by Michelle Kaffenberger

 Public diplomacy, at its foundation, is an issue of national security.  While biased news and suppression of a free press spread hatred for America around the world, the US needs now more than ever to have a strong showing of public diplomacy.  We need to defend the principles of freedom and democracy that we hold dear, and thereby protect our nation from the threats that spring from hatred.

 This point was driven home in a recent op-ed authored by eight former secretaries of state- from different administrations and different political parties- who find the current inadequate state of public diplomacy so critical that they teamed up to speak out.

 As the secretaries state, some of the most critical national security issues today, such as failing states and terrorism, require public diplomacy to solve, not just hard military power.  And the military agrees- according to the article both Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “have called repeatedly for more robust civilian resources.”  But the State Department and USAID, the primary engines for public diplomacy, are short on public diplomacy leadership, personnel and strategy, leaving many gaps in the public diplomacy effort.

 The military is forced to fill in the gaps that the lack in civilian resources leaves, a role that the military was never meant to play and which diminishes its ability to defend the nation with hard power.

 Luckily, there are some good ideas out there.  The Heritage Foundation, late last year, published an in-depth study of the nation’s public diplomacy which offers recommendations that could bring about vast improvement.  The first recommendation is the establishment of a US Agency for Strategic Communications.  Public diplomacy needs an umbrella agency to integrate and coordinate the various activities.  Right now, efforts are so scattered that the right hand often may not know what the left hand is doing.  And one of the first jobs of the agency should be to establish a strategy for communications and information outreach.  For more of the recommendations, check out the report, but these would be a good place to start.

The views expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Heritage Foundation.