An Incomplete Strategic Review

Helle Dale / June 07, 2010

Among the slew of strategy documents from the Obama administration this spring, full of academic analysis and verbal flourishes, Congress has rightly detected a certain lack of substance. Case in point: The question of whether the U.S. government needs a Center for Strategic Communications and Public Diplomacy. According to the National Security Council in its National Communication’s Strategy the answer is “No.” According to the House Armed Services Committee in its report accompanying the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011 (H.R. 5136), the National Security Council has done very little to state “Why Not?”

The lack of interagency coordination is one of the problems that beset the messaging of the plethora of U.S. government agencies with a slice of the strategic communications, from the State Department to the Defense Department to the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the U.S. Agency International Development, the National Endowment for Democracy and many besides. Engaging with global communities is from the U.S. government perspective a piecemeal affair since the demise of the U.S. Information Agency in 1999. Coherent and strategic messaging is one of the critical components of U.S. international leadership. (more…)