Russian "propaganda" and the USG public diplomacy response

Many congratulations -- and gratitude -- to the Public Diplomacy Council (of which I am a faithful member) for organizing a luncheon discussion (best free sandwiches in Washington!) on Russia's current propaganda. Excellent reports (1) (2) have appeared on the presentations of the participants.

In the spirit of debate -- and isn't what PD is all about -- allow me to express some reservations about contentions by the distinguished members of the panel cited in the above Russian propaganda discussion:

• RFE/RL must "aggressively" (how about intelligently, I could not help but wonder) counteract Russian propaganda re Ukraine (RFE/RL interim Director);

• The USG must "repeat" its message over and over again (State Department functionary);

• The U.S. must have a "clear message" re the Ukrainian situation (the main "message," it seemed to me, of all three speakers).

To me, quite frankly, the above sounds like imitating Russian state propaganda at its worst: aggressive, repetitive, simplistically (and deceptively) "clear."