Location: The Heritage Foundation's Lehrman Auditorium
In his new
book The Public Diplomacy Reader, J. Michael Waller goes
from ancient Athens to the American Founding to the Reagan
Administration to show that strategic communication can be most
successful when it is integrated with psychological strategy, a
culture of strategic influence, and political courage. The
Founding Fathers understood that to defeat the world's mightiest
empire they had to get into the minds of the decision-makers and
the public abroad and to animate and motivate the people at home
for a long, protracted war. The United States regained that
understanding during World War II and parts of the Cold War, but
has yet to recover from the unilateral political disarmament of the
early 1990s. Our public diplomacy leaders now flail for a
strategy without really knowing what a global political strategy
is. They seem fearful of the strategic influence culture,
hobbled by political correctness, and lacking in knowledge of
precedents to guide them. The Public Diplomacy Reader
is intended to help fill in that knowledge void in its 500 pages of
essays, letters, speeches and documents.
More About the Speakers
J. Michael Waller, Ph.D.
Author of The Public Diplomacy Reader and the
Walter and Leonore Annenberg Professor of International
Communication,
The Institute for World Politics
Robert Satloff, Ph.D.
Executive Director,
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
The Honorable Robert Reilly
Assistant Professor,
Strategic Communications,
National Defense University
Juliana Geran Pilon, Ph.D.
Earhart Fellow,
Research Professor of Politics and Culture,
The Institute of World Politics