Strategic Communication: A Tool for Asymmetric Warfare

[Rex Brynen]

The discussion on strategic communications here has shifted between discussing two target audiences, one internal and the other external. In following it, a few thoughts have percolated to the top of my mind (when its not otherwise drowning in reference-writing for graduate and law school applicants).

First, with regard to internal audiences. While I can see the political advantage of framing it in these terms to those who favour current policies, I'm not sure I would portray this issue as one of bolstering or undermining the national will. The more thoughtful of critics of current US policy in Iraq argue that it is counterproductive, undermining the GWoT and damaging US prestige and influence in the region. That doesn't make them surrender monkeys.

What we are really talking about, therefore, is influencing a political and policy debate. This is, as others have suggested, a task for politicians and politically-appointed spokespersons. Public servants (uniformed or otherwise), in my view, should largely be confined to trying to provide the most honest account--recognizing that this process can never really be a fully apolitical one.

Second, with regard to external audiences, I think it is important to recognize that US policies have profound effects on the way the US is viewed in the Muslim world, and that "strategic communications" can never more than slightly offset that. In many ways, the US is viewed in the Middle East much as the Soviet Union was viewed in Eastern Europe during the Cold War: as a supporter of authoritarian repression and occupation (via Israel in the WBG, Syria, and Lebanon, and now the US directly in Iraq). Discussing how to best spin policies that are profoundly disliked by the locals is, at a certain point, rather like convincing Estonians in the 1970s that Moscow had been misunderstood. I doubt even a Soviet MTV could have done that.

It may well be that buttressing Middle Eastern repressive dictatorships, for example, serves US security interests (although, for a fleeting post 9/11 moment, Washington appeared to vacillate on this). However when these particular chickens (among others) come home to roost it shouldn't just be treated as a failure of "strategic communications."

(I will add, as an aside, that the US has not received, nor adequately marketed, those cases where it has acted to uphold the interests of Muslim communities, whether in humanitarian intervention in Somalia, its role in ending the war in Bosnia, or reversing Serbian ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. That is much more a failure of strategic communications--although it also highlights the extent to which suspicion of Washington is so deep that even "good deeds" are perceived through dark, conspiratorial lenses.)

[St. Christopher]

St. Christopher,

Why do you feel this way? I know there is some criticism about the fact that the DOD might lose some credibility if it were viewed as engaging it propaganda type operations. However, it is already doing these types of operations Joint Psychological Operations Support Element. Also, it is going on unofficially everyday in press releases and other types of media engagements. The problem is that there so many core competencies within the DOD that contribute, explicitly or implicitly, to IO, and they have all their own agendas. Would it not be better to acknowledge this situation and create a strategic level DOD office to coordinate the activities? If the so called GWOT is a true ideological confrontation that is critical to national security, shouldn't IO fall under the auspices of the DOD? Look forward to your comments!

Military IO and PSYOP should fall under the auspices of DOD, but I'd argue that the constrictions placed upon DOD IO/PSYOP planning and execution make it too difficult to perform all the needed SC functions in a target audience/region. IO and PSYOP are separate parts of strategic communication. DOD can't oversee all the other parts on its own. It doesn't have the interagency authorities to do so and probably shouldn't. Plus, there's also the case of what happened to OSI, which I take as evidence that the DOD bureaucracy is just not ready to go on the Ideological combat offensive.

If you really want to do true, strategic communication, integrate every potential tool for Ideological combat, I'd argue that your execution mechanism (if it is indeed an organization) needs to sit at the NSC level and have appropriate authorities and mandates to reach into the rest of the interagency to execute infowar policy. However, such a mechanism needs a vastly decentralized private component to work, and I don't think we're quite there yet in leasing whole parts of policy execution to the private sector.

[invictus0972]

St Christopher,

I agree that the DOD is not equipped to handle the entire SC mission. This is why I said in my other post that there is definitely a role for other organizations such as the DoS and suggested USIA. I am only suggesting that the DoD has a very specialized role to play in SC. As we have discussed previously, the DoD has a specialized role in strategic SIGINT organized through the NSA. Similarly, the DoD has a specialized role in SC. I think it is a mistake to limit the military's SC capabilities to just what the PSYOP guys can do.

V/r

Invictus

[Jedburgh]

ARAG, 2 Dec 08: Strategic Communication: A Primer

This paper attempts to address a perceived gap in UK defence thinking which currently has little documentation, on the emerging and cross governmental art of Strategic Communication. After defining the term this paper attempts to locate its utility within the defence community, considering its relationship with Media and Information Operations. The paper notes that at its core, Strategic Communication can only be successful when three processes are clearly understood: the role of strategic communication in campaigning, the actual cognitive process of communication and the empirical analysis of target audiences. The dangers of over-reliance upon polling are considered concurrently. The paper concludes with the place of Strategic Communication within UK military operations, the need for robust measurements of effectiveness and a short assessment of the challenges of emerging and new media.