How McCain and Obama Would Conduct Diplomacy

Another Huff Post article that On Day One readers might be interested in...

One of the site's "citizen journalists," a counter-terrorism blogger named Amy Zalman, cites the polling conducted by the Better World Campaign and UN Foundation to demonstrate how a preponderance of American voters (78%) are concerned about the United States' declining reputation in the world.  Both candidates have perceived this sentiment percolating upward and have vowed to improve our relationships with the rest of the world, but Zalman uncovers a key distinction between how Senators McCain and Obama would go about enhancing our image.

Yet a close look reveals a basic difference in how each candidate envisions communication. McCain advocates making sure the American message, and our "positive image" gets to foreign publics; Obama advocates forging a dialogue with foreign publics to create a joint narrative about a shared future. McCain believes the United States leads by moral fiat based on its intrinsic leadership role; Obama believes the United States should lead by the example of its own behavior. McCain has said that cross-cultural knowledge can be weaponized to undermine violent extremists; Obama has suggested by example that cross-cultural knowledge can be used to understand and address societies where extremism has taken hold. McCain is into telling; Obama thinks we should listen first.

There seems a broad swath of agreement here, even if a fissure of strategy finely separates the two approaches.  And it seems a tad unfair to characterize McCain as thinking the United States should lead solely "by moral fiat."  Both "telling" and "listen[ing]" will surely have to be part of the next president's diplomatic arsenal, for a conversation without one or the other is not much of a conversation at all.