2023: Shaping an Inflection Point or Struggling to Hang On? By Ambassador Earl Anthony Wayne

2023 severely tested America’s diplomatic and strategic skills. The Biden administration worked hard to strengthen its international partnerships and America’s long-term economic prowess in the face of new conflicts, resistance from rivals, and skepticism from others. The US team held ground, adjusted tactics, and pressed ahead on key priorities despite the serious challenges, including polarization at

2023 severely tested America’s diplomatic and strategic skills. The Biden administration worked hard to strengthen its international partnerships and America’s long-term economic prowess in the face of new conflicts, resistance from rivals, and skepticism from others. The US team held ground, adjusted tactics, and pressed ahead on key priorities despite the serious challenges, including polarization at home and abroad. At year’s end, however, the outlook is uncertain.

President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and others have described this time as an “inflection point,” a historic changing point, for the United States and the world. They add—correctly, in my view—that many of the fruits from US and partner country initiatives and investments at home and abroad will likely not be evident for years or decades to come.

To get to the longer-term potential for a renewed American role in the world, the US needs to soldier on persistently and effectively through a series of difficult tests.

By EARL ANTHONY WAYNE, former U.S. ambassador to Mexico

The United States and Mexico are trying to maneuver through seriously difficult challenges involving migration, public security, border management and trade, while both countries prepare for presidential and congressional elections in 2024.

Several issues are already hot-button topics for Republicans in the United States, with some politicians offering unrealistic and dangerous solutions on drug trafficking and migration.

Mexican Preside

Managing the US-Mexico Relationship: “Soft Power/Public Diplomacy” Recommendations, published in the newsletter of the Public Diplomacy Council of America

The US-Mexico Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute recently released a report entitled “Convocation 3.0” with recommendations by former US and Mexican Ambassadors for managing the US-Mexico relationship. PDCA member Earl Anthony Wayne was one of the American members of the group.

The report included recommendations on “Soft Power and Public Diplomacy” that may interest PDCA members.
Generate consistent data to better understand public opinion and inform decision-makers on how the public and key audiences see North America and their country’s relations with its partners, their sense of identity, and their perceptions of Mexicans, Americans, and Canadians as well as cross-continental cooperation.
Create and fund additional exchange programs across North America as a tool of public diplomacy. These programs have long-term influence, and trilateral programs can be implemented to create opportunities for exchange.
Promote city and state diplomacy, with possibilities for cross-border partnerships and initiatives that transcend national boundaries.
Recognize the importance of the private sector by engaging the private sector across the three countries to work together and submit proposals for public-private collaboration and for generating better understanding of the great potential of North American coloration for prosperity, security, and well-being.
Promote a regional public diplomacy strategy through sports diplomacy, such as the World Cup in 2026 and the U.S.-Mexico bid for the Women’s World Cup in 2027. Link to the full report: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/61b0f3857a9adc5a5722b68f/t/65039647a12e9c0a81694b0e/1694733898316/Convocation+3.0+%28VF2%29.pdf

How Well Are the U.S. & Mexico Cooperating?

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas traveled to Mexico City on Oct. 4 to meet with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and other top officials to discuss migration and the trafficking of weapons and drugs including fentanyl. What did the two countries’ officials accomplish during the meetings? How well are the United States and Mexico cooperating on measures to fight the illegal trafficking of drugs and weapons, and how much political will exists in the two countries to make policy changes? How will the presidential campaigns in both countries affect their cooperation on migration as well as the trafficking of weapons and drugs?

A: Earl Anthony Wayne, former U.S. ambassador to Mexico and public policy fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and co-chair of its Mexico Institute Advisory Board:
“The United States and Mexico are trying to maneuver through seriously difficult challenges involving migration, public security, border management and trade, while both countries prepare for presidential and congressional elections in 2024. Several issues are already hot-button topics for Republicans, with some politicians offering unrealistic and dangerous solutions on drug trafficking and migration. Mexico’s president fuels concerns with sharp criticisms of U.S. policies and dubious assertions, including that deadly fentanyl is not produced in Mexico, despite much contrary evidence. Over 70,000 Americans died from fentanyl overdoses in 2022, and southwest border fentanyl seizures rose more than 500 percent since fiscal year 2020.

Last week’s High-Level Security Dialogue sought to demonstrate that constructive cooperation is underway to manage the massive flow of migrants again headed northward and to slow trafficking of fentanyl into the United States and illegal arms trafficking into Mexico. U.S. and Mexican ministers pledged reinforced collaboration, praised ongoing cooperation and tried to solidify understanding for the work ahead. Anti-crime cooperation has improved since 2021. Current collaboration on migration is essential. However, when Mexico’s security minister denied that fentanyl is produced in Mexico, the statement highlighted that misunderstanding remains. Much work is still required to solidify the law enforcement, intelligence and justice collaboration needed to take down cross-border criminal networks. Fentanyl seizures at the border rose more than 80 percent in the first 11 months of fiscal year 2023, while migrant border encounters have increased again. Both governments need to demonstrate convincing results and skillful management to avoid serious damage to bilateral relations in the year ahead.”

Several other expert observers also contributed to this edition.

President Joe Biden is once again feeling the squeeze on immigration – only this time it's members of his own party who are applying the pressure.

While Republicans have long criticized Biden's handling of the U.S.-Mexico border, the president has faced intensifying public criticism from state and local Democrats whose cities are overwhelmed by migrant arrivals, as well as from progressives who are urging him to reconsider the new policies his administration rolled out this week.

Biden is atte

This paper was prepared for my use during discussions about North American Competitiveness and USMCA during the North American Forum meeting October 20-3 2023 in Monterrey Mexico; I updated it after the forum to include ideas that emerged during the conversations in Monterrey.

This was a working session with former Ambassadors and thinktank experts on the potential effect and role of the expanded BRICS grouping internationally and in the Middle East and South Asia in particular.

The U.S.-Mexico Foundation and the Mexico Institute of the Woodrow Wilson Center held an Ambassadors Retreat in Palo Alto and New Year, California, from April 27th to 30th, 2023. In this third retreat, former ambassadors from the United States to Mexico, from Mexico to the United States, and special guests from Canada were called upon to discuss the present and future of the bilateral relationship. More than 15 former ambassadors, the Mexican Ambassador to the U.S., and business leaders joined u

Recommendations from US and Mexican Ambassadors about the directions and next steps in bilateral relations between Mexico and the United States

The Taliban regime is well ensconced and focused on implementing its fundamentalist Islamic doctrine. The UN documents that it is carrying out revenge killings of former Afghan government officials and security forces.

The non-Taliban elites from the previous republic are divided and dispersed around the world. Many are discredited. The only organized opposition is from the even more radical, violent and conservative Afghan branch of ISIS (the Islamic State Khorasan or IS-K).

Neither the Unite

Talk about relations with Mexico and North American Cooperation

The Mexico Institute seeks to improve understanding, communication, and cooperation between Mexico and the United States by promoting original research, encouraging public discussion, and proposing policy options for enhancing the bilateral relationship. A binational Advisory Board, chaired by Luis Téllez and Earl Anthony Wayne, oversees the work of the Mexico Institute. Read more

"Afghanistan: Two Years Later" is a special series for Asia Dispatches marking the two-year anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal and Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.

Executive Summary

At the request of the Bureau of Global Public Affairs, the summer 2023 Public Diplomacy
practicum team at American University’s School of International Service carried out an audit of
social media sites on an assigned collection of US Missions and Washington based offices with
the objective of identifying the best practices and practices that could be improved. The team also
tried to identify other useful observations related to how USG missions and offices are generating
engagement with their audiences on social media and the potential for expanded outreach.

In studying the engagement by embassies and State Department offices on each social media
platform, the team first examined the social media penetration in each country examine, tried to
determine the different audiences that were apparently being targeted by the embassy or State
Department office/bureau, outline the broad political and social context of target countries and
observed if the embassies and missions were closely following the objectives identified in their
Integrated Country Strategies (ICS). The project team applied this methodology for the overseas
missions studied and adapted it to examine the State Department Offices and the special platforms
which the team had been asked to study, i.e., Telegram and LinkedIn.

The team found that achieving higher engagement is correlated with how well content is
tailored to reflect local cultural and social contexts for the host country where the mission is
located or specific audiences that care about the mission in the case of multilateral missions. For
example, the Embassy in Kathmandu, Nepal has strong engagement with its audiences which
appears to be at least in part due to the ambassador directly engaging with Nepalese viewers
through tailored cultural connections via the most used social media platforms in Nepal.

Similarly, and more broadly, the team found that a mission’s use of the ambassador in social
media postings correlates with generating strong engagement. The persona of the Ambassador as
a ‘celebrity’ played a role in engagement across various Missions and social media platforms. The
project team observed that the presence of Ambassadors on social media platforms often boosted
engagement on posts, regardless of the gender of the Ambassador. But the team recommends
balancing focus on the ambassador with an array of postings highlighting other embassy staff.

In this connection, Embassy postings about gender issues, especially women and girls, seemed to
regularly garner good engagement.

Another example of tailored content is the use of local languages and cultural icons/practices.
Embassies Conakry and Embassy Rangoon social media posts, for example, attracted significant
engagement when the posts were offered in French and Burmese respectively and more when local
citizens or cultural icons were included.

The use of cross platform posting of the same media content (photos, videos) for all or most social
media accounts was a practice that the team observed for each embassy studied, but the team
found different degrees of evident engagement by local audiences. This may be a successful way to
get information out to a large audience, but it was hard to measure if the information was read
because much of the content garnered little reaction.

Embassies and Missions (e.g. USUNVIE) with some curated local content added seemed to fare better. Specifically, the team concludes that the lack of platform differentiation between what is put on Facebook and Instagram is curbing engagement from audiences that differ in age and engagement opportunities.

Finding ways to invest more time in selective differentiation of posts among platforms (and thus audiences) would seem to be a very valuable practice.

Multilateral missions have a bit different challenge than bilateral embassies, in part because they
have real and potential audiences that are spread across many counties and often have a particular
set of substantive interests. For example, Facebook was a strong place for engagement for most
country missions, but in the case of the US Mission to the UN Agencies in Vienna (USUNVIE),
the Facebook posts attracted the least engagement of all of the USUNVIE accounts, even though
Facebook has the most followers for the mission.

As noted, a number of embassy missions posted the same content across all platforms, without
curating specific content for each platform. But the team notes that different social media
platforms have different demographic followings, and it is a best public diplomacy practice to
tailor posting to different audiences. However, most embassies seemed to post very identical
material, especially material received from Washington, despite demographic audience differences
on various platforms. This does not seem to be a best practice for attracting audience attention
given the low engagement which the team observed. The team assumed that this practice was
being followed because of Public Diplomacy section staff and time limitations. This practice may
serve to get information out to audiences, however, it was very hard for the team to measure if that
was taking place..

The team also found that more engagement seems to flow if the postings do not use too much text.
In instances on Twitter or Instagram where photos and graphics are used, those that contain lots of
text in the graphic or photograph, receive less engagement than traditional photos without text.
However, carefully crafted photographic posts with less text and carefully chosen words, produced
a high level of engagement. U.S. Mission Brazil’s accounts, for example, successfully use posts without lengthy captions and minimal or text-less graphics. One example of space for improvement that the
team observed involved the Office of Monitoring and Trafficking In Persons. That office posted items on a series of Presidential Awards for efforts to combat trafficking. These posts, however, include many words in the graphics which coincided with low engagement on the posts. The posts were otherwise about significant anti-trafficking work.

Consistently across platforms and embassy missions, the team also found that there are higher levels of engagement on posts about visas, events, English education, fellowships, intern opportunities, opportunities to engage with the embassy and job openings. Visa process instructions and information routinely also receive high engagement numbers compared to an average on that embassy platform,
likely because the audiences for those posts are very interested in obtaining visas.

In this connection, social media posts where opportunities for engagement with embassy staff were
observed to be popular and registered high engagement rates. Whether events, educational
opportunities and/or fellowships, those posts tend to gain a lot of attention. Using platforms to publicize
these opportunities also seems to align with an uptick in engagement across other posts by the
embassy, perhaps as more viewers are actively looking at the embassy’s social media page for
opportunities. Posts should think instrumentally about how to use viewer interest in these kinds of
posts to gain attention for other high priority messaging.

The team found that Embassy Nepal was one mission that stood out with very high engagement
across all platforms. It serves as an example of how social media can be used to garner wide
reach within a country. The Embassy’s 4.4 million Facebook followers with daily posts, plus
consistent near daily posts on Twitter, Instagram, and Pro Flicker resulted in far reaching
engagement and messaging across all platforms in the country.

While for a number of reasons social media is usually used for one way engagement and sharing of
information, the team observed that social media can also be used as a tool of public diplomacy for two way engagement. For example, the team found that live Q’s & A’s seemed to be popular. Embassy
Conakry and Embassy Brasilia hosted live Qs and As on their Instagram page, which generated a
large number of comments, creating a decree of two way engagement between each respective
Embassy and platform users in real time.

The team realizes that staff numbers and time constraints limit what embassies can do, but concludes that embassies should look to take advantage of forums that provide for such two-way exchanges with social media audiences. This could be a good practice, used prudently.

The team also concluded that Twitter and Telegram (and WhatsApp though we did not officially
audit this platform) have great untapped potential through the ability to reach expanded networks
for sharing information with the use of these platforms. Using Twitter to curate for local
audiences though re-tweeting relevance to local culture can be a good practice, instead of only
retweeting main State Department accounts without comment. If the embassy staff used a few
moments when retweeting some of the material to add a comment, tying a tweet into a local
message that resonates with local people, the team believes this could create higher engagement
rates and reach more audiences. We would suggest that posts experiment with a limited number of
retweets to see if such a practice produces more engagement.

Telegram and WhatsApp are functionally similar and both provide an excellent opportunity to
reach individual users through their mobile devices to promote US policy interests. Our team
found that for each of the Telegram channels we researched, every message that was posted in a
channel was read (viewed) by at least 50% of the number of subscribers in the channel. For
example, Embassy Tashkent had 20,000+ subscribers to the Embassy channel, and each message
had over 10,000 views which is an extremely high rate of potential audience for embassies to reach
into groups and countries without access to normal media outlets. More use of Telegram message
posts (or similar channels) can be a great way to ensure a high percentage of information will be
delivered to individual subscribers - especially in authoritarian states.

Though the team did not look at WhatsApp channels or groups by any of the embassies we surveyed, our research suggests that in countries where WhatsApp is used by large populations can be used in a similar manner as Telegram. Both messaging platforms can be used to conduct public diplomacy by delivering U.S. messages directly to individual users who can re-share messages through their own contacts. In Russian language speaking populations, Telegram is used primarily over WhatsApp.

Short videos are used across all platforms, and receive considerably more likes than other posts such as longer videos that last over several minutes. This reflects the consistently growing popularity of these
short videos around the world over the last decade. Embassy Nepal’s use of Instagram short video
reels has been successful in growing viewer rates from 1,500 views per video earlier this year, to
approximately 15,000 - 20,000 views per reel into June 2023.

But not all short videos correlate with high engagement. The INL Instagram account, for example, uses primarily short videos to communicate on the account, but it receives low view count and low engagement likely because the bureau has not fully developed and implemented a plan based on best practices in the use of short-form video to gain wider and more consistent engagement. At present, the INL account uses the short video application to post bursts of pictures, rather than video.

Short form videos clearly have excellent potential for all embassy missions and bureaus to consider, for expanding public diplomacy reach and user engagement.

The team found a consistently low engagement on posts that articulate American values where
those values differ significantly from the local culture or country’s societal norms. Many Pride
posts had negative engagement across all platforms and embassies, for example, except in Brazil.
Similarly, Embassy posts promoting the Juneteenth holiday garnered negative reactions and
comments, likely because this is largely an American event (and recently elevated holiday) and
should be presented with context and with links to a local country’s culture and history.

Our interviews with digital diplomacy experts also pointed to the on-going need to find better ways to
combat misinformation online. The team found the Russia-Ukraine conflict is an area where
embassies can and are supporting US values and working to authenticate information on the
conflict in alignment with US policy. Each embassy or account we observed consistently
promoted U.S. policy of supporting Ukraine against Russian aggression on all social media
platforms. Support for Ukraine was positive across all platforms that we observed.

Finally, all embassy missions observed also appeared to do a good job of reflecting the objectives of their respective Integrated Country (or Mission) Strategies in their social media use.

The Practicum Team that prepared this report was made up of five graduate students, Hasan Syed, Israel Archuletta, Natalia Franco Castillo, Olivia Hille, Sokhna Ndoye, at AU's School of International Service, working with Professor and retired Ambassador Earl Anthony Wayne.

Two years since the dramatic fall of Kabul and the chaotic US evacuation from its airport, the outlook is dark and gloomy for Afghanistan. This is especially true for Afghan women and girls, who have progressively had their rights and futures restricted.

The Taliban regime is well ensconced and focused on implementing its fundamentalist Islamic doctrine. The UN documents that it is carrying out revenge killings of former Afghan government officials and security forces.

The non-Taliban elites f

Democratic Backsliding in the Western Hemisphere: An Analysis of Democracy Indices.

This report analyzes established and widely respected democracy indices. The Office of Policy, Planning, and Coordination in the Department of State’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs requested assistance from graduate students at American University’s School of International Service to determine which indices that examine democracy and governance would be most helpful for State Department officers seeking to understand key developments in the region and to identify potentially beneficial actions. This report evaluates indices with a regional focus on the Western Hemisphere. It examines and compares how the indices treat the following eight countries: Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, and Peru.

State Department officers can use these indices not only to learn more about their assigned regions and countries, but also to help orient foreign assistance, programming, and policy planning activities. For example, the data in these indices can help inform budget forecasting by suggesting those areas most in need of stabilization or reform. The Indices can help suggest where of USAID, INL or DRL assistance might be most usefully deployed, for example, or what kind of an International Visitor program might best support certain civil society experts working to support threatened democratic practices and institutions.

This report analyzes the following comprehensive indices that evaluate democracy and governance around the world: 1) the Varieties of Democracy Report (V-DEM); 2) International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) Global State of Democracy Initiative; 3) the Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI); 4) Freedom House’s Freedom in the World Report; and 5) the Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index Report (EIU). In addition to these comprehensive indices, this report also analyzes the following issue-specific indices that focus on more limited elements that are important for democracy: 1) The World Justice Project Rule of Law Index; 2) Global Organized Crime Index; 3) World Press Freedom Index, 4) The Capacity to Combat Corruption Index, and 5) the Vance Center Latin America Anti-Corruption Assessment. All indices were chosen from among the many available because of their recognized credibility and wide use as reputable resources. Despite their narrow focus, these issue-specific indices can be very useful to embassy officials and desk officers at the Department of State. Officers with specific portfolios related to the issue-specific indices can use these reports for more thorough research into their topics.
Of the ten indices reviewed, the project team found V-DEM and IDEA to be the most “useful.” They also found two of the specialized indices, the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index (WJP) and the Global Organized Crime Index (GOC), to be particularly useful.
Based on discussions with democracy and governance experts, the team developed five “usability” criteria to answer the following questions: 1) Does the index include a wide breadth of information and evaluate democracy with a variety of criteria? 2) Is the index considered credible as an unbiased external authority? 3) Does the index use a thorough review process with multiple layers of analysis? 4) Is the index easily accessible to users and does it include data that can be searched and manipulated to gain insights? 5) Does the index collect and publish data and analyses regularly and over a long period of time?

The team hopes the findings of this study will facilitate the work of State Department Officers serving in Washington and at the U.S. missions overseas as they seek to support democracy and good governance across the Western Hemisphere.

The collection of Afghanistan Interviews was released on August 16 2023. My interview covers primarily my work on Afghanistan between 2009 and 2011. But I also include a version of the lessons that I drew from our flawed involvement in Afghanistan and our poor exit strategy.

Q: Good morning, this is September 17, 2021, and we are continuing our interviews with Ambassador Wayne. So, Tony, I wanted to talk a little bit about the economic issues that you probably dealt with during your time in Argentina. There had been a massive default in Argentina of foreign bonds. And the deal had been such of 30 percent of the dollar that not everybody took that deal. And I think it came up again during your time. So, can you describe what was going on with American bondholders?

W