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By Joseph J. Honick
The greatest single danger to America may not be terrorists,
housing foreclosures or the many, many other media reported
catastrophes. More than any of those is the reality of how
we are becoming irrelevant in the minds and decisions of other
nations important to us … and the roles key PR firms
and advisors may well be playing in all of this.
Were it not for our wealth, natural resources and military
power, all of which are being squandered at a record pace,
it is hard to believe very many other nations would pay much
attention to us with reference to their own major decisions.
It does not take much to observe realities of key nations
virtually thumbing their noses at us as they form alliances
with hardly a consult with America.
Russia and Iran wind up as nuclear sweethearts and arms partners
even as we publicly try to figure out how or whether we need
to think about attacking Iran in retribution for alleged smuggling
of arms and other help to our enemies in Iraq.
North and South Korea figure out how to cooperate in a manner
we could not work out with our former enemies. Japan says
it has had enough of the Iraq mess and starts the pullout
of the cooperation with us there with cries of "no more
American wars." Then North Korea and Syria are found
unabashedly dancing together with apparent nuclear cooperation
until, that is, Israel took action similar to its efforts
in 1981 against Iraq and knocked out the Syrian site.
We have made common cause in vast commercial investment,
diplomatic and other means with Communist North Vietnam which
had killed about 58,000 of our armed forces even as we could
not find a path toward diplomatic relations with Cuba only
90 miles from our shores, now warning that nation about its
means of succession at the top
But these are only a few examples of how, in only a few years,
we have lost the power and dignity of presidents from Franklin
Delano Roosevelt to Bill Clinton, including even the disgraced
Richard Nixon who, in his better days, had accomplished significant
diplomatic successes in China and elsewhere.
In short, few if any nations seem to give a tinker's dam
about our opinions on most any international major concern.
One of the more recent shockers was the report
in the reliable Financial Times of London that China
will help out GE by building a research laboratory in that
country.
Our relationships with Turkey have so deteriorated that this
nation has had to determine whether to invade Iraq to beat
back Kurdish agitation, even as some in Congress want to pass
a resolution to condemn allegations of Turkish genocide of
Armenians nearly 100 years ago. However justified or otherwise
that charge might be, the timing once more reveals how fragile
national leadership is.
These are only a few examples of the realities. What most
Americans do not think about or even figure on is how so many
of these actions can be accomplished with little or no action
by our own leadership which seem virtually impotent in the
face of these events.
It is imperative to determine what all of this implies for
the future no matter who replaces George W Bush. The question
remains: is the United State still relevant on the horizon
of world affairs?
But where will you find this concern framed in the media
or political discourse anywhere. Answer: virtually nowhere.
Much of this is revealed in the direction our economy is
taking at the same time as our dollar takes a nose dive further
discouraging investment from abroad. There was a time, and
not very long ago, that such international disruptions would
have to include our leadership in very profound ways. Today
we have our own Secretary of State putting together enough
air miles rotating around the world to develop a thousand
first class flights on all airlines combined … but with
little to no progress at any single and major point.
Underneath all of much of these realities are the results
of some of the world's largest and most powerful public relations
firms or the work of many former high level operators within
the federal government or the Congress who are influencing
events.
For instance, Robert D. Blackwill, once the Iraq director
for the National Security Council, pushed to have a tough,
secular Shiite Ayad Allawi made Prime Minister of the "new"
Iraq. That didn't work out but has not stopped Blackwill's
efforts to make things tough for Nuri Kamal al-Maliki,ultimately
the victor in free elections. He and his firm, Barbour Griffith
& Rogers, received $1.4 million to promote a nuclear deal
between the United States and India, oil contracts with Kurdistan.
What stands out in the abbreviated array of much broader
ventures is the shadow impact on American foreign policy that
not only confuses that much of the public who actually cares
but also our theoretical friends who are not part of these
efforts and, ultimately decide either to throw up their hands
in frustration or simply ignore us altogether.
Among other things, the results of this increasingly profitable
public relations representation for any and all comers with
the money to pay for it raises questions that extend well
beyond ordinary limits.
So it should not be at all surprising that the White House
propaganda chief Karen Hughes recites the confusion of nations
around the world, or, as
she reportedly told PR Society, "People around the
world aren't just sitting around to hear from America anymore,"
especially with our involvements in an endless war. What she
did not say, however, was how much of the confusion is developed
by influences from public relations firms and former high
level American officials.
It is not naïve to be raising these points since we
all understand the logic of going after business to help influence
opinions that count for clients. What all of us as professionals
and Americans must understand and calculate very carefully
is how this expanding influence has already contributed to
our nation's irrelevance abroad even as it may accomplish
the ends of international, corporate and special individual
clientele in an increasingly complex world at what some call
the "Tipping Point."
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Joe
Honick is president of Bainbridge Island, Wash.-based
GMA International Ltd, the consulting and public relations
firm he formed in 1975 to help companies broaden their business
abroad especially in China and Japan. He also contributes
to a variety of publications on public policy issues.
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