In today’s volatile geopolitical landscape—dominated by multipolar competition, cyber warfare, and AI-driven influence operations—the line between conventional security and cognitive defense has blurred. While military and economic leverage take center stage, the invisible infrastructure of international relations often proves to be a nation’s most resilient asset.
In this interview with World Geostrategic Insights, Rick Ruth, one of the most respected figures in modern American public diplomacy shares his perspective on on the evolution of soft power, the strategic response to the 9/11 crisis, and how human authenticity and international exchange networks operate as an active frontline defense against foreign informational subversion.
Rick Ruth is a diplomat, international exchange specialist, and a core architect of modern American public diplomacy. Over a career spanning more than four decades, he has repeatedly shaped the intersection of cultural exchange and U.S. national security strategy.
He served as Deputy Chief of Staff at the USIA, played a pivotal role in the State Department’s immediate response committee after the 9/11 attacks, and pioneered the creation of the global exchange alumni network, which today connects over one million leaders worldwide. Within the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA), he served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary and Senior Advisor. As Director of the Office of Policy and Evaluation, he envisioned and created the State Department’s first-ever global network of exchange alumni, which today connects over 1 million leaders, including approximately 600 current and former heads of state and Nobel laureates.
Throughout his career, he has received some of the highest commendations in the field of foreign affairs, including the prestigious Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Public Diplomacy, the Presidential Rank Award for Meritorious Service, and the Lois Roth Foundation’s Ilchman-Richardson Award. Furthermore, the Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE) officially established The Rick A. Ruth BridgeUSA Scholarship, a program dedicated to funding international exchange opportunities for students from Muslim-majority nations.
Following his retirement from public service, he continues to advance the sector as a founding board member of the Coalition for American Public Diplomacy and Leadership (CAPDL) while regularly consulting and lecturing for leading international education and professional exchange organizations.
Q1 – Throughout your distinguished career, you witnessed the integration of the USIA (United States Information Agency) into the State Department. In today’s geopolitical landscape—dominated by cyber warfare, AI, and multipolar competition—do you believe Joseph Nye’s traditional framework of “soft power” is still sufficient, or does public diplomacy need to be fundamentally redefined?
A1 – I believe that Joseph Nye’s insights on the nature and value of soft power remain valid and that soft power is almost universally applicable. I further believe that soft power is almost universally applicable and that there are strong parallels in strategic planning for both hard and soft power. To be brief, I see it as axiomatic that any military leader, from Hannibal to Eisenhower, considering a contest of arms, will survey the terrain on which the clash will take place, seeking out the natural advantages and identifying the obstacles. Romans were stunned when Hannibal led his army across the seemingly impassable Alps. During the American Civil War, both armies at Gettysburg understood the importance of the high ground on Cemetery Ridge. On D-Day, Allied and Axis armies alike focused on the forbidding heights of Point du Hoc and the possibly treacherous tides on the Normandy beaches. So critical, in fact, is the role of the landscape, that it has been said by military strategists that in some engagements topography was fate.
The same is true of soft power. There are natural advantages and disadvantages in the soft power landscape just as in a physical landscape, although we may not be accustomed to thinking of them in this way. Learning to look at soft power this way, leveraging assets–seizing the “high ground”–if you will–is as crucial to success in public diplomacy as it is in armed combat.
Q2 – Geopolitical analysts often treat cultural diplomacy as a secondary supplement to hard military and economic power. In your experience, how do international exchanges and alumni networks operate as tangible, long-term national security assets rather than just goodwill initiatives?
A2 – Perhaps the clearest and quickest way to illustrate this is to look at the soft power assets in the American arsenal. The good news for the United States is that it is well-equipped in this regard. Even a cursory look reveals that the US already occupies much of the high ground in any contest of values.
American assets include:
– The world’s highest quality, most open, and most diverse system of higher education;
– The world’s most widespread and influential popular culture;
– A robust entrepreneurial culture with leadership in technology, research, and science;
– A vibrant multicultural population;
– Democratic values that stress personal freedom, liberty of conscience, and the worth of the individual;
– And last, but far from least, the English language–the lingua franca of today’s world.
It is useful in this regard to note that these assets can be unique to the United States. There is no line of international students at the gates of North Korean universities; there is no Russian Beyonce or Taylor Swift. There is a very good reason why Elon Musk emigrated to the United States.
It is equally important to note that “soft power” funding, relative to other aspects of national security, is a bargain. It is the most cost effective aspect of American national security strategy over time because nothing needs to be built from scratch–the investment in all of these sectors, from pop music to space exploration–already exists and their “American” reputation precedes them around the world.
Q3 – You served on the core steering committee coordinating the State Department’s immediate response to the September 11 attacks. What was the greatest strategic challenge in reshaping U.S. public diplomacy and engagement toward the Arab and Muslim worlds during a period of such acute global crisis?
A3 – The senior-level group that the State Department initially brought together was very short-lived. It was both appropriate and inevitable, given the gravity of the situation, that the White House would assume direct control of the American response to 9/11. I was tasked the following day (9/12) with preparing a public diplomacy response. Knowing, of course, that all parts of the US Government–the Pentagon, the Intelligence Community, the National Security Council–were fully engaged, I focused my attention on themes that would, I believed, facilitate an international coalition. It echoed the President’s remarks about creating an international coalition against terrorism and about bringing the guilty to justice.
But it also proposed that we emphasize that America would remain true to its values, that we would bear no hatred for any people or faith. America itself is composed of all nationalities and all creeds. Reaching back to the time of the Great Depression, when President Roosevelt declared in his first inaugural address that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” I recommended that we focus on and send the message that we have nothing to hate but hatred itself. An important message, I believed, when it was clear that our enemies would seek to portray the US as the enemy of the Arab and Muslim world.
Shortly thereafter, in early 2002, I proposed to the Assistant Secretary for Educational and Cultural Affairs that the Bureau establish the US Government’s first-ever high school exchange program for the Arab and Muslim world. The proposal found support in Congress and became the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study Program (KLYES). In the past 20+ years, thanks to the dedicated and talented men and women in the Bureau’s youth exchange office, more than 15,000 students from over 45 countries have participated.
I would argue that it has been of enormous benefit to the US and its place in the world and that it will continue to pay dividends for many years as the participants pursue their educations and their careers.
Q4 – Today, hostile state actors can leverage sophisticated digital disinformation, cyber-enabled influence operations, and media manipulation as highly effective asymmetric weapons. In this environment of cognitive warfare, how can traditional educational and cultural exchanges be strategically utilized—in a positive sense—to build long-term societal resilience, expose propaganda networks, and serve as an active frontline defense against foreign informational subversion?
A4 – After every advance in technology, especially advances in communication technology, there is what many have called a “techno-panic.” A techno-panic, in brief, is a backlash against the new advance that highlights its possible dangers within the overall context of the harm it is seen to do to society’s moral fabric.
As far back as Johann Gutenberg’s development of the printing press, there was concern that standards would fall as people would be swamped by printed material, that the texts themselves would be of lower quality and spread heresy, superstition, and pornography, that scholarship would be held in lower esteem, that standards would decline, that young people would not appreciate the hard-won wisdom and values of the older generations. The same reaction has followed the development of the radio, television, the telephone, motion pictures, television, the internet and, of course, today, Artificial Intelligence.
The antidote to a technopanic, to malicious disinformation or, more broadly, to a poisoned and corrupted information environment is always the same. In my mind, it is human authenticity. Human authenticity is at the heart of soft power, at the heart of international understanding.
When President Franklin Roosevelt passed away in April of 1945, having guided the United States through economic recovery and then war on two fronts, he was in the process of writing a speech that looked to the future–a speech he was regrettably never able to give but into which he poured his distilled experience.
In the draft he wrote: ”Today we are faced with the preeminent fact that, if civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships–the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together and work together, in the same world, at peace.”
What President Roosevelt called the science of human relationships, what Professor Nye called soft power, what I term human authenticity, what is known day-to-day as international cultural and educational exchange, remains a frontline defense.
Q5 – You have noted that modern international exchanges were historically born out of conflict. When official diplomatic channels between adversarial nations freeze or collapse, how can “People-to-People” diplomacy effectively step in to maintain critical strategic bridges?
A5 – I do not believe that the paradigm has shifted. The initial impetus to bring people together to help bring about an end to conflict and injustice predates the creation of official US public diplomacy mechanisms. The major components of the U.S. Government’s “soft power”–such as the Voice of America, the United States Information Agency, the Fulbright Program, the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the Department of State–all date from World War II and its aftermath which segued into the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.
America’s outreach to the world, however, is older and more fundamental than these actions and institutions. The Institute of International Education (IIE), for example, was founded in 1919 with the stated mission of fostering peace and mutual understanding. The origins of the American Field Service, (AFS), a leading student exchange organization, date back to WWI.
Engagement with the world is part of the American character. It is in our DNA. It was one reason why I have always considered the publication of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 to be America’s first act of public diplomacy or, if you will, soft power.
I believe that this fundamental impulse in the American character will continue to lead to sustained, positive engagement with the world.
Q6 – Looking at the current global fracture lines, which specific geographic regions or geopolitical theaters do you believe are currently in the most urgent need of soft-power interventions and cultural diplomacy?
A6 – The global fracture lines are regrettably numerous and painfully easy to see. Most geopolitical theaters are far too ancient and complex to be dealt with here in any detail, but an example can be illustrative. One of the key issues of contention between the Kremlin and Ukraine, for example, is the issue of a Ukrainian identity. Again, it is a complex issue that defies simplification, but the Kremlin disputes that Ukrainians constitute a fully separate historical nation with all the rights of an independent nation, including the sovereign right to determine their own future.
One important way for the United States to affirm and support Ukrainian identity is through soft power. Every society exists on a spectrum, with roots that extend into the past and a vision for the future. The U.S. State Department has programs to address and support the entire spectrum of Ukrainian identity. Programs, such as those managed by the Cultural Heritage Center, are explicitly intended to preserve Ukrainian cultural identity and heritage. These programs include conservation of religious structures and artwork and preservation of documents and cultural objects. More recent programs have been designed to document damaged heritage and protect collections against theft and further harm. UNESCO operates similar programs. The Department of State also manages a variety of programs that point to the future of Ukraine by helping provide opportunities to young Ukrainian men and women to enhance their education and develop skills.
Soft power must always be a component of our relations with other countries, be it in times of war or peace.
Q7 – You spearheaded the creation of the State Department’s first global exchange alumni network, which now connects over one million leaders, including heads of state and Nobel laureates. What is the key to maintaining, mobilizing, and capitalising on such a massive network of influence to promote global stability?
A7 – The key is to just do it. ECA had long understood the value and need for an alumni network, but there was never the staff or the money to establish a dedicated office when there was a fight every year just to maintain key programs. An opportunity presented itself one year when the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) made a fairly arcane and little-noticed bookkeeping change. ECA had a unit of several people who helped manage a portion of a much larger sum of foreign assistance money provided to the Department under the Freedom Support Act (FSA) and the Support for East European Democracy Act (SEED). This unit helped manage the programs but also was responsible for liaison with the rest of the Department and for providing regular reports. When OMB decided to stop sending a portion of this funding to ECA and to rather allocate it all directly to USAID, overnight the staff employed in managing and tracking that fund and its programs was freed up. I seized the moment–one I was sure would never come again–to convene this very skilled and talented group and tell them that starting at that moment they were ECA’s alumni office.
All “alumni” offices have certain similarities. They seek, of course, to stay in touch with their alumni in ways that all parties find useful and productive. ECA’s office manages global engagement and networking resources for past participants of U.S. government-sponsored exchange programs. Alumni participation is entirely voluntary, of course, so the office seeks to provide information and opportunities that are both useful, relevant, and interesting.
From a soft power perspective, it is important to note that alumni engagement is an important form of evaluation. ECA programs are funded by the American taxpayer and the taxpayer is entitled to an accounting of how their money is being spent.
By maintaining contact with alumni and by following their subsequent careers, we know, for example, that State Department programs have a massive global alumni network that includes nearly 600 current and former world leaders. An excellent “return on Investment,” thanks to soft power.
Q8 – What advice would you give to the next generation of foreign policy analysts and diplomats who are trying to measure and harness the impact of public diplomacy in an increasingly polarized world?
A8 – I would advise them to always bear in mind that soft power is, in fact, a form of power, and to never underestimate its capabilities, its effectiveness, its reach.
I would advise them to remember that the use of hard power and soft power are not mutually exclusive.
In early 1942, Japan was expanding rapidly throughout Asia after its December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. The Holocaust was intensifying. Germany dominated most of Europe. The first American troops were landing in Europe. And The Voice of America began broadcasting from New York, in German, on February 1, 1942. It began with the words “The Battle of the Nations is not yet won.”
While the names and the places change, the battle of nations continues in the world. If democracies are to prevail, they must use all forms of power, both hard and soft.
Rick Ruth – Diplomat, international exchange specialist.
Image Source: U.S. Department of State’s Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) program.