Why is There no Secretary of Information. Lessons from the US Information Agency

摘要

Information and the ability to wield it is a key aspect of national security. Two years after the United States Information Agency (USIA) was terminated and merged into the State Department, the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 reminded the nation of the importance of information and public perception. Since then, there have been repeated studies recommending the creation and resourcing of a national information capability. Some of these proposals refer to the USIA as an example of how the nation got information right during the Cold War. While the USIA accomplished much to be proud of, it failed as an enduring information capability because it never achieved a legislated role in policy formulation and because it was seen primarily as a weapon of the Cold War. Understanding the challenges, evolution, and ultimate demise of the USIA provides insight into the best way to design the nation's next strategic information organization. Proposals for a new information capability should look at the areas in which the USIA failed to better understand how to equip a new information organization with the tools necessary to secure the nation's interests. The author argues that recent congressional proposals for a new strategic communication organization will fail to create an enduring information capability if they do not elevate the new organization to the cabinet level, ensuring that it plays a formal role in foreign policy formulation, and if they tie the organization's origin and mission to a specific threat, such as that posed by radical Islamists. Amy Zegart proposed a model that ties the effectiveness of a national security agency to the conditions of its initial design and subsequent evolution. In this monograph, her model for national security agencies is applied to the USIA, providing insights into our nation's approach to national security and foreign policy with respect to information and the need to communicate foreign policy.