Rebranding America: How to Win Friends Abroad and Influence Nations

This year's competitive race for the Democratic nomination for president has sparked renewed interest in politics and public policy on American campuses.

Occidental -- the liberal arts college where I teach and where Barack Obama studied his first two years -- is no exception. Oxy students have turned out for political forums, volunteered in primary campaigns for Edwards, Obama, Clinton, and other candidates, and some students are taking a new fall semester field course in campaigns and elections, working in presidential and Congressional races around the country. Our best students in the Diplomacy and World Affairs major devoted the spring semester to producing a report -- Rebranding America -- which offers innovative foreign policy prescriptions for the next US president. The report is now available free online at the student-run website: www.Oxyworldwide.com.

Occidental College has a long tradition of excellent teaching in international affairs. For over two decades, we have offered an interdisciplinary major in Diplomacy and World Affairs. Many of the college's graduates have gone on to lead accomplished careers as diplomats, journalists, academics, managers and even candidates for president of the US.

Since my return to campus from service as an ambassador in the Clinton administration, I have taught analytical courses on US foreign policy. I endeavor to teach my students to understand how and why decisions are made in the US government and how foreign policy is developed and implemented. I stress the importance of critical thinking and an understanding of reality above ideology. I try not to tell my students what policy ought to be; I leave that to them as informed citizens to decide for themselves.

However, this spring at the urging of many students, I offered a prescriptive course on American Grand Strategy. The course's purview was the future -- what US foreign policy ought to be for the new administration that will come to power in January, 2009. Students first looked at national and global public opinion studies, and concluded that in the years after 9/11, President Bush and his administration had squandered an enormous amount of international goodwill, lost considerable moral authority for the country, and approached the world with an US vs Them mentality. Such a divisive attitude rather than a levelheaded strategy did not make for successful foreign policy.

The students decided that it is vital for the next Presidential administration -- whether headed by a Democrat or a Republican -- to regain the moral high ground and take strategic initiatives: to lead globally rather than to dominate, to be a beacon more than a bull horn. In essence, the students want the US to be the good guys and to be smart about how we go about it.

The students divided up recent books on American foreign policy by authors from the Left, Right and Center of the political spectrum. Each student took a book and presented the seminar with a critical summary of the author's proposed strategy. Students then debated and agreed upon a Top Ten list of key issues that the next president will face in the world.

Breaking into teams, the students produced an analysis of the issues in each category, a definition of US strategic interests, and then proposed actions that the next president might take in his or her first month in office, first six months, and first year and beyond. Writing teams also produced an overall strategy statement, as well as a new Mission Statement for the US, designed to fit on a card that could go in the wallet of every American workings in the State Department, the Pentagon, the CIA and other branches of government.

The result of the students' work is the just released report Rebranding America. As a former diplomat and government official, I am impressed with the quality of the students' work and the breadth of their creativity and thoughtfulness in proposing concrete actions for the next president. As I promised my students, I have sent copies of the report to the foreign policy advisors for Senators Clinton, Obama and McCain, and to the chiefs of staff of the Senate and House Foreign Relations Committee. It has gone out to the distinguished members of Occidental's Global Affairs Advisory Board, and is posted on our Global Affairs website and on the student-run website: www.Oxyworldwide.com for all interested American and global citizens to read.

No one will agree with all of the students' recommendations -- but the overall thrust of the report is clear: how the US can once again win friends abroad and influence nations. It is a road map for the next president to send a clear message that US is a nation worthy of international trust and capable of leading other nations in complicated and perilous times. I commend it to you for study, for discussion, and for action.

Comments

[LightSpirit]

Professor Shearer et al:
Kudos to you and your students regarding USA's international relationships. I"m delighted you took on this worthy quest and applaud you for writing an article about it, albeit the risks of feedback such an effort invokes.
I agree with the "brand" title protests and appreciate what the Canadians and so many others have long been trying to tell us. Regarding military supremacy, you might want to check out Astore's article "The Air Force Above All": http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174928. You might also want to review my own Pentagon-sponsored hearts and minds research project: http://uscpublicdiplomacy.com/pdfs/turner.pdf. The leaders of USC's Center on Public Diplomacy published it on their website to provide their students with guided instruction in more creative forms of diplomacy.
After considering the feedback you get, please publish a revised edition of this paper that incorporates the useful ideas put forth. It could make an even better contribution towards effectively inspiring American hearts and minds. An executive summary with a concise list of recommendations enabling overworked and underpaid Congressional staffers to find it easier to place no more than a few pages of well-supported action steps in front of their Senator or Congressperson might also help.
Please do not let naysayer cynics get under your skin. Enlightened policies call for longer/harder slogging than war. Our country is fortunate to have you making this effort of behalf of all of U.S.
Thank you for your service!

[DietrichMoody]

Give me a break Ambassador. We, Americans are all complicit in what happened with America's loss of good will , and moral authority abroad. It had to do with one sided thinking, shock over 9/1, a little vindictiveness, and arrogance by the America public that we can control any outcome. In part we have spun out of control. And I think the example you laid out with your "FOCUS GROUP" I mean class, explains it. You failed to explain, in your piece, if anybody in your class is from a different part of the world, their culture, attitude and maybe how using their cultural perspective allowed them to have a different result, from say someone born and raised in Pasadena, Ca or Santa Fe, New Mexico,ie. American born, in approaching foriegn policy. The Clinton Administration failed in foreign policy - but for different reasons than the horrendous approach the Bush Administration is taking. The Clinton Administration - too Hollywood with brands, superficiality, etc. and ironically the Bush Administration too John Wayne. The rest of the world is growing up and moving on. Its time we join it and attempt to take the lead again, but put down "talking about" brand and close the door on your focus groups.

[Serfie]

If you had actually read the paper, you would have noticed that most of the authors aren't white anglo-saxon protestants.

You are a hypocrite. You made no effort to read the paper, yet you lambast Americans for not knowing about the world. Maybe it is you who doesn't know anything about the world.

[DietrichMoody]

So now WASP's don't know about the world? Please. No my issue is that this post comfirms the fact - that we Americans dangerously see everything from an American lense. And talk about prejudiced, how do you know, from reading a paper that someone is Anglo-, why because their last name is Oreilly, or Guiliani and not Maxwell, or Smith. Well many Mancowitz' changed their last name to Maxwell, here in America. Grow Up.

[DietrichMoody]

Give me a break Ambassador. We, Americans are all complicit in what happened with America's loss of good will , and moral authority abroad. It had to do with one sided thinking, shock over 9/1, a little vindictiveness, and arrogance by the America public that we can control any outcome. In part we have spun out of control. And I think the example you laid out with your "FOCUS GROUP" I mean class, explains it. You failed to explain, in your piece, if anybody in your class is from a different part of the world, their culture, attitude and maybe how using their cultural perspective allowed them to have a different result, from say someone born and raised in Pasadena, Ca or Santa Fe, New Mexico,ie. American born, in approaching foriegn policy. The Clinton Administration failed in foreign policy - but for different reasons than the horrendous approach the Bush Administration is taking. The Clinton Administration - too Hollywood with brands, superficiality, etc. and ironically the Bush Administration too John Wayne. The rest of the world is growing up and moving on. Its time we join it and attempt to take the lead again, but put down "talking about" brand and close the door on your focus groups.

[PoliticalAnimal]

I'm glad your students are trying belatedly to rescue your country from oblivion. It's a worthwhile project and contains some good ideas.

however, the ignorance expressed about Canada, America's largest trading partner, in the section entitled NAFTA is shocking.

Just so your students know it, Canadians live in one of the wealthiest, most advanced nations in the world. We have TWO official languages, merci une mille fois! And any suggestion that we would surrender our sovereignty to a backwards nation that tortures innocent civilians is ludicrous on its face!

Canada is the largest customer for U.S. goods and services in the world! We are also the largest energy supplier to the United States. And while we are a peaceful nation, we also had the fourth-largest largest army in the world at the end of World War II, and one of the world's best air forces.

We have one of the most multicultural, integrated, peaceful societies in the world, clean air, water and land.

We do not need your stinkin' UNION, thank you very much. To the contrary, Canada is working very hard these days to assert its independence from such a violent nation.

[oldpotsmuggler]

Having the U.S and canada merge is important enough to us south of you that we ought to do pretty much whatever it takes to gain your approval. On the other hand, if all we have to do is emulate Canadian foreign policy we ought to jump on that in a heartbeat.

[Serfie]

Dr. Shearer,

I think it is important to add something to the public diplomacy component, which is sorely lacking in this paper.

In the nineties, the US government eliminated the American Centers abroad. I can't emphasize enough what a horrible mistake this was.

I have traveled throughout the world and most foreigners I have spoken to tell me that this was their one positive link to the US in their own countries, outside of the mass media.

Where I have traveled, the Geothe Institute, the British Council. Alliance Francaise, the Japanese Foundation, the Cervantes Institute--the foreign equivalents to the American Centers-- have played key rolls in fostering international relations, at least at the people to people level.

US embassies abroad are like fortresses and the staff are inhospitable. They are not communities for foreigners to come into contact with Americans. Instead, they are more like foreign castles defending their turf.

People to people relations that have nothing to do with commerce and defense need to be fostered between Americans and foreigners.

[Moose49]

It sounds like you're doing great work, but please -- there is nothing that drives me more bat-shit than the use of the word "brand," especially as a verb. It is marketing industry jargon that means bupkes -- absolutely nothing. How about just making the common sense point that if the U.S. changes its foreign policy from that of moronic imperialist predator to a force for equity, justice and decency, people's opinions of our country will improve.

[Lellie]

How 'bout just acknowledging the rest of the world? Nothing is more angering to "foreigners" than the American public's, politician's and media's obliviousness to anything not happening directly to Americans. As a "foreigner" (a Canadian) whose country shares a 3000-mile-long border with yours, whose country supplies 17% of your foreign oil, 86% of your natural gas, whose country is your #1 trading partner, and whose men and women have been fighting and dying in Afganistan's most dangerous region since the beginning, I and most of my countrymen are repeatedly stunned by your lack of interest regarding life outside your country's borders. If Canadians can feel that way, just imagine how people of more distant countries feel! Foreign Policy can be affected by a simple attitude change. Lift your eyes out of your navels!

[leftLibertarian]

The Best foreign policy would be to mind our own business.

Shut down all foreign military bases - countries from The Netherlands to Japan are more than capable of defending themselves.

[toochie]

From your lips to God's ears!

[rossir]

Thank you, Professor Shearer! This is exactly the kind of engagement that we need as a nation. What makes our country great is based on the freedoms we protect. In troubled times, good voices cry out and create a rippling effect that raises debate, and ultimately strengthens us as a whole. Both the civil rights movement, and the dawning of environmentalism started with small pebbles dropped into the pond.

There is a new day dawning in America. We will take back our nation, one voice at a time.

[toochie]

This rebranding is going to go over like New Coke. Face it, the rest of the world will not love us until we are a third world nation. By my calculation, that will be around 2021. Our brand will then be known as Has Been.

[Rog49Thomas]

Disagree.

The "rest of the world" does not hate us for our freedoms or our freedom fries.

To the extent the RoW opposes us - it's because of our policies.

Change the policies (many of which are really not in our long term interest) and the attitude will change.

On 9-12-01 - the RoW stood with the USA.

Pan has squandered that good will with his boneheaded delusional approach.

[ResidentChimp]

What a joke. If this is what students are learning, God help us. The report is just a regurgitation of what the marxist professors tell their students and they aren't capable of doing anything on their own. The first sentence demonstrates what a crock this is. Who would want to go to such a shoddy school?

[PioneerKing]

DEREK:

DUDE CUT IT OUT WITH THE "BRAND," "REBRAND," JARGON IT IS AS OVER PLAYED AND MISUSED AS THE PUNDITS HAVE MADE "METRICS."

Can you be a wee bit original?

[Archie1955]

Good luck in your attempt to rebrand the countryhowever it will be many years before the rest of the world lets down its guard against America. You are no longer to be trusted,no longer welcoming to visitors, no longer a bulwark against tyranny, no longer the shining light against the darkness of evil, no longer the righteous warrior for human rights. You have become the opposite of all of these things and you will have to diligently work to repair the damage you have done to the world and to your own reputation as a civilized nation. Personally I would like to see you ostracized from the U.N. and other world bodies until you decide to repudiate your rogue ways and become a peacemaker instead of a warmonger. Do you think that will ever happen or are you so addicted to blood that you will never find the desire to change?

[oldpotsmuggler]

Rebranding? What a foolish statement!

Our Presiedent really needs to tell us the kind of country we should try to be, not the kind of P.R. image we should try to project.

When the giant asks, instead of orders, people will relax.

When the giant tries to help, instead of tries to kill, people will relax.

When the giant works overtime to be respectful, instead of being amped up belligerent, people will relax.

Folks, there is only one superpower on the planet at the present time. If we can find the wherewithal to lead from a position of confidence, instead of a position of insecurity (meaning vote for a Democrat intead of a Republic) we can change the journey of "one step forward and three steps backward" to at least several steps ahead for everytime we have to back track a bit.