Propaganda and Counter-terrorism by Emma Briant;

Author:Emma Briant;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Published: 2015-12-14T16:00:00+00:00

Governmental cultures

As Bob Drogin asserted, the ‘institutional systems and bureaucracies that are always feeding material upwards, not sideways’ were the product of ‘cultural differences that are hard to overemphasise’ between government agencies (Interview: 22nd August 2009; original emphasis). Their comparative weight has an effect; as Ayers stated, the DOD ‘have more people on the [USS] Abraham Lincoln, than they do in the entire State Department … if you got together all of our military bands, our bands would be bigger the entire State Department’ (Interview: 17th May 2013; original emphasis). Structural and historical factors have shaped State Department culture, as McCarty observes:

The Secretary of State is the next person in line after the President and the Vice President in the Executive Branch. So they by nature are very defensive of their role as the senior cabinet member. They have very little ability to actually do anything because they don’t have money or people … but on the other hand they don’t want to give up their image and role. So that kind of makes them obstructionary, by nature because they can do that. (Interview: 13th March 2013)

In 1999, most USIA functions were integrated into the State Department ‘Office of the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs’.12 The Defense Department remained the main player in US propaganda, but all agencies began to take greater responsibility for international public information. US former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Doug Wilson was in the USIA and led the fight against its consolidation into the State Department. Senators John Kerry and Joseph Lieberman led the Senate fight against consolidation. Wilson has since criticised what he sees as a devaluation of nonmilitary Public Diplomacy activities in the post-USIA period. He argued that since the closure of the USIA, ‘in my opinion Public Diplomacy in the United States has been severely weakened’ (Interview: Wilson, 10th May 2013).13 According to Matt Armstrong, since the first Under-Secretary was sworn in, in 1999, the post has been unencumbered ‘over 31% of the time, but this was higher, over 37% during the Bush years’. There is a high turnover and the average tenure is ‘barely over 500 days’ with an ‘average gap between departure and appointment of 248 days as of April 2013’ (Email: 1st December 2013). There has also been a ‘radical course change each time, so there isn’t a lot of understanding of’ what is needed (Interview: 29th April 2013).

Matt Armstrong, when it came to listening to outside advice in the information war, described the State Department as ‘closed-minded, and … essentially trained that way’. He said this was ‘one reason … they don’t like the Advisory Commission – who needs an outside view? They believe they know best and outside views generally face resistance at best’ (Interview: 6th March 2013). Doug Wilson argued that after the consolidation of Public Diplomacy, the State Department has struggled to adapt to changing needs beyond traditional diplomacy. Wilson said, ‘traditional diplomatic activities remain the template at State. Public Diplomacy activities and personnel are in a subordinate role.

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