Defense Secretary Gate's Landon Lecture at K-State.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

At Argghhh!!! The Home of two of Jonah's Military Guys

This speech is potentially a historic address, if Secretary Gates can put in motion a plan that the next administration will be able to carry forward. He's couching it in terms that a Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton could take this concept and move with it, embrace it, and make it their own.

The SecDef is actually calling for a huge reorientation of the Federal Government to blend that Canadian concept of "soft power" with the "hard power" of military power. Not as two separate concepts, but as a unifying theme and construct.

He's calling to take the concept embodied in Provincial Reconstruction Teams and Human Terrain Teams and greatly expand their scope and ability - to include a deployability matching that of combat forces and essentially the institutionalization of the skill set in the US Gov, and not necessarily in the State Department, but perhaps in a different organization - making American foreign policy "joint" in the ways that the US military is becoming (cuz' it's an on-going process) Joint.

Video at this link

[Ron Humphrey]

Let it be said,

Beware the sharp intellect of one for whom the art of
talking harshly while brandishing a small stick comes second nature.

What one realizes often far too late is that the really big stick is always right there in the other hand, behind the back.

Civilian integration offers among other things the principle of death by a thousand pricks vs straight forward demolitions.

I will always be proud to be a kansan but he makes it all that much sweeter.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Information War: The Best Defense is an Information Offense

[Cavguy]

I liked the "embarrasing" quote in reference to our ability to leverage information operations.

Bottom line, you have to empower the sub units to conduct tactical IO/messaging without high level approvals - when I left in Feb 07 from Iraq that still was a Division level (minimum) function. The Army's crackdown on blogs had a similar effect.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

I liked the "embarrasing" quote in reference to our ability to leverage information operations.

"Public Relations was invented in the United States, yet we are miserable at communicating to the rest of the world what we are about as a society and a culture, about freedom and democracy, about our policies and our goals. It is just plain embarrassing that al Qaeda is better at communicating its message on the internet than America. As one foreign diplomat asked a couple of years ago, how has one man in a cave managed to out-communicate the world’s greatest communications society?

Speed, agility and cultural relevance are not terms that come readily to mind when discussing U.S. Strategic Communications. "

[Cannoneer No. 4]

DefenseLink Speech http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/...?speechid=1199

[invictus0972]

I thought it was a near perfect speech. Also, I was happy that my 16 year old daughter, from Manhattan High School, was in the audience; and toward the end of the speech, Secretary Gates challenged the youth. She was very excited when she came home. Anyway, it was an interesting speech in which the SECDEF was asking the appropriations folks to spend money elsewhere. He seems to be an honest and unassuming guy. I still think the DoD should have an increased role in SC. Of course this would be, as I have said, in conjunction with all of the agencies the Secretary of Defense mentioned. Unfortunately, specious arguments like the one in the article below work against this role.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1830500.stm

[Steve Blair]

That was one REALLY nice thing about being at K-State: the quality of the Landon Lectures. Just reading back through the transcripts is a fascinating way to pass some time.

[Rank amateur]

yet we are miserable at communicating to the rest of the world what we are about as a society and a culture

Because it's hard, probably impossible and more importantly, it's unnecessary. All we need to do is convince people not to blow themselves up. We don't even need to figure out what to say.

Where Boys Grow Up to be Jihadis – Andrea Elliott, New York Times

In the article, a young Muslim who was thinking about going to Iraq decided not to because he didn't want to blow up Muslims.

That's the message. If you join Al Qeada, you'll blow up Muslims. The message is already working. We just need to help spread it.

[Ron Humphrey]

Because it's hard, probably impossible and more importantly, it's unnecessary. All we need to do is convince people not to blow themselves up. We don't even need to figure out what to say.

Where Boys Grow Up to be Jihadis – Andrea Elliott, New York Times

In the article, a young Muslim who was thinking about going to Iraq decided not to because he didn't want to blow up Muslims.

That's the message. If you join Al Qeada, you'll blow up Muslims. The message is already working. We just need to help spread it.

I understand where your coming from but might I ask, is it too much to think we might also approach it in a way which says its also not ok to blow yourself up even though the people aren't muslim.

I mean I'm not sure that particular argument, even if widely disseminated would have effectively stopped those who attacked on 9/11, or countless other times and places.

By singularly focusing on this it would be in following with the dehumanization of those who don't fit a particular mold.

Just a thought...

[Rank amateur]

I understand where your coming from but might I ask, is it too much to think we might also approach it in a way which says its also not ok to blow yourself up even though the people aren't muslim.

Yes. People who hate you won't take lectures from you, even if you're right.

[invictus0972]

That's the message. If you join Al Qeada, you'll blow up Muslims. The message is already working. We just need to help spread it.

I agree with this statement; however, convincing them not to kill the "near enemy" is only half the battle. We then need to convince them not to kill the "far enemy". If I remember correctly, this is the split that UBL had with Azzam. UBL was willing to take the fight to his fellow Muslims and Azzam was not. Azzam was only willing to fight non-Muslims, and UBL had him killed for his different point of view, at least this is the speculation.

The bottom line is that we need to continue, as you suggest, to convince them to stop killing fellow Muslims, and this will help us in Iraq. However, we still have that global Islamic insurgency to deal with, which will require the same kind of IO campaign that we are seeing in Iraq!

[Rank amateur]

I agree with this statement; however, convincing them not to kill the "near enemy" is only half the battle. We then need to convince them not to kill the "far enemy".

Not really. The only ones trying to kill the far enemy have hitched their wagon to Al Qaeda. If they can't recruit new members, they'll weaken: especially since they tend to blow up their own members.

[kehenry1]

The true failing of the Japanese air force. There is a certain overt attrition in favor of your enemy when you blow your own guys up. Particularly when they see that it doesn't actually end with your victory.

[wm]

The true failing of the Japanese air force. There is a certain overt attrition in favor of your enemy when you blow your own guys up. Particularly when they see that it doesn't actually end with your victory.

And, in a non-violent vain, consider the Shakers. We don't see too many of them around any more now, do we?

It's a little hard to keep your organization going when one of its central tenets (no sex in the case of the Shakers; suicide for the AQ looney tunes) is in direct contradiction to longevity. Reminds me of the Judean People's Front crack suicide squad in Monty Python's Life of Brian.