of blockade and other direct economic action have been reached, one means (apart from air bombardment) of exacerbating that blockade, is through political warfare action. Political warfare is inseparable from the strategy of the three Fighting Services. Its primary object is to destroy the foundations of the enemy’s war machine as an auxiliary to military action; it is in fact the Fourth Fighting Arm…

Britain’s Political Warfare Executive is concerned only with enemy and enemy-occupied countries as distinct from the Ministry of Information which deals with domestic and Neutral populations and with unoccupied Allied territories (i.e., China, Russia, U.S.A. and South American allies). This dispensation arose from practical experience and expediency, but the distinction is a logical one. The attitude to the enemy and to his subject peoples is belligerent; the attitude to friendly and still independent peoples is persuasive. One is disruptive behind the lines of the enemy; the other is conciliatory in the councils of our friends. One requires the mentality and techniques of subversion; the other, in open relationship, means frankness and information. The one seeks to destroy the confidence of the enemy; the other seeks to win the confidence of friends.

(vii) To clarify this distinction, it is necessary to define (a) Publicity, (b) Propaganda, (c) Political Warfare.

(a) PUBLICITY.

(viii) Publicity is the straightforward projection of a case; it is the build-up of a picture in the mind of the audience which will win their confidence and support. It is information which we want them to have, but also information which they want to have. It seeks to create the right impression and to remove the wrong impression. Its object is mutual goodwill. It is the presentation of the evidence, leaving the judgment to the audience. It is succinctly, as the Americans expressed it in their original information organisation: “Facts” and “Figures.”

(b) PROPAGANDA.

(ix) Propaganda, on the other hand, is the deliberate direction, or even manipulation, of information to secure a definite objective. It is an attempt to direct the thinking of the recipient, without his conscious collaboration, into predetermined channels. It is the conditioning of the recipient by devious methods with an ulterior motive. Propaganda emphasises those facts which best serve its purpose. It creates the atmosphere in which the audience is most susceptible to suggestion. By power of suggestion, which in favourable circumstances becomes instruction, it secures positive action.

(c) POLITICAL WARFARE.

(x) Political Warfare employs both publicity and propaganda…

There follows a more detailed discussion of Political Warfare that concludes

(xv) Political Warfare could be described as “Propaganda in battledress” in the sense that it has to convert propaganda into a striking force and to ensure that, at the right moment and under proper discipline, ideas and emotions are translated into action. It must, psychologically, disarm the enemy. It must instil into the hidden armies behind the Axis lines not only the spirit of resistance to the enemy, but the will to strike down that enemy. It is this emphasis on its fighting service function which makes it necessary to distinguish Political Warfare from the “propaganda” it employs. It is this characteristic of Political Warfare which is still not clearly understood and which, while it retains an identity distinct from the Fighting Services, makes its close association with these Services of paramount importance. It is its balanced relationship between the three Services, the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Economic Warfare and the other agencies which are operating against the enemy, which is the justification for the separate existence of the Political Warfare Executive.

In a following post I will argue that political warfare as a mode of operation where ‘normal channels of diplomacy are blocked’ is  stil around and in thinking through what public diplomacy means in contemporary international relations this conflictual application of communications needs to be kept in mind.

This emphasis on socialist culture is seen to be of the factors behind the current clampdown on  entertainment culture to accompany the assault on political dissent.  The government has ordered TV stations to reduce the amount of entertainment programming that they show and to encourage socialist values.  Getting rid of programmes like Super Girl is equivalent to banning X Factor in the UK (insert name of mega popular programme where you live.)

I think that notwithstanding its controls on media and the ‘great firewall of China’ the Communist Party is overestimating its ability to shape Chinese culture.  The history of  20th century ideologically driven regimes (and propaganda more broadly) shows that entertainment is a persistent problem because in general  people would prefer to be entertained than educated.  The Nazis, The Soviets, The Saudis (and Lord Reith of the BBC) were all forced to modify their cultural offerings by the fact of competition with foreign broadcasters.  In each case the direction of movement was towards more entertainment in an effort to hold on to their audiences regardless of restrictions on reception of foreign broadcasts.

The point has sometimes been made that the ‘great firewall of China’ is not a massive obstacle to determined netizens but relatively few people are motivated to overcome the obstacle.  You wonder whether taking away entertainment programming will provide a stronger incentive to look for foreign material or for Chinese citizens to make their own.  It will be interesting to see how long it is before Super Girl’s younger sister returns to the screen.

The story encapsulates a lot of issues about the role of ISAF in Afghanistan, the desire to build Afghan government capability and the role of government communications and leaves you wondering whether you should laugh or cry.  In the context of counterinsurgency communications capacity is crucial.

I particularly enjoyed the line:  “It’s not supposed to be a propaganda arm of the government,” said a Western official.  Funnily enough the name suggests that precisely what it is supposed to be and why it was set up…*

The WSJ Piece is here and the GMIC is here.  Thanks to @albanyassociate for tweeting the link

*of course this all turns on how you define propaganda.

This morning a couple of items that you might have missed on libraries in public diplomacy.

Lincove, D.A. (2011) ‘The British Library of Information in New York: A Tool of British Foreign Policy, 1919-1942′, Libraries & the Cultural Record, 46: 156-184.

The British Library of Information was a bit more active in spreading knowledge of the UK than you might have expected a library to be but was also part of the American community of librarians.  As with the story told in Robert Young’s Marketing Marianne the UK’s activities were constrained by the American’s sensitivity to anything that smacked of ‘propaganda’.  Lincove sees the library as a success but the low key model of national promotion came under pressure as being too passive with the approach of the Second World War.

Maack, M.N. (2001) ‘Books and Libraries as Instruments of Cultural Diplomacy in Francophone Africa during the Cold War’, Libraries and the Cultural Record, 36: 58-86.

This compares the US, UK and French approach to libraries in PD/Cultural relations in Africa.  It looks at the different approaches to developing and stocking libraries and policies on access.  It also tracks the the changing approach to libraries: while France maintained an definition of the library in terms of culture and literature the US backed away from the ‘library’ towards the ‘information centre’  model that  appealed to a narrower section of the population.  Maack notes the decline of the British presence as the British Council reallocated its resources to a post Cold War Eastern Europe.

The bigger thought here is that we shouldn’t underestimate the importance of tourism within the public diplomacy field; in the US tourism may be a matter for states and cities but in other countries there are  powerful national tourism organizations.

Firstly, the experience of tourism is  an important influence on perceptions of other countries.

Secondly, a large part of the effort that many countries devote to shaping international perceptions is about tourism.  Tourism promotion will probably be the external communication effort that has the largest reach into targeted foreign societies.

Thirdly, the existence of tourism promotion organizations affects other public diplomacy organizations in at least two ways.  I noticed that in reading about the history of the British Council and the Swedish Institute national tourism promotion organization  predated their creation.  I might be wrong but  I suspect that this pattern is true for many countries.  In the British and Swedish cases the result was a degree of conflict between the cultural organization and the tourism body that had some impact on how the organizations defined their work.  The other point is that tourism promotion organizations actually have significant money to spend through their ability to tap private resources and may actually be a large part of what a country devotes to external promotional expenditure.  Thus, even where a foreign public is targeted by foreign ministry public diplomacy activities its perceptions are going to be shaped by tourism promotion work.

Tourism is a one of the largest global industries and there’s an extensive literature on it.  These are initial thoughts but there is certainly reason for students of public diplomacy to pay more attention to the interactions between their concerns and those of the tourism community.

If you’re at a computer on Monday and Tuesday you may be interested in following the live stream of this conference being held in Paris – the link is here – earlier there was mention of English and Spanish versions of the feed being available.

Via Google Translate the description of the conference.

Symposium on Cultural Diplomacy: “An asset for France in a changing world” (12 and 13 December 2011)

The Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs and the French Institute organized on 12 and 13 December at the College de France, an international symposium on the priorities of cultural diplomacy with the participation of Mr. Alain Juppé, Minister of State, Minister of Foreign and European Affairs, Mr Frédéric Mitterrand, Minister of Culture and Communication, Mr. Xavier Darcos, President of the French Institute, and many personalities from the diplomatic, cultural associations and universities from around the world .

The Ministry has initiated an ambitious reform of its cultural system by creating three operators:

- The French Institute in charge of cultural activities and outdoor real tool in the major objectives of our foreign policy: to strengthen the influence of France in the world, supporting the cultural development of countries for which we have a duty of solidarity, promote dialogue and cultural diversity.

- France international expertise to strengthen our ability to meet the high demand for expertise in developing countries and emerging markets. This flow of gray matter, for our economy, our influence, as for the development of other countries is crucial.

- CampusFrance for student mobility and the attractiveness of our universities, whose creation is being finalized.

An exhibition developed by the diplomatic archives of the Quai d’Orsay on “cultural diplomacy, a century of French inventions” will complete two days of debate and will be presented at the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève from 13 December to 18 in February. It will be inaugurated by Henri de Raincourt, Minister for Cooperation.

A few  weeks ago Rhonda Zaharna in commenting on the role of mutuality in public diplomacy referred to a British Council paper on Mutuality, Trust and Cultural Relations.  I hadn’t seen it before so I got hold of a copy.  I started reading and something leapt out at me

Our argument puts trust-building at the centre of [our]mission, and argues that the building of trust requires independence of government, a long-term perspective and an approach based on mutuality.  This leads us to a clear distinction between two areas of work which the British Council (with equal appropriateness) undertakes: public diplomacy and cultural relations.

Public diplomacy is the work that we do as an agent of government, in close partnership with the FCO and other departments of state.  Cultural relations is the work that is based upon the fact and the perception of our independence.  Confusion between the two can have damaging results in terms of perceptions undermined and trust foregone…

Cultural relations is about building long-term trust-based relationships.  This is the British Council’s ‘Unique Selling Proposition’ (USP), because no government department or agency can achieve the detachment necessary for mutuality.  It is our unique contribution to the UK, and it is fragile because in our work cultural relations and public diplomacy are often inextricably mixed.

I’ve never seen the BC refer to its own work as Public Diplomacy (of course this may say something about  my gaps in my own knowledge).  The FCO refers to them as a public diplomacy partner but the BC says that it does cultural relations.   This document is an internal BC document from 2004 that was prepared as part of the development of their Strategy 2010.  I would read  the report as an effort to re-establish a clear rationale for the autonomy of the British Council.  After 9/11 the development of a comprehensive public diplomacy strategy not only led to a greater effort by the FCO to steer the BC’s direction.  On top of this the Wilton and Carter reviews actually asked questions about the functions of the BC and whether they could be redistributed across other organizations , on top of this consideration was given to changing the governance structure of the organization for instance by allowing the Foreign Secretary to appoint all the members of the governing board.

This kind of interorganizational tension seems to be a standard part of PD in many countries.