In an increasingly fractious world, where threats come from non-state actors instead of enemy nation-states, what role should public diplomacy play to help support efforts to improve security?

 

This question was at the heart of a conference hosted by the Center on Public Diplomacy at the USC Annenberg School. Attended by U.S. government officials, defense contractors, nonprofit executives, and research scholars, the conference was convened to discuss the impacts of the creation of U.S. Africa Command, or AFRICOM, the Defense Department’s new command center for the continent. The command center is scheduled to be activated September 30, 2008.

 

Some members of the foreign-policy community have raised concerns that a military focus in Africa ignores the vital role that “soft power” – including public diplomacy – should play in American efforts to engage the continent.

 

In a keynote speech opening the conference,Christopher R. "Ryan" Henry , Principal Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Policy at the U.S. Department of Defense, said that the U.S. military must balance combat operations with post-conflict stability efforts. “Most times, the military will not be the preferred tool of use” in the U.S. government’s toolkit, Henry said. “Whether you want to call it ‘soft power,’ or ‘smart power,’ or even just the right power, the bottom line is that we have created…a national security structure that is currently out of balance in its bias toward the military toolset.”

 

The remarks came on the same day as a report in The New York Times revealing that the U.S. Army is preparing a new operations manual that places equal emphasis on nation-building exercises and combat operations. The shift in emphasis is seen as a major change from existing Army doctrine, especially in the wake of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Some Africans in the audience welcomed the prospect of nation-building activities, saying they would be a major benefit to the continent. Charles Minor , the ambassador to the U.S. from Liberia, drew parallels between South Africa’s efforts to stabilize Sierra Leone and Liberia in the 1990s. “The US Army would have done a better job, but our sense is that AFRICOM would have done a much better job,” he said.

Journalism school director Michael Parks , who earned a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting in South Africa during the end of the apartheid era, echoed this sentiment, pointing out that the smaller African countries were not the only ones to experience turmoil. “Even the large countries have had problems sorting themselves out,” he said.

 

On the whole participants did not deny AFRICOM’s potential to fulfill American efforts to engage the continent. Maj. Gen. Herbert L. Altshuler , director of strategy, plans and programs at AFRICOM, said this potential will drive the command’s mission. “The potential to do some real good is unlimited...to help these people seal their borders and police their people.”