Pentagon Hires Public-Diplomacy Veteran

Forgive me if this reads like I’m greasing a source, but as part of the holds on administration appointees released by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) last week, Douglas Wilson became the Pentagon’s new assistant secretary for public affairs. Why’s that significant? Because at a time when global skepticism about U.S. military power is still in evidence — and when U.S. troops are still engaged in a war in Afghanistan — Wilson stands out as a decades-long veteran of public diplomacy efforts at a variety of agencies. He spoke to me last year when he was up for the top public-diplo spot at the State Department, a job that ultimately went to Judith McHale of the Discovery Channel. He’s also the rare senior communications official who’s put together a concerted interagency strategy for public diplomacy, which you can read about in this post.