Harnessing the Military's Voice: An Argument for a Greater Role in Public Diplomacy by the U.S. Military

Since 9/11 many articles have been written, studies undertaken and recommendations made in an effort to repair America's hemorrhaging public diplomacy (PD) capabilities. However, these efforts, intended to serve as holistic reviews of the U.S. public diplomacy apparatus, fail to adequately address the existing shortcomings within the Department of Defense (DoD) or, more importantly, to truly explore methods to better harness the military's significant potential to enhance the country's public diplomacy capability. Its size, budget and overseas presence make DoD perhaps the most powerful voice for U.S. public diplomacy, which in turn warrant a more detailed and critical review of its role and capabilities. To gain a full understanding of the issues and gather information relevant to making the recommendations included in the report, the authors conducted: A thorough review of existing public diplomacy studies, draft directives, policy proposals and scholarly writings, with particular focus on those findings and recommendations that addressed the military A review of existing doctrine and training programs to discern the extent to which they addressed public diplomacy Interviews with relevant DoD, Department of State (DoS), Defense Science Board (DSB) and other agency officials and public diplomacy experts to gain insights into current efforts and challenges associated with DoD's attempts to define its public diplomacy role Interviews with selected military leaders to garner insights from their personal experiences during recent deployments The authors then analyzed the available data to determine the key findings suggested by the information and developed a set of specific recommendations matched to each of the findings. This study, while not sufficiently comprehensive to address every aspect of DoD's public diplomacy task, does discern a number of significant issues that, if addressed, would likely improve both the military's ability to win heart minds and