Matt Armstrong

Matt Armstrong is president of the MountainRunner Institute, a non-profit, non-partisan think tank dedicated to the issues surrounding public diplomacy and strategic communication. He blogs at Mountain Runner.

Articles written by Matt Armstrong

Reforming Smith-Mundt: Making American Public Diplomacy Safe for Americans

One rarely examined element of American public diplomacy is the impact of the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, which for all practical purposes labels U.S. public diplomacy and government broadcasting as propaganda. This shows a lack of confidence and understanding of U.S. public diplomacy and international broadcasting and ignores the ways in which information and people now move across porous, often non-existent borders. more

U.N. Peacekeeping as Public Diplomacy

By Matt Armstrong
, on , Feature

A subtle evolution of United Nations peacekeeping operations is underway. If the first of these missions kept an agreed-upon peace, and later missions sought to make peace, several countries now use these operations to advance their foreign and economic policy agendas, and raise their global profile. This shift may raise the standard of conduct in U.N. peacekeeping operations, but there are significant downsides to this approach.
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