Understanding the need to integrate informational power into grand strategy, many advocate re-forming the U.S. Information Agency. During the Cold War, U.S. Information Agency was the government’s leading instrument of informational power.[21] After the fall of the Soviet Union, however, its budget and programs were rapidly curtailed as part of the peace dividend, and in 1999 a shrunken U.S. Information Agency was folded into the State Department. Their Voice of America and the other U.S. international broadcasting networks were placed under a new Broadcasting Board of Governors, further dispersing America’s informational power. The new organizational arrangements have engendered their own vested interests and turf protection which now slim prospects for necessary Congressional action. These political realities mean that unifying the four instruments may be a bridge too far, but better alignment is possible. The first steps in an alignment agenda are easy ones.

The National Security Advisor or the Secretary of State must take the first step, convening those who lead the instruments of informational power—the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, the CEO of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, and the Commanding General of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command among them. Once alignment begins, ideas should move from the bottom up, but the process can only be launched from the top down. As Plutarch said, “nothing makes the horse so fat as the king’s eye.”[22]

At initial, highest-level meetings, each organization can discuss how it addresses a threat or an issue, preparing the ground for working groups, consultation, and planning. The low-hanging fruit can be addressed first. Public affairs, public diplomacy, broadcasting, and information operations must educate one another in their professional schools. Exercises and simulations need role players from all four informational communities. Personnel experts can arrange exchange tours to strengthen unified action in the future. At embassies, alignment means ensuring cooperation among all the embassy sections with information, awareness, education, and exchange programs.

Readying for the Future Information Environment

9/11 revealed the challenges facing public diplomacy. Its ideological skills were rusty. It had not previously engaged publics animated by religion. Its information technology platforms were outdated. Older leaders did not foresee how transformative the social media would be. It was unprepared to address online radicalization, younger audiences, Russian disinformation, propaganda, and the kind of cyber-accelerated information warfare seen in Crimea, Ukraine, and the eastern borders of NATO. Meeting the needs of public diplomacy in Iraq and Afghanistan crowded out forward thinking. New funds sources were scarce.

Because public diplomacy is now housed in the State Department, moreover, it has been pigeonholed as the publicity arm of Foggy Bottom’s diplomacy (the "D" in DIME), diminishing its importance as an informational instrument. Its traditional formulas—“telling America’s story to the world,” “mutual understanding,” and “foundation of trust”—capture only some of what public diplomacy is about. Considering it as part of America’s soft power, robust integration into national security planning, and embracing the DIME concept of America’s national power can all upgrade public diplomacy’s self-concept.[23]

All the instruments of U.S. informational power must become stronger because of the surge of non-state actors in international affairs, the need to integrate advocacy and influence with more coercive tools of statecraft, and the urgency of again considering the war of ideas. [24] The information environment of the 21st century will feature contested narratives, information blocking, Islamist social media, Russia’s hybrid warfare, and China’s three warfares.[25] Public affairs, public diplomacy, the U.S. government’s international broadcasting networks, and information operations must face these together. Unaligned, U.S. informational power will be defeated in detail, pushed back by aggressive information adversaries.