We need to broadcast to the world, not whisper

As the Cold War was ending in the late 1980s and early '90s, Western nations, confident of a lasting peace, began to neglect the tools that had sustained them in the ideological war against communism. In the US, institutions of public diplomacy and strategic communications were disbanded, and foreign service hiring frozen, in what the US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, called a "gutting" of the US's ability to engage, assist and communicate with the world. Other countries blindly tagged along.

Read the full story here :
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/we-need-to-broadcast-to-the-world-not-whisper-20110301-1bd2z.html

(Link courtesy Naleen Kumar)