UK Minister for Europe Jim Murphy

I just got off a conference call with Jim Murphy, the United Kingdom's Minister for Europe. Next week Minister Murphy will be in Washington and a number of other U.S. states for the release of a new publication about public diplomacy.

The U.K., as usual, is leading in the field of diplomatic innovation. As a smaller world power with a robust economy and a quasi-European perspective, Her Majesty's government is well positioned to be agile and edgy. The happy result for the next U.S. administration will be two, I think. First, our cousins across the pond will develop a set of lessons learned in simply how to conduct a world-class program of public diplomacy. Of course, as Minister Murphy and some of the callers agreed, within the "how?" problem, the big question is how can a major world power and long-standing democracy incorporate the essential "listening" into policy when domestic perceptions are so different from those overseas.

The second happy result will actually be some initial feedback from the lucky interlocutors of the British efforts. It will, no doubt, take quite some time to stand up a real American capacity for public diplomacy that both listens and transmits those messages faithfully into the Oval Office. That's because global public feedback will have to come through a different "channel" than that owned and operated by the intelligence community. Just as the White House maintains a domestic public opinion polling capacity, it will now need a variety of sources of global public opinion, whether it is polling, conversations with heads of state, or something in between.

So, I applaud the UK and Jim Murphy for embarking on this effort. I hope he and his colleagues in the Foreign and Commonwealth office share their findings early and often with those of us in Washington both inside and outside of government. It will be a real service.

But, ultimately, I respectfully think the U.K. needs to focus more on using its diplomatic capacity to keep the U.S. focused on transforming its role in the world. Simply achieving their list of priority issues: climate change, counter-radicalization, conflict prevention, reform of international institutions, and European integration, though a good start, will not overcome the larger dysfunction of a U.S. bent on either preserving our current, de facto grand strategy of dominance or of the emerging liberal consensus on "conservation". The world needs the U.S. to realign our economic engine and our national security strategy in a sophisticated way and public diplomacy just will not come up with many good ideas on that score.

That's perhaps where the U.K. can really help out. While it is important to keep pressing on their list of agenda items, we need a lot of global thinking and the minds in London are some of the best in the world. Of course, global public opinion is essential in shaping any new grand strategy, and here the Brits will have a useful edge. We at the New America Foundation are going to be working this problem, but we need all the help we can get.

That's the kind of diplomacy I want to see come out of Whitehall.