During the last decade, the international system is facing – at least in terms of intensity –

multifaceted challenges. As a result, there has been an enhancement of security challenges. Their
impact has operated in support of those views focusing on hard power and its usefulness in terms
of security and survival.

The emergence of terrorism as a primary threat to the West has illustrated the urgency of acting
on multiple levels in order to deal with a challenge that cannot be dealt with hard power alone.

On a level of interaction between Islam and the West cultural diplomacy may, under
circumstances, establish channels of communication and mutual understanding of a stable, not
ephemeral character. This because “diplomacy among civilizations” built on the basis of
orchestrated institutional action or individual action may affect negative predispositions and
prejudices that add to hate, intolerance and radicalism.

The problem today concerns, inter allia, the urgent need to deal with threats or challenges within
a time limit spectrum. In other words, while exercising cultural diplomacy requires a time
horizon to alter established beliefs, the need to urgently deal with security issues (i.e. terrorism)
imposes crucial time restraints. This almost by default supports the use of hard power.

On an evaluation basis constructed on the definition of cultural diplomacy, ideas, values,

traditions and the ability to build a constructive inter-cultural groundwork of interaction
constitute multiple independent variables. This is important in our effort to establish win-win
approaches to international relations (dependent variable) particularly in fields related to inter-
religious understanding.

The most important advantage of exercising cultural diplomacy could be that it can be applied by
private not just state agents. This very fact may allow the establishment of a parallel axis of
initiatives and interactions outside the state framework. It could also take place as a result of
cooperation between state and non-state agents.

In a condition of transition of the international system or crucial changes taking place in the
periphery, the independent variable to pay attention is fluidity. Of equal importance is the
limited, by default, predictive ability and the high stakes produced by internal structural changes
(i.e. state partition and the establishment of neophyte states or the balkanization of the Middle
East). These constitute major hurdles to produce particular dynamics allowing the organizational
deployment of mechanisms and agents of materialization able to offer added value to actions
falling within the wider cultural diplomacy spectrum.

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This by no means implies that these mechanisms are not useful but that the exercise of this kind
of diplomacy will have to follow a procedural path not affected by fluctuations related to the
traditional framework of international relations. This is extremely important since states have
communication channels even in times of confrontation or conflict.
The Terrorist Threat

For instance, in our struggle to deal with terrorism it is evident that soft power is indispensable in
order to construct time-resistant communication and mutual understanding channels with a
potential target group of extremists. These tools will have to be used within a macro strategic
framework since immediate results are practically impossible to be produced.

In transition zones in particular, where there is interaction among religions, cultures, and
civilizations negative outcomes in the form of zero-sum games are often produced. In these
cases, the initiatives taken by agents operating outside state/government control may offer an
alternative, parallel to the state level positive ground of interaction among alternative or
competing values and norms.

History has shown that the exercise of cultural diplomacy has been defined, inter allia, by
circumstances and was seen as an ephemeral only means of establishing communications and
cooperation channels.

Current fluidity conditions, regional instability, conflict as well as circumstantial elements point
to the need of systematic use of cultural diplomacy tools. This is of paramount importance at a
time inter-religion, and the inter-cultural gap is expanding due either to geo-strategic conditions
(radicalism in the Muslim world and political representation of the extreme right in Europe) or to
the impact of subjectively-based distortion of religious beliefs. The above may lead to the
formulations of radical views or distorted mental models of otherness.

In the case of the EU that has traditionally and historically been defined as a normative power,
cultural diplomacy may be a major assisting tool in intervening in the radicalization process.
This requires policies of involvement, motivation and a number of independent variables that
enhance effectiveness. Agents within target countries where radical ideas spread are expected to
de-construct otherness-related hostile cognitive elements, a demanding task that still guarantees
no success.

If cultural diplomacy in the past referred to the ontology of the ability to alter the way national
interests were defined or re-defined (see Détente during the Cold War), today it reflects the
degree to which it could operate in the long term as an ontological means of dealing with
radicalism, particularly within an urban environment where marginalized or less socialized
individuals live.

Transitional phases in the international system and/or the periphery constitute an opportunity not
only for those intolerant powers operating on nihilistic motives, but also an opportunity for those
able to go beyond the obvious (that is cultural and religious differences).