Putin Calls For ‘Soft- Power’ Diplomacy
Published: July 11, 2012 (Issue # 1717)
MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin has called on diplomats to use more soft-power tactics to improve Russia’s “distorted” image abroad.
Speaking to the Foreign Ministry’s annual assembly of ambassadors on Monday, Putin said that envoys should add new technologies, “so-called ‘soft powers’” to their traditional work methods.
He argued that the country’s image was lopsided — not because of the government’s actions but because of its failure to communicate them correctly.
“So far, we must admit that Russia’s image abroad is by and large not being formed by us. For that reason, it is distorted and does not reflect the real situation in the country and its contribution to global civilization, science and culture,” he said, according to a transcript on the Kremlin’s website.
In an apparent jab at Western policies toward Syria and Libya, Putin argued that Moscow was losing the public relations battle by advocating restraint.
“Those who constantly shoot and carry out missile attacks are the good guys, while those who call for dialogue are getting the blame,” he said.
Putin also knocked the U.S. Congress’ plans to enact sanctions against officials implicated in the death of Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky by saying that this was a reason to be worried.
He said that while Moscow won’t “dramatize” the debate of a bill in the middle of the U.S. presidential election campaign season, “to replace the anti-Soviet Jackson-Vanik amendment with an anti-Russian law … cannot leave us without alarm.”
Some U.S. lawmakers are calling for linking the annulment of the Cold-War-era Jackson-Vanik legislation to the passing of the Magnitsky bill.
Soft-power politics, originally coined by U.S. scholar Joseph Nye, means to project influence by means of cultural initiatives and humanitarian cooperation.
The concept has long been among Putin’s priorities. In 2005, he set up a new department in the presidential administration overseeing foreign cultural relations. The department’s mission was described at the time as increasing Moscow’s influence in the former Soviet Union.
The Kremlin has also founded state-sponsored think tanks in France and the U.S. and overseen a significant expansion of the state media’s foreign reach, including the foundation of RT, the English-language television news channel formerly known as Russia Today.
Analysts have said that Putin’s foreign policy concept, published in February, was weak on soft power, mentioning the concept only once, with regard to its use by foreign-funded NGOs.