by Steven R. Corman
With news that the Hillary Clinton pick for Secretary of State is final, I thought it might be useful to summarize what she had to say one year ago in her essay for Foreign Affairs (subscription link).  Of course, these were her priorities as an erstwhile president, and the Secretary of State [...]

by Nicholas Brody
This is the fourth part of a five part series on about the one-year anniversary of the State Department’s Dipnote blog. In Part 1 we focused on reviewing DipNote management and processes. In Part 2 we looked at what the State Department bloggers were writing about. In Part 3 we conducted [...]

by ZS Justus

A recent audio recording from al-Qaeda #2 Zawahiri sends a series of “messages” to President-elect Barack Obama. News outlets have quickly grabbed one of the more provocative excerpts from the recording, Zawahiri’s labeling of Obama as a “house negro.” Several blogs have followed suit including hotair, gateway pundit, commentary magazine, the moderate voice, [...]

by Bud Goodall
The headlines from WatchAmerica show worldwide optimism and support for President-Elect Obama.  Yet, despite this large and welcoming window of public diplomacy opportunity, there are still 10 weeks to go before President Obama is sworn in and can officially represent America.  In the meantime, we have a world waiting to see if we [...]

by Bud Goodall
In today’s “Blogger’s Roundtable” with Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, James K. Glassman, Matt Armstrong from MountainRunner asked a really good question about the relationship of strategic communication to public diplomacy.  Under Secretary Glassman provided a detailed and thoughtful response that distinguished public diplomacy, which is aimed at various publics [...]

by Steven R. Corman
I guess if it’s good enough for Queen Raina, then it’s good enough for State Department Spokesman Sean McCormick.  He will be taking your questions via YouTube video.  All you have to do is go to the State Deparment YouTube Channel and post your question.
According to a video statement by McCormick, this [...]

by Steven R. Corman
On Thursday the American Academy of Diplomacy released a new report on the dismal state of funding for U.S. diplomacy and public diplomacy efforts, compiled by a Task Force of 14 former senior foreign service officers.  They reckon that the diplomatic capacity of the United States has been “hollowed out” since the [...]

by Steven R. Corman
You would think that any presidential debate on foreign policy would have to spend a lot of time talking about how American policy is perceived and how its perception influences our ability to project power, pursue our strategies, and achieve our goals.
You would be wrong.
In the entire 90 minute presidential debate last [...]

by Steven R. Corman
Earlier today I paticipated in a bloggers’ roundtable with Assistant Undersecretary of State James Glassman.  My question for him was whether the U.S. National Strategy for Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication (NSPDSC) is still in force.
I asked this because Glassman has made comments in multiple appearances, like his speech at the Council [...]

by Steven R. Corman
Bruce Gregory has just released a new essay at Small Wars Journal that should be of interest to COMOPS Journal readers.  In it he identifies five lessons learned from recent experiences in U.S. Public Diplomacy:

Abandon message influence approaches
Drop the “war on terror” language
Leverage civil society
Emphasize net-centric perspectives
Rethink media strategy

The teaser for the [...]