Effectiveness of us communication with others, other republics and other countries. We have with us today im speaker will be assistant secretary of state and senior artificial in a euro of Public Affairs, and were glad you could joinus today. We look forward to this event. She joins the state department in every third 2018. But in the year later she became, she was already assistant secretary but took on the responsibility of the undersecretary ofstate. For Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. Two of which were united under the nine, she has led one of the largest restructurings in 20 years so this is a very ambitious, interesting effort which is not created the bureau of Global Public affairs which she is the head. Welcome, she was Global CorporateCommunications SeniorVice President for the waiver set of new york and she has also previously in washington worked for Newt Gingrich and as a lead member of his medications team. And communications survey. She holds a masters degree in political management from George Washington university and ab in Political Science at ucla and one of the things that impressed me most on this was you was team captain from the usc la gymnastics team. Thank you so much for being here today on this rainy morning and over to you. Good morning, thank you very much for the introduction. All of us are excited to be here today. To have a conversation with you around the Public Diplomacy and all that were focused on at the state department in communicative American Values, committed americanforeignpolicy and engaging the public in advancing the interests of the United States all at all across the world. Theres never been a more important time for Public Diplomacy. And the Public Diplomacy today ismore important than ever. Engaging people, engaging the public , individuals and citizens in American Values, in American Foreign policy and the Critical Issues of our time is not only a nice to do a requirement for success and theres a number of factors contributing to thisthe world is increasingly interconnected, its increasingly transparent. Weve had a number of factors making Public Diplomacy core to how we succeed at Thestate Department. The first is technology and we know that there is a preliminary of channels, platforms to new ways that we are able to communicate with citizens from across the world so that were engaging and having our conversations and reaching new audiences to use these tools and channels. Represents an enormous amount of opportunity but then you also have Technology Driving new challenges andrisks. If you read the acp report on Public Diplomacy reporting 2017 on can Public Diplomacy survived the internet, take a look at the trends to almost now three years ago that theyre highlighting. Thats checkbox, artificial intelligence, computational propaganda. Theres the scale and the speed of technology and tools to pump information into the ecosystem where all living in after medically changed and again, presents a lot of risks that you can use thatas tools for truth , you can also use it as tools or fiction. And were seeing some old malign actors using these as a way to confuse and spew misinformation, disinformation into the world theres a lot of rest and Opportunities Technology is bringing to the way in which we put blood publicly view diplomacy and in parallel we see more people around the world having empowered voices through technology. Social media allowing people to pay attention, to speak up, to have their voice be heard so there pressuring institutions. Theyre effecting change because their voices now are more empowered through technology and using these platforms so youve got technology interestingly enough making people more important and the way in which we engage and communicate with people more important than ever to Public Diplomacy. Secondly, were in the new era of race power competition with china, with russia, with the islamic republic. And there is more demand and an importance to the way in which we can indicate American Values across the world. More so than in any other time in engaging people proactively and that message to those stories to help advance the values of the United States. And that really is hard Public Diplomacy. So we know that diplomacy isnt just government to government conversations anymore. We have to engage a public and people in what were doing. We celebrated the sum of the 230th anniversary of the state department and we know that our mission over the course of those 230 years is the same and that is to advance american interests in every corner of the world but how to do that requires new thinking and new approaches and Public Diplomacy is at the forefront and how we do that, engaging people in society and citizens in making sure were effectively advancing american diplomacy. So quick overview of how were doing that at the state department, my colleagues will give you a deeper dive into their areas of expertise but we got thousands of Public Diplomacy officers through the globe engaging the public in citizens in American Values and communicative American Foreignpolicy. We got Regional Media hubs in brussels, london, miami, dubai, johannesburg and every major media market where were engaging with the media and foreign audiences so we know theres still a lot of constituencies in areas of the world where digital hasnt penetrated as much as it has in the United States before engaging with traditional media in many forms in order to reach those audiences and tell our story. Digitally we are engaging with millions of fans and followers and subscribers across social channels, Digital Channels of the state department. Havingrealtime conversations, using those as important listening tools to understand whats important to the audiences were trying to communicate with. Were using technology and not will talk about tech camps, bringing together technologists like Digital Experts together with Civil Society leaders to help them use digital to encourage an advanced civic engagement, transparency, government participation, empowering more voices. Were engaging through the gec, countering misinformation and disinformation and propaganda from state actors and nonstate actors and through eca as well amid all this digital and Technology Change not forgetting that human relationships and people to people ties andinteractions are still at the core of how we do our job. Those human relationships amid all this Digital Change are more important than ever to match will talk about that and i think one of the ways as was mentioned earlier that were trying to modernize how we do Public Diplomacy for 2019 and beyond is this merger we did to create a new Global Public affairs bureau. It was the largest restructuring in 20 years since the merger of usia with state and the whole purpose and Mission Behind that was to elevate and enhance and accelerate how we are communicating with audiences around the world in real time to advance policy and our values. I was very pleased to lead this alongside nicole kulik who is the head of the National InformationProgram Bureau and we worked together to create Global Public affairs but putting an emphasis ondata and analytics. We increase in multiple ways our investment in resources and data and analytics to measure and improve how we are to mitigating in audiences and with audiences across the world. A lot of emphasis on content and different types of ways and creative ways that we can communicate with audiences across multiple platforms whether it betraditional , digital or emerging platforms and laced that future focus on platforms that will be emerging whether its augmented reality, virtual reality, ai, how are we thinking about you getting in those types of platforms to make sure were advancing american diplomacy as technology continues to drive change so seeing a lot of ways through the merger in Global Public affairs how were deepening and accelerating and enhancing our ability to communicate across the world one of our greatest advantages and ill close with this is the United States amid all this changing Technology AmidGreat Power Competition as the best story to tell. That is our competitive advantage. It is the values and founding values that make our country the most successful and prosperous country in the history of the world and American Foreignpolicy today , our story is grounded in our founding principles and our fundamental values. Due to the leadership of President Trump and secretary pompeo. We know our first duty is to the American People, to preserve their rights, advance their interests and protect theirsecurity and to defend our values. And in that pursuit and the focus of the state department is to seek and find in and create partnerships and friendships and cooperation and all alliances with countries and strong sovereign independent nations who share our values, who choose independence and cooperation over global governance. Respect the rights of their neighbors and promote security, peace, dignity and prosperity for their citizens and those across the world. So as the president said at the Un General Assembly in 2016 and as he echoed again this year , were calling for a great reawakening of nations. Their people, their pride, their patriotism. So at the state department we are uniquely positioned because of our global footprint and the ways in which we can communicate and engage with people in countries across the world not just at home , have a great story to tell about the partnership, friendship and cooperation we help create with countries across the world that share our interest in order to achieve mutual gain. You can see this in the ministerial to advance religious freedom, first ever posted by the secretary last year. He did it again this year. Gathering, more than 100 countries anticipated to help advance religious freedom, think about how we and religious persecution. In the Global Coalition to defeat isis, many of the United States as well as 80 countries coming together to cooperate, think through how we stop the threat of lysis everywhere across the world. You see it in the new trade deal with the president just signed. You see it in the us and ca. The work on ministerial we participated in in february, we have countries been together to think about middle east peace and security. We have several working groups, the United States will host one, so will south korea, bahrain and romania and poland to talk about in partnerships and multiple countries how were going to help advance peace and security in the United States and all across the world. And sorry, the middle east. In venezuela you have the United States and 50 nations coming together to recognize and support 11. 0 as a legitimate interim president and a national democratically elected assembly and when and where we participate in International Agreements and institutions, it is in order to advance american interests and american ideals and the secretary has made this clear. We will cooperate with and partner with and form friendships with countries who share our values so we benefit together. So this is american stories, this is our Public Diplomacy mission. Where bringing the tools to bear to engage the public in the Critical Issues of our time to communicate our interests to advance and protect them. Day in and day out, so we are serving the interests of the United States and those of our fellow citizens so with that ill turn it over to my colleagues here. Ill introduce first nicole kulik who is the Principal Deputy assistant for our bureau of Public Affairs. The goal is Foreign Service officer and spent much of her career in south asia for helping me to spearhead the realignment of gpa. Ill then turn it over to matt who is Principal Deputy assistant secretary for the bureau of education and Cultural Affairs and also a senior Foreign Service officer reserved in the middle east and has most recently served as Deputy Mission and knowledge in morocco and finally we will hear from chris, the leader for the global encountering influence operations from our global adversaries and with that ill turn it over to nicole. Thank you michelle. As michelle mentioned there has never been a more exciting or more important time to be engaged in Public Diplomacy and communication. In shaping how the United States communicates policy and values overseas and domestically. We know the Communications Landscape is accelerating and we need to communicate effectively in that type of environment. The new bureau of Global Public affairs was created to strengthen communication at the department of state. Were now four months old. Let me tell you a little bit about its creation. The goal of the merger of the two bureaus, the bureau of interNational Information programs and bureau of Public Affairs was to effectively Shape Communications for the United States around the world. Our focus is to bring together the best of both worlds of those two bureaus, focus on Strategic Communications. The merger is not a new idea. In fact this has been talked about since the integration of the usinformation agency into the state department. Anniversary, that 20 Year Anniversary is tomorrow so this merger of ip and va is long overdue and something that had been talked about for years. The difference in this effort and i believe the reason it is successful is that the mission or the focus of the new bureau was tightly on Strategic Communications. So Public Affairs would with traditionally be focused on communicating foreignpolicy to domestic and foreign audiences whereas ip focus on contextualizing American Foreign policy goals and American Values for international audiences. When michelle and i first looked at this merger over a year ago, we thought about the capabilities that would be needed to form a really Effective Communications operation. We had a tremendous amount of support and leadership from secretary pompeo on the merger and ultimate goal of strengthening indications. Though michelle and i provided guidance to a task force and make that guidance and ran with it, created the structure and the framework for the new bureau and then flesh out the details. It worked with hr folks, lawyers to make sure we were doing all right, that we were getting the Human Resources right and the money piece right and they developed this section. The merger was neutral and by that i mean there was no increase in budget, no increase or decrease in personnel and no loss of programs. My colleague matt losing half will talk a little bit about some of the programs that we realigned because while focusing the bureau tightly on Strategic Communications we realize theres some places or programs that would be better hows in other parts of the publicdiplomacy family. I like to use, we like to use three keywords to help explain the rationale behind the merger. Integrated, agile and future proof. Integrated. So we integrated the two bureaus taking the best of both worlds. Thestorytelling and medication , their ability to understand foreign audiences and working with post to get inside on the ground and combine that with Public Affairs strategicapproach. But with Public Affairs connections, direct connection to foreignpolicy though we brought the best of both worlds together. Let me give you an example. In mid july as michelle had mentioned secretary pompeo hosted the second ministerial to advance religious freedom inwashington. The 2019 ministerial was the largest religious freedom event ofits kind in the world. There were more than 1000 useful society actors, religious leaders and 100 foreign delegations were part of the ministerial. Gpa, the bureau of Global Public affairs was criticalin shaping the narrative around these events. We set the narrative leveraging the secretarys keynote address at christians united for israel to frame the apartments religious freedom narrative and lead up to the ministerial so we did workahead of time for the ministerial. We also amplified the players like ambassador brownback and other Key Department officials in the lead up. We use more traditional tools as well as digital tools. We used interviews with the press as well as our slight ship social media platforms. During the ministerial we maintain this narrative, coordinated oneonone interviews with secretary and department officials, use their homes that michelle referenced that we could get the messages out in Foreign Languages to key audiences and we captured key moments from the ministerial digitally so that we can push Creative Content out through our flat flagshipsocial media platforms. Let me go back to the idea of integration. One of the things michelle mentioned is the use of data and analytics to shape our message. To be able to do that on the front end to make sure we reaching the audience we need to with the most effective message. But also to be able to do that on the backend. So looking at what we did for the ministerial, evaluating what was effective and what wasnt. And then correcting and retooling our approach if there were better ways if we were not as successful as we thought we had been. Thats all. You shall talked about the fact that the news cycle is moving instantaneously. So how are we going to Work Together quickly to be able to key messages to key audiences . How are we going to be able to get our message out to make sure that the truth is out there before but misinformation and disinformation. We are focused on fast and Effective Communication in addition to the longerterm communication of American Values. Heres another example. Last week we were consumed with the Un General Assembly and our participation there both the president and secretary. And it was an excellent opportunity to highlight American Values as well as our engagement on the bilateral front. Strategic indications campaign produced a 40 percent increase in public interaction with content on our flagship digital property when compared to our 2018 messaging around the Un General Assembly. Were pretty proud of that. How do we do this mark previous efforts have been a bit isolated and were focused on key events and key speeches rather than the narrative round the Un General Assembly so the difference in this is we looked at the scene that we wanted push, the narratives we wanted to be presenting through our interviews and through our social media platforms. And we tightlyorganized around that. And it worked. Future proof. We didnt want to design a bureau just for 2019. This isnt about moving boxes around on anorganizational chart. Or adding capacity that would only work in the short term. We were looking for a structure that would make sense five years, 10 years down the line into the future and that means having written into our structure and the way we work a focus on exploring new platforms, new technologies. Best practices not only for the technology but also the in person connections. And relationship building. We tried to create a bureau would attract Diverse Talent and ensure that we are relevant in the years to come area with these three goals in mind, integrated , agile, future proof and a focus on encouraging a culture of learning and development in the new bureau. We believe we will deliver on those effective indication tools that we will effectively communicate policy and American Values for many secretaries of state. Thank you. [applause] hi. My name is matt losing hotline the Principal Deputy assistant secretary of the bureau of educational and Cultural Affairs at the state department, eca. Eca our focus is on that critical elements of Public Diplomacy, people to people exchanges asked the assistant secretary was saying, and increasingly digital world, meaningful realworld interaction. People are more important than ever so when malicious actors like china or russia tried to split people apart through disinformation , our counter is to bring people back together, to establish relationships at bridge divides and build Human Networks of people in the United States and overseas, where united in both acts. President Trumps NationalSecurity Strategy is clear read people to people exchanges create the networks of future and current political Civil Society and educational leaders who will extend the free and prosperous world. I like to highlight three elements of how eca approaches its work in this field. First, our programs are effective because we create networks of likeminded alumni around the world. In fact our assistant secretary marie royce is in thailand today for a meeting of the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative program bringing 150 Young Leaders from all over Southeast Asia to Work Together and to talk about the future. She is there with them today. A lot of our programs are evergreen. They go back page, some of them but theyre flexible and constantly adaptable to address new threats, new priorities and finally the third, we are constantly optimizing our resources. We are looking at constitution of virtual exchanges and how that Virtual Technology can leverage or assist in an exchange. Were streamlining operations with the merger and improving our programs through robust monitoring and evaluation so first to talk a bit about alumni and networks. One of the things we have in eca as we move people, move ideas and movepolicies. Our programs are best thought of as an investment. There an investment in people. People around the world who become the allies of the United States and american citizens who through our programs gain valuable experience and skills that help them become more successful. I like to talk about the all nine of our programs and some of their stories. One of our key Exchange Programs is called flex for future Leaders Exchange and it was established in the 1990s, right now about 27,000 alumni of that program, high school students, high School Aged Students from 21 countries of europe, eurasia and central asia have participated in this program. One of them is a fellow, he is from the country of georgia and was a flex student in texas in 2014. As a student in texas he got straight as. It was in the jazz band. It was homecoming prints. He went back to georgia and applied to the Us Naval Academy and was accepted so youll go back to georgia with an indepth understanding of the United States and American Culture and values and he will be as my Military College say force multiplier for us georgia relations. So thats the power of alumni and the second is the evergreen nature of some of our programs and many of our eca programs back decades. The International VisitorLeadership Program was established years ago next year. And its one of the most prestigious and valued change programs we have. Many participants and this has gone on with Business Leaders and so forth, the Program Remains the same as it was 80 years ago. We bring groups of people to the United States and let them feed the United States, meet americans, meet our institutions and experience life in the United States but they also are able to adjust the themes of the programs to address current priorities like religious freedom, countering disinformation and radicalization, and advancing womens participation in society. In support of the white house , Womens Global Development prosperity initiative, we hosted 18 Women Leaders from around the world who are here in the United States meeting us companies, business incubators, financial institutions, looking at ways to produce legal regulatory and cultural barriers for womens full participation in the economy. The Fulbright Program as well of course is the wellknown Academic Exchange program which sends thousands of students, scholars, professionals from the unitedstates overseas and from overseas to the United States. The program thats well over 70 years of old now. But that program to is able to focus on specific regional and functional priorities of the government, for example to highlight another fulbright alumnus, a fellow named songs you, he is part of the Fulbright Initiative that we have that supports the north Korean Defector community and helps them attenduniversity in the United States. Some do is a special case, he was homeless in north korea, spent four years on the streets. When he wasabandoned by his parents. He faced starvation and terrible brutality. He escaped to china and eventually made his way to south korea and got an education. Now hes currently a full brighter at the university here in the district area. Hes getting his phd in conflict analysis and resolution so fulbright is building his capacity. At one of the administrations Top Priorities which is conflict in the Korean Peninsula and thats just one story out of hundreds of thousands of stories of how the Exchange Program makes a difference in a persons life and can impact our ability to give our Foreign Policy objectives and where adapting our toolkit to optimize our resources. This year weve lost a new academy called the academy for women entrepreneurs, again to support the white house Global Development on prosperity initiatives and this is one of the new kinds of programs that incorporates a virtual element. It combines an innovative platform of online tools and also in person interactions so the goal of the program is to provide women with knowledge, tools and networks they need to turn their ideas into successful businesses. Advisor to the president ivanka trump launched the program this summer and we launched at the women in the economy forum. As assistant secretary giuda and nicole mentioned some programs have been folded into the eca bureau. A lot of thought went into that. And the goal of molding those programs into eca is to bring programs closer together that are like one another in bowls so for example we incorporated the office of American Space which supports our American Spaces around the world, american corners, american cultural centers. That office now is much closely linked with offices like albright, english language programs or Global Education programs and i think we see greater efficiency in that merger. Id also like to mention our evaluation and monitoring. We have our own Evaluation Division within eca. And that, the goal of that is to capture the longterm impact of eca programs as well as do rapid assessments on the effectiveness of the programs using these tools, are constantly refining and improving our programs and you can find the completed evaluations on the state department eca website. For an indepth look at how these exchanges impact the lives of the people who are purchased in. So those three elements, alumni networks, evergreen and flexible programs and efficient evaluations are three of the key factors of eca as we approach doing Public Diplomacy in the 21st century and with that ill turn it over to my colleagues chris thanks matt. The Global Engagement center is focused on one of the key challenges of our time and thats to expose and counter foreign state and nonstate sponsors this information and propaganda and specifically at disinformation and propaganda targeted at undermining us policy ability and our interests around the world and not only those of the United States but also our allies and partners. I would say that tecs activities and its mission are closely linked to Public Diplomacy. We Work Together all the time goingbeyond that , we incorporate also elements of jazz intelligence and some operational aspects as well. Its really under this Current Administration the gc involved its role from a mission was exclusively focused on really countering extremist dialogue online and trying to work recruitment and misuse of the Information Space to inspire people to violent extremism and we got added the tremendously large Additional Mission of countering statesponsored propaganda and disinformation and kind of generally malign manipulation of the information environment by our nation state competitors. The primary state actors we are focused on will be no surprise, the secretary talk about Great Power Competition so were focused on iran, russia, north korea and china as primary state actors. But the gec is doing is positioning itself as the Mission Center in an expanding network of partners that are all working together to counter this foreign propaganda and disinformation and as we use the tools as not talk about telling those networks over time of alumni and through our Public Diplomacy programs we also look at how can we plug into those networks as we help and partner with people around the world who are also interested in exposing and countering this kind of adversarial this information. And inherent part of our approach and our mission is a partnership with other countries that assistant secretary giuda spoke about. We like to say the fundamental advantage we have over adversaries misuse the Information Space is that we have partners and they dont. Generally. So the gec in many parts of the Us Government interagency work constantly with partner governments, really worldwide through a variety of formal and Informal Partnership arrangements. Gec is engaged in a wide range of efforts to build societal resilience to reduce vulnerabilities, to expose pernicious disinformation and ultimately to deter our adversaries from trying to attack us with these means. I like to liken the purveyors of adversarial disinformation to internet scammers. Ultimately, what theyre doing isthrowing a bunch of stuff at us trying to manipulate us doing something thats not in our interest. And as with email, spam and Cyber Attacks we cant stop our adversaries and doing what theyre doing, from growing stuff at us. Instead we have to focus on shaping the environment in a way such as regardless of what the adversaries do, less likely be successful. If you think about it, this calls for a focus on building awareness and defenses. Just think back, people today are much less likely than before you click on or believe the content of some to email you get in your inbox. And people also have antivirus and antimalware tools that are installed. That may increase awareness and increase mistakes and thats what were looking at. Some of the ways the gec is delivering on this mission, we continue to execute on the gecs original Counterterrorism Mission including coordinating efforts to counter propaganda from isis and its affiliates, al qaeda and other terrorist organizations. One example of how were involved in this in the partnership that was spoken about his gec help to support the global counter Isis Coalition medications working group and its londonbased medications cell and we have a staff member that is part of that. The gec supporting partners to increase detection and exposure of adversarial disInformation Operations, much of this is through really intense and outreach to the tech sector. The gec convenes as one part of this what we call tech demos where a Company National labs, groups from university and other players present their technologies through a panel of experts to assess how they might be applied on this challenge of adversarial disinformation. Through this gec has identified several technologies that were originally developed for other purposes, commercial things from the Insurance Industry to marketing and advertising that have great promise for helping us to detect and defend against this kind of Digital Information and manipulation. And then the gec goes the next step and worked with private sector to adopt and test these technologies against realworld disinformation challenges out in the field and we have nothing thats online, you can find it called that this info cloud where theres kind of information about some of these technologies , not all the information is there for obvious reasons but were trying to share this across the interagency and with our partners as a way to help us more quickly address these challenges. Gec itself also has analytics and Research Teams that using the most sophisticated data science and digital analytics along with other tools to help our government and our partners better understand, predict and preempt foreign disinformation. We are developing partnerships with key local total Media Influencers to build resistance to disinformation by getting contacts out there that can both compete in the Information Space and inoculate vulnerable audiences against disinformation while Academic Research points that we use the counter once this information is out there in the wild as we say, its very difficult. The human brain has a hard time overcoming that. Many of us have a mother who sends stuff on social media and knowswhat that challenge is. So inoculation is important. The gec is funding numerous projects that are building the technical skills, Civil Society organizations, ngos and importantly local independent media to shed light on the spread of disinformation because its really these local credible voices that are the most effective in our own community. And finally id wrap up by saying propaganda and disinformation, these are challenges as old as human society. This is a social cultural problem that accelerated and intensified and made more dangerous by medications technology and thats what the gec is getting after the problem from both a technological and societal approaches and so ill be happy to takeany of your questions. We have 15 minutes here for you and a. We will have a roving microphone so please identify yourself by name and affiliation. Lets start here in the front. Jim hansen with Security Studies through. We focus on Information Operations and Information Warfare and its heartening to see anytime the government organizes in a way to have a more coherent response while putting up a message and fighting against disinformation and propaganda. My question would be right now, there is a very powerful , almost a stranglehold on our Information Space by a very small number of people. Google, youtube, facebook and twitter. Asidefrom the legacy media , they control in a very large way what people find to go online to find out about anything. I think its been fairly well documented base on others, theyre not particularly amenable to the policies of the trump administration. Consequently when people go to find out what the state department is doing, what secretary pompeo has said and other things, the space is not level. The Playing Field isnot level. Do you guys see a way to push for more transparency in the way people build their algorithms, in the way they rate Information Sources as to whats credible and whats not to ensure that there is a marketplace of ideas where the best ideas win and not one that in many ways is dominated by the views of the leadership of those three Major Technology companies . I can start by saying we partner very closely and as chris mentioned through the gec but across diplomacy we partner closely with social media companies, have those relationships to make sure that were doing things as effectively as possible and medicating with audiences around the world. You saw in President Trumps address at the Un General Assembly he called out this challenge about Tech Companies more broadly having a large amount of influence in the type of information that gets seen so id sayits an ongoing conversation. You certainly bring up a challenge for us to consider but we work very closely and having that conversation with them. Right here. My name is angel with phoenix tv from hong kong and my question is today the way you hear a lot people highlight that word into americas Public Diplomacy and how would you guys do it and could you please just comment more on the strategy towards the asianpacific countries . Thank you so much. Ill start off and with regard to uncertainty, the president and clear, the secretaries been clear from day one about the values we hold, our mission set in achieving american diplomacy across the world as i mentioned earlier. Its focusing on american heredity, on partnering with strong sovereign and independent nations who share our values. Those values have always included rule of law, human dignity, religious freedom so those have been consistent only within this administration but through the course of American History so with regard to uncertainty in Public Diplomacy and the values were advancing, those runningquite unchanged. Any comments . From the Global Engagement center where working intensively in the asianpacific, not just with respect to china but we sort of look at what all of the threat actors are doing worldwide and id say some of the things that our priorities is helping society there to maintain open access to credible information. Looking at issues for helping society look at issues that might compromise that such as concentration of media ownership and manipulation of access to the internet, things like that so we see this access to information as an important part of peoples rights. Were helping society stare that we partnered with for many years to look at this new area and help them to understand whats going on in their Information Space and to, how they might make sure their monitoring that. Let me just add that exchange is a critical part of our engagement in the indo pacific. I mentioned the young Southeast Asia leaders initiative, we also do quite a lot of work to encourage students to come and study in the United States from china which is the largest sender of students in the United States studying internationally theres the people to people element is critically important. Are folks in Mission China foreign country connecticut all the time on as many channels as they can about american policy, American Values with a chinese audience and with other audiences across asia where we have missions and so that type of conversation goes on every day for the media. Without a Regional Media hub in manila to connecticut regionally with foreign audiences in a language so that happens atthe hub, that happens through social media, through traditional media and through in person communications as well. You have a question. Gave fitzgerald, retired Foreign Service. I have a question going along the last question, its a matter not about American Valuesamerican policy. The uncertainty of the policy that seems to be at the heart of a lot of confusion from many countries including allies as well as enemies. Theres a, seems to me a breakdown between the white house is saying and what the state department may be saying, i kind of dysfunction going on in the white House Communication Office in terms of articulating policies every day, having people appointed within the state departments to talk about these policies at a very high level with a great deal of credibility. That seems to be the problem of the uncertainty, this streamlining thats going on is all well and good but if youre not focused on dealing with the uncertaintyof policy , then how can you ever be really that effective mark. I would add what uncertainty are you talking about . Are there specific examples . Ill say the white house and state department ill give you an example. Theres been a lot of talk for the last several years on policy community amount how to deal with north korea, how to get Movement Towards denuclearization and the idea was there should be no efforts that would encourage north korea to think that they can keep their nuclear facility, keep their missile capability. North korea has gone on with a series of short range nucleartests the last four months or so , lisa may i believe was the first one and the president has talked about well, this is something that everybody should do. Every nation should have short range tests, dont worry about it. Most of the other people outside the government dont believe that really in the longterm interest of the United States and its principal allies and south korea to allow that kind of testing to go on without commentingabout the unacceptable miss of that. Thats one example of the uncertainty. You might see more in other areasof the world but thats one area i follow. The full thing with trade with china and whether or not tariffs are hurting or helping the process. The process is not being explained well enough to determine whether or not this is hopeful or hurtful to the American People or to the chinese or even advancing the negotiation in any way. I would say with your example about north korea youre citing differences in what the administration is saying and focus outside of government so not necessarily about our unity and white house and the state department has been unified in our message and comes to china and trade, the president has been very clear broadly about trade and the values of fairness and reciprocity and thats what were charged with communicating and making sure this and reciprocity is part of the conversation and the values were talking about. Down to the frontier. Reporter from voice of america, government broadcast its radio free asia aims to target outside information to countries like north korea where information is to be prohibited so how effective you think that information to north korea will be effective in getting American Values across western mark. Im sorry, can you rephrasethat . How effective do you believe pumping outside information into north korea will be effective in promoting American Values . We see a lot of value in sharing information with any Close Community or society. As you mentioned the properties more broadly,their separate from the state department but we sit on the board. We certainly have a valuable way in making sure were trying to reach close communities in other ways. It remains a challenge. North korea is an example, id say some other countries, gcp tackles this challenge as well but you have to be created and thinking about not only Media Channels but influencers, communities, the networks grading for our people to people ties. And ill take a question from the back. Thank you for being here, im a graduate student at Georgetown School and i would like to ask about how does gpa and the state department in general advocate for Public Diplomacy at home. Weve seen our eyes as recently as sentiment so how can you convince the public at home that Public Diplomacy is a good investment . Thats a good question. Part of legacy Public Affairs activities was committed getting to the American People and talking about the value of what we do overseas and why we do it. So the reasoning and rationale behind foreign policies and how we can indicate those overseas. That is part of the new bureau of Public Affairs outreach to the American People. Talking about Foreign Policy and more broadly talking about what the state department does. Theres a bit of a recruiting piece there too. We partner with our Human Resources colleagues so we can get out more broadly and spread the message about the state department and what we do. Youll see the secretary has been very vocal and has taken a number of domestic tricks and has been a champion talking about Thestate Department and about Foreign Policy. Id add that one important mandate for the bureau of education and Cultural Affairs is to encourage americans to go overseas, study languages and to experience foreign cultures and foreign places so thats a key element of what we do as a bureau and i think when we do that build up understanding and support of the importance of foreign relations. You had a question. I want to thank you very much for being here today and making this overall presentation about the strategic direction. I think its great we have everyone together doing so. And we have some great representation so thank you for that. Im wondering if theres a followup in terms of some of the things you did highlight andidentify in terms of increasing awareness and access to participation in many of these programs. Are there events will perhaps back at your department that we should become aware of or begin to follow to be able to identify some of the talents that we do have here to participate in many of these initiatives western mark. I would mention a key element of a lot of our programs is to get American Communities and americans involved through our International VisitorLeadership Program not work without american volunteers are willing to provide more hospitality, share their time, to spend time with our participants the same with a lot of our youth exchanges. We could not do them if we didnt have those familieswho were willing to step up and host. I think we have a pretty robust presence on the internet, on the website and lots of information on how americans can get involved in International Exchange i would encourage you to take a look at that. We also have the us diplomacy center, they host a lot of good programming for about Public Diplomacy and Foreign Policy more broadly the state department so we encourage the public to come see a lot of great bands on currentconversations happening as well. Maybe we will follow up more specifically on some of these activities and initiatives. And from the gec i mentioned the demos. We hold those about every other week. We work location near the white house so that their more easily accessible to our outside partners and so if people have an interest in those area. Do you have a question . My name is david jackson. Im a former director of force america but i had the opportunity to work withstate department. One of the things i remember is i was impressed by the Public Diplomacy evil at state at that time but i also got the impression that he was a secondclass citizen in those days and i was, my question is this recent consolidation managed to get the attention and the focus on pd that was lacking in the past mark. Start and ill turn it over to my staff, for inservice colleagues. In my year and a half at the state department i have not witnessed that secondclass citizen portrayal of Public Diplomacy and to my point earlier i think thats because publicdiplomacy is more important than ever. Anything, any action policy wise that we are taking committed something. You have Public Diplomacy at the center. Ive seen it rise in importance if anything. I would agree. When we talk about the beer of Public Affairs the integration of the strengths have elevated that functionality and that function. Thats one of the things that excites me about the new bureau is we do have a seat at the table and are part of this conversation. If you just look at how people reflect the policy, where Public Diplomacy officers who were in leadership positions around the department, a lot of offices are ambassadors now. My counterparts in the bureau of European Affairs one of the biggest in the departments also officer and former ambassador. It there was, it will take a while to get the fit right but i think at this point its working very, very smoothly. As a key the office of myself i dont feel like a secondclass citizen. Pd officer. I would point to the National Security council has inaugurated a Strategic Communication sort of policy Coordination Committee which is the ultimate blessing that you either important or problematic but it will take an appointment at solving problems in this case and so i think there is increasing certainly from the beginning of my career, increasing recognition Public Diplomacy isnt something separate but it is just part of the toolkit to advancing whatever policy interests we are working on. Okay. I know that our panelists have to rush back and take care of important business, so think we will wrap up at this point. I want to thank you also very much for coming. This is been absolutely fabulous, and hope we can continue the dialogue. Thank you very much. Thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] tonight on the communicators tennessee senator marsha blackburn, chair of the judiciary committees Technology Task force on Chinas Huawei company in the u. S. , antitrust issues, and regulating big check. Some of the social media platforms that are beginning to distribute news and have a newsfeed, individuals want to see them actually have a news director. Tonight at eight eastern on cspan2. Weeknights were featuring booktv programs and tonight we will look at the Opioid Crisis and start with the book fentanyl inc. Earlier today President Trumps from a National Security adviser john bolton spoke about u. S. North korea relations and the u. S. Role in the asiapacific region. You can watch this event starting tonight at eight eastern on cspan and you can follow all of our programs online that cspan. Org and listen with the free cspan radio app. Next, Election Security officials testify but efforts to protect the 2020th election from foreign interference or meddling. We will hear about some of the vulnerabilities u. S. Voting systems at this House Judiciary Committee hearing chaired by congressman jerry nadler of new york. The House Committee on the judiciary will come to order. Without objection which is authorized to declare recesses of the committee at any time