Comment: Obama's next campaign
Barack Obama arrives on a massive tide of support but during turbulent times at the White House
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Tuesday, 20, Jan 2009 12:00
By Jack Leslie.
Never in history has a president of the United States taken the oath of office facing the difficulties that confront Barack Obama. Franklin Roosevelt assumed office amid an economic calamity but with a world at peace; Abraham Lincoln, a nation about to be torn apart by war, but relative prosperity at home.
With the American economy - and the world's - sagging and two wars being fought thousands of miles away, the new Ppesident will rightfully devote his attention to these monumental challenges. But I hope there will be both the time and energy for a campaign to win back America's reputation around the world.
It is unfortunate that such an effort is necessary. It wasn't all that long ago when things were different, and the world stood with the US after September 11th. We were "all Americans" then. But the Bush Administration chose to go it alone. Now, after years of a "you're with us or you're against us" approach to US foreign policy and a deeply unpopular war in Iraq, America is more isolated, with a badly tarnished image, and the world less secure. Add the fact that many around the world blame the US as our financial crisis snowballs into a worldwide economic meltdown.
Changing some of our policies - such as closing Guantanamo Bay and addressing climate change - will remove some of the highly-charged issues that have affected our reputation. But policy changes alone won't do the job. As president, Mr Obama, should launch - sooner rather than later -- a public diplomacy campaign that redefines America's engagement with the world community and its citizens. He should take the campaign around the world, and especially to the hotbeds of anti-Americanism.
It's a difficult assignment, but he starts with two advantages: His election itself, and the change he embodies, has dramatically raised hopes round the world - a problem if unfulfilled, but both manageable and preferable to the dismal expectations of the last few years. Additionally, he already has a campaign roadmap: the same unprecedented approach he used to win the election.
There are additional reasons why this public diplomacy campaign will succeed.
First, today's interdependent, interconnected world is ready for Obama's more "adaptive" style of US presidential leadership, one that values collaboration and consensus-building to arrive at a collective sense of the public good. But it's not just a matter of style alone. It is the substance of Obama's personal story - a father born in Kenya, a childhood spent partly in Indonesia, and a middle name Hussein - that can help reframe and renew what America stands for. It can, importantly, undercut some of the most powerful arguments al-Qaeda and others have used to recruit terrorists.
Second, a key audience is the one he was so successful with at home: the young. Some 100 million people, more than 30 per cent of the Arab world's population, are between 15 and 29 years old today; and more than 25 per cent of those between 15 and 24 are unemployed. Globally, the trend is just as alarming. Close to one billion young adults under 30 will enter the labour market in the next decade - for too many, there will be little hope for work or a better life, says 2008 Nobel peace prize winner Martti Ahtisaari. If ever there was a global need for the particular genius of the Obama campaign to inspire and engage the world's youth - the second imperative for a new global public diplomacy campaign - that time is certainly now.
The third imperative is that public diplomacy must embrace the tools of modern communications: the internet, the grassroots power of social networking, and other emerging technologies that are part of the daily fabric of young people's lives. It's a trend that has gone global. Nearly half the world's population uses mobile phones and 22 per cent of the world's people have internet access today, and usage is growing most rapidly in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. We can't rely on the Voice of America and other conventional modes of communication alone.
Fourth: no medium, no matter how innovative, can substitute for a strong message communicated in an inspirational and disciplined way. Obama's powerful message of change recognised that while the delivery mechanisms in the online and offline worlds may be different, the paramount objective is keeping your advocates in line with your vision.
Finally, as his presidential campaign proved, money counts. America needs to invest far more in so-called "soft" power. The US now spends $350 million annually on global public diplomacy, the equivalent of what the Pentagon spends about every six hours. This must change.
Hopes and expectations are high, perhaps too high, that President Obama will be a transformational global leader. He now faces a difficult reality - directing a foreign policy that, first and foremost, protects and promotes America's interests. And he will be constrained by a world in which global security requires complex choices and difficult decisions in places like Pakistan and Iran. But Obama has proven that he can defy long odds. He has the chance to restore America's reputation if he mounts an unprecedented public diplomacy campaign that adopts some of the same strategies he just used in his presidential race.
Jack Leslie is Chairman of Weber Shandwick, a leading international public relations firm, a former aide to senator Edward Kennedy and member of the Council on Foreign Relations.