Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs

In 2005 US Department of State wants to use 507 million $ on "Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs". I might be a sucker, trawling for links between Rhetoric and International Relations as I am, but this is really an illustrative number. It might be peanuts compared to a defence budget, but doesn't it show that "hearts and minds" are at least taken serious on a strategic level, and not only among the flyer-tooting, hardhat wearing soldiers on the streets of Baghdad?

I am just reading "Christopher Felix"'s A short Course in the Secret War, and here he mentions how glad the former Eastern European dissidents had been for the various radio services during the cold war.

I hope they have some good rhetoricians around, to spend all those money...

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