Isolate or Engage: Adversarial States, US Foreign Policy, and Public Diplomacy

by Geoffrey Wiseman (Editor)

Overview

The U.S. government has essentially two choices when dealing with adversarial states: isolate them or engage them. Isolate or Engage systematically examines the challenges to and opportunities for U.S. diplomatic relations with nine intensely adversarial states—China, Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, U.S.S.R./Russia, Syria, Venezuela, and Vietnam: states where the situation is short of conventional war and where the U.S. maintains limited or no formal diplomatic relations with the government.

In such circumstances, "public diplomacy"—the means by which the U.S. engages with citizens in other countries so they will push their own governments to adopt less hostile and more favorable views of U.S. foreign policies—becomes extremely important for shaping the context within which the adversarial government makes important decisions affecting U.S. national security interests. At a time when the norm of not talking to the enemy is a matter of public debate, the book examines the role of both traditional and public diplomacy with adversarial states and reviews the costs and benefits of U.S. diplomatic engagement with the publics of these countries. It concludes that while public diplomacy is not a panacea for easing conflict in interstate relations, it is one of many productive channels that a government can use in order to stay informed about the status of its relations with an adversarial state, and to seek to improve those relations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780804795555
Publisher:	Stanford University Press
Publication date:	06/24/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	328
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Geoffrey Wiseman is Professor of the Practice of International Relations, University of Southern California.

Read an Excerpt

Isolate or Engage

Adversarial States, US Foreign Policy, and Public Diplomacy

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By Geoffrey Wiseman

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2015 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8047-9555-5

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CHAPTER 1

SOVIET UNION/RUSSIA

US Diplomacy with the Russian "Adversary"

Robert D. English

THE ISSUES THAT THIS CHAPTER ADDRESSES—THE historical lessons of US diplomacy with Russia—are surely more complex than those of other adversarial states. This is because there is no self-evident single adversary in these relations, nor are we even dealing with a single state. Russia is not North Korea, a unitary, uniform regime that for some six decades has maintained a deeply hostile posture toward the West and its political norms. The revolutionary-era Leninist state differed significantly from that of the 1920s, including in opportunities for diplomatic engagement with the West, just as the possibilities of such interchange varied considerably from the Stalinist 1930s through the years of the World War II alliance and up to the early Cold War. Arguably even more significant were political and social changes—and improved diplomatic prospects—from the "thaw" era through the late Cold War, and from the epoch of perestroika through communism's collapse and aftermath. We are dealing with at least three qualitatively different political regimes, and sweeping socioeconomic transformation over nearly a century of tumultuous international change in which any presumption of consistent US probity or diplomatic "correctness—and Russian hostility or adversariness—simply does not hold.

This chapter will examine the practice and prospects of US diplomacy with Russia, beginning with the period before and during the 1917 Revolution; through several distinct phases of relations with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) from the revolution until 1991; and subsequent relations with Russia after the demise of the USSR. One key lesson can be stressed at the outset, which is to endorse the general proposition or "norm" that this book advances: the importance of active, multifaceted diplomatic engagement even in periods, and with regimes, of greatest hostility. A lack of such engagement has led to stereotypes and ignorance—and consequent lost opportunities—while its presence contributed much to the most momentous diplomatic breakthrough of the twentieth century, namely the Cold War's end. One underappreciated facet of that engagement has been public diplomacy, which I see as outreach—partly though not exclusively orchestrated during the Cold War by the US State Department, and implemented by the US embassy in Moscow—to elites and citizens beyond the rarified diplomatic corps in Moscow. This view is essentially but by no means exclusively consistent with the traditional "State Department" approach to public diplomacy outlined in the book's Introduction. As will be seen, such outreach even in times of hostility has borne vital fruit in subsequent periods of relative openness. Sadly, at a time of greatest receptivity at the outset of relations with post–Soviet Russia, it fared poorly, in part due to clumsy "salesmanship," but even more because the "product" proved disappointing.

I will use a "Princeton lens" to analyze the various phases of Soviet-Russian diplomatic history by focusing on the epoch-spanning experience of three distinguished Princeton scholar-diplomats: the venerable George Kennan, longtime dean of American Russian experts, who died in 2005; his onetime diplomatic protégé and later renowned Sovietologist Robert Tucker, who passed away in 2010; and Jack Matlock, the "US ambassador to perestroika," who is still active as a scholar and analyst of Russian affairs. Kennan specialized in Russia from the outset of his diplomatic career in the 1920s. He was posted to Moscow when relations were established with the USSR in 1933, serving through World War II and the early Cold War years, then returning as ambassador in 1952. He was also a member of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study for nearly fifty years. Tucker, who served in Moscow from 1942 to 1953, was later a professor at Princeton University for more than forty years. Matlock, who retired from the Foreign Service after his remarkable 1987–1991 Moscow ambassadorship, was from 1996 to 2001 the Kennan Professor of Diplomatic History at the Institute for Advanced Study as well as a visiting professor at Princeton University. Given the rare experience of these three individuals—and the necessity of employing some narrowing lens if this is not to be a multivolume chronicle—the insights of these three Princetonians offers a splendid perspective for our limited purposes.

US-Russian Relations during the Bolshevik Revolution

Historians have long debated whether the Bolsheviks triumphed as the result of popular revolution or merely a well-executed putsch, and whether their victory reflected the will of a majority of Russians or the opportunism and ruthlessness of a determined minority. They agree, however, on the crucial point that it was Russia's disastrous involvement in World War I that strained the old order beyond its breaking point and thus was a proximate cause of both the February and October 1917 revolutions (the first ended tsarist rule; the second brought the Bolsheviks to power). And it was, in turn, the World War I allies' single-minded and shortsighted insistence on Russia's continued involvement in the disastrous war against Germany that contributed mightily to the revolutions in the first place. Here we turn to Kennan, highly singular as a US diplomat for both the broad historical context of his views and his intimate understanding of Russian and German societies:

Had they [Western statesmen] looked carefully at the Russian scene at that moment, they could have discerned in it the dilemma that was to be basic to their problem of policy toward Russia throughout the following two years ... that not only had Russia become involved in a great internal political crisis, but she had lost in the process her real ability to make war. The internal crisis was of such gravity that there was no chance for a healthy and constructive solution to it unless the war effort could be terminated at once and the attention and resources of the country concentrated on domestic issues. The army was tired. The country was tired. People had no further stomach for war. To try to drive them to it was to provide grist to the mill of the agitator and the fanatic: the last people one would have wished to encourage at such a dangerous moment. (Kennan 1961, 14)

Germany itself was not far from collapse—the United States was soon to enter the war on the Triple Entente side—and even basic knowledge of Russia's domestic crisis in 1917 revealed the mortal danger of continued involvement in a ruinous war. Yet two key failings blinded the Western allies. One was the failure of their statesmen and foreign ministries to heed the warnings of their own well-informed ambassadors to Russia, such as France's Maurice Paleologue and Britain's George Buchanan, about the imminence of domestic collapse. This followed from a more fundamental problem, namely the allies' unshakable commitment to Germany's unconditional surrender, a fanatical anti-Germanness that Kennan saw as largely the result of the extreme demonization of enemies that democracies fall prey to in mobilizing domestic support for war.

To the extent they took note of the disturbing signs of disintegration in Russia's capacity to make war and of the growing crisis of the dynasty, they tended to attribute these phenomena primarily to German influence. The Germans, as they saw it, had to be the source of all evil; nothing bad could happen that was not attributable to the German hand. From this fixation flowed the stubborn conviction in Paris and London that the troubles in Petrograd ... were merely the result of German influence and intrigue at the Russian court. Allied statesmen were unable to understand that it was not German intrigue, but precisely the strain of war against Germany, which had brought Russia to this deplorable state. (Kennan 1961, 13)

All this ostensibly concerns prerevolutionary Russia, not the early Bolshevik years that are the main focus of this section. Yet the lessons of late prerevolutionary relations with Russia are crucial in several respects: the twin diplomatic pathologies of ignorance born of limited engagement and demonization of adversaries would continue in the Soviet era; and, more immediately, Western actions on the eve of revolution would strongly influence still-malleable Bolshevik attitudes toward the West.

But were Bolshevik attitudes, steeped as they were in a Marxist ideology that saw the West as inherently hostile toward socialism (due to the nature of the capitalist system), really malleable even at the outset of the new era? Kennan himself seems of two minds on this question. In some reflective analyses of Russia's relations with the West he emphasized the new Soviet leaders' cynicism, duplicity, and consequent unsuitability as partners in any "normal" sort of enduring cooperation. But elsewhere, especially in chronicling the particulars of these early relations, Kennan seemed to emphasize instead the mistakes and lost opportunities for a better initial relationship between Soviet Russia and the West. The key to this apparent contradiction (paralleling the misunderstanding that still dogs Kennan's post–World War II call for "containment" of the USSR) is that he sought a middle ground between the extremes of liberal illusions about the USSR and reactionary demonization-militarization of the "Soviet threat."

[J]ust because the leaders of another regime were hostile and provocative and insulting ... did not mean that one could afford the luxury of having no dealings whatsoever with them or that there was nothing to be gained by meeting them face to face and talking about this question or that.... We cannot divide our external environment neatly and completely into friends and enemies ... there must be a certain relativism about enmity, as I suppose there must be about friendship—we must learn to recognize a certain duality in our relationship to all the rest of mankind, even those who hate us most. (Kennan 1961, 63)

The problem was that, after the first 1917 revolution, Western policy continued to focus on keeping Russia in the war with Germany and, even after the Bolshevik triumph, on supporting those groups in Russia who promised to renew the war effort while spurning those forces (i.e., the new Soviet government) that wanted to bow to the inevitable and seek a separate peace. Ambassadors' warnings were ignored, while special emissaries, such as the elderly former Secretary of State Elihu Root, "returned to the United States breathing sweetness and light, confidence and reassurance, about the situation in Russia" (Kennan 1961, 26). When the Bolsheviks made good on their promise in the Decree on Peace and subsequent Brest-Litovsk Treaty with Germany, they were simply ignored. At the allies' conference in Paris in late November 1917, British ambassador (to Petrograd) Buchanan argued:

The Allied governments, instead of protesting the Bolshevik action, should release Russia from her formal bond and accept the inevitable with some semblance of good grace. But this was wholly unacceptable to [French Premier] Clemenceau, who declared that "if ... all the celestial powers asked him to give Russia back her word, he would refuse." (Kennan 1961, 44)

The French were especially incensed over a new issue: the Bolsheviks' repudiation of tsarist debts, which struck French bondholders particularly hard. Nonrecognition of the new Soviet government was soon compounded by a secret Anglo-French agreement for financing prowar (and anti-Bolshevik) forces in the Caucasus and Ukraine. Thus was sown "the seed of subsequent Allied intervention" in the coming Russian Civil War (Kennan 1961, 47).

Before full-fledged military intervention was launched, however, 1918 saw a last-ditch effort to establish relations with the new Bolshevik regime on a positive footing. As experienced and clear-headed prerevolutionary Western ambassadors were recalled or resigned, exhausted and discouraged, day-today contacts with the new government fell to various ad hoc arrangements with lower-level officials: Jacques Sadoul, attaché to the French Military Mission in Petrograd; Bruce Lockhart, British consul general in Moscow; and Raymond Robins, head of the US Wartime Red Cross Commission in Russia. Perhaps owing to their personal experience and insight, as well as to a certain freedom from the shackles (and anti-German blinders) of their respective governments' policies, these three "unofficial" ambassadors independently came to a similar position toward the new Soviet regime. They each endorsed proposals for Western support of the Bolsheviks, partly as the only hope of restoring a Russian effort against Germany, but chiefly as a realistic policy for engaging the country's new leaders. Kennan was deeply skeptical about the former (Germany in any event was soon to collapse in its own revolution) and impatient with the "mythology" of a lost chance for good relations with the Soviet regime. But he was simultaneously admiring of these attachés' experience and knowledge of Russia; their frequent meetings with Lenin, Trotsky, and other top Bolshevik officials; and their open-minded and clear-eyed assessment of the country's domestic prospects.

They saw the Soviet leaders not as ogres or monsters of sorts, but as human beings, and in many ways impressive human beings at that. It was a startling experience for these men—after long immersion in the Western society of that day, where the accent was so extensively on individualism, on personal vanity, on social rivalry and snobbishness—to encounter men who had a burning social faith, and were relentless and incorruptible in the pursuit of it.... These [envoys] were not socialists, but were pressed by what they had seen into taking a larger view of Soviet power than was taken by a great many of their compatriots. Their firsthand knowledge could not fail to make them impatient of the stupid and prejudiced views about Russian Communism that were beginning to find currency in Western officialdom and respectable Western opinion. It fell largely to them to combat such silly and ineradicable legends as the belief that the Bolsheviki were paid German agents or that they had nationalized women. In their effort to combat these impressions, Robins and Lockhart ran the risk of sounding like Communist apologists. (Kennan 1961,: 61–62; see also Mayers 1995, 75–89)

Indeed, in an atmosphere redolent of the McCarthyism with which Kennan would later contend, Robins sought in congressional hearings to make the senators understand the difference between a partiality to the Soviet ideology and a desire to learn the truth about it. He said, "I would like to tell the truth about men and about movements, without passion and without resentment ... I believe that when we understand what [the Russian Revolution] is, when we know the facts behind it, when we do not libel it nor slander it or do not lose our heads and become its advocates and defenders, and really know what the thing is, and then move forward to it, then we will serve our country and our time" (Kennan 1961, 62–63). But such efforts were largely in vain. Far from extending recognition to the Soviet government, the United States was drawn into the fiasco of French- and British-led efforts to mount a major military intervention in Russia.

This tragic episode is too well known to require detailed recounting here. With Kennan again as our guide, it suffices to summarize the essentials. The Allied intervention of 1918–1920 was driven by the dual chimeras of restoring an anti-German offensive in Russia (or at least saving stocks of allied-supplied munitions from falling into German hands) and restoring Russia's commitment to honor its extensive debts; a later goal was rescuing the Czech corps stranded in Siberia. These missions were crucially encouraged by the Americans' lack of accurate and timely information on the real prospects in Russia (which stemmed in large measure from Washington's, like Paris and London's, diplomatic short-sightedness) and by US President Woodrow Wilson's greater concern for the Paris Peace Conference (and need of allied support for his projected League of Nations). The intervention failed to achieve any of its goals. Instead, it served ultimately to galvanize ordinary Russians' support for the Bolsheviks, providing the Soviet leaders with a propaganda coup and apparent proof of the capitalist world's abiding hostility to socialism, and thus poisoned Soviet-Western relations at this critical early juncture.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Isolate or Engage by Geoffrey Wiseman. Copyright © 2015 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. Excerpted by permission of STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Table of Contents

Contents and AbstractsIntroduction: Introduction chapter abstract

The Introduction explains how the book addresses the policy puzzle of how—in the absence or limited presence of official diplomatic relations—the United States goes about seeking to influence or engage an adversarial state's public so that it will influence its own government to adopt less hostile views of US foreign policies and of American society. The Introduction describes the "adversarial state" concept, lists the criteria used in choosing the nine cases, justifies the choice of multidisciplinary experts to write the case studies, lists the framing questions that set the broad parameters for the cases, and addresses key definitional issues. It also describes a three-part definitional framework for public diplomacy, and concludes with a brief description of the nine cases. It suggests that the cases are especially hard ones that potentially contribute to three fields of study: international security studies, diplomatic studies, and public diplomacy.

1USSR/RUSSIA: US Diplomacy with the Russian "Adversary" chapter abstract

Drawing on the epoch-spanning experience of three distinguished Princeton scholar-diplomats—George Kennan, Robert Tucker, and Jack Matlock—this chapter examines US diplomacy with Russia from the time of Lenin's 1917 Revolution to Putin's Russia of today. The chapter endorses the importance of active, multifaceted diplomatic engagement even in periods, and with regimes, of greatest hostility. A lack of such engagement leads to stereotypes and ignorance—and lost opportunities—while its presence contributed much to the Cold War's end. An underappreciated facet of that engagement has been public diplomacy. Regrettably, at the outset of relations with post-Soviet Russia, public diplomacy fared poorly: partly from clumsy "salesmanship," but even more because the "product" proved disappointing.

2CHINA: American Public Diplomacy and US-China Relations, 1949–2012 chapter abstract

US-China relations since 1949 have been characterized by periodic swings between enmity (1949–1973), cooperation (1973–1989), and traditional Great Power competition (post-1989). The chapter assesses the impact of US public diplomacy on post-1949 US-China relations. It addresses whether the absence or presence of American public diplomacy has affected the degree of US-China conflict and cooperation. The chapter examines public diplomacy from two perspectives. First, for each post-1949 period it considers the influence of the US diplomatic presence in China and US-China ambassadorial relations on cooperation and conflict. Second, for each period it also examines the role of less formal and less direct US government efforts to shape US-China relations, including government outreach programs such as the Voice of America (VOA) and cultural programs.

3NORTH KOREA: Engaging a Hermit Adversarial State chapter abstract

The opportunity for effective public diplomacy in the US-DPRK relationship has been limited. The ongoing hostility (and lack of diplomatic representation) between the two sides is an obstacle to expanded public diplomacy toward North Korea, and North Korea's own domestic political constraints suggest that the prospects for fashioning an effective message that can reach the North Korean people remain dim. The nuclear issue overall has been a dampening factor on the development of official relations as well as on public diplomacy efforts to facilitate negotiations, despite the public roles of skillful nonresident envoys. For improvement to occur, US-DPRK relations need to be improved in tandem with progress in inter-Korean reconciliation. US diplomacy toward North Korea must consider its ally in the South and its key regional partner Japan. Hopes that new leader Kim Jong Un would herald public diplomacy opportunities for the United States have proven premature.

4VIETNAM: American and Vietnamese Public Diplomacy, 1945–2010 chapter abstract

This case suggests that in attempting to understand American efforts to influence its Vietnamese adversary, via what might loosely be called "public diplomacy," it is necessary to analyze a broad range of actors. Traditional government units (the State Department and its embassies in Saigon during the war and in Hanoi after normalization) and the military's wartime public communication activities, along with nongovernmental actors funded or facilitated by the US government, have all played a role in US-Vietnamese public diplomacy. However, the authors have also included civil society actors with little or no direct connection to the government (some of whom oppose government policy). This chapter also gives weight to Vietnamese public diplomacy, signaling that public diplomacy among adversaries is a highly interactive, dialogic practice.

5LIBYA: The United States and the Libyan Jamahiriyya: From Isolation to Regional Ally, 1969–2011 chapter abstract

This chapter analyzes US diplomacy and its public manifestations toward Libya during the period when Libya was ruled by the Muammar Qadhafi regime—from the 1969 military coup until the country's 2011 uprising against the Libyan dictator. After flouting international norms for many years, the Qadhafi regime eventually adhered to many of those norms, renouncing WMDs, the most powerful bargaining chip at its disposal. Libya's changing behavior represented the outcome of a long process of coordinated, behind-the-scenes diplomatic actions by the United States, Great Britain, and, eventually, the international community.

6IRAN: Public Diplomacy in a Vacuum chapter abstract

US public diplomacy toward Iran—rhetoric, messaging, and direct engagement with the Iranian people—constitute critical tools for advancing American interests vis-à-vis Iran, assuming the role that traditional diplomacy serves elsewhere. The Iran case highlights pitfalls of a diplomatic approach that is overly dependent on public diplomacy instruments. They can inflame the suspicions of the intended recipients and are inadequate for promoting vital security interests such as nuclear nonproliferation. Resolving the most urgent disputes between Washington and Tehran will require a reversion to the traditional tools of formal diplomacy, especially formal diplomatic engagement involving the reciprocal exchange of embassies.

7American Public Diplomacy in Syria: Overcoming Obstacles chapter abstract

The Syrian case shows that a crucial element in the US public diplomacy effort is the existence of a functioning US embassy, and private organizations play only a minor role. When the embassy was open, public diplomacy personnel showed creativity by using English-language teaching, cultural programming, and careful personal contacts effectively to work around Syrian governmental restrictions. It shows also that domestic pressures hampered the public diplomacy effort when Congress tried to prevent Ambassador Robert Ford's return to Damascus. Ford enhanced public diplomacy by his visible presence and his creative use of social media. But when the deteriorating security situation forced his withdrawal and the embassy's closure, US public diplomacy was reduced to an offshore effort by radio and television, and a new virtual embassy managed in Washington.

8CUBA: Public Diplomacy as a Battle of Ideas chapter abstract

The history of US public diplomacy toward Cuba suggested little hope that government-organized and -targeted initiatives were likely to be effective. Covert efforts designed to undercut Fidel Castro's popular support and overthrow his government not only failed but, worse, helped Castro mobilize nationalist sentiment. Offshore broadcasting programs had no noticeable impact. The biggest impact in Cuba came not from public diplomacy efforts orchestrated by government, but instead from instances where the government got out of the way to allow open, authentic people-to-people contact. Under Raúl Castro, Cuba hinted that it would prefer to have more normal relations with the United States. With the December 2014 announcement that both countries would move toward normalization, the United States is now better positioned than any other country to influence Cuba's future trajectory through engagement.

9The United States and Venezuela: Managing a Schizophrenic Relationship chapter abstract

Hugo Chávez's fourteen-year rule in Venezuela from 1999 to 2013 was distinguished by a notably adversarial posture toward the United States. The case offers a number of insights: The role of a mercurial personality, with a lot of money to spend, leading a weaker state that attempts to employ public diplomacy to throw its more powerful adversary off balance. The case suggests that while necessary in the Venezuela case to consider traditional "State Department public diplomacy" activities, they are not sufficient to prevent bilateral relations from getting out of controlprevent bilateral relations from getting out of control. It is also crucial to consider "whole-of-government diplomacy" involving many government agencies, plus the often-neglected role of corporate and other key nonstate "new public diplomacy" actors.

Conclusion chapter abstract

The Conclusion summarizes the findings of the nine case studies and suggests that the United States will need to judiciously balance all three public diplomacy approaches outlined in the Introduction: (1) the narrow "traditional government to foreign public" approach; (2) the middle-ground "whole of government to foreign public" approach; and (3) the broadened approach of a "new public diplomacy," one that is conducted by a wide range of governmental and, especially, nongovernmental actors. However, there is a fourth conceptual possibility that public diplomacy is best left almost entirely to publics dealing directly with other publics.

Editorial Reviews

"Geoffrey Wiseman, a leading scholar in diplomatic studies, astutely captures in the title of this his most recent book, Engage or Isolate, a central dilemma for diplomats and policy makers dealing with adversarial states and offers sage advice about the role of public diplomacy in these situations. Very highly recommended."

ANU - Pauline Kerr

"Geoffrey Wiseman, a leading scholar in diplomatic studies, astutely captures in the title of this his most recent book, Engage or Isolate, a central dilemma for diplomats and policy makers dealing with adversarial states and offers sage advice about the role of public diplomacy in these situations. Very highly recommended."—Pauline Kerr, Director of Studies and Emeritus Fellow, Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy, ANU

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