Ladies and Gents, I'm so annoyed I just typed three long paragraphs and it timed out and deleted my notes. Here is a quick and sloppy recall.
NATO ACT has succeeded in the last two years in bringing coordination amongst all disciplines which are housed under the strategic communications umbrella, including civil military operations, psyops, info ops and humint collection management, computer network ops, electronic warfare, as well as public affairs. The DOD suggests Public Affairs should lead up communications activities in cases of coordination, which they argue should be ad-hoc rather than coordinated and a consistent entity within the communications arm, citing a lack of resources to have a parallel structure of strategic communications professionals who are cross-trained in all disciplines, nevermind that instead of one person from each service to invite to a VTC, I have to now invite seven people from each service in order for NATO to get the full picture for what the US is doing in StratCom.
To my esteemed thought leaders and operators here at SWJ, does anybody have any evidence they would like to share to NATO ACT with respect to George Little's letter and the USA Today story from last month which had to do with the release of strategic communications as a coordinated function by the Dept of Defense on why it is better to have the services separate out various StratCom disciplines and not to have a coordinated eyes and ears person or staff which can assess and provide linkages to other areas of comms to protect the national interest and provide early warning to emergent fourth dimension threats?
Consider a Navy Chief that is cross trained in photo, A/V, journalism, having that Chief be a specialist and good at just one of those areas are prevalent within the PA and COMCAM community, but at times has not been adequate for addressing the needs of short staff and capturing the right moments with the right tone. Being able to look realistically and with an informed eye over all sections contributes to the collection organization between the sections, one would hope.
I welcome any evidence to challenge why stratcom officers and staff are redundant under the NATO concept and practice of coordination of all aforementioned discipline areas, or any examples you have where transparency amongst these communications disciplines were problematic, no personably indentifyable information of course...
All my best to you all for a Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays to everyone else celebrating other Holidays, and a Happy New Year.
V/R,
Rach
Bookmarks