A lot of the quagmire over ‘P.R.’ can be defused simply by putting the moral element aside temporarily. I don’t mean ignore completely: simply hit the pause button while the dynamics are analysed.
A lot of P.R. is necessary P.R. It has to be there to uphold a position. The position itself may be good or bad.
A great example is Israel. This is not to say that stealing the land from Arabs or killing and starving them in various ways is ‘good’ — that’s a question for the position statement, the policy. But what is special about Israel is the skill with which they drive their ambitions. Youngsters are schooled and streamed based on their intelligence, and the best recruited for high tech operations in the military. Israel is a very small country and surrounded by hostile countries. Every decision it makes is based on maintaining its survival. Including foreign relations. Totally clear cut.
This gives its P.R. machine, the most skilful in the world, an incredibly clear remit. No wastage. No woolly thinking. It has powerful lobbies, and technology that other countries want, for good or evil purposes. It gets the backing of the West yet offering almost nothing in return.
Compare that with the vision of U.S. or Russia. Both are inconsistent. Yet the former puts being a world policeman — a belief — almost higher than a “what’s good for America”. Russia is, apparently obsessed with the “Motherland” and, rather like China, feels it has rights over places that historically were part of the Soviet Union or the Russia of ages gone by. Just as China does with Taiwan and Argentina does with the Malvinas (which like Northern Ireland, another miscreant state, the U.K. feels obliged to protect with nothing in return.
Any of these positions are propped up by P.R. to justify them. Some positions may seem more good, but it begs the question of whose good (rather than who’s ideas).
Britain, another small country but much bigger than Israel, carries a similar nostalgia for its old Empire. Even if it tries to “put Britain first” it is enmeshed economically from years of such expansionist ideology. We don’t “approve” perhaps, of Israelis killing Palestinians or Saudis killing Yemenis, or the U.S. bombing, say, Iraq: but we are so indebted to these three countries than distancing ourselves would become suicidal.
Before jumping onto a right-wrong bandwagon, I can only suggest talking to ordinary people in Israel, who will simply tell you that they’re at war. Or people in South America that haven’t supported or opposed Ukraine who will look at you blankly and ask, what has it got to do with us?
The P.R. blame-game doesn’t reach them. Nor do they have the same necessities of a particular P.R. to justify their position (as no one particularly argues with it).