Mr. Barry A. Sanders

Barry A. Sanders is an adjunct professor of communications studies at UCLA. He is deeply involved in the foreign affairs community as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pacific Council on International Policy.  He is on the advisory board of the USC Center for Public Diplomacy. 

He honed his international credentials in a career as a well-known international business lawyer for the law firm Latham & Watkins.  He headed the firm’s international practice group.  He chaired both the State of California and Los Angeles County Bar Associations’ International Law Sections and was founding president of the Los Angeles Center for International Commercial Arbitration.   

Barry was the principal lawyer for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games and remains deeply involved in the Olympic movement as Chair of the Southern California Committee for the Olympic Games. 

In Los Angeles, Sanders is a civic leader.  He is president of the Board of Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks, and immediate past president of the Board of Commissioners of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.  He is a member of the Executive Committee of the Los Angeles Opera.  He has served as chairman of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, the Los Angeles Public Library Foundation, Rebuild LA (the public-private organization created after the 1992 Los Angeles riots), and several other charitable organizations.  Sanders has degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Yale Law School. 

The Pacific Council recently spoke with Barry about his most recent book, American Avatar.

What do you believe is currently the most pressing foreign policy issue facing the US?

The most pressing foreign policy issue is the economy; both the American economy and the world economy.  Our effectiveness in foreign affairs depends on our economic strength. It gives us the ability to influence others, to avoid economic pressure exerted on us by others, to afford our military power, and to lead by example.  Every other foreign policy issue is affected by our economic successes and failures.

What is your greatest accomplishment in the realm of international relations?

My new book, American Avatar: The United States in the Global Imagination,  will amount to an accomplishment in the realm of international relations if it serves as a guide for a more strategic and effective practice of public diplomacy.  It is intended to have that effect.

What is the relationship between foreign perspective of the US and the practice of public diplomacy?

The images of America that exist in peoples’ minds, both positive and negative, are the landscape on which public diplomacy practitioners operate. In essence, we are trying to affect what people think of the United States; the only way to do so is to understand what predisposed notions exist, and why people have come to have such perspectives.

American Avatar examines both anti-American and pro-American conceptions of the US. In your experience, which are more susceptible to change? 

We are, of course, most interested in changing anti-American biases. Some, in particular those that are based on lifelong ideologies, philosophies, or religious views are not generally susceptible to improvements, whereas others are quite malleable. The most interesting and most frequent negative perceptions of the US are those that begin as pro-US and are so favorable that they inevitably lead to disappointment. This is to say that many people hold the US to a standard that is constructed within their own imagination. This country serves as a symbol for hopes and dreams in a way that no other nation does. These types of perceptions are very volatile, highly changeable and potentially dangerous because views that are based on disappointment, disaffection, or a sense of betrayal are emotional rather than impartial views. Our challenge is to hold on to the favorable instinct in the face of possible disappointment as we pursue our national interest.

What factor carries the heaviest weight in forming international perspectives of the US?

There are about five concerns that people have with US policy that are important to consider when trying to avoid this sense of disappointment: the first is our steadfastness. People often wonder whether we will keep our commitments to other countries. The second concern is our openness: is the US open to visitors/immigrants, and the ideas and cultures that arrive with them?  Another great concern is whether we will act in the interests of others or only our own national interests. People tend to expect that the US will act in their best interest rather than our own more so than in any other country. Additionally, foreign nationals tend to wonder whether we are compassionate. On some level, people often seek compassion even over political agreement. Finally, do we live up to our own principles? At times our country’s philosophical principles conflict with our short term interests; this can pose a danger to foreign perspectives of the US.

How do foreign views of the United States affect US diplomacy and our national security policies?

To channel the sentiment of widely respected news anchor Edward R. Murrow in the aftermation of the Bay of Pigs fiasco: public diplomacy officials should be included in the “takeoffs” and not only the “crash landings” of foreign policies.

Historically, the US has not taken foreign public views into account when crafting policies. In the present, however, we are much more likely to act as part of coalitions. All of our actions are dependent on the increasing power of other nations. Additionally, pressure from our own public for uncensored communications and transparency in government impacts our ability to act unilaterally in a pronounced way. Moving forward, the public will be heard here and elsewhere.

You have said that today’s most pressing foreign policy issues relate to the US economy, as well as the world economy.  How do you propose that the current crisis and our handling of this issue will affect foreign perspectives of the US?

The perception that we are able to manage our own future is critical to the sense of the US as a powerful and effective world player. The ability to come up with effective responses to this crisis will determine whether we continue to play a leadership role in the world financial system. The recent difficulty of the European nations to craft a bailout response for Greece has hurt any perception of Europe or the Eurozone as leaders in finance. We must not fall into that same trap.

View Barry’s other public appearances around the launch of American Avatar on Facebook.

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