my father’s work was public diplomacy

My father’s Foreign Service career with the United States Information Agency (USIA) during the Cold War was devoted to supporting the democratic values that defined America’s global relationships after World War II, including freedom (of the press, of assembly, of elections) and the rule of law. 

The work was the same under both Republican and Democratic administrations. It was Republican President Dwight Eisenhower who perceived the need for a public relations arm to enhance our foreign affairs, and Ike created USIA in 1953, just two years before my father began his career.

The agency continued to “bang the drum for democracy” until it was absorbed into the State Department in 1999. Today, foreign service officers continue the mission of public diplomacy: building relationships, fostering mutual understanding, and influencing perceptions and policies to build long-term trust and cooperation.

In a phrase, my father described public diplomacy as “winning hearts and minds for democracy.” 

trump does not see himself AS LEADING A democraCY

Imagine trying to carry out this essential work under the second administration of President Donald Trump. Speaking on the PBS NewsHour, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and historian Anne Applebaum said of Trump: “This is the first president since 1945 who doesn’t see himself as a … democrat leading [a] group of democracies.” 

That’s a breathtaking statement. But look at the evidence.

UNDEMOCRATIC ACTIONS ABROAD

Consider Trump’s actions in Venezuela. The extraction of dictator Nicolás Maduro left the regime intact, oil in American hands, and the democratically-elected president, Maria Corina Machado, shunted off the world stage, her Nobel Peace Prize sitting in the Oval Office. 

Consider the murder of more than one hundred souls in boat strikes under the pretext of drug interdiction, the threat of wide-spread, strong-armed retaliatory tariffs around the globe, and the demand that he be given Greenland (or Panama, or Canada) to satisfy an emotional need for territory. Or else. 

DAVOS SPEECHES PROVE THE RUPTURE

Trump’s speech at the Davos World Economic Forum left no doubt of his disdain for America’s NATO allies that have together maintained the post-WWII peace. It now seems quaint that it was called Pax Americana.

In his rebuttal at Davos, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called this sea change what it is: “We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.”

As conservative commentator David Brooks said on the PBS NewsHour: “Donald Trump has set out to create a world in which gangsters have free rein, and that the people who believe in the use of force above the rule of law should be able to run the show.”

Autocrats and strongmen are the role models for our current president, whose imperial designs and foreign policy approach harken back two centuries. Expansionism and protectionism put “America First,” and the assertion of raw power is a shocking contrast to the rules-based international order that our country helped put in place. 

WE ARE ENTERING A DANGEROUS WORLD

Robert Kagan put it this way in The Atlantic: “The American might that upheld the world order of the past 80 years will now be used instead to destroy it…Americans are entering the most dangerous world they have known since World War II, one that will make the Cold War look like child’s play and the post–Cold War world like paradise.” 

And, our allies say, we are never, ever, ever, ever, ever, getting back together. 

*Submitted to the South Florida Sun Sentinel