Larry D. Lauer

Strategy is defined as “a plan or set of maneuvers for obtaining a specific goal or result.” Tactics without strategy leaves people confused and feeling vulnerable. For some this may seem desirable. Keep them guessing, or as a colleague of mine once put it, “Don’t show your hand before you are ready to play it!”

This might work for a card game or short-term real estate games.  But in the game of world politics it can become very dangerous. Bold initiatives or tactics require context in order to be understood and trusted. Clear strategy provides context. Endless surprise initiatives do not. This is communication 101.

Allies and potential allies require knowing and sharing a set of governing strategies, having similar ideas about handling the big issues, and being able to trust commitments when the going gets rough. Playing the foreign policy game solely from the keep-them-guessing perspective eventually doesn’t work. Allies not only begin to feel uneasy, they may even soon begin to talk about erratic mental stability. Then, there is no rational basis for making crisis decisions.

And by the way, no lies please. This is also communication 101. Lies cannot remain hidden for long. And they inevitably signal someone with an insatiable ego, no consistent set of governing values, and eventually even the possibility of mental problems. One thing is for sure, constant lying never conveys superior intelligence and competitive cleverness, as every perpetrator wants you to believe. Rather it conveys a significant lack of knowledge and experience.

The bottom line is that allies need to know they can count on the leaders with whom they collaborate on serious matters. So far Mr. Trump continues to demonstrate a strong preference for throwing people off guard and tweeting off-the-wall comments. He might win a game of poker this way, but in the world of foreign policy he is on his way to having no set of informed ideas around which to bring allies together to address the world’s most pressing problems.

Be certain that nothing here has anything to do with politics or the Republican party. Everything here, however, has to do with fundamental communication dynamics and lessons learned from experience.

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Since the election it has become even more apparent that Mr. Trump’s primary communication talent is as a dramatic performer. He simply never developed an intellectual frame of reference that brings consistency to his rhetoric, and his actions.

Simply put, Mr. Trump appealed to his base by combining entertaining one-liners with promising quick fixes as fast as people brought him problems. His audiences then evolved into a base of supporters who enjoyed his entertaining and outrageous performances, and chose to believe he could help them. And he was certainly helped by the fact that no one else better informed was addressing their problems.

Sometimes it takes a while for audiences to recognize that would-be political leaders are more entertainers than problem-solvers. But eventually the public will begin to see that such people work for applause and will change on a dime. And in time their inconsistencies will be disrupting, and eventually can be frightening.

For example, many of the promises Mr. Trump made during the campaign about healthcare and manufacturing made him sound like a populist Democrat who felt his audiences’ pain. Once in office, however, he instantly switched and sounded more like a conservative Republican who was willing to cut benefits. But then a quick defeat on healthcare had him talking again more like a Democrat.

The bottom line is that Mr. Trump has no basic frame of reference that defines where he is coming from. Repeating the one-liner “Making America Great Again” says nothing about how he will go about improving democratic institutions, or advancing American values, or helping all levels of society share in the American dream.

What’s more, the absence of an intellectual frame of reference, combined with Trump’s daily communication inconsistencies, is already leaving a growing number of people trembling about how he will go about making many of the life and death decisions he inevitably will have to make.

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In the foreign policy world “hard power” is military strength and “soft power” is diplomacy, public diplomacy and all those communication initiatives related to building understanding between countries and cultures. Hard power deters potential enemies and confronts them when necessary. Soft power builds international relationships, increases cross-cultural understanding, and helps solve global problems.

Soft power diplomacy is government-to-government communication, and soft power public diplomacy is government-to-people communication and people-to people communication. People to people communication carries the most credibility because of its genuine authenticity.

A  number of years ago there was an agency of the U.S. government that was responsible for soft power. It was the United State Information Agency (USIA). It developed programs to communicate and demonstrate the exceptional “idea of America” around the world. Artists, scholars, and musicians were sent abroad to show their talents. Groups and individual exchanges were arranged to encourage continuing dialogue. Libraries of materials were established. Films were produced and distributed. And the Voice of America (VOA), broadcast trusted news and information programs 24 hours a day all over the globe.

But, during a widespread austerity move, the Clinton administration eliminated the USIA and moved its programs into the Sate Department. As a result, soft power funding was dramatically reduced and programs and projects were eliminated. The negative consequences of this mindless move have never been remedied.

For about a year I was a part of many discussions (including a project at the Wilson Center think tank) that brought together legislative staffers, government professionals, educators, and politicians in Washington who were concerned about the diminished state of public diplomacy communication in the state department. It was a concern strongly reinforced by several staffers from the defense department. They told us that the Defense Department was sponsoring public diplomacy projects only because soft power initiatives were urgently needed in places where hard power was not appropriate… and because the state department did not have the resources.

The PBS News Hour recently reported that the Trump administration is working on a budget that reduces state department funding by another 37% in order to help pay for dramatic increases in the defense budget. Can you imagine the devastating impact this will have on soft power public diplomacy communication?

No matter your politics, the need for significant increases in soft power initiatives to communicate the “idea of America” and enhance cross-cultural understanding has never been stronger. To ignore this urgent need is not only short-sighted, it is a major threat to our national security.

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Delegitimatizing is a new and questionable tactic in our 24/7 digital world. It is relentlessly attacking institutions or people by raising questions about their fundamental legitimacy.  And it sadly can cut through the clutter of information overload because the attacks are both outrageous and dramatic.

For example, Mr. Trump declared the news media to be the enemy. He claimed that mainstream media never report the truth. He declared what they do to be fake news. For example, he recently asserted that mainstream media never report terrorism. He followed by having his staff release a list of more than 70 instances. But every event on this list was covered, and many were covered exhaustively. But delegitimatizing does not require truth. It just must be outrageous and dramatic.

During the campaign Mr Trump attacked Mrs Clinton by declaring her a criminal, and then relentlessly reinforced his charge by leading the chant “lock her up.” What complicates matters is that all of us have vulnerabilities that can make us reluctant to defend ourselves. There may be a small grain of truth in the charge, or we may fear being drawn into a shouting contest that is just not our style. For example, in the case of terrorism news coverage the opposite criticism might have been more appropriate, i.e. covering terrorism gives terrorists the publicity they seek. Or a charge that entertainment values and industry competition are influencing too many news decisions might have had some legitimacy.

Nonetheless, relentless attacking to delegitimatize the opposition is joining mindless lying, vulgarity, and fake news as factors that are tearing our society apart. No matter our political preferences, more and more of us are awaking every morning with a nagging anxiety wondering what the hell will happen next. This is not about our political ideology. It is the consequence of a 24/7 out-of-control digital media produced fog.

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The new British Prime Minister, Theresa May, recently came to the US on a mission. Her first stop was the United Nations, and she came prepared. Her address was comprehensive, articulate, and carefully shaped to reveal the UK’s position on a wide range of international issues, from Russia to NATO to Syria. It was a major address, well crafted and effectively delivered. And it set her up for a visit the next day to the White House.

The purpose of her visit to the US was to lay the groundwork for a strong partnership with the new Trump administration. At home she will be managing the consequences of Britain pulling out of the EU, and she sees similarities with what happened in the American election. Both situations were driven by voters who felt left behind by globalization. Both voters saw their jobs being lost when companies moved operations abroad. And both voters were also fearing the impact of immigration and large numbers of refugees.

But can this Trump-May partnership work?  Can the earlier Thatcher-Reagan duo be their model?

From a communication perspective it was interesting to observe the difference in presence and body language between the two at the press conference following their White House meeting. She stood tall looking and sounding like a Prime Minister. She even demonstrated a little gamesmanship by noting that Trump offered his support for NATO in their private talks, thinking he would not mention it with reporters present. But what was most striking was that her remarks were about issues. And when Trump began to explain his position he suddenly seemed to be lost for words. Then he quickly uttered something like “it’s going to be really good,” and stopped talking.

What’s new in this fast-moving digital world is how a leader with real substance and solid experience on a wide range of issues may not win the day over one who simply conveys self-confidence and makes repeated bold assertions. May wants the US to be her partner. But at the end of the day who will be the lead partner… the one with substance or the one with endless daily tweets?

We could conclude that bold might win at first but substance will win the day. But the truth is we really don’t know. What we do know is that in the short run we will be living in a world where explaining well thought-out ideas and actions is on the decline, and creating confusing chaos with disruptive tweets is becoming the norm.

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Recently I attended national security programs in Washington at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the Atlantic Council. Together they provided helpful context for understanding the likely priorities of a Trump presidency and how to compensate for the uncertainties.

My take-a-way was that we can expect much less presidential interest in leading with traditional American values (i.e. human rights and participatory democracy), a significant and rapid military build up, and much more emphasis on individually negotiated bilateral trade agreements, including with China.

From my vantage point as a strategic and international communication professional, writer, and teacher, I concluded the following:

(1) If the Trump administration has little interest in championing human rights and democracy, advancing the American brand of “individual freedom and justice” will get little attention.

(2) Without American domestic and foreign policies based on fundamental human values there will be little hope for the U.S. retaining its leadership of the free world.

(3) Our allies in Europe, the Middle East and Asia will no longer have a way of anticipating our response to the inevitable crises that will be threatening them.

During years of international teaching and consulting I experienced just how much people around the world admire the basic “idea of America.” People everywhere wear American jeans and T-shirts until they wear out, listen endlessly to “American songbook” music and jazz, and watch every Hollywood movie that comes their way, all because they admire the human values and promise of freedom they symbolize.

One major speaker at the CSIS program summed it up this way. He pleaded for hundreds of NGO’s, associations, universities, institutions and individuals to plan major activities and events that will compensate for a predictable lack of focus on the most basic of American values in the Trump administration’s approach to governing. In other words, in this time of uncertainty we must all become citizen diplomats and demonstrate that the “idea of America” that the world admires is still very much alive!

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Now that the election is over pundits are pointing out that what was said during the campaign will fade away to the background. They explain that from the very beginning name calling was common and false accusations were always made. Campaigning was one thing. Governing was something else.

In today’s digital world, however, language powerfully defines one’s character. And strong images of questionable character linger for long periods of time. Now that the president-elect is taking his reality show campaign act out on a victory tour, that same gross and crude character will be recalled and indelibly stamped into too many heads… much the same as compelling song lyrics linger there for years.

What’s more, how does someone like this with an unbridled, irreverent, and mean-spirited bent  function as a legitimate and effective leader of the free world?  How does such a person pull allies together and inspire them to do wonderful and bold things just because they are noble and right? Truly, how in the world can ethical republicans rally around such a nightly “tweeter” of untrustworthy rhetoric?

The basic founders’ idea of a free, democratic, and equally just America constitutes a brand identity that is admired around the world. It is all about trust, reliability, and authenticity. And the bearer of that message must be just as authentic. What he says will either reinforce this promise, or it will cancel it out.

Political parties in the future must require a much higher level of decorum and rhetoric from any candidate they endorse. We simply must protect the integrity of the American brand, and continue our hard-earned right to lead the free world. Yes, Mr. Trump your words really do matter.

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