From The End Of Cold War To 9/11

Since the end of World War II, the traditional diplomacy has not been able to adapt to the international changes and challenges, with the expansion of civilian participation in the political life as well as the development of communication technology and further global economic interdependence. So the public diplomacy as a new type of diplomatic approach and mechanism was born and attracted close attention of the world major powers. The two terms of Clinton administration from year 1993 to 2001 were the period that the United State was at its peak. The victory of first Gulf War and the disintegration of Soviet Union made the US the strongest both politically and militarily. The scientific development and financial inventions brought about the fast economic expansion and social prosperity in the US. The globalization and American public diplomacy efforts disseminated the US cultural influence and value standards worldwide. The US was at the historical point with great opportunity in the post-Cold War era. But just because of the major theoretical foundations for US policy making, i.e. "Unipolar World", "End of History", "Democratic Peace", and "Clash of Civilization", the US could only accept a unidirectional approach in public diplomacy which caused the failure of Clinton administration public diplomacy policy. From this perspective, the "9/11" was not only rooted in the arrogance and mighty attitude toward international affairs, but also the mistakes of US public diplomacy policy making.This paper is based on American public diplomacy research and practices, which consists of the preface, main body, and epilogue.In the preface, there is a brief introduction of research results and outcomes ever since the public diplomacy was clearly put forwarded. It tries to clarify the importance of public diplomacy in current international relations based on the comparison of both foreign and domestic research achievements.The main body consists of three chapters. It describes the public diplomacy policy of Clinton administration in both terms and outlines how this first American president after the Cold War to position the United States in this world and how public diplomacy policy influence and support its overall foreign policy.Chapter One:the historical source of public diplomacy policy during Clinton administration. Since the beginning of World War II, the American government established various efficient psychological warfare and propaganda outreach to win the support from the people in the US and its allies for government war participation, and crumbled the spirit of the German and Italian fascists through legislative procedures. This is when the public diplomacy took its initial shape. The US carried out big scale propaganda activities aimed at the fascist countries, the US allies in Asia and Europe, as well as the Latin American countries. It utilized various approaches such as the broadcasting by Voice of America, Hollywood films and documentaries, posters, pamphlets, newspapers and magazines to explain why the US joined the war, to crumble the resistance of the fascist countries and to strengthen the cooperative relations between the allies and neighboring countries.When Cold War started, The US continued its integration of all units of Psychological warfare and propaganda and established Psychological Strategy Board, Operations Coordinating Board, United States Information Agency to be responsible for a total psychological warfare towards Soviet Union and other socialist countries. After J.F Kennedy took office, he began to use the term, Public Diplomacy, to replace the expressions of Psychological Warfare and propaganda due to the new characteristics of the international situation changes, but the nature of the content has not changed at all. The US led western group won the Cold War by utilizing effectively the concealed as well as powerful public diplomacy.Chapter Two:the public diplomacy policy during the first term of Clinton administration. During the campaign in 1992, Clinton stated three pillars of US foreign policy:the modernization of US military for higher security capability, rejuvenation of US economy and expansion of democracy globally. After his election as president, he actively promoted democracy enlargement, free market policy. But his policy purpose was to improve the domestic economy and retain the US leadership in world economy. Furthermore, there was no direct threat to the US national security after the collapse of Soviet Union and Eastern European socialist countries, there was a dissemination of optimistic neo-liberalism plus the traditional conservatism, both of which put the pressure on the allocation of financial resources for foreign policy issues. This led to the significant reduction in foreign affairs budget and the reorganization of State Department foreign affairs structure.Chapter Three:the public diplomacy policy during second term of Clinton administration. Clinton adjusted and reformed the US public diplomacy structure greatly during his second term in office by eliminating United State Information Agency. The drawbacks of ignorance of public diplomacy started to appear along with the tremendous changes of international political order in post Cold War era. Clinton government tried a series of efforts to retain the US public diplomacy glory including the first ever White House Conference on Culture and Diplomacy. But due to the game with the Congress and budget control, all efforts failed in the end.Epilogue:conclusion of the analysis on Clinton administration public diplomacy policy. We should learn from its successes and failures and borrow what are useful when we study our public diplomacy policy and practices in order to establish better country image and play a responsible role as a great power in cultural, political, economic, and diversified national institutions. At the same time, we would keep alert on the US and other western countries to the infiltration of their values under the shadow of public diplomacy. China should be responsible to maintain the world peace and stability; to establish new great power relations; to resolve with great care the diversified cultural conflicts because of different political systems and social systems; to actively involve itself in the resolution of conflicts due to development disparity; and to contribute to the sustainable development roadmap and theoretical construction.