Why Has Biden Abandoned Worldwide War of Words?John Gizzi
https://www.newsmax.com/john-gizzi/joe-biden-vladimir-putin-propaganda/2022/09/12/id/1087015/
Nearly 20 months after Joe Biden became president, the area of public diplomacy — that is, using television, radio, digital venues, and other means of communication on the international front — is almost completely unused, grossly underfunded, and neglected.
This is happening at a turbulent time in the world. In March, Russian President Vladimir Putin increased the state media budget to 211 billion rubles (roughly $2.8 billion) — a 34 billion-ruble ($460 million) increase from earlier years — to spend on propaganda to win and enhance support at home for his war on Ukraine.
It is difficult to gauge the overall amount China is spending on propaganda. It has been estimated that $6.6 billion has come out of Beijing since 2009 to accentuate the Chinese media presence worldwide and to sculpt, as Raksha Kumar wrote for Thomson Reuters, “a sophisticated strategy to portray the country’s leadership in a good light.”
Further, Chinese foreign agent spending has skyrocketed from just over $10 million in 2016 to nearly $64 million last year, according to the Center for Responsible Politics.
In the U.S., public diplomacy, funded at $701 million, is funded at a microcosm of the overall State Department budget — just 1.16% of $60.4 billion, according to the budget for the Fiscal Year 2023.
But while the $701 million figure may sound impressive, the 1995 budget for the U.S. Information Agency (which then had exclusive oversight over public diplomacy) was $1.4 billion. Adjusted for inflation, that figure today would be $2.72 billion.
When USIA disappeared in 1999, Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and their sister media became free-standing. All the rest of Public Diplomacy disappeared into the State Department.
Coupled with the $701 million requested for the State Department’s Public Diplomacy office, the administration’s request for $840 million for the U.S. Agency for Global Media (the parent group for Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and Radio Liberty) comes to $1.541 billion.
That means that today’s spending on public diplomacy — $1.541 billion — is 57% of that of 1995 ($2.72 billion, adjusted for inflation).
“At this particularly perilous point for our nation, we desperately need a massive infusion of funds into our public diplomacy programs, increasing the budget to at least $10 billion per year,” warned Brett Bruen, President Obama’s director of Global Engagement, in March 2021. “That would still be less than the cost of our newest aircraft carrier.”
Funding notwithstanding, the structure of the U.S. effort behind public diplomacy, or “soft power,” to tell America’s story worldwide is in complete disarray.
“The U.S. really hasn’t hit its mark on international broadcasting since the Cold War, when it inspired people seeking freedom to oppose totalitarianism,” former Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., a past chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Newsmax. “Ever since, the agencies have struggled to have the right impact. It’s very unfortunate because we’re engaged in an intense war of ideas with China, Russia, and others that are shaping the world’s future.”
The U.S. Information Agency (USIA) was recalled by the late director of TV and Film Service, Alvin Snyder, as an outlet that “burnished America’s image and trashed the Soviet Union 2500 hours a week with a ‘tower of babble’ comprised of more than 70 languages.”
Under Frank Shakespeare and Charles Z. Wick, its directors under Presidents Nixon and Reagan respectively, and Bruce Herschensohn, who headed its Motion Picture and Television Service from 1968-72, the USIA was at the forefront of spreading America’s message of hope and opportunity that helped to finally bring down the Soviet Union and win the Cold War.
Since 1999 — a few months before Putin emerged on the scene — its functions have been split between the new office of Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs and the newly-created Broadcasting Board of Governors.
As of this month, there is no permanent leadership in the key government agencies designed to craft and deploy U.S. information in the international arena.
The position of Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs has been vacant for more than four years, since March 2018, and is currently headed by the acting under secretary. Moreover, the Global Engagement Center, which was created to “counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts,” is headed by an acting coordinator.
And the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy (ACPD), which appraises “U.S. activities intended to understand, inform, and influence foreign politics,” is virtually empty. Of seven seats on the Commission, three are held by members whose terms have expired and four are vacant.
In the last five months, Biden has moved to fill two of the vacancies on the Commission. His naming of Janet Keller in one of the positions raised eyebrows in the public diplomacy community. Keller heads her own fundraising and development company and was a “bundler” (major fundraiser) for many prominent Democrats including Biden himself. There is no trace of foreign policy background or involvement in her resume.
Biden’s other appointee, Jay T. Snyder, is a past member of the Commission and a past Public Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly.
But no other appointee but Biden himself comes under fire as U.S. public diplomacy languishes behind well-oiled advantages in the information war by America’s arch enemies.
“We’re in a terrible time,” James K. Glassman, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy under George W. Bush from 2008-09, told Newsmax. “It’s outrageous that we don’t even have an under secretary after the president has been in office nearly two years. And there’s no excuse for Joe Biden — who [as a U.S. senator] co-wrote the 1999 legislation that reorganized USIA — not to be acting on this situation now. We’re not in the [world information war] game as we should be and there is a lack of urgency about public diplomacy.”
He added that “while I agree he has a lot on his plate, it’s nevertheless inexplicable why President Biden would not have made this more of a priority. The same is true of [Secretary of State] Tony Blinken, who knows the importance of this issue very well.”
Glassman, Royce, Bruen and others who know the state of the U.S. in the worldwide war of information have made clear their warnings about falling behind China, Russia, Iran and other hostile powers. The question now is whether Biden and his team are listening.
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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