Defense Department Communications Abroad Compared with Public Diplomacy

Abstract

This chapter will analyze the changes in Defense Department communications abroad since 9/11 and discuss why, in some respects, DOD activities have come to resemble public diplomacy carried out by the State Department so that the two agencies now overlap to a degree. Pentagon officials have justified the expansion of their involvement in communications to foreign non-combatants. As this expansion has taken place, they have modified their policies in dealing with to foreign audiences in various ways, based on lessons learned. Yet the Pentagon and the State Department continue to have very different approaches to foreign audiences in a number of ways.