The dramatic increase in attacks on diplomatic personnel that began in the 1970s has now reached alarming proportions. Events such as the long detention of U.S. diplomats in Iran, the embassy bombings in Lebanon, and the numerous assassinations of foreign service officials around the world have heightened global tensions. Because diplomatic exchang
A journalist and former congressional staffer exposes the inherent contradictions and internal conflicts that hamper the State Department and could stymie the war on terrorism.
We are living in turbulent times, witnessing renewed international conflict, resurgent nationalism, declining multilateralism, and a torrent of hostile propaganda. How are we to understand these developments and conduct diplomacy in their presence? Nicholas J. Cull, the distinguished historian of propaganda, revisits the international media campaigns of the past in the light of the challenges of the present. His concept of Reputational Security deftly links issues of national image and outreach to the deepest needs of any state, rescuing them from the list of low-priority optional extras to which they are so often consigned in the West. Reputational Security, he argues, comes from being known and appreciated in the world. With clarity and determination, Cull considers core tasks, approaches, and opportunities available for international actors today, including counterpropaganda, media development, diaspora diplomacy, cultural work, and – perhaps most surprisingly of all – media disarmament. This book is crucial for all who care about responding to the threat of malign media disruption, revitalizing international cooperation, and establishing the Reputational Security we and our allies need to survive and flourish. Reputational Security is enlightening reading for students and scholars of public diplomacy, international relations, security studies, communications, and media, as well as practitioners.
Tells the story of Carl Lutz, a Swiss diplomat who led the rescues of 62,000 Jews from Nazi concentration camps, a move now recognized as the most successful rescue effort ever undertaken in Nazi dominated Europe. The book, suitable for scholarly or general reading, includes twenty-four bandw photographs of Lutz and World War II and is written in a readable, personable style. The text covers Lutz's life from his youth to the end of the war. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR
Veteran diplomatic correspondent Paul Richter goes behind the battles and the headlines to show how American ambassadors are the unconventional warriors in the Muslim world—running local government, directing drone strikes, building nations, and risking their lives on the front lines. The tale’s heroes are a small circle of top career diplomats who have been an unheralded but crucial line of national defense in the past two decades of wars in the greater Middle East. In The Ambassadors, Paul Richter shares the astonishing, true-life stories of four expeditionary diplomats who “do the hardest things in the hardest places.” The book describes how Ryan Crocker helped rebuild a shattered Afghan government after the fall of the Taliban and secretly negotiated with the shadowy Iranian mastermind General Qassim Suleimani to wage war in Afghanistan and choose new leaders for post-invasion Iraq. Robert Ford, assigned to be a one-man occupation government for an Iraqi province, struggled to restart a collapsed economy and to deal with spiraling sectarian violence—and was taken hostage by a militia. In Syria at the eruption of the civil war, he is chased by government thugs for defying the country’s ruler. J. Christopher Stevens is smuggled into Libya as US Envoy to the rebels during its bloody civil war, then returns as ambassador only to be killed during a terror attach in Benghazi. War-zone veteran Anne Patterson is sent to Pakistan, considered the world’s most dangerous country, to broker deals that prevent a government collapse and to help guide the secret war on jihadists. “An important and illuminating read” (The Washington Post) and the winner of the prestigious Douglas Dillon Book Award from the American Academy of Diplomacy, The Ambassadors is a candid examination of the career diplomatic corps, America’s first point of contact with the outside world, and a critical piece of modern-day history.
Walter Lippmann is arguably the most influential journalist in American history. From the time of Woodrow Wilson to the time of Lyndon Johnson, what Walter Lippmann said mattered. His word was valued because of his exceptional capacity for analysis, and because he had the rare ability to make complex ideas and problems manageable and understandable. Lippmann combined the practical and the theoretical and saw them as inseparable. He savored the life of the mind and relished the arena of politics. He was political philosopher, social commentator, political advisor, and activist-intellectual. As the country grappled with an impressive influx of European ideas and with the threatening press of European problems, so did Lippmann. Like President Wilson, he came to believe that the condition of the modern world required that America either act or be acted upon. New methods of communication and propaganda meant that ideas contrary to America's would be widely heard. Reformed liberalism and the projection of that liberalism into a troubled world were the best hedge against totalitarian schemes and imperialist aggression. The Stakes of Diplomacy resulted from Lippmann's assignment by Wilson's Secretary of War Baker, to a project for studying possible terms of peace and ways to influence the world in a liberal-democratic direction. The Stakes of Diplomacy ends both with admiration for the peaceful nature of democracies and a plea for their further influence in the world, and with an understanding that democracy's influence will depend partly upon its physical might and geopolitical collaboration. Lippmann stands as a prominent figure in America's twentieth-century quest for power with honor. He concludes this volume with the warning that there is no safe way and no morally feasible way to turn back from our dangerous mission: "Unless the people who are humane and sympathetic, the people who wish to live and let live, are masters of the situation, the world faces an indefinite vista of conquest and terror."
What do diplomats actually do? That is what this text seeks to answer by describing the various stages of a typical diplomat’s career. The book follows a fictional diplomat from his application to join the national diplomatic service through different postings at home and overseas, culminating with his appointment as ambassador and retirement. Each chapter contains case studies, based on the author’s thirty year experience as a diplomat, Ambassador, and High Commissioner. These illustrate such key issues as the role of the diplomat during emergency crises or working as part of a national delegation to a permanent conference as the United Nations. Rigorously academic in its coverage yet extremely lively and engaging, this unique work will serve as a primer to any students and junior diplomats wishing to grasp what the practice of diplomacy is actually like.
New technologies have opened up fresh possibilities for public diplomacy, but this has not erased the importance of history. On the contrary, the lessons of the past seem more relevant than ever, in an age in which communications play an unprecedented role. Whether communications are electronic or hand-delivered, the foundations remain as valid today as they ever have been. Blending history with insights from international relations, communication studies, psychology, and contemporary practice, Cull explores the five core areas of public diplomacy: listening, advocacy, cultural diplomacy, exchanges, and international broadcasting. He unpacks the approaches which have dominated in recent years – nation-branding and partnership – and sets out the foundations for successful global public engagement. Rich with case studies and examples drawn from ancient times through to our own digital age, the book shows the true capabilities and limits of emerging platforms and technologies, as well as drawing on lessons from the past which can empower us and help us to shape the future. This comprehensive and accessible introduction is essential reading for students, scholars, and practitioners, as well as anyone interested in understanding or mobilizing global public opinion.
"An "inside the room" memoir from one of our most distinguished ambassadors who--in a career of service to the country--was sent to some of the most dangerous outposts of American diplomacy. From the wars in the Balkans to the brutality of North Korea to the endless war in Iraq, this is the real life of an American diplomat. Hill was on the front lines in the Balkans at the breakup of Yugoslavia. He takes us from one-on-one meetings with the dictator Milosevic, to Bosnia and Kosovo, to the Dayton conference, where a truce was brokered. Hill draws upon lessons learned as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon early on in his career and details his prodigious experience as a US ambassador. He was the first American Ambassador to Macedonia; Ambassador to Poland, where he also served in the depth of the cold war; Ambassador to South Korea and chief disarmament negotiator in North Korea; and Hillary Clinton's hand-picked Ambassador to Iraq. Hill's account is an adventure story of danger, loss of comrades, high stakes negotiations, and imperfect options. There are fascinating portraits of war criminals (Mladic, Karadzic), of presidents and vice presidents (Clinton, Bush and Cheney, and Obama), of Secretaries of State (Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and Hillary Clinton), of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and of Ambassadors Richard Holbrooke and Lawrence Eagleburger. Hill writes bluntly about the bureaucratic warfare in DC and expresses strong criticism of America's aggressive interventions and wars of choice."--
