TedLipien.com, Truckee, California, USA, May 01, 2011 — In a public diplomacy blunder likely to offend American Catholics, Polish-American voters and people in Poland, the Obama Administration failed to send a high-ranking American official to the beatification ceremonies for Pope John Paul II, which were held today at the Vatican. Many other religious and ethnic groups in America are also likely to be disturbed by the failure of President Obama to attend the ceremony himself or to send a special delegation headed by Vice President Biden. The White House could have also dispatched Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or prominent members of the U.S. Congress from both political parties. The United States was represented at the ceremony only by Miguel Diaz, the ambassador to the Vatican. This is considered the lowest level of representation at an important event of this kind. King Albert and Queen Paola of Belgium led the list of royalty present and 16 heads of state and several prime ministers attended, including Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski. Read more…
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Beatification of John Paul II was a low priority public diplomacy event for President Obama
The Broadcasting Board of Governors and the Destruction of US International Broadcasting
VOA building in Washington, D.C.
FreeMediaOnline.org Truckee, CA, USA, March 07, 2011 — The following was written by The Federalist, a regular contributor to FreeMediaOnline.org, in support of the staff of the Voice of America (VOA) China Branch who demonstrated uncommon courage and fortitude in facing down senior officials of the VOA and Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) in a town hall meeting conducted in the auditorium of the Cohen Building on February 24, 2011.
The Broadcasting Board of Governors and the Destruction of US International Broadcasting
by The Federalist
Let’s get right down to the nitty-gritty:
Every member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) should submit his/her resignation to the White House. That should be followed by the resignation of the head of the Voice of America (VOA). If they don’t voluntarily submit their resignations, they should be demanded by the White House. The reason: they have destroyed US credibility abroad. They have unilaterally abandoned major radio audiences (the Russians) and are prepared to abandon the granddaddy of all audiences, the Chinese. Eventually, the BBG intends to abandon all of its international radio broadcasts. When that happens, the US Government will no longer be in the business of international broadcasting. There will no longer be a need for a BBG because it will have destroyed its most important strategic infrastructure and resource in reaching public audiences worldwide: direct global radio broadcasting.
The VOA Charter states, in relevant part:
“The long-range interests of the United States are served by communicating directly with the peoples of the world by radio…
1. VOA will serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news…”
Clearly, the BBG is not in compliance with key provisions of the VOA Charter. The BBG is intentionally abandoning radio as the primary foundation base of communicating with world populations. The BBG has abandoned its Russian radio audience. The BBG has abandoned shortwave radio audiences in Indonesia and Vietnam. The BBG is prepared to abandon its enormous Chinese audiences. Other services have also been targeted. The intentions of the BBG are clear: it intends to thoroughly and completely shut down its radio operations.
Further, the BBG cannot claim to be in compliance with the provision that the VOA be “a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news…” VOA operations are now consistently unreliable. It is abandoning its radio audiences as quickly as possible. It has adopted a destructive “strategic plan” which relies upon the Internet as a sole source platform for audio, video and text…knowing (or worse, ignoring) that the Internet can be controlled and access to VOA websites blocked or hacked.
No doubt, the BBG would protest vehemently and try to point out otherwise, through semantic trickery and disingenuous, if not flatly erroneous statements bordering on deceit. But the facts speak otherwise.
The exit out the door of the Cohen Building doesn’t stop with the BBG members and the VOA director. Right behind them should follow the head of broadcasting to the Middle East and the staff of the International Broadcasting Bureau responsible for concocting the witch’s brew known as the “strategic plan.”
By its intended outcomes and the actions, past, current and future, this plan and those who vigorously advocate it are not operating in the National and Public Interest, have been destructive of those interests and have wasted millions of taxpayer dollars on failure…failure that is abject and complete.
The key components of the strategic failure are as follows:
Russia:
In 2008, the BBG unilaterally ended direct radio broadcasts to the Russian Federation by the VOA Russian Service. The service was reduced to an Internet-only capacity. At the time, as senior agency official stated that all of VOA would be like the Russian Service in five years.
Within weeks of this unilateral capitulation by the BBG, Russian forces invaded the Georgian Republic. As part of the campaign, the Russians engaged in cyber countermeasures to block or hack into Georgian and international websites.
The agency’s own research shows that the VOA Russian Service lost virtually all of its audience…upwards of 80%. Hits on the website are most often one-time-only, some on redirects and then the user leaves the site.
In the words of VOA Director Danforth Austin, the VOA Russian Service is an Internet “success.” Indeed, Austin is correct…it is a successful demolition of a service to a country without a free press. It is a “success” in enhancing the ability of the Russian government to control or block access to websites that do not comport with the interests of the Russian government.
The Arab and Muslim World:
For almost a decade, the BBG has taken millions of taxpayer dollars in a failed attempt to establish a meaningful presence in the Arab and Muslim world. It has failed miserably, as recent events in the Middle East have demonstrated.
Far and away the leader in reflecting and giving resonance to Arab and Muslim public sentiment is al-Jazeera television which broadcasts in both Arabic and English. One thing is clear from the unrest in the Arab and Muslim world: populations are fed up with regimes many of which have been supported by the United States. These populations are engaged in self-determination. The pro-democracy mantra is misplaced. Indeed, Senator John Kerry has remarked that it is too early to do a pro-democracy victory lap in the Middle East. Now, the United States government must prepare for an inevitable change in the wind. It is likely that the new governments to be formed will be less secular and more theocratic. In short, Arab publics are engaged in self-determination based on their traditional and historical values. This does not translate into identifying with US interests or values. The situation for the United States has become immediately more complex.
Add to this the success enjoyed by the Iranian government in projecting its power and influence in the region, most notably in Lebanon where Hezbollah is essentially in control of the national government and is armed to the teeth not only to protect its political gains but also to square off with the state of Israel, which it fought to a standstill in 2006. Iranian dissidents have been agitating for change for years, without much success. Even if these dissidents forced a political change in government, the still unanswered question is how that translates into dealing with the country’s theocracy. Further, even if Iranian dissidents force a change in government, this does not necessarily translate into the abandonment of the Iranian nuclear program. Iranians know that this program gives Iran an enormous amount of political leverage. The Iranians are not about to dispose of that leverage easily.
In short, the BBG effort has had no effect on Arab and Muslim sentiment. It is a failure. It is a waste of taxpayer dollars. The BBG is so far behind the public opinion curve in the Middle East that it will take more decades and taxpayer money to try to have some meaningful resonance. On the current trajectory of Middle East political developments, the chances of recovering the US image in the Middle East through the BBG are slim to none and will haunt US policy in the regions for decades.
China
In late February 2011, VOA director Austin and other officials held a “town hall meeting” to rationalize with agency employees the cuts the BBG intended to make to VOA China Branch Mandarin and Cantonese broadcasts, which would ironically take place on October 1, a national political holiday in the Peoples Republic of China (PRC).
This intended outcome highlights all of the ineptitude, incompetence and idiocy of the BBG “strategic plan.”
The BBG, through the VOA Director, justify this decision on a whole lot of suspect reasoning. According to Austin, the agency wants to go after “new” media…the Internet users in China. There is only one “small” problem with this: the Chinese government knows that it can control Internet website access. It can, does and will continue to block sites that it considers detrimental to Chinese national interests. The Chinese have already demonstrated its capability in this regard. The PRC government blocked outside news reporting on the unrest in the Middle East. That effort was not limited to the Internet but across all media platforms.
As large as the Chinese Internet audience may be, the BBG will not have access to that market. The cost to the Chinese government is next to nothing. The government controls all the in-country Internet service providers.
From the Chinese perspective, this unilateral decision is a gift. The BBG, an agency of the US Government is unilaterally narrowing its footprint inside China. It is funneling its program output into a medium that the Chinese government controls and will continue to control for the foreseeable future.
The Chinese are not being stupid about this. They know their Internet users. They know the content that is attractive to them and allows access to those sites that have commercial, entertainment and other non-political interests. This is about control, not about across-the-board blockage.
The other skillfulness in this approach is that, after a fashion, what the government provides ultimately outweighs what it blocks. With the passage of time, this renders the VOA program output irrelevant.
Danforth Austin suggested that the Chinese government would want the BBG to continue to do shortwave radio broadcasting. In Austin’s view – and no doubt that of the BBG – this is a waste of money. They believe that radio is passé. This is just plain stupid. Radio is about as passé as the wheel…and no one is abandoning the wheel as a critical part of technology.
The fact of the matter is that the Chinese government spends large amounts of money to jam VOA Chinese shortwave radio programs. That means that VOA radio program content has a value placed not on what the US Government spends to transmit its broadcasts but how much the Chinese spend to block it.
Another fact: Chinese radio users far outnumber those with broadband Internet access. As one VOA staffer asked Austin: are you prepared to buy a computer for those Chinese who don’t own a computer? You could see Austin bristle at the question posed by the staffer.
Another specious argument offered by the BBG and Austin is that the Chinese would not block the Internet because they would suffer economically and in prestige.
Truthfully, it is painful is hear this delusional babble coming out of an agency charged with communicating with the rest of the world.
Here is the truth of the matter: the Chinese are riding the crest of a wave of an economic juggernaut which has yet to reach maximum effectiveness. This juggernaut, which is worldwide in scope, shows no signs of negative backlash from its blocking of US government websites. Globalized economies want access to Chinese goods. Globalized businesses want access to Chinese labor which reduces their costs. Advantage: PRC.
Further, the PRC owns a huge amount of US debt. No one should operate under the delusion that blocking US government websites is somehow going to have significant impact on the leverage the Chinese government has.
Lastly, as VOA Chinese staffers pointed out, the BBG spends $8-million dollars on its transmission costs. By comparison, the Chinese government spends $8-billion dollars on its overseas media campaign. This includes advertising in the Verizon Center in Washington, DC and Times Square in New York City. It includes a robust radio broadcasting effort in English to North America. It includes inserts in major American newspapers including the Washington Post.
The Chinese government has been quick to comment on its victory over the hapless and inept BBG. Through its official media, it has proclaimed the BBG action as a retreat and defeat, a mission abandoned and unfinished.
The Chinese are right.
More on the Cyber Front
One of the more ludicrous pronouncements from the BBG comes via one of its public relations flaks who stated in a press release that the BBG was a “leader” in cyber security and countermeasures.
The blatant idiocy of this remark was made clear when BBG/VOA websites were recently hacked by the “Iranian Cyber Army,” an operation with apparent links to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. This attack took down all VOA websites and proxies for five hours. Repeat: all VOA websites and proxies for five hours. The attack occurred a few days before the BBG town hall meeting.
The BBG response was a reflection of its naivety in the cyber environment, complaining about infringement on freedom of the press and similar blah, blah, blah that means absolutely nothing to those opposed to US interests. After indulging in this rant, the statement followed by saying that the attack did not penetrate deeper into the agency’s IT infrastructure.
Not this time.
No doubt, the Iranians will study its successes and make efforts to expand and improve upon them. The next attack may be longer. The next attack may indeed penetrate deeper into the IT infrastructure disrupting perhaps actual on-air programs as well as websites. Clearly, the BBG does not have effective measures in place to prevent such attacks or similar ones in the future.
This is important to note when it comes to the Chinese. The BBG needs to be reminded that the Chinese government has the equivalent of unlimited resources and it will expend those resources to protect its national interests. For example, the PRC could match the BBG employee-for-employee in a cyber warfare operation and double it and not break a sweat. Even VOA director Austin noted that the Chinese are very focused on their goals. Apparently, the VOA director isn’t listening to what he’s saying and the import behind it. The Chinese government means business. They are not coy about it. They will tell the US government exactly what it will do to protect its interests.
On the Political Front
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton offered testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In her testimony, the secretary noted that the United States is losing in the court of world opinion. Using the often-expressed “war” analogy, Secretary Clinton said, “We are in an information war and we are losing that war.” She also noted that “Most people still get their news from TV and radio.”
Secretary Clinton is right on both counts. Unfortunately, the BBG – which the State Department oversees – is committed to abandoning radio both immediately and in the long term in favor of the Internet. Well over 70 percent of the world population does not have Internet access. That 70 percent is a bountiful resource for organizations that hate the United States. Out of these impoverished and oppressed peoples come recruits for terrorist organizations and operations.
Senator Richard Lugar asked Secretary Clinton about a more assertive role for the BBG. While Secretary Clinton’s response was not fleshed out in press accounts, there is a message for the secretary and for Senator Lugar in the BBG town hall meeting. From that meeting it is evident that the BBG intends to press forward in abandoning world publics and narrowing the US government information footprint around the world. Channeling more funding toward the BBG will be money wasted on an already bankrupt “strategic plan” that cripples access to mass audiences and goes after audiences that are and will continue to be effectively blocked.
Mrs. Clinton also noted that the major player in the Middle East is al-Jazeera television. Thanks to the arrogance and mismanagement perpetrated by the BBG, other major players are already on the rise in Russia and China which have mounted robust international media programs.
We have become the world’s big time loser in news and information. We have allowed US international prestige and credibility to be undermined and our national interests compromised. For that reason, as the direct consequence of the BBG’s decisions, the Board should be held accountable and be given the heave-ho, along with the IBB and VOA management that has supported the Board’s actions and shares in its culpability.
The Federalist
March 2011
Sign a petition on http://voashortwave.org
Join Save Voice of America Radio to China Groupon Facebook
VOA Website Hacked by Iranian Islamists
The BBG-managed Voice of America (VOA) websites were hacked on February 21, 2011, apparently by the “Iranian Cyber Army,” as reported by PiratesWeek and Kim Andrew Elliott, a Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) employee who publishes his own private international broadcasting website, In 2009, VOA websites were out of comission for at least two full days during President Obama’s official visit to Russsia, also due to a cyber attack of an unidentified origin. Similarly, the VOA Russian Service website also came under a cyber attack with a pornographic photo being posted.
A few days before the Islamist cyber attack on the Voice of America websites, Blanquita Cullum, a conservative radio host and former member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), criticized the Obama Administration for planning to drastically reduce American radio news programs to China in favor of Internet-only news delivery to China by the Voice of America. Ms. Cullum wrote in an op-ed published by The Washington Times that by terminating long-distance shortwave transmissions, the government agency in charge of U.S. international news broadcasts is ignoring the digital divide between richer and poorer regions of the world and dismissing efforts by authoritarian regimes to censor the Internet. She charged that the BBG appears more intent on communicating with rulers rather than with the ordinary people who can’t afford or are denied access to the Internet.
Voice of America Chinese Service
The radio broadcasts set for termination are produced by the Voice of America and Radio Free Asia (RFA). They are funded by Congressional appropriations and overseen by the bipartisan Broadcasting Board of Governors, a nominally independent federal agency which is consistently rated in official government-wide employee surveys as one of the worst-managed within the U.S. government. The Broadcasting Board of Governors is in charge of all U.S. civilian international news broadcasting, including the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio Free Asia (RFA), Radio and TV Martí, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN)—Radio Sawa and Alhurra Television.
Conservative radio host and former Broadcasting Board of Governors member Blanquita Cullum has been critical of the BBG's decision to reduce U.S.-funded radio broadcasts to China and other countries without free media.
In her Washington Times commentary, Obama bows to Chinese dictators, Blanquita Cullum, who had served on the Broadcasting Board of Governors during the George W. Bush Administration, has accused the current Board members and the Obama Administration of planning to cut off outside news to people still oppressed by communism. According to her and other critics of the planned termination of U.S. government-funded radio broadcasts in Mandarin and Cantonese, the President’s budget request of $767 million for the BBG for Fiscal Year 2012, represents a “strategic disintegration plan” – marking America’s exit as a bona fide force in international broadcasting.
The current BBG has nine members, all of whom have been appointed by President Obama. The Board also has the executive staff, whose top managers have been responsible for a number of financial scandals and journalistic blunders. While the BBG members were replaced after the new administration took office, the executive staff remained. They are the initiators and planners of the previous and the latest series of radio programming cuts in U.S. international broadcasting.
The current BBG Chairman Walter Isaacson is the former Chairman and CEO of CNN and former editor of Time Magazine. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton serves as an ex officio member of the BBG. The Board also has Republican members, including Dana Perino, the former White House Press Secretary to President George W. Bush, and Victor H. Ashe, the former U.S. Ambassador to Poland during the George W. Bush Administration. They were all nominated by President Obama and confirmed by the Senate.
Blanquita Cullum, the only former BBG member recognized in the Congressional Record for being “a champion of the mission of U.S. international broadcasting,” argues in her op-ed column in The Washington Times that the BBG’s over-reliance on delivering news from the United States to countries without free media, using the Internet rather than a mix of radio, Internet and satellite TV, is both misguided and dangerous. She points out that “it is easier and cheaper for despots to shut down the Internet than it is to jam radio,” and accuses the BBG of “ignoring the digital divide – the gap between those who have effective Internet access and those who don’t.” According to AHumanRight.org, an NGO which strives to expand free access to news and information around the world, 7 out of 10 people do not have Internet access. AHumanRight.org estimates that almost 5 billion people lack Internet access.
Blanquita Cullum had been a strong critic of the BBG executive staff while she was still serving as a Board member and managed to prevent some but not all of the previously proposed broadcasting cuts. Other BBG members and their staff wanted to use savings from some of these programming cuts to hire their friends as public relations consultants for the BBG. Her fight against mismanagement at the BBG was recognized by Senator Tom Coburn, Republican from Oklahoma, in a statement placed in The Congressional Record.
“Chief among her concerns,” Senator Coburn wrote, “has been for the continuation of U.S. international radio broadcasts, the form of communication which to this day remains the most readily accessible and cost-effective means of communication for billions of oppressed people living in poverty.”
Senator Coburn has been a consistent critic of the way the BBG manages its broadcasting operations and spends public funds.
He has publicized examples of VOA broadcasts to Iran which, he charges, undermine U.S. policy and give a platform for anti-American propaganda. He has also charged that U.S. broadcasts in Arabic on Radio Sawa and Alhurra Television have also given “uninterrupted and unchallenged platforms to terrorists and other enemies of the U.S. and our allies.”
One of the most blatant examples of editorial mismanagement at the BGG, exposed with the help of Free Media Online, was the airing of statements by Holocaust deniers by Alhurra Television.
While the BBG members approve strategic plans and budget submissions to Congress, the recommendations for program cuts come from the permanent BBG executive staff. They were responsible in the past for proposing to reduce radio broadcasts to Tibet, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Ukraine and the Republic of Georgia. They have also been accused of failing to maintain editorial standards, which led to such journalistic blunders as the airing of statements by Holocaust deniers on the BBG-managed Alhurra Television for the Middle East. They also failed to prevent major financial scandals at the BBG-managed broadcasting entities.
In one of their most controversial moves in recent years, the BBG executive staff had sold the previous BBG members on the idea of eliminating VOA radio broadcasts to Russia. In her commentary in The Washington Times, Ms. Cullum pointed out that after the BBG had ended VOA Russian radio programming in 2008 just several days before Russian military forces invaded the Republic of Georgia, subsequent survey data indicated that sole reliance upon a VOA Russian website resulted in a wholesale disintegration of its audience base. Ms. Cullum had opposed these programming cuts when she was still a member of the BBG.
Americans for U. S. International Broadcasting Petition Save Voice of America Shortwave
Americans for U.S. International Broadcasting, a group of current and former VOA and BBG employees and free media advocates, have started a petition drive to convince Congress to reject the BBG’s and the Obama Administration’s proposals for eliminating shortwave radio broadcasts to China.
Senator Richard Lugar
Some members of Congress and their staff are also concerned about media censorship in China and the Chinese government’s efforts to control Internet access in their country. Senator Richard Lugar, Republican from Indiana, issued a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff report — “Another U.S. Deficit – China and America – Public Diplomacy in the Age of the Internet”– which details China’s initiatives to censor the Internet while expanding its influence in the world. The report was prepared under the direction of Senior Professional Staff Member Paul Foldi, who visited the region.
XinhuaNews, the official press agency of the Chinese government, will soon be allowed to open a multi-floored office in Times Square and already broadcasts from an AM transmitter in Texas. By contrast, Beijing limits the Voice of America to a single, two-person office there, blocks the opening of a VOA bureau in Shanghai. Furthermore, China forces both VOA and Radio Free Asia to beam in on Short Wave radio from distant locations well outside its borders. China also routinely jams these transmissions as well as blocks both VOA’s and RFA’s Internet sites. Meanwhile, Congress has provided tens of millions of dollars to assist in Internet freedom issues including Internet Censorship Circumvention Technology, but little of that money has been allocated by the State Department in spite of clear bipartisan support.
VOA insiders told Free Media Online that the BBG executives who make decisions to eliminate radio broadcasts have no experience of living under communism and do not understand the psychology of authoritarian rulers and those who suffer under oppressive regimes.
The Taipei Times reports that the morale of the Voice of America Chinese Service journalists is at its all-time low.
According to sources at VOA, who spoke with The Taipei Times on the condition of protecting their anonymity, the work environment had turned sour as pressure from management led to on-air hosts self-censoring themselves.
The Voice of America Chinese Service journalist may very well be right that the BBG has been succumbing to the pressure from Chinese diplomats who complain to the State Department.
Chairman Walter Isaacson made news last October by naming China’s and Russia’s official media as America’s “enemies,” alongside state media in Iran and Venezuela, but he quickly disavowed his comments, most likely after being rebuked by high-ranking officials of the Obama Administration, either at the State Department or at the White House. He used such strong language while calling for more money for the BBG to combat foreign propaganda.
Mr. Isaacson criticized the state media in China and Russia at the 60th anniversary celebration for Radio Free Europe (RFE), which he credited with contributing to the end of the Cold War. [A transcript of the speech is available here.] When questioned by The Cable, a FOREIGN POLICY (FP) blog about his “enemies” comment, Isaacson apologized for the remark, while saying that the “enemies” he was referring to were in Afghanistan, not the several countries he mentioned.
“I of course did not mean to refer to, nor do I consider, that Russia, China, and the other countries or news services are enemies of the U.S., and I’m sorry if I gave that impression,” he told The Cable. The BBG has also published a statement of clarification on its website.
The incident showed that not even the BBG Chairman is protected from censorship by autocratic regimes. Their diplomats are putting pressure on the State Department, which under the Obama Administration seems far more willing to carry their message of censorship to the BBG Chairman and to get him to comply with their demands.
Ted Lipien, former Voice of America acting associate director and VOA journalist during several Democratic and Republican administration, said that President Obama’s refusal to meet prior to his official visit to Beijing with the Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama has send a strong message to human rights activists and government censors alike in China and other countries ruled by authoritarian regimes. According to Lipien, the tone set by the Obama Administration has also contributed to self-censorship and unbalanced reporting at the Voice of America and other broadcasting entities managed by the BBG. An analysis conducted by Free Media Online showed that the Voice of America has violated its Congressional mandate in reporting on the ongoing debate in Congress about the new START treaty with Russia on arms reductions by heavily promoting the pro-treaty statements by the Obama Administration officials and almost completely ignoring serious objections to the proposed treaty raised by Republican lawmakers.
The Voice of America reporting on the U.S. debate about the proposed START treaty would make the Voice of Russia radio and Russia Today television proud, said Ted Lipien who now heads Free Media Online, a California-based NGO which supports free and independent media and reporting worldwide.
In 2008, Free Media Online launched GovoritAmerika.US, a Russian-language website which aggregates U.S. government and non-government media reports. The website was created in response to the Broadcasting Board of Governors’ decision to cancel VOA Russian radio broadcasts, an action taken just 12 days before the Russian military attack on the Republic of Georgia. Free Media Online has been highly critical of the BBG’s management of U.S. international broadcasting, terminations of radio broadcasts, and over-reliance on the Internet without being able to protect its websites from cyber attacks.
Links to sign a petition to save U.S. news radio broadcasts to China.
This report was first published by FreeMediaOnline.orgTruckee, CA, USA, February 21, 2011.
Reagan is Out, Obama is In – U.S. Embassies in Central and Eastern Europe Ignore 100 Anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s Birthday
TedLipien.com, Truckee, CA, February 08, 2011 — One would think that the centennial of Ronald Reagan’s birthday could be a perfect public diplomacy theme for all U.S. embassies in Central and Eastern Europe — a great opportunity for embassy-sponsored events to strengthen ties with America among diverse nations that owe their current independence and freedom in large part to President Reagan’s vision combined with his steadfastness in standing up to the “Evil Empire.” And yet, both highly-trained and highly-paid U.S. diplomats working in the countries of the former Soviet Block by and large completely ignored the anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birthday. Only two diplomatic post out of more than a dozen in the region sponsored a public event designed to remind older and younger generations of East Europeans of Ronald Reagan’s contribution to freeing them from Soviet domination. Read more…
Subversive U.S. Public Diplomacy Theme – Ronald Reagan
TedLipien.com, Truckee, CA, January 03, 2011 — The following is not a State Department cable. It was not written by The Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith McHale and not leaked by Wiki Leaks:
TOTALLY TOP SECRET
PARA 5 & 6 ATT. U.S. EMBASSY WARSAW
SUBJECT: Ronald Reagan As A Subversive Model for U.S. Public Diplomacy in Former Soviet Block Countries Read more…
Who is the leader of the Free World? – Reagan, Bush, Obama – lessons in public diplomacy in response to anti-democracy crackdown in Belarus
En ce moment, il n’y a plus de pilote dans l’avion. [At the moment, there is no longer a pilot on the plane.] — A European comment on President Obama as a leader of the Free World.
TedLipien.com, Truckee, California, USA, January 03, 2011 — Who is the leader of the Free World when democracy is under threat? Read more…
Who is the leader of the Free World? – Reagan, Bush, Obama – lessons in public diplomacy in response to anti-democracy crackdown in Belarus
En ce moment, il n’y a plus de pilote dans l’avion. [At the moment, there is no longer a pilot on the plane.] — A European comment on President Obama as a leader of the Free World.
TedLipien.com, Truckee, California, USA, January 03, 2011 — Who is the leader of the Free World when democracy is under threat?
For a moment on New Year’s Eve 2010, I thought the leader of the free world was still George W. Bush. The President of the United States reads a message of solidarity with the people of Belarus, whose rights and freedoms have been once again trampled by an authoritarian ruler. Except that those reading the message were a former U.S President and a former U.S. Secretary of State, both Republicans. They were joined other world leaders, former statesmen, and human rights activists — courageous individuals like former Czech President Vaclav Havel, human rights activist Yelena Bonner, the widow of Soviet-era dissident Andrei Sakharov, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, and many others.
Former President Bush read the names of five Belarusian presidential candidates still being held in a KGB prison. The other participants read the names of other political prisoners in Belarus. But there was no high-ranking member of the Obama administration among the participants in the “Voices of Solidarity” project.
Most Americans and millions in the rest of the world expect the President of the United States to speak up forcefully when democracy abroad is under major attack. When shortly before Christmas 1981, General Wojciech Jaruzelski imposed martial law in Poland, there was not a slightest doubt that President Reagan would appear in front of television cameras to express the support of the American people for the Polish independent trade union movement Solidarity and its imprisoned leader Lech Walesa. In the last weeks of 2010, few expected President Obama to act forcefully and effectively in face of yet another attack against freedom and democracy in Belarus.
Both attacks on democracy supporters happened during a holiday season. President Reagan, who was in 1981 much older than President Obama is now, had showed remarkable energy, determination, and leadership in letting the world know what the United States thought about a communist dictator like General Jaruzelski. Much younger Barack Obama left Washington for a family vacation in Hawaii.
If you do not see the video of President Reagan’s Christmas address to the American people in 1981, try this link.
When elections in Belarus were stolen and democracy supporters beaten and imprisoned just before Christmas 2010, the White House issued a short written statement. Granted, the severity of repression in Belarus now has not reached the same level as in Poland in 1981, but presidential leadership in the U.S. was still woefully and significantly inadequate. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and European Union High Representative Catherine Ashton issued a statement on the post-presidential elections situation in Belarus. It was short and, as the title suggests, without much bite. Again, it does not compare in any way to President Reagan’s numerous statements and speeches after the imposition of martial law in Poland.
If you cannot see the video of President Obama’s Christmas 2010 address, click here.
President Reagan with Pope John Paul II in Fairbanks, Alaska, 1984. In his numerous efforts to help Solidarity, President Ronald Reagan consulted with Pope John Paul II.
One could presume it was yet another of President Obama’s public diplomacy blunders, but unfortunately it is much more than that. This and other acts and omissions reflect his deliberate decision, taken at the outset of his presidency, to give up for all practical purposes the role of the leader of the Free World.
After two years, it is now obvious that President Obama assumed the office determined not to upset totalitarian dictators. Operating under the illusion that by avoiding an overly confrontational posture he’ll be able to negotiate concessions and help them to reform later, he has emboldened dictators and insulted numerous loyal U.S. allies.
Former Solidarity Leader, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and former Polish President Lech Walesa.
Many, especially those who had lived or still live under communist and other totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, knew perfectly well that this approach would result in a retreat for democracy. Vaclav Havel, Lech Walesa, and other leaders in East-Central Europe even sent a warning letter to the White House early into the Obama presidency. Still some pro-democracy and human rights activists, especially in Western Europe, were initially impressed with his soft power diplomacy as a welcome alternative to military interventionism of George W. Bush. Granted, President Obama has not started any new costly and unnecessary wars, but a series of public diplomacy disasters over the last two years, culminating in his weak response to repression in Belarus just before Christmas 2010, have exposed him at home and abroad as an ineffective U.S leader.
President Obama’s public diplomacy strategy stems from his view of America as a threatening power, a popular theme among his left-wing friends and among revisionist academics who became his advisers on Russia and the Middle East. I became concerned that U.S. public diplomacy under his presidency was in crisis when not a single U.S. diplomat or any other official was able to advise him that announcing his unilateral decision to end George Bush’s anti-missile program in Central Europe on the day of the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland would be received by the Poles as an ultimate insult.
But the first real sign that confirmed to me President Obama’s intention to relinquish his role of leading the Free World in defending democracy was his refusal to meet Dalai Lama in an apparent effort to avoid upsetting the aging communist leaders in China. Former Czech dissident, human rights activist, statesman, playwright, and Nobel Prize winner Vaclav Havel said, after learning that President Obama had refused to meet the Dalai Lama, “It is only a minor compromise, but exactly with these minor compromises start the big and dangerous ones, the real problems.”
When President Obama finally received Dalai Lama, the media released a photograph showing the Tibetan spiritual leader being ushered out of the White House by a side entrance, passing by a pile of trash bags. It was yet another example that no one in the administration was in charge of public diplomacy.
The answer to wielding influence abroad in defense of democracy is not blind, uninformed military interventionism of George W. Bush being pushed into war by advisers with a hidden agenda, but neither is it “resetting” of relations with ex-KGB spies and other opponents of democracy. President Obama could learn a lot from the leadership style of Ronald Reagan, who knew what he stood for and knew how to select and control his advisers and communicate his message to the American people and the world. But to be like Reagan, President Obama would have to first change his political philosophy and his vision of America. I don’t think that is likely to happen.
It is fairly clear by now that the Free World will have to wait for a new leader until the end of President Obama’s presidency. That role cannot be assumed by George W. Bush or Senator John McCain. Only the President of the United States, as the elected leader of the most powerful nation in the world, can assume this role, but only if he wants to. It is now obvious that President Obama does not want that role. In fact, he is ashamed of it, as he has demonstrated many times, delighting dictators and instilling fear among U.S. allies.
Snapshot from RFE/RL Website, January 02, 2010.
It’s a shame that public diplomacy on behalf of the American people, American values, and America’s long-term interests around the world is now being conducted not by the administration but has to be pursued by former U.S. leaders like George W. Bush, who is not particularly popular abroad. But if President Obama won’t find time to become a public voice in support of freedom, at least the former president has shown what many Americans think and that demonstrated that they won’t be silent when democracy abroad is in danger even if the current occupant of the White House prefers to stay on the sidelines.
RFE/RL President Jeff Gedmin
Interestingly, the initiative of conducting U.S. public diplomacy in defense of freedom has been taken up also by the U.S.-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), which had played a major role in helping to bring down the communist system. I have been in the past critical of RFE/RL, especially its treatment of its own journalists, but many of these policies had been imposed on the station by former members of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) and the BBG’s executives in Washington, D.C. Under the leadership of Bush-era appointed president Jeff Gedmin, RFE/RL has been trying to fill the gap created by the lack of a long-term U.S. public diplomacy strategy in East-Central Europe. RFE/RL has been broadcasting messages of support for the people of Belarus and providing news about the struggle for democracy to a number of countries in Eurasia.
Unfortunately, without a high-profile support from the White House and the State Department, RFE/RL’s work will never have the same impact as it had during the Cold War. If anything, it further demonstrates the crisis of U.S. public diplomacy by sending a message that any change in American human rights policy and in relations with the countries of East-Central Europe will not come until the end of the Obama presidency. At least, RFE/RL is making it clear to its audiences that not all Americans agree with President Obama and his vision of America and the world.
Still it is unfortunate that practically the only voice on behalf of the majority of the American citizens who had voted against the Democratic Party in November 2010 and indirectly voiced their opposition not only to President Obama’s economic policies but also his foreign policy, is a radio station which is practically unknown to most Americans. Although it is funded by the U.S. Congress, RFE/RL is based in the Czech Republic and most of its employees are foreign journalists who have never been to the United States.
RFE/RL’s primary role has always been to serve as a surrogate domestic radio in the countries to which they broadcast. The role of explaining U.S. foreign policy and any opposition to it among Americans has always been assigned to the Voice of America, another U.S. government-funded international broadcaster which is based in Washington, D.C. and managed by the same U.S. Federal agency, the Broadcasting Board of Governors.
Snapshot of VOA English Service Website on Jan. 02, 2011.
Yet it appears from a quick review of its English and Russian websites that the Voice of America did not even report on the RFE/RL’s Belarus initiative or the fact that George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice participated in it as the most prominent Americans. A search for “Bush, Belarus, and RFE/RL” on the VOA websites did not return any results.
If these two stations, working under the same BBG management, cannot consult with one another, it’s rather obvious that no one in Washington is in charge of coordinating public diplomacy and international broadcasting.
What a big difference compared to Christmas time in 1981 during Ronald Reagan’s presidency, when I received numerous phone calls at home late at night from officials of the now defunct United States Information Agency (USIA) who wanted to know what kind of assistance the Voice of America’s Polish Service, where I was a managing editor, needed to expand immediately its medium wave and shortwave radio broadcasts to Poland.
The Voice of America has not had any programs in Belarusian. It used to broadcast, however, radio programs in Russian, a language which is widely understood in Belarus. What made VOA largely ineffective in East-Central Europe was the BBG ‘s decision to terminate Russian radio programs in 2008, just 12 days before the Russian military attack on Georgia. The BBG also ended all VOA programs in Central European languages.
The VOA English Service in the meantime has been broadcasting numerous news reports in support of President Obama’s “reset” policy with the Kremlin with very little balancing input from Republican lawmakers and other responsible critics of the administration — a legal requirement for VOA journalists under the VOA Charter approved by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Gerald Ford.
One particularly one-sided VOA English Service analysis of U.S.-Russian relations, which completely ignored any Congressional and other U.S. criticism of President Obama’s approach to managing relations with the Kremlin, was first broadcast in English and then translated and put on the VOA Russian website. It was also translated by other VOA language services which lack resources to originate their own, more balanced reporting.
And while democracy supporters in Belarus were still being rounded up and independent media outlets raided by the secret police, VOA and BBG officials issued a self-congratulatory press release bragging about VOA’s ability to communicate with the audience in Belarus through the Internet and social media. They failed to mention that social media sites were blocked in Belarus by the regime during the contested elections and the violence that followed. They also failed to note that Internet access in Belarus is still very limited, and that the number of visitors from Belarus to the VOA Russian Service website, if they even can be accurately counted, is statistically insignificant.
Only a few days after the issuing of the deceptive press release, there was nothing left on VOA Russian Service website home page Sunday to indicate that Belarus was still a significant U.S. foreign policy concern. In fact, there was not a single news item on Belarus. Neither VOA Russian or VOA English home page features any banners with a link to more coverage of dramatic events in Belarus — something human rights defenders would certainly welcome.
The State Department website, state.gov, when I checked it on Sunday, January 2, had nothing on its home page on Belarus. Another State Department website, America.gov, had on its home page only one link to the statement on presidential elections in Belarusdelivered by the charge d’affairs of the United States Mission to the OSCE. Again, it was short and without any bite: “The United States has made clear throughout its engagement with the government of Belarus that the government’s respect for human rights and the democratic process is at the center of our bilateral relations. The actions taken by Belarusian authorities following the elections represent a clear step backwards on these issues.” There were no “Solidarity with Belarus” banners of any kind on the State Department websites, but then U.S. diplomats should not be expected to do anything that President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would not want them to do. The example has to come from the top.
The Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith McHale
The Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, who — according to the State Department website — “leads America’s public diplomacy outreach, which includes communications with international audiences,” is Judith McHale, appointed to this position by President Obama. But one could also say in her defense that nothing she did not do President Obama really wanted to be done. He certainly did not show much interest himself in the tragic events in Belarus. State Department officials are pursuing his public diplomacy, not necessarily public diplomacy serving long-term U.S. interests.
In 1981, VOA Polish Service did not have a website, but millions listening to our radio programs knew that the United States was fully behind the people of Poland. But then there was also no doubt what President Reagan, the White House, and the State Department stood for.
During Ronald Reagan’s presidency, U.S. public diplomacy had a powerful message in support of freedom, and U.S. international broadcasting played its journalistic role of reporting on it. While I can understand that VOA English and Russian services cannot report on something that the Obama White House and the State Department are NOT doing to keep Belarus in the news, they could at least report more on what others outside of the administration have been doing to draw attention to the violations of human rights which continue everyday, even when U.S. officials and many VOA and BBG managers are on a holiday vacation.
In light of all these developments, the initiative of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to broadcast the message to Belarus from former President George W. Bush and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is highly commendable. It’s vastly better than the totally ineffective public diplomacy outreach to Belarus from the Obama administration. Let’s hope that RFE/RL’s creative initiative will do some good, especially when Bush and Rice are heard alongside of many non-American statesmen and human rights activists.
But the participation of George W. Bush and the prominent placement of his photo on the RFE/RL’s website — but not on the VOA website — also send another powerful public diplomacy message, and not a very good one: the pilot of the Free World is still missing from the plane. The people in Belarus and in other countries under dictatorships are justified in asking who will be leading America in its support for human rights and democracy for the next two years. Unfortunately, they have already concluded, that it is not going to be President Obama.
We should be grateful that we still have Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Americans like George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice, but these are not U.S. institutions and leaders who can have the greatest possible impact on public opinion abroad. The leadership in support of democracy has to come from the President and the White House to be taken seriously by dictators and authoritarian rulers like Russia’s ex-KGB spy Vladimir Putin. That type of leadership has been missing for the last two years.
As a former United States Information Agency and Voice of America employee with over 30 years of U.S. government service, my unofficial and subversive — from the perspective of the current White House and the State Department — public diplomacy message for foreign audiences is that President Reagan’s response to events in Poland in 1981 was much more typical for what most American’s would want now than President Obama’s practical non-response to the assault on democracy and human rights in Belarus.
Another unofficial public diplomacy message — again for what it’s worth since I have absolutely no current connection to the administration — is that President Obama’s foreign policy should not be always identified with the desires of the American people. In other words, democracy supporters abroad should not blame the American people and the United States for President Obama’s weak support for human rights. It is also worth remembering, especially in light of the results of the 2010 U.S. Congressional elections, that Barack Obama may no longer be president in 2013 and that American voters may soon help bring U.S. foreign policy back on its more traditional course.
About Ted Lipien
Ted Lipien is a former Voice of America acting associate director. He was also a regional BBG media marketing manager responsible for placement of U.S. government-funded radio and TV programs on stations in Russia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries in Eurasia. In the 1980′s he was in charge of VOA radio broadcasts to Poland during the communist regime’s crackdown on the Solidarity labor union and oversaw the development of VOA television news programs to Ukraine and Russia. After leaving U.S. government service, he founded Free Media Online (FreeMediaOnline.org), a California-based NGO which supports media freedom worldwide.
He is also author of “Wojtyla’s Women: How They Shaped the Life of Pope John Paul II and Changed the Catholic Church”(O-Books – June 2008). The book, which describes Pope John Paul II’s views on feminism, also includes evidence of the importance of Western radio broadcasts during Karol Wojtyla’s life in communist-ruled Poland and in the first ten years of his papacy. The book also has references to the efforts of the KGB and other communist intelligence services to place spies in the Vatican and to influence reporting by journalists covering the Polish pope.
This commentary by Ted Lipien may be republished in full or in part with attribution to FreeMediaOnline.org.
Related posts:
- Why U.S. Public Diplomacy No Longer Works and Can It Be Fixed?
- US Public Diplomacy Failure to Reach Out to the Russians After Terrorist Attack in Ingushetia – FreeMediaOnline.org (Free Media Online Blog)
- Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty Faces Ethnic Discrimination Charges at the European Court of Human Rights – Free Media Online Blog (FreeMediaOnline.org)
- Walesa on Obama’s Missile Diplomacy – American Diplomacy Failed Obama in Poland Update
- American Diplomacy Failed Obama in Poland
Sourced from: TedLipien.com
Voice of America continues one-sided coverage of U.S.-Russian relations
TedLipien.com, Truckee, California, December 28, 2010 — I wrote earlier about unbalanced coverage by the Voice of America English Service of the START treaty debate in the U.S. Senate.
Here is another stunning example of a completely one-sided report by VOA on U.S.-Russian relations. There is not a single sentence in this report about Congressional or any other U.S. domestic or international criticism of President Obama’s approach to managing relations with the Kremlin.
In my entire career with VOA spanning more than two decades, I’ve never seen such government PR being presented as thought-provoking, objective and balanced news and information. Not a word about critical comments by Senator John McCain, Senator George Voinovich, Senator Jim DeMint, or Senator Mitch McConnell. Read more…
VOA continues one-sided coverage of U.S.-Russian relations
I wrote earlier about unbalanced coverage by the Voice of America English Service of the START treaty debate in the U.S. Senate.
Here is another stunning example of a completely one-sided report by VOA on U.S.-Russian relations. There is not a single sentence in this report about Congressional or any other U.S. domestic or international criticism of President Obama’s approach to managing relations with the Kremlin.
In my entire career with VOA spanning more than two decades, I’ve never seen such government PR being presented as thought-provoking, objective and balanced news and information. Not a word about critical comments by Senator John McCain, Senator George Voinovich, Senator Jim DeMint, or Senator Mitch McConnell. There is no mention of numerous American and international experts who have raised serious doubts about President Obama’s “reset” of relations with the Kremlin, including some reports by U.S. diplomats in Moscow — all of this information easily available to sophisticated news consumers abroad.
This particular Voice of America news analysis reminds me of Soviet-style radio reporting about the USSR’s everlasting commitment to peace, disarmament, and international cooperation.
The damage from such unbalanced Voice of America reporting is not limited to the English Service. It is multiplied worldwide as many understaffed VOA language services translate and use these reports, including VOA’s Russian Service. Американо-российские отношения: итоги года
I could not imagine more boring reporting unless it came directly from the Kremlin or the Obama White House. Even Voice of Russia (the old Radio Moscow) commentaries are more fun to hear, for those who can appreciate this type of humor, because of the inability of most Russian state-employed journalists and government officials to refrain from taking cheap shots at the United States.
I invite everyone to read the Voice of America English Service report and judge it for yourself.
2010 Productive Year for US-Russian Relations
André de Nesnera | Washington, DC 27 December 2010
The highlight was the U.S. Senate’s ratification in late December of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty – or New START.
Vice President Joe Biden, in his capacity as president of the Senate, read out the final tally.
“71 yeahs, 26 nays, two-thirds of the Senate present having voted in the affirmative, the resolution of ratification is agreed to,” said Biden.
Shortly after Senate ratification, President Barack Obama addressed reporters.
“This is the most significant arms control agreement in nearly two decades and it will make us safer and reduce our nuclear arsenals along with Russia’s,” the president said.
The Senate action represented a major victory for President Obama, who has made better relations with Moscow a cornerstone of his foreign policy.
The New START treaty sets a limit of 1,550 deployed strategic – or long-range – nuclear warheads. It also limits to 700 the number of operationally deployed strategic nuclear delivery systems such as long-range launchers and heavy bombers. The accord also provides for what the Obama administration calls strong verification measures – provisions that ensure each side complies with its treaty obligations.
The treaty now has to be ratified by the Russian parliament – or Duma – and by the Federation Council, Russia’s highest legislative body. Experts say passage is virtually guaranteed.
John Parker with the National Defense University [expressing his personal views], says the New START treaty is as important to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev as it is to President Obama.
“Since he [Medvedev] was intimately involved in negotiating it person-to-person with President Obama, it’s important. He invested a lot of time in it and when it’s ratified [by the Duma/Federation Council] he will, I’m sure, take a lot of political credit for it. So it’s important,” said Parker.
Many experts are now looking at what might be the next step in arms negotiations between Washington and Moscow. One of those is Steven Pifer with the Brookings Institution.
“When he signed the New START Treaty back in April, President Obama made clear that he would like to continue and in the next negotiation, address not only deployed strategic forces but address non-deployed strategic warheads – for example those nuclear warheads that are sitting in storage areas – and also address non-strategic or tactical nuclear weapons,” said
“And that opens up for the first time that the United States and Russia might be negotiating limits on all of their nuclear arsenals with the exception of those weapons that are in the dismantlement queue,” Pifer continued. “That’s going to be a hard negotiation because the sides will get into questions that they haven’t had to address before.”
Many analysts say the START negotiations and ratification process overshadowed other positive developments in US-Russia relations.
Robert Legvold of Columbia University says one of those was Moscow’s increased cooperation in Afghanistan.
“The most important element has been supporting transit of military equipment to Afghanistan. In the past, the U.S. has been more than two-thirds dependent on supply lines that cross the western border of Pakistan and that are vulnerable both to the insurgency in the area and at times the Pakistan government, when they protest American military actions,” said Legvold.
“So the fact that the Russians now enable both on land and air the transit of both non-lethal and lethal – that is military equipment to Afghanistan – is a critical element in sustaining the military U.S. and NATO effort within Afghanistan.”
Experts say Moscow also toughened its position on Iran, voting in favor of a United Nations Security Council resolution imposing new, tougher sanctions on Tehran – although the text was apparently watered down by Russia and China. Russia also canceled the delivery to Iran of S-300 anti-aircraft missiles – a deal dating back to 2007.
Russia also changed its position on missile defense. After strongly criticizing for many years U.S. plans for such an endeavor, Moscow agreed to cooperate in a NATO-led missile defense system.
Once again John Parker with the National Defense University.
“Politically it’s very important. [Russian President Dmitry] Medvedev signaled a readiness to cooperate in discussions with NATO on European missile defense. What it will eventually turn out to be it’s pretty hard to tell, but at least the two sides are going to be talking. So they are going to talk about how this cooperation might work out,” said Parker. “The important thing for the Russians is that they are in on the ground floor on all of this and not just handed a plan and asked to sign up to it.”
Looking ahead, experts say Moscow and Washington should build on the progress made in 2010. A key event in 2011 will be the expected review of Moscow’s application to become a member of the World Trade Organization – an application supported by the Obama administration.
Американо-российские отношения: итоги года
Андре де Нешнера Понедельник, 27 декабря 2010
Русская служба «Голоса Америки» – итоги года
Пожалуй, ключевым событием в американо-российских отношениях стала ратификация Сенатом США в конце декабря нового соглашения о сокращении стратегических наступательных вооружений.
Вице-президент США Джо Байден в качестве председателя Сената Соединенных Штатов зачитал результаты голосования:
«71 голос «За», 26 – «Против». Две третьих из числа присутствующих сенаторов проголосовали «За» – договор ратифицирован».
Вскоре после ратификации договора в Сенате президент США Барак Обама обратился к журналистам со словами:
«Это самое важное за двадцать лет соглашение о контроле над вооружениями, и этот договор сделает мир более безопасным и позволит сократить ядерные арсеналы США и России».
Ратификация договора Сенатом США стала важнейшей победой президента Обамы, который сделал задачу улучшения отношений с Россией краеугольным камнем внешней политики своей администрации.
По новому договору СНВ предполагается сократить количество ядерных боеголовок баллистических ракет до 1550 единиц с каждой стороны. Договор предусматривает сократить количество носителей ядерного оружия – пусковых установок баллистических ракет и дальних бомбардировщиков – до 700 единиц и у США, и у России. В американо-российском договоре также прописаны, как называет это администрация президента Обамы, четкие меры по проверке выполнения условий данного соглашения каждой из сторон.
Договор теперь должен быть ратифицирован Государственной Думой России и Советом Федерации. Эксперты говорят, что российский парламент практически гарантированно ратифицирует это соглашение.
Джон Паркер из Университета национальной обороны, выражая свое личное мнение, заявил, что новый договор о СНВ одинаково важен и для Президента РФ Дмитрия Медведева, и для президента США Барака Обамы:
«Учитывая, что президент Медведев непосредственно включился в обсуждение нового договора СНВ с президентом Обамой, то это соглашение имеет важное значение. Медведев потратил массу времени для достижения этого договора. И когда СНВ-3 будет ратифицирован парламентом России, я уверен, что президент Медведев получит политические дивиденды. Поэтому так важен договор СНВ», – отметил эксперт.
Многие эксперты сейчас пытаются представить, какую тему могут затронуть на следующих переговорах по контролю над вооружениями США и Россия. Вот что думает по этому поводу Стивен Пайфер из Брукингского института:
«Когда в апреле президент Обама подписывал новый договор о СНВ, он дал ясно понять, что хотел бы продолжить на следующих американо-российских переговорах обсуждение не только развернутых стратегических ядерных сил, но неразвернутых ядерных боеголовок, например, ядерных боеголовок, хранящихся на складах, а также провести переговоры по тактическому ядерному оружию. И это впервые открывает возможность для США и России начать переговоры об ограничении всего ядерного арсенала двух стран, исключая лишь ядерные вооружения, предназначенные для демонтажа. Это будут трудные переговоры, потому что стороны должны будут обсуждать вопросы, которых они до этого даже не касались»
Многие эксперты считают, что обсуждение нового договора по СНВ и процесс его ратификации оставили в тени другие позитивные сдвиги в американо-российских отношениях.
Роберт Легволд из Колумбийского университета говорит, что одним из таких позитивных моментов стало то, что Москва расширила сотрудничество по Афганистану:
«Самым важным элементом такого сотрудничество стало разрешение России осуществлять транзит военных грузов в Афганистан. В прошлом США для доставки двух третьих всех грузов в эту страну зависели от транспортных маршрутов в Афганистан, проходящих через западную границу Пакистана. И эти маршруты уязвимы и для ударов боевиков, действующих в этом регионе, и периодически для действий пакистанского правительства, когда оно протестует против некоторых операций американских военных. Поэтому тот факт, что русские разрешили транзит военных грузов по своей территории и по воздуху, имеет решающее значение для снабжения американских войск и контингента НАТО в Афганистане», – отметил Легволд.
Эксперты говорят, что Москва также ужесточила свою позицию по Ирану, проголосовав за резолюцию Совета Безопасности ООН о введении новых более жестких санкций против Тегерана, хотя Россия и Китай явно сумели смягчить окончательный текст данной резолюции. Россия также отменила поставку Ирану систем ПВО С-300 (договор о продаже Россией батарей С-300 Ирану был заключен еще в 2007 году).
Россия также изменила свою позицию по ПРО. Многие годы Россия резко критиковала планы США по развертыванию системы ПРО, но потом Москва согласилась на сотрудничество с НАТО в вопросе создания системы ПРО.
Джон Паркер из Университета национальной обороны считает:
«В политическом отношении, это очень важно. Президент России Дмитрий Медведев сигнализировал о готовности к сотрудничеству в ходе переговоров с НАТО по созданию системы ПРО над Европой. Во что это выльется, сейчас довольно трудно сказать, но по меньшей мере обе стороны продолжат переговоры о том, в какой форме это сотрудничество может развиваться. Для русских важно то, что им не просто вручили план и попросили его подписать, а они вовлечены в обсуждение этих планов»
Заглядывая вперед, эксперты говорят, что Москве и Вашингтону необходимо развивать успех, достигнутый в 2010 году. Ключевым событием в 2011 году станет давно ожидаемое рассмотрение заявки России на вступление во Всемирную торговую организацию. Эту заявку поддержала администрация президента Обамы.
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28-12-2010
К сожалению,чудовищная коррупция в России не даст нормально развиваться этим отношениям.Для того,чтобы ее победить президент Д.А.Медведев должен принять беспрецендентные меры
28-12-2010гоша (россия)
Медведев? меры?какие меры,Вы о чём говорите! евросоюзу и америке пора задуматься о построении железного занавеса но только с той стороны,а иначе наша псевдодемократия и у вас приживётся
28-12-2010
В реальности – если у России вырастет экономика, исчезнет коррупция, улучшатся дипотношения с близкими и далекими странами — Это будет самое огромное горе для США. Политический парадокс!
28-12-2010гоша (россия)
С такими как Медведев и Путин вобще разговаривать неочем…. можно “потерять лицо”
28-12-2010wwwert (ykr)
да я соглашаюсь, что будет рассмотрен план дальше. глубже. сколько же можно замораживать друг друга и держать мир в недоумении.
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- Why U.S. Public Diplomacy No Longer Works and Can It Be Fixed?
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Sourced from: TedLipien.com
This report was first published by
TedLipien.com, Truckee, California, December 28, 2010.
Why U.S. Public Diplomacy No Longer Works and Can It Be Fixed?
Update: America.gov restored my comment.
TedLipien.com, Truckee, California, December 27, 2010 — On the day the U.S. Senate voted to approve the new arms reduction treaty with Russia, I found an article on the State Depatment’s website, America.gov, which gave a long list of the START treaty’s benefits lauded by the Obama administration but failed to note any of the objections from some key Republican lawmakers and other critics. I posted a short comment that a website devoted to public diplomacy, with a name that implies that it represents the views of the entire American government and the American public, should try to present a more balanced perspective and mention some of the difficulties in getting the U.S.-Russian agreement approved by the Senate. Read more…
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