Winning the War of Ideas: Assessing the Effectiveness of Public Diplomacy
Abstract
The National Strategy for Combating Terrorism calls for the United States to act on four fronts to stop terrorist attacks. The fourth front, acting to diminish the underlying conditions that terrorists seek to exploit, establishes an objective to wage a war of ideas to eliminate the conditions and ideologies that promote terrorism. However, recent U.S. attempts at waging a war of ideas have rallied support in the Arab and Muslim world for extremists seeking redress of political and ideological grievances through violence and terrorism. This has created fertile conditions in which adherents of radical ideologies use misinformation to stir civil unrest and undermine U.S. interests in the region. This paper examines the effectiveness of public diplomacy in mitigating the sources of Anti-Americanism that threaten a favorable outcome in the war of ideas. This is accomplished by discussing the realities and consequences of Anti-Americanism, defining the current policy that implements the war of ideas, and assessing the effectiveness of the policy through an analysis of ends, ways, means, and risk. The paper concludes with suggested alternatives to the current U.S. policy on the use of the information component of national power in support of the war of ideas.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 16, 2006
- Accession Number
- ADA448271
Entities
People
- Michael P. Wadsworth
Organizations
- United States Army War College