Policy, Strategy, and Tactics

E. Public diplomacy in the U.S. strategic context

Strategic direction comes from multiple authorities, with varying scopes and levels of detail. When everything is working as it should, strategy at one level aligns with the next, and sound strategic thinking and planning at lower levels can help decision makers clarify strategy at higher levels. The relationship should be mutually supportive. When strategy becomes disjointed, people operating at implementation levels lack clarity and guidance, which in turn negatively affects their ability to develop, implement, and evaluate plans and programs and to feel ownership over the work they are doing.

The documents that outline formal policy and strategy enable PD practitioners to work from a common operating picture, and communicate goals, priorities, and values internally and to the public. All of these documents inform public diplomacy planning, implementation, and evaluation, and public diplomacy practitioners should be involved in strategy development, particularly at the Joint Regional Strategy/Functional Bureau Strategy (JRS/FBS) and Integrated Country Strategy (ICS) levels. Strategic guidance provides the framework in which public diplomacy professionals in the field conceptualize, plan, and implement their work.

PD practitioners can generally interpret higher-level strategic documents as outlining an established set of foreign policy priorities, originating from a centralized source or set of sources as described above. Policy priorities drive PD interventions, not the other way around.

Because strategies direct action and give guidance at different levels, strategic documents can proliferate. At the State Department alone, more than 200 documents outline and articulate strategy, which could make it difficult to understand how day-to-day work contributes to the broader mission of the Department. Yet these strategic documents work together in particular ways, and they offer PD practitioners a strategic ecosystem in which to make decisions about PD priorities, resources, and approaches. This section highlights the relationship between strategic documents and how public diplomacy plays a role in both shaping the documents and in their implementation.

National-level documents such as the National Security Strategy and the Joint Strategic Plan express political and policy direction from the elected and appointed leaders of the Executive branch. The highest-level documents tend to focus on a statement of aspirational goals or conditions; they rarely engage in detailed discussion about resources or risk, and they often leave the causal logic implied rather than explicit. As lower-level strategic documents, such as an Integrated Country Strategy or a Functional Bureau Strategy, flow from these documents, they grow more specific, include increasing discussions of resources, and begin to articulate the logical connections between present actions and desired future conditions. For a historical example of this application, refer to Appendix A, Comparing Strategic Approaches—National Security Strategies and Public Diplomacy.

The following sections work systematically through this cascade describing the history, purpose, and major components of each strategic document, as well as its intended audience. Most attention is given to the National Security Strategy (NSS), as it is usually understood as the highest governing strategic document in the United States, and it receives the most scrutiny and commentary from analysts, journalists, practitioners, and others around the world who are looking for clear articulations of U.S. intent and approaches to the global system. From there, the explanations are more generic, not because the documents are less interesting, but because they are more widely varied in how they are formulated, used, and perceived from administration to administration.

The National Security Strategy (NSS)

The National Security Strategy has changed in organization and content, but broad themes have remained largely consistent since its inception.

The National Security Strategy is mandated by the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986.39 33 It requires the president to submit a report that outlines the security strategy of the United States. The first National Security Strategy was submitted in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan. While the specific organization and content of National Security Strategy documents have changed over time, broad continuities often persist.

Broadly speaking, the National Security Strategy often outlines priorities that correspond to the ideals of protecting and promoting American security, prosperity, and values. Some have even suggested these three broad categories go back to the requirements of the State related to national security outlined in the Preamble to the United States Constitution: to “provide for the common defence” (security); “promote the general Welfare” (prosperity); and “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity” (values). A fourth category, sometimes implied and sometimes made explicit, is an articulation of the role the United States should play in the world. These themes remain constant regardless of political party and administration.

[The State edition carries a graphic here, "Security, prosperity, values", that did not come through the public conversion.]

A brief review of the content of National Security Strategy documents helps contextualize the political and strategic environments that different administrations use to frame their policy goals and objectives. Every PD practitioner should be familiar with the broad strategic guidance on foreign policy issued by the executive branch, so they can ensure their planning is aligned to these strategic priorities. While emerging issues or crises or the domestic political landscape can re-prioritize specific efforts and resource decisions and shape the rhetoric of these documents, the broad goals generally remain fairly stable over time.

In this regard, a brief analysis of past National Security Strategies is instructive. In 1990, during the George H.W. Bush administration, the key goals in the NSS were

• to “Protect the safety of the nation, its citizens, and its way of life;”
• to “Advance the welfare of our people;” and to
• “Contribute to an international environment of peace, freedom, and progress where democracy (and other free nations) can flourish.”41 ³⁵

In 1998, under Bill Clinton’s administration, the strategic aims were articulated as

• “enhancing security at home and abroad,”
• “promoting prosperity,” and
• “promoting democracy.”42

Both the 2002 and 2006 National Security Strategies, written under George W. Bush, articulate that the United States seeks to

• “defend the peace against the threats from terrorists and tyrants,”
• to “preserve the peace by building good relations among the great powers,”
• and to “extend the peace by encouraging free and open societies on every continent.”43

The 2010 and 2015 strategies, published under Barack Obama’s presidency, identified four primary interests:

• “the security of the United States, its citizens, and U.S. allies and partners”;
• “a strong, innovative, and growing U.S. economy in an open international economic system that promotes opportunity and prosperity”44 ³⁸;
• “respect for universal values at home and around the world”; and
• “a rules-based international order advanced by U.S. leadership that promotes peace, security, and opportunity through stronger cooperation to meet global challenges.”45³⁹

The 2017 National Security Strategy signed by Donald Trump includes four pillars:

• (a) “Protect the American people, the homeland, and the American way of life”;
• (b) “Promote American prosperity”;
• (c) “Preserve peace through strength,” and
• (d) “Advance American influence.”

In October 2022, Joseph Biden released the 2022 National Security Strategy, emphasizing a free, open, prosperous, and secure international order.

State-USAID Joint Strategic Plan (JSP)

The Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have adopted a joint strategic plan, mandated by the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) and the GPRA Modernization Act (GPRA-MA). The JSP flows from the National Security Strategy to present how the Department and USAID will implement U.S. foreign policy and development assistance for the specified period, which is usually four years.
The JSP goals each contain objectives, which in turn contain performance goals, in accordance with the document’s legislative mandate.

Bureau-level strategy (Joint Regional Strategy / Functional Bureau Strategy)

The JSP informs the development of strategic plans at the bureau level. Each regional bureau has a Joint Regional Strategy (JRS) and each functional bureau has a Functional Bureau Strategy (FBS) that establishes U.S. foreign policy goals throughout the geographic region or functional subject-matter area. Two bureaus and two offices reporting to the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs maintain strategic plans at this level: the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA), the Bureau of Global Public Affairs (GPA), the Global Engagement Center (GEC), and the Office of Policy, Planning, and Resources (R/PPR). Each regional and functional bureau with a PD office should have a role in drafting and implementing their respective bureau’s JRS or FBS.

Integrated Country Strategy (ICS)

The Integrated Country Strategy (ICS) is a four-year strategy that articulates U.S. priorities in a given country. Its development is led by the chief of mission. The ICS develops a common set of mission goals and objectives through a coordinated and collaborative planning effort among the Department of State and other U.S. Government agencies that operate in that country. The goals and objectives of each mission ICS derive from the higher-level planning documents and strategies listed above. The ICS covers the full breadth of U.S. government interests and goals in that country, and therefore is informed by the strategic documents of other agencies represented at the mission as well. Because it aims to take a whole-of-government approach, it may not always nest perfectly with the Joint Regional Strategy, but there is usually general alignment.

An ICS is composed of three major nested components: goals, objectives, and sub-objectives. ICS Goals are ambitious topical statements that communicate the long-term (5+ years) future vision or direction regarding policy priorities that the mission intends to pursue. Objectives are change-oriented statements of a specific and measurable end-state or result that the mission seeks to accomplish, or make significant progress toward, in the medium-term future of three to five years. Sub-objectives are more specific outcome-oriented results that contribute to or support the accomplishment of their associated goals and objectives. Sub-objectives have a near-term (12 to 18 month) perspective and much more specific and measurable results.

Public Diplomacy Strategic Plan (PDSP)

In 2021, the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs published the first formal Public Diplomacy Strategic Plan in many years. The plan “provides a shared strategic vision...for coordinating public diplomacy efforts to advance American influence and defend its interests in the global competition.” 48 The purpose of the Public Diplomacy Plan is to lay out a vision for public diplomacy within the policy environment outlined in the Joint Strategic Plan It does not prescribe how bureaus or posts address policy priorities and deploy resources. Those issues are addressed by the respective Bureau Strategies and Integrated Country Strategies (ICSs). The PDSP will be updated quadrennially.

Connecting strategy to tactics: The Public Diplomacy Implementation Plan

All over the Department, offices, divisions, sections, and teams are then charged with
implementing strategy, putting ideas into action. For a PD section overseas or a PD office in a functional bureau, this connection is articulated through the Public Diplomacy Implementation Plan (PDIP) process, which describes the approach of PD practitioners to advancing strategic objectives. Public diplomacy interventions at the tactical level implement guidance that is aligned with higher-order strategy and also suited to a specific local context. Strategic documents and explicitly-stated priorities, especially if properly connected and nested, help practitioners act coherently within a system of strategic guidance documents. Therefore, the design and implementation of PD practice resides mostly at the field level but operates within well-defined strategic parameters. More information about the PDIP process and recommendations for developing a PDIP are covered in the companion volume, PD Foundations “PD in Practice.”