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C O N F I D E N T I A L STATE 114917 FOR AMBASSADORS AND PAOS FROM UNDER SECRETARY GLASSMAN E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/28/18 TAGS: KPAO, OPRC, OIIP SUBJECT: "THE WAR OF IDEAS" BRIEFING TO THE PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT CLASSIFIED BY: UNDER SECRETARY JAMES K. GLASSMAN FOR REASONS 1.4 (B AND D) 1. (C ) I want to share with you my recent presentation to the President and Vice President on the War of Ideas given at the State Department, October 16, 2008. This is a somewhat expanded version that takes into account questions posed during the briefing. I hope you will find it useful as you plan your Mission's objectives and priorities. I welcome any thoughts or suggestions you or anyone at your Mission might have. Thank you, James K. Glassman BEGIN TEXT 2. (C) Introduction I want to talk today about the revival of the war of ideas. First, some background. Then structure, strategy, and programs. In public diplomacy, we have the same objectives as the rest of the U.S. government's foreign policy and national security actors. The top goals are to reduce the threats to America and promote freedom. In public diplomacy, we do that by understanding, engaging,informing, and influencing foreign publics. Our tools are words, images, and deeds. While official diplomacy is aimed mainly at officials (our Secretary of State talking to their Foreign Minister), public diplomacy is aimed at publics (our officials and often our publics engaging with their publics). A simple breakdown of public diplomacy puts our work into three categories: (1) Telling America's story: explaining our policies and principles to the world. (2) Engaging in cultural and educational exchanges, time-tested programs like the Fulbright fellowships. And (3) Fighting the war of ideas, which is my focus today. The first category -- telling America's story -- is mainly about us. The second exchanges -- is about both us and them (foreign audiences). The third -- war of ideas -- is mainly about them. Over the past four months, we have shifted our focus and emphasis to the war of ideas. But we are NOT neglecting the first two categories traditional public diplomacy. This is where we spend most of our money, by far. Exchanges are our crown jewels, and they have increased significantly under this administration and have helped us boost U.S. respect and trust abroad. In 2006, the President designated the Under Secretary to lead the interagency -- primarily State, USAID, Defense, and the intelligence community -- in the war of ideas. And that has been my focus. In the war of ideas, our core task is NOT to fix foreigners' perceptions of the United States, but to isolate and reduce the threat of violent extremism -- not with bombs and bullets but with words, images, and deeds. As I said, it is about them, not us. We were good at the war of ideas during the Cold War, but after the Berlin Wall was dismantled, the war of ideas was also dismantled, as was public diplomacy in general in bipartisan fashion over the 1990s. For example, USIA was merged out of existence, the number of public diplomacy officers fell, Radio Free Europe was cut back, funding for ideological engagement dried up. When George W. Bush became president, there was no focused war of ideas strategy to speak of, and no infrastructure. Today, as this administration prepares to leave office, a strategy, a platform, and a new way of doing business are in place, ready for the next administration. 3 (C) Briefly on the structure We have reorganized. State has the lead and chairs the PCC (Policy Coordinating Committee) on Strategic Communications, with a National Security Council representative as vice chair. The PCC reports up to a Deputies' Committee and then to a Principals' Committee with the President at the top. The Global Strategic Engagement Center (GSEC), a new interagency group with people from State, Defense, and the intelligence community, is our day-to-day strategy and operations center. The National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC) plays a key role in analysis and support. We have a new apparatus to deconflict and help coordinate programs across government. Everyone on our team knows the mission. It is to create a global environment hostile to violent extremism. We do that in two ways: First, we confront and undermine the ideology that justifies and spurs the violence. Second, we divert young people from the path that leads them to violent extremism. We cut off the flow of recruits. 4. (C) How do we do this? We have an example in our efforts with Pakistan. Recently, we completed a new war of ideas plan for Pakistan. It was done in a short time and is the work of an interagency team. Our main objective in this effort is to get the whole population of Pakistan, including the tribal areas, to see the war on terror as their struggle. To understand that the Taliban and Al Qaeda are an existential threat. Surveys show that many Pakistanis do not recognize the threat. Changing that perception is not something that we can do, but we can help empower Pakistanis to tell their story and lead. For example, thanks in part to our support, within a week and a half after the Marriott bombing, for example, Pakistanis were placing ads in major newspapers with the message, This is Our War. Pakistan's war. There are many other ways we can and are helping. One is the first project to help reform madrassas to teach critical thinking and universal values such as tolerance. 5. (C) War of Ideas is global This work in Pakistan shows what we are doing in one country. The war of ideas, of course, is global, and technology can empower global networks that promote freedom, democracy, and anti-violence activity. Yes, our enemies can use technology as well. Al Qaeda uses the Internet to indoctrinate and teach violent techniques, and young people can play Hizbollah video games built on fantasies of killing Americans. But, in general, violent extremist groups cannot adapt their approach to the new Web 2.0 social-networking technology sweeping the Internet and that stresses democratic interaction. Al Qaeda does not want to expose its ideas to critcism. We are latching onto the latest U.S. privately developed technology -- Facebook and Google, for example -- against the violent extremists. Our belief is that the private sector understands how to use this technology to connect with millions of people far better than we in government understand it. We are hitching a ride on their fast-moving train. Consider Colombia. A small group of young Colombians, without government assistance, used Facebook to build a movement that put 12 million people around the world into the streets on February 4 in demonstrations against the FARC, a vicious violent extremist group that has terrorized that country for more than 40 years. The movement helped accelerate desertions from the FARC. Those demobilizations, as they are called, will exceed 3,000 this year. We are acting as a facilitator to speed the use of the same techniques again, employed by private citizens, not governments, to build movements against violence in other Latin American nations, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Mideast, Europe and elsewhere. Globally, we have dozens of such projects, and we use the State Department's greatest asset: our network of embassies and consulates and our power to convene to develop an understanding of what is wanted and needed on the ground. We are creating a global network that connects women opposed to violence, organized on the MADD, or Mothers Against Drunk Driving model, in the United States. This network encourages women -- many of whose families and neighbors have been victims of violence -- to stand up and oppose violence in their own communities. Women are agents for change. We are backing the Project for the Future of the Middle East, which is convening the best minds to launch a mainstream think tank in the Mideast region. We're funding a program to promote radio call-in shows in Tanzania and Senegal that feature mainstream imams and peaceful community leaders. We're helping to build a community center in Algeria to provide productive after- school opportunities for youth at risk of traveling down a path that leads to radicalization and violent extremism. And we're helping young people understand the importance of laws to fight terrorism in Kuwait. A key battleground for the war of ideas is Europe. Some 20 million Muslims live in Western Europe, and we are engaged in amplifying mainstream Muslim voices to push back against violent extremism. One example is a website whose founders had first embraced and then rejected extremist ideology. In addition, we are building coalitions of young Muslim technology entrepreneurs and offering positive alternatives to Europe's Muslim youth. Another Europe-centered project is called Problems of Extremism, an effort backed by State, DoD, and the private sector. It was inspired by the USIA journal during the Cold War, "Problems of Communism." In print, on the web, and in conferences, POE will engage the ideology of the extremists and articulate global values of freedom and tolerance. POE is a European, not American, project because Europe is the man intellectual battleground, not just for contentious ideas that involve Islam but the emerging Russian ideology and ideas of groups that do not, at the present time, espouse terrorism, but that may present major challenges in the future. Many of our traditional public diplomacy programs aid in and amplify the war of ideas. A good example is English teaching. In practically every country in the world, people want to learn English, which they and their governments associate with upward economic mobility. Even in tough neighborhoods like Yemen, our Access Microscholarship Program is teaching teenagers English after school: 30,000 of them in the past four years. Teaching English does not mean simply imparting words but ideas. It is powerfully subversive. 6 (C) Is the war of ideas working? Al Qaeda contains the seeds of its own destruction, and, as we saw in Al Anbar Province in Iraq, we can hurry the process along by amplifying the story of its wanton violence against women, children, and fellow Muslims. And the story of its former adherents turning against it. One dramatic change over the past few years is that favorable opinion toward Usama bin Laden in Muslim nations has plummeted, as has support for suicide bombing. Of course, we can't take all the credit for these declines. These attitudes are the ones we seek to change, along with the behaviors that follow from them. It is more important today in the war of idea that support for the violent extremists falls than that support for the United States rises. (In fact, favorability of the U.S. has risen in 80 percent of the countries in the most recent Pew Global Attitudes survey.) 7. (C) Our ultimate goal Here is our ultimate goal: A world in which the use of violence to achieve political, religious, or social objectives is no longer considered acceptable; efforts to radicalize and recruit new members are no longer successful; and the perpetrators of violent extremism are condemned and isolated. The difference between 2001 and 2008 is that the structure, the strategy, the programs, and the will to achieve this goal are in place and in operation. For the future, the challenge will be to scale up to meet global threats and opportunities. Thank you. RICE NNNN End Cable Text