Grand Strategy: From Battles to Bridges

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the distinctions between an overarching grand strategy of public diplomacy and the strategy and tactics of individual public diplomacy initiatives. Failure to distinguish between these different levels may have been the first critical shortcoming of post-9/11 U.S. public diplomacy. Despite the chorus of calls for“a strategy,” U.S. public diplomacy already had a grand strategy in place. Not only was there an overarching grand strategy, but that strategy appeared to run counter to the underlying communication dynamics in the international arena. The failure to recognize and analyze the viability of this grand strategy may be the second and single most important factor that undermined all of U.S. public diplomacy’s efforts in the post-9/11 period. This chapter identifies and analyzes U.S. public diplomacy’s information battle grand strategy and proposes a new grand strategy of building communication bridges. The chapter concludes by redefining the grand strategic goals of U.S. public diplomacy in a global communication era.KeywordsCommunication ProfessionalStrategic GoalInternational ArenaBuilding BridgeForeign PublicThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.