Public Diplomacy in Grand Strategy

• Published in: Foreign policy analysis Vol. 2; no. 2; pp. 157 - 176
• Main Author: MOR, BEN D.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Malden, USA Blackwell Publishing Inc 01-04-2006; Blackwell Publishing
• Subjects: Journalism; Military communications; Military operations; Military strategy; Military tactics; Propaganda; Public diplomacy; Public opinion; Terrorism; War
• ISSN: 1743-8586; 1743-8594
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1743-8594.2006.00025.x

Despite the growing importance of public diplomacy in current international politics, its practice—and particularly its relationship with hard power—remains largely unexplored by diplomatic or strategic theory. This paper applies a grand-strategic perspective to analyze the challenges of "winning hearts and minds" in the new communications and normative environments. Israel's experience in the second Intifada serves to draw empirically based lessons on the grand-strategic relationship between propaganda and counterterrorist operations. This relationship, the case study shows, is shaped by the close proximity of tactical-level events to the "surface" of grand strategy, to which their effects tend quickly to rise in the new communications environment. In this context, the proactive role of public diplomacy becomes a key to grand-strategic success.