I do not want to get into a lengthy recitation of what works and what does not work for diplomacy. I would rather have one about what diplomacy should and should not involve (I would say it should be limited to issuing passports and occasionally drafting a treaty or two- not nation building or giving money away except in the few circumstances where we actually get more back than what we give). But that discussion is sort of out of bounds for me. What I can say without adverse consequences, I think, is that the best US diplomacy has always been extra-governmental. In other words, our greatest ambassadors are not working for the State Department.
As such, here are, in my view, the ten great US ambassadorial performances of the past thirty years. They have all been from the private sector, and all illustrate my point that we don't need to spend federal funds on propaganda- our pop culture sells itself.
Number ten Bon Jovi playing "Always" in Brazil. Tell me this didn't do more for the reputation of the United States than anything the Embassy in Brasilia ever did?:
listen to it here
Number nine Madonna shouting "Like a Prayer" via Live 8. There was a link to the feed in Berlin, but it's down now. This one is to London, but the German one was better. It takes the Material Girl to shake the Prussian out of a crowd and turn them into red, white, and blue, fist shaking fans of the US and friggin' A, but she did it. Regardless, enjoy this tape from the UK:
listen to it here
Number eight The United States and England haven't been at war since the Treaty of Ghent was signed in 1812. Van Halen does their part to make certain we stay friends, with "Hot for Teacher" in the UK:
listen to it here
Number seven Amsterdam. Nirvana. "Teen Spirit." Get some:
listen to it here
Number six Nothing imparts the values of our nation better than James Brown screeching about sex to a Swiss crowd- nothing:
listen to it here
Number five The Japanese love nerds and Weezer rocks better than any other Nerd Rock band on the planet. Playing their seminal "Buddy Holly" to tens of thousands of video game addicted Asians, Rivers actually speaks the local tongue while winning the hearts and minds of people who seventy years ago, bombed us:
listen to it here
Number four The French love quirky American talent, like Johnny Depp and Jerry Lee Lewis. Apparently they also love JT, who puts on a clinic here in bitchin:
listen to it here
Number three By all measures, this should probably have been number one on the list. But it's not the best performance of this beat- although it's still decent. It's the definitive USA song, even though it's not blindly nationalistic. Here he is preaching to the French- an American icon, Bruce Springsteen- takes the stage:
listen to it here
Number two I was in Romania three months after Michael Jackson died and people were still in mourning. I like to think of Michael Jackson's 1992 Bucharest performance as basically a big middle finger to the corpses of Nicolae Ceausescu and his evil wife. Great vocals from Mike too- no faking or auto-tune here. Note the strategically positioned Pepsi cups behind him. Is there anything more American than MJ and profits?:
listen to it here
Number one And here is the single greatest act of representative action on behalf of the United States I have ever seen. This truly shows the spirit, purpose, and nature of my nation:
listen to it here
I am open to suggestions, by the way, so feel free to email or leave comments if you have others. I wanted so much to include Elvis, but he only played one untaped show outside of the US, and it was in Canada, which doesn't really count.
Keep on rockin' in the free world.
Sensible libertarian views on nearly everything- except foreign affairs.