Liveblogging from Vegas

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Blog World and New Media Expo


Milblogging Panel 1: What is a Milblog?
Steve Schippert from ThreatsWatch.org
Bill Roggio from The Long War Journal
Uncle Jimbo from Blackfive
Eric Egland, running for Congress in California

Milblogging Panel 2: To Blog or Not to Blog: Milbloggers, the DoD, and the Media
Moderator: Ward Carroll from Military.com
Matt Burden from Blackfive
Michael Totten from Middle East Journal
Jack Holt, the DoD blogger outreach coordinator
Claude Chafin, from the White House

Milblogging was born out of the failure of the media and many PAOs.

Are you targeting any foreign audiences or is it just for US consumption?

Jack: Well, I am not really targeting anyone. I am just going with the people who agreed to be on the list. This is not traditional public affairs, which is "here is the message we're putting out." This is a conversation, putting subject matter experts together to make the info accessible to anyone. You know the telephone game? The first thing you learn is you are never in control of your message. But if every other person clarified their message, you wouldn't have that problem. The enemy has had an impact on the media, but those guys can't stay engaged in the dialogue. They have one-way messaging. Osama bin Ladin doesn't hold roundtables. Once this info goes out, it's public domain, worldwide.

On the internet, people who aren't subject to Smith-Mundt CAN reach the domestic target audience.

[MountainRunner]

The internet has nothing to do with Smith-Mundt... and DoD has nothing to do with Smith-Mundt either.

[Stan]

Forgive my ignorance, but isn't Smith-Mundt kinda sorta stone age
Does this Act actually still (literally) function in CONUS ?

Regards, Stan

The internet has nothing to do with Smith-Mundt... and DoD has nothing to do with Smith-Mundt either.

[MountainRunner]

Not stone-age, misunderstood and wrongly extended.

The Smith-Mundt Act has been distorted over the years to become something it was never intended to be. Because of this, as SM points out, Smith-Mundt needs to be drastically revised, or better, yet, ditched.

Forgotten is the purpose and focus of the Act. The Act focused on raising the quality of American propaganda that was so dysfunctional as to actually aid the enemy (sound familiar?). Discussions about broadcasting domestic were focused on Free Speech and guaranteeing the government wouldn't compete with rich domestic broadcasters. Contemporary debates as well as books and magazine articles in the decades following didn't consider the Act in the way we see it exclusively today.

The Act's sponsors were a conservative republican from South Dakota who, before Pearl Harbor, was an ardent isolationist (Karl Mundt, who later went onto sit on HUAC and worked with Nixon on preventing commies from getting jobs) and Senator H. Alexander Smith (R-NJ). They were responded not just to the propaganda efforts of the enemy that was all around in the psychological struggle, but responding to what was then a major revolution in communications were borders were increasingly permeated by outside thought and news (sound familiar?).

During the massive restructuring of the United States to counter the emerging ideological and physical threat coming from all angles (remember the National Security Act of 1947 was passed during the two years of debate on Smith-Mundt), Smith-Mundt was to protect democracy, not from itself but from the outside. Protection inside was mainly for the broadcasters, which Benton vigorously and successfully courted the broadcasters and continued to do so afterward its passage in a period of increasingly rapid (relatively) news cycles and accessibility.

In part, Smith-Mundt is a response to the Committee for Public Information thirty-five years earlier that was seen as more as a propaganda campaign for Wilson than a propaganda campaign for the war (check out posters of the time that equate Wilson with Lincoln and Washington... also check out CPI's Four-Minute men who did a helluva a job putting out pro-Wilson messages across the country in the four minutes it took to change a movie reel).

A quote from HR 3342, which became PL 402, or the Smith-Mundt Act:

Today…peace is endangered by the weapons of false propaganda and misinformation and the inability on the part of the United States to deal adequately with those weapons. Truth can be a powerful weapon on behalf of peace. It is the firm belief of the Committee that HR 3342, with all the safeguards included in the bill, will constitute an important step in the right direction toward the adequate dissemination of the truth about America, our ideals, and our people.

The point being, S-M was less about protecting tender American ears and more about getting the message out to counter what was seen as highly effective Communist propaganda and to fix what was seen (not without substantial merit) crappy U.S. propaganda (when it existed).

One of the more interesting aspects of Smith-Mundt was its opposition to a USG-owned news service in light of the then-recent memory of not only Nazi Germany's propaganda machine, but also of the Creel Commission, or CPI mentioned above. The prohibitions against internal propagandizing in Smith-Mundt focused on the point of dominating information channels to the public. Argued as First Amendment violations and as a potential infringement on the free press, Smith-Mundt prevented the USIA from becoming a domestic news service.

And today, we have DoD PAOs and others in DoD believing they are under Smith-Mundt when they are specifically not. If they were, and the whole of USG was, then White House Press Secretary would have to become a neutered spokesperson office like the U.K. spokesperson is (who doesn't have his own voice to the point if you read transcripts you do not know if the "Prime Minister's Official Spokesperson", or PMOS, is a man or a woman).

So, yes, S-M focuses on CONUS audiences and as interpreted today, concerns itself with DoD and DoS communications to CONUS audiences that might be interpreted as propaganda. In DoS, this means any foreign broadcast literature or even images under specific programs cannot be shared inside the U.S. without bureaucratic vetting. Yes, even a jpg used in an overseas brochure can't be included in a ppt in the states without approval.

Sorry for the long response. I'm working two projects on the topic now...

[Stan]

Thanks, MountainRunner !
No problems with a long and well detailed response. It began to sound like the State Dept. each and every day at the Embassy Fish Bowl

Lately, however, DoD and DoS PAOs have developed into a well oiled machine overseas. Less propaganda and more 'hands-on' if you will.

I used to think of these folks as 'hungry as hell for a story' and later saw them as humans (the job they were tasked with and the endless parameters they work with).

Not so stone-age, but abused and misunderstood.

Regards, Stan

[MountainRunner]

When you get into Smith-Mundt and the contemporary debates, you'll find the information premise of 4GW is even more faulty. Attempts to attack the psychology of civilians and elites is old and not something new to today.

On DoD PAOs, note Gen Myers in 2004 reinforced the firewall between PAO and IO, mimicking DoS PA/PD firewall under the apparent assumption IO was potentially misleading and more like the highly tactical PSYOP. I would prefer he looked at Galula instead of creating this firewall, but hey, who am I (see money quote from Galula here)?

On the UK PMOS vs Press Sec, see Credibility: a requirement for a Spokeman but not a country ...

Lately, however, DoD and DoS PAOs have developed into a well oiled machine overseas. Less propaganda and more 'hands-on' if you will.

If you say so, not sure I'd agree w/ well-oiled machine.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Smith-Mundt and DOD implementation policies of Executive Order S-12333, United States Intelligence Activities; DOD Instructions S-3321.1, (S) Overt Psychological Operations Conducted by the Military Services in Peacetime and in Contingencies Short of Declared War (U); and National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 130, U.S. International Information Policy, direct that U.S. PSYOP forces will not target U.S. citizens at any time, in any location globally, or under any circumstances.

This interpretation kills any counterpropaganda effort, at least from regularly constituted
.mil / .gov sources. Thus the need for PSYOP Surrogates.

[Rex Brynen]

This interpretation kills any counterpropaganda effort, at least from regularly constituted
.mil / .gov sources. Thus the need for PSYOP Surrogates.

Leaving aside the meta-issue of whether, in a democracy, national military PSYOP ought to target citizens--and I do not think it should (this is the task of civilian political leadership)--I'm dubious whether most unofficial "PSYOP Surrogates" have the effect they intend to.

My own sense is that they often appeal to themselves, and entirely misjudge the concerns, preoccupations, and discourse of "floating voters" on COIN and CT issues. As a result, they turn off at least as many of their supposed "target audience" as they appeal to.

I certainly know that students with no firmly fixed views, exposed to the typical array of milblogs (and, much more so, milblog supporters) come away much more alienated than sympathetic.

Far more effective nongovernmental public engagement, in my view, is represented by the SWJ approach, in which there is no overt political message to sell, and in which the airing of an array of views is tolerated and even promoted. The net result is a far more thoughtful (and ultimately credible and productive) airing of the issues around Iraq, Afghanistan, the GWoT, etc. than one finds anywhere else.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

I certainly know that students with no firmly fixed views, exposed to the typical array of milblogs (and, much more so, milblog supporters) come away much more alienated than sympathetic.

I am not surprised that people with no firmly fixed views are put off by people who know exactly what they think and who they support and are not shy in expressing it. Certainty is considered unseemly in some circles.

Who are the intended audiences for milblogs? Each milblogger has an idea who he/she is attempting to reach. I think their primary audience is generally people who are already pre-disposed to have some interest and respect for the milblogger's experiences and points of view. That ideological filter weeds out quite a few who are pre-disposed to be alienated.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Hugh concludes his two days from Blog World Expo with milbloggers Bill Roggio, the three BlackFive contributors, Eric Egland, and then final Godblog comments from Mark D. Roberts.

35 minute interview click here to listen.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

The internet has nothing to do with Smith-Mundt... and DoD has nothing to do with Smith-Mundt either.

DOD believes itself to be covered under Smith-Mundt

Self-Imposed Limits: The Smith/Mundt Act

Another artificial barrier that hinders the fight
The twin devil of our inability to fight the enemy as it should be fought is the defeatist interpretation of an obsolete law aimed against the legacy of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. That law is now invoked to prevent warfighters, diplomats and other government officials from running effective information campaigns against the enemy. A tiny clause of the U.S. Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948, known as the Smith-Mundt Act, forbids certain government officials and agencies from disseminating information in the U.S. that is intended for recipients abroad.
In fact, many legal and ethical ways exist to prevent Smith-Mundt disciples from shutting down effective messaging operations, even if Congress is unwilling to change the law. When the widespread use of the Internet showed policymakers that technology had made the old laws obsolete, the Clinton Administration found an easy way around the obstacle. Legally, and with no objection or challenge, the administration circumvented Smith-Mundt by hosting Voice of America websites on servers physically located in foreign countries. That precedent remains in force, but is not used as widely as it might be. Public affairs officers (PAOs) often veto military information operations (IO) designed to exploit terrorist websites, on the grounds that Arabic-speaking American citizens might see the U.S.-sponsored content and thus cause the military to be in violation of Smith-Mundt.
FIGHTING THE WAR OF IDEAS LIKE A REAL WAR by J. Michael Waller

"US authorities handicap themselves. US military lawyers fear 'blowback' to US domestic audiences, which they interpret as a violation of the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, which prohibited domestic distribution of propaganda meant for foreign audiences. As a result, US commanders forbid coalition authorities to openly engage on the Internet. The decision has ceded this key tool to the Iraqi insurgents," -- Andrew Garfield