Satloff will not be surprised that I, the report’s author, disagree with him. But he may be surprised about why.

In fact, I concur with Satloff’s core premise: that supporting Muslims who wish to counter radical Islamism, and especially its violent expression, should be a vital part of U.S. foreign policy. This view is consistent with the strategy laid out in the report and the tactics and organization are there to support it. Moreover, like Satloff, I view the spread of radical Islamist ideologies as part of a broader struggle within the Muslim world, a struggle that will be settled largely by Muslims themselves.

That said, I do reject the notion that countering radical ideologies should be the exclusive focus of U.S. public diplomacy or that, as Satloff argues, “Everything that is new and special about America’s public diplomacy effort should be targeted to that goal.” To quote from Voices of America,

The changes advocated in this report will aid our nation’s fight against terrorists and their vicious ideologies. Yet this fight is not our only challenge. We also must build international coalitions to address climate change, confront nuclear proliferation, encourage the wavering to choose democracy and freedom, and condemn the territorial invasion of the weak by the strong.

In other words, U.S. foreign policy must respond to a wide range of opportunities and a wide range of threats. Public diplomacy, an instrument of statecraft akin to military force or economic influence, should be applied to serve that full range of strategic and tactical ends. As important as it may be, countering radical ideologies is just one of them.

Of course, as Satloff rightly suggests, the goals of public diplomacy should be defined and prioritized in a strategy. Thus, the Brookings report calls for an annual and interagency public diplomacy strategy, per the bipartisan Smith-Thornberry Amendment in the 2009 Defense Authorization Bill (H.R. 5658), that is closely aligned with the national security strategy.

To quote the report, that strategy “should include, but should not be limited to, countering terrorism and the extremist ideologies that nourish and sustain terrorist networks.” The report does not lay out a national security strategy for the United States. Instead, it confines itself to analyzing the evolving global conditions in which public diplomacy must operate, the strategic ends it can serve, and the many tactical forms it can take. It recommends a framework for thinking about public diplomacy, how to marry it to a broader foreign policy strategy, how to tap the expertise and dynamism of the private and non-profit sectors, and how to create a national architecture for public diplomacy that is flexible enough to respond to global change. Just as public diplomacy should advance a wide range or objectives, a wide range of instruments should be used to combat radical Islamist extremists. Military force, financial sanctions, restrictions on movement, and many other tools should also be used, in a coordinated and directed fashion, to counter this very real threat.

In short, public diplomacy should not be synonymous with the so-called “war of ideas” (by this or any other name) and the “war of ideas” should not be synonymous with public diplomacy. The concepts intersect, but they are far from identical.

As a final point, Satloff argues that the core premise of the report is that “America’s public diplomacy problem in the world is largely of our own making.” That statement is both an inaccurate reflection of the report’s philosophy and an overstatement of America’s power to shape the world around us.

The true premise of the report is that the world is evolving in ways that will only make public diplomacy more important and that the United States must adapt to this change. America is well equipped to rise to this challenge, with deep wells of resources to draw on. Voices of America recommends concrete steps to tap those resources, inside our government, across our society, and around the world.

Though I respectfully disagree with Dr. Satloff, I welcome his critique. U.S. public diplomacy will improve if more thoughtful people like Satloff engage in the debate. In public diplomacy, such dialogue is still far too uncommon and the link to broader national security debates is still far too weak.

Kristin Lord is a fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program and the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings Institution.