Since the end of the Cold War, American public diplomacy has seemed to be in its decline as the number of American exchange students has been very low and the end of organisations as USIA. But 9/11 gave a new strong motivation for a new public diplomacy and many voices in the USA started calling for a renewal of USIA and a better engagement in public diplomacy. But is it really public diplomacy that failed?
Lets look first at a simple statement given by a director of USIA in 1963 “To be persuasive, we must be believable, to be believable, we must be credible, to be credible, we must be truthful, it is as simple as that”. After 9/11, the USA lost its truthfulness that people around the world had in the USA. The fake reasons behind the invasion of Iraq and dubious event of 9/11, were just some of the reasons, for which people around the world lost its trust in the USA. Over thousand of Architects and engineers signed a petition for a new and proper investigation of 9/11 in February 2010 (1). There are thousands of American websites and books showing many mistakes in official report on 9/11 and many of them asserting that 9/11 was a “false flag operation” carried out by the USA government or that invasion of Iraq was just about oil or about a hidden agenda for a world government. People asserting those issues against the USA government are, among others, many doctors, engineers, judges, politicians and many other scholars. There is a huge number of movies exposing the frauds carried out by the US government as for instance “”Fall of the Republic” that has been already seen by 1 500 000 people on youtube and websites as for instance infowars.com that are visited by about hundred thousand people every day. Unless the USA government refutes all the accusations, there is no chance to succeed in public diplomacy and persuade people that the USA helps people around the world and protects only its country against terrorists. It is also interesting that in this case, the USA government must also fight own citizens against contrary public diplomacy
(1) http://www.ae911truth.org/
Lets look first at a simple statement given by a director of USIA in 1963 “To be persuasive, we must be believable, to be believable, we must be credible, to be credible, we must be truthful, it is as simple as that”. After 9/11, the USA lost its truthfulness that people around the world had in the USA. The fake reasons behind the invasion of Iraq and dubious event of 9/11, were just some of the reasons, for which people around the world lost its trust in the USA. Over thousand of Architects and engineers signed a petition for a new and proper investigation of 9/11 in February 2010 (1). There are thousands of American websites and books showing many mistakes in official report on 9/11 and many of them asserting that 9/11 was a “false flag operation” carried out by the USA government or that invasion of Iraq was just about oil or about a hidden agenda for a world government. People asserting those issues against the USA government are, among others, many doctors, engineers, judges, politicians and many other scholars. There is a huge number of movies exposing the frauds carried out by the US government as for instance “”Fall of the Republic” that has been already seen by 1 500 000 people on youtube and websites as for instance infowars.com that are visited by about hundred thousand people every day. Unless the USA government refutes all the accusations, there is no chance to succeed in public diplomacy and persuade people that the USA helps people around the world and protects only its country against terrorists. It is also interesting that in this case, the USA government must also fight own citizens against contrary public diplomacy
(1) http://www.ae911truth.org/
You say that the United States' public diplomacy has declined since the end of the Cold War and that people around the world have lost its "faith" in the US. However, did the US really use that much public diplomacy during the Cold War? The world was divided into two sides, where both had enough of nuclear weapons to eliminate one another. The rest of the world either picked, or was forced to pick, a side. Today, however, there is no such balance of power, as the only real military power left is the US. So due to this new unipolar world,and the fact that it is their use of hard power in the past that has given them so many enemies, the US has been forced to change its tactics. And of course, as you say, the growing importance of public support, not only internationally, but also domestically.
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