Ends, ways, means — quick reference

Ends, ways, means is the strategy logic public diplomacy borrows from statecraft. The doctrine sets a minimum test for any strategy: it "must articulate how taking specific actions (ways) will work to accomplish stated goals, aims, or objectives (ends) by using available tools and resources (means)." A strategy, in this telling, proposes a causal story: a claim about how using these resources and taking these actions will achieve a desired outcome.

The three terms, in PD's own vocabulary

• Ends are the goals and objectives. Public diplomacy names three: affect attitudes or behavior among specific public audiences in support of U.S. foreign policy priorities; create conditions in policy and information environments that support U.S. interests or deny adversaries' interests; and integrate a deep understanding of foreign publics into more effective U.S. foreign policy.
• Ways are the concepts and actions. PD works through four: understanding, informing, influencing, and building relationships. The doctrine maps them to classical rhetoric: information campaigns appeal through facts (logos), influence campaigns through emotion (pathos), and relationships through credibility (ethos).
• Means are the PD toolkit: "the set of public diplomacy tools, programs, messages and interventions available to practitioners," from listening and exchanges to press engagement and institution building.

Between ways and ends the doctrine names six operational outcomes that make the chain concrete: raising awareness, affecting attitudes, affecting behaviors, relationship building, organizational partnership, and skill building. A campaign chooses ways and means to produce one of these outcomes, and the outcome advances an end.

Alignment is continuous work

None of the three legs stays fixed. Desired ends shift with circumstances. Means are consumed as they are spent. The doctrine warns that "as one part of the EWM formula changes, other parts must follow suit, or the strategy will quickly be out of alignment." It also cautions against reading activity as achievement: multiple tactical successes alone will not necessarily yield positive strategic outcomes, so a popular program still has to prove its value against the end it claims to serve. A full strategy adds assessments of risk, the adversary, and the environment on top of the basic EWM chain.

Where PD plugs into the U.S. strategy cascade

The ends arrive through a nested set of documents: the National Security Strategy at the top, then the State-USAID Joint Strategic Plan, bureau-level strategies, the Integrated Country Strategy with its goals, objectives, and 12-to-18-month sub-objectives, the Public Diplomacy Strategic Plan, and finally the Public Diplomacy Implementation Plan, which connects strategy to tactics at post. Each level down grows more specific about resources and about the logical connections between present actions and desired future conditions.