Quote Originally Posted by Voodoun View Post
...consider that PSYOP soldiers are asked to make cerebral judgements that cannot be reflexive in nature the way that an infantryman can rely on his training to carry him through a dynamic firefight. Our brains don't work as well when we're over heated. He'd rather take a brass burn to the wrist than not be at 100% cognitively.
That's essentially correct but it's also not really helpful because it tries to put a cerebral slant on a practical problem. In addition to the hot brass problem (which many of us in an earlier war had while wearing T-shirts as an outer garment... ) there is the senior Officer seeing someone 'out of unigram' problem. That's practical...

What's also practical is that the SOF and in particular the PsyOps communities are filled with smart and educated folks. What many in those communities often seem to forget is that there are some equally if not more smart and just as well or better educated guys wandering about in Rifle companies. That brings up two issues. There are more of them (smart 11Bs, not just all 11Bs) than there are of you and they really, really hate condescension form other communities. So I'd suggest that your experienced SOF NCO made a mildly condescending statement and you repeated it which brings totally cognitively approaching an issue into question. Is that really a good PsyOp-like effort...
But I'd like to think we can move past the cuffed sleeve/uniform thing and talk about more mission-oriented ideas.
Shouldn't be a problem. If I could make a suggestion, don't let your previous (and possibly future) academic persona get too intermingled with your current about to deploy persona. By all means keep your values and your knowledge, state your opinions and question everything but usually, there's little to be gained by arguing the number of angels on that pin (even if it is fun on occasion ).

Which gets to your valid point that we need a national approach to IO. I agree. I also think that will not happen for many reasons. We are a big diverse country with many points of view. Our politics reflect this and our political system mitigates against any coherent long range plan. The US Information Agency essentially did a good job while it was in existence. It was brought down by two things; the desire of the State Department to have total control over our 'message' and the fact that the left leaning among hated anything that tried to put the US in a good light. That same combination of bureaucratic turf battles (which you alluded to much earlier...) and ideology will short circuit the goal in the future (never say never but it is unlikely).

You also said:
"I don't see how we can ideologically confront Salafi jihadis through their media, social services, and educational networks simply by utlizing Army PSYOP (because essentially thats really the only place is resides in the military), the strategic corporal, and a rather small CIA office."
Question. Do we really want to confront Salafi jihadis (or more properly in the PsyOps mode; persons engaged in hiraba) on an ideological basis? I'm not at all sure we want to confront them on that basis and my perception is that if we did we'd lose, big time.

The simple solution to the IO problem is to bring back and empower USIA. Not going to happen, I'm afraid. We'll muddle along -- it's the American way...