Latest Public Diplomacy Coordinating Committee Faces Uphill Battle

"Of Jihad Networks and the War of Ideas," by David E. Kaplan - US News & World Report, 22 June 2006. USN&WR provides a link to a website with a sample report from the US State Department's Rapid Response Unit. It looks something like the media reaction reports that USIA used to compile and send to Washington offices and overseas embassies, with a far slimmer sampling of quotes from foreign media and the addition of scripted talking points on how to respond.

How goes the war on terrorism? On two key fronts – the shifting nature of jihadist networks and the war of ideas – there's plenty to worry about. Here are two reports from our sources in Washington, D.C.:

Dutch intel experts give a disturbing picture of jihadist activity. Experts on Islamic extremism from the Dutch intelligence service came to Washington in early June, giving a series of closed-door briefings that offered a disturbing portrait of jihadist activity in Europe generally and in the Netherlands particularly....

[J]jihadist groups are becoming much more dynamic, fluid, and diffuse, coming together to cooperate on specific goals and targets. Unlike the al Qaeda of old, these are local, autonomous, "self-radicalizing" jihadist cells, not controlled from overseas. They rely heavily on virtual networks and training, through the Internet, and then shift into actual, operational networks....

Even as jihadist networks become tougher to combat, the United States still lacks a comprehensive strategy to thwart the ideological forces fueling their growth, say critics. In response, the administration recently launched its latest attempt to coordinate the "war of ideas" against radical Islam: The White House's National Security Council has convened yet another interagency committee to develop a strategy aimed at marginalizing extremists. Dubbed the Policy Coordinating Committee on Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication, the group is headed by the administration's point person on the ideas war: Karen Hughes, the State Department's under secretary for public diplomacy.

Skeptics abound, as this is at least the fourth attempt at coordinating federal efforts on infowar. The NSC began two ill-fated interagency committees in 2002, one on "strategic communication" and another on "information strategy." Both generated more frustration than results, say participants. Their work was succeeded, in part, by the Muslim World Outreach Policy Coordinating Committee in 2004, which drafted a widely praised plan that was never implemented. Now that committee is being replaced by Hughes's new group. "It's the same old people with a new title," says one insider.

Hughes, the president's former counselor, has won points for crafting a Rapid Response Unit, designed to help U.S. officials abroad respond to the day's news. (For a peek at one of its daily Rapid Response sheets, see Official Use Only) But critics say the effort is typical of Hughes's quick-hit, political campaignlike approach to what is a years-long ideological struggle. Former State Department diplomat John Brown, editor of the Public Diplomacy Press Review, calls the administration's efforts "naive, provincial, and evangelical" but says the problem ultimately may lie in the very nature of U.S. government today. "It's so complex, with so many bureaucracies, that to get anybody to agree on a single message is almost impossible."

According to a GAO report, the Policy Coordinating Committee was established in April of this year:

"U.S. Public Diplomacy: State Department Efforts to Engage Muslim Audiences Lack Certain Communication Elements and Face Significant Challenges" (GAO-06-535) - Government Accounting Office (Washington, DC), released 3 May 2006

...Our past reports have detailed the difficulties the White House and the department have encountered in developing any type of written communication strategy. In our 2003 report and again in our 2005 report, we noted several attempts by State and the National Security Council to develop a communication strategy for the interagency community. In 2004, the National Security Council and the department created the Muslim World Outreach Policy Coordinating ommittee to develop an interagency strategy to marginalize extremists. The committee collected information from embassies around the world to help develop a draft outreach strategy, but it was ultimately not released to posts pending further guidance from the new Under Secretary. On April 8, 2006, the President established a new Policy Coordinating Committee on Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication. This committee, to be led by the Under Secretary, is intended to coordinate interagency activities. According to department officials, one of the committee’s tasks will be to issue a formal interagency public diplomacy strategy. It is not clear how long this effort will take or when a strategy will be developed....

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