Strategic Communication: A Tool for Asymmetric Warfare

[St. Christopher]

I think the key is that, in addition to a coordinating body in the NSC or wherever, you need the individuals who head up the various agencies to actually care about SC. I don't think there's a purely organizational cure.

I'd go as far as to say that those individuals need not merely care about SC but understand it. PAOs need to understand PSYOP and vice versa. Info warriors may specialize in a specific SC discipline like PA, PD or IO, but they should all be fully trained and educated to understand the entire spectrum. If it is an organizational solution, let that organization be an institute that qualifies interagency strategic communicators.

There are several fellow travelers like you out there in the Interagency that get this. Keep your eyes and ears open-- we pop up with a win every once in a while.

Du4

[BScully]

I've been pondering how to apply a corporate brand management model to US Strategic communications and may write a paper about it for school at some point. There have been some articles/papers written and found on this site that are particularly interesting.

A few things that I think we need:
1. A U.S. brand strategy - What image does the U.S. want to have domestically and internationally...basically an overarching goal that all depts and agencies communications must support. This has to be something that can last over many administrations as it takes a while to build a strong brand identity.
2. We need to better link our communications to our programs and policies. In a corporate environment with a strong brand (think volvo, coke, disney) everything the company does supports the overall brand image. For example, there are many in the marketing profession who believe that Volvo used to make very boxy cars to further sell the idea that the vehicles were safe. Not that communications should drive our policy, but we should enter policy and program decisions fully understanding the implications.
3. We need a central organization that manages the U.S. brand and provides support to depts and agencies in implementing it. This office/organization should develop a national strategic communications plan that provides guidance and ensure its execution. I would also create a PCC type working group that brings together the communications directors from all the depts and agencies involved in national security (actually, it'd probably be best just to have them all).
4. We need to provide support to the field personnel, not just beating on them to get the message right. In corporations, there is typically a communications staff that strictly focuses on supporting sales and account management types to ensure they have the tools (brochures, messaging, multimedia, whatever they may need) to get the job done on the ground. So ideally, you'd have a dedicated group that the field folks can reach back to and say I need x, y, z to support this operation and the support folks can take care of it quickly. This allows them to focus on developing the relationships and overall understanding of the people they're trying to influence.
5. Field metrics that link back to strategic communications. I had an interesting conversation with some folks who had been in Iraq about how they measured success. What dawned on me is that our metrics (how many schools/hospitals/etc. have we built) do not necessarily tell us how opinions/perceptions are changing. We assume that by doing these things we're having the impact we want...but maybe we're not. So we need to make sure metrics at all levels support what we really want to achieve...which isn't just rebuilding the infrastructure, but gaining the necessary public support to achieve our missions.

One final thought to close this rambling message...we need to figure out how to link our strategic communications to our operational (department/embassy/COCOM) level communications, to our tactical/field communications and ensure they information flow is going both ways--up and down.

These are just some initial thoughts I've had based on some conversations and very limited research. At some point, I'd really like to dig into this deeper and see if the corporate brand management model is really something that can be applied to government. Right now there are many significant holes in my knowledge and challenges to the concept. In the meantime, I'd certainly appreciate your experience/thoughts on any of this.

Take care,
Brian