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Study: rebuilding U.S. credibility overseas will take massive public relations effort |
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Posted: 05/17/07 07:28 PM [ET] |
Neither party’s presidential candidates have put forward the right mix of hard and soft foreign policy proposals that can rebuild America’s credibility overseas, according to the authors of a new security study released by The Third Way, a Democratic-leaning think tank.
William Galston of the Brookings Institution and Elaine Kamarck of Harvard University said that surveys show American voters yearn for an alternative to the Bush administration’s aggressive foreign policy stance, but neither Democrats nor Republicans are articulating a different path.
Both authors worked in the Clinton administration, and both view the invasion of Iraq as a debacle. However, they call in their report for a robust military response to the terrorist threat.
“Terrorism being what it is, we can’t disengage,” Kamarck said.
To that end, the paper calls for an additional 100,000 ground troops, a realignment of military operations to stress special-forces capabilities, and reinvigorated intelligence services.
But the authors would couple that stick with a massive public relations effort akin to the Cold War propaganda machine that sold American ideas and culture to countries teetering between democracy and communism. They also propose a revamped energy policy that weans Americans from foreign oil and leads on worldly topics like climate change.
Galston said there was a “dangerous and disturbing void at the heart of security policy” that has led to great concern among the American public that politicians are incapable of addressing the threat of terrorism.
“We are no safer than we were six years ago, and the American people know it,” he said.
Kamarck said that Democratic candidates must do more than “not be George Bush.” They will instead have to develop and articulate a foreign policy counter to the administration’s approach.
One component should be a massive increase to the $140 million the United States spends annually on public diplomacy, Kamarck said. She suggested re-creating the United States Information Agency, which was folded into the State Department during the Clinton administration at the behest of Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.).
“We are losing the battle of ideas,” she said.
The study, “Security First: A Strategy for Defending America,” was underwritten by The Third Way, a Democratic-affiliated think-tank that focuses on developing consensus solutions to partisan problems.
Jonathan Cowan, president of The Third Way, said Americans were ready for a foreign policy debate that moved beyond Swift Boats, the infamous campaign ads attacking Sen. John Kerry’s (D-Mass.) record in Vietnam.
Voters are “deeply anxious about American foreign policy,” Cowan said. He suggested that anxiety has left candidates the opportunity to move beyond platitudes and engage in a nuanced conversation about America’s role in the world.
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