The Department had just created a Public diplomacy branch. Before the initiative, the unit which dealt with the issue had no clear strategy to communicate South Africa's foreign policy. There were no regular briefings, there was very little writing and minimal engagements with think tanks and public discourse. The situation created a gap that led to a lot of speculative analysis without context or substantive content. Commentators and analysts were critical of what they called 'an unclear foreign policy that comes across as inconsistent, incoherent and schizophrenic'.