Winning the War of Ideas [James Glassman]

Counterterrorism Blog ^ | July 08, 2008 | Matthew Levitt

[Uncle Ralph]

Engagement in the battle of ideas and strategic communication has long been the missing ingredient in the government-wide effort to combat terrorism. Now, with a restructured public diplomacy bureaucracy at the State Department and elsewhere in the interagency process, engaging foreign publics has formally and strategically become part of the toolkit to combat radical extremist ideologies. Today, in his first major public address in his new position in Washington, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs James Glassman addressed The Washington Institute for Near East Policy's Special Policy Forum on "Winning the War of Ideas." The prepared text of his remarks is available here.

[Cacique]

btt

[sinanju]

I would say the effort is in good hands with Mr. Glassman, but more to the point, we should be out there; not just bad-mouthing terrorism and pushing American culture but actively selling democracy.

There is a great article (”An Open Door”) by Saad Edin Ibrahim in the Spring 2004 edition of The Wilson Quarterly briefly overviewing the largely forgotten history of the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Middle Eastern experiments with democracy, led by the Egyptians, who got an introduction to democratic concepts and the printing press when Napoleon invaded them.