15 Nov 07 testimony before the HASC Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee on Strategic Communications and Countering Ideological Support for Terrorism:
Duncan MacInnes, Principal Dpty Coordinator of the Bureau of International Information Programs, DoS
Capt Hal Pittman USN, Acting Dpty Asst SecDef (Joint Communication), DoD
Michael Doran, Dpty Asst SecDef (Support for Public Diplomacy), DoD
Thanks!!
Jedburgh,Originally Posted by Jedburgh
Thanks for the articles! They were very exciting reads; I am glad to know the DOD is making such great strides through the SPD in the IO arena, very important steps in national security!
What's the scoop on the CTCC?
The CTCC is intended to be a small, collaborative, interagency resource with a daily mission of providing the intellectual leadership necessary for countering terrorist ideology and extremist propaganda through coordinated messages.
We need a Domestic Digital Outreach Team.
Indeed. Consider the USMC Strategic Communications Plan, released in July of this year:
http://www.usmc.mil/directiv.nsf/56e...9?OpenDocument
The USMC, for its part, makes a distinction between:
1. "Key Audiences" - both present and potential members of the Marine Corps and their kith and kin; Congress, and Officer of SECDEF.
2. "Targeted Areas of Influence" - Mass Media; "New" Media; Third-Party Spokepersons; and finally Academia.
All of the objects of SC, curiously, are identified as domestic - there appears to be not one word about foreign audiences or targets.
According to the document, "Strategic Communications activities are planned and conducted at the Service level." Furthermore, "There is only one Strategic Communication Plan for the United States Marine Corps." (Boldface original). The Marines have clearly got the message about SC, and have determined that Service Level is the proper place to conduct SC. Given the problems that would follow from an attempt to combine all the Services' SC in one agency, together with the SC of other USG agencies, perhaps a Cabinet-level director to oversee and attempt to provide at least a minimal level of coordination might be a way to go.
First, we have Domestic Digital Outreach, and you mentioned in a later post State's DipNote. This is run under PA and not PD and therefore aimed at you and me. Second, let's now forget the President's Press Secretary and all of her/his resources, DoD's Outreach (passive and active), and all the other public affairs / public relations units in the rest of USG. (Don't forget DoA's, among others, video press releases while you're at it.)
My $0.02 is Adrian's on the ball, as usual. The advantage of USIA was, of course, its independence. Putting such an operation under DoS makes it susciptible to short-term needs and desires that are too often at odds with the long term needs of psychological struggles. DoS is also incredibly dysfunctional and has a proven inability to adapt to the world that's more like the 1940's and 1950's than the 1980's and 1990's for which it is configured for (albeit poorly). Nevermind the requirements of the 21st Century, which is in part the heart of this thread.
Putting it under DoD a) emphasizes our miltiary and b) prevents a persistent presence and encourages a short-term focus. In the first, do we want to represent the U.S. through our military? Today, American public diplomacy wears combat boots, want to dispute that? Is this the best or appropriate image for the United States? The military, absent a significant shift, is not focused on the long haul through rotations and focus on warfighting.
The enemy can lie, we cannot not. We must have the trust of the audience, they do not. To establish trust, we need a long focus. To build relations, "we" need independence of shifting agendas.
Kehenry: "It's the message of freedom, democracy and capitalism. The thing that the Al Qaida/Qutb ideologues fear the most"
I disagree. The thing they fear most is literate Muslims who actually read the Koran, the Hadith, and even Qutb, as well as Muslims who actually have options. General Doug Stone is demonstrating this in his detainee operations in Iraq and Iraqis are showing this around Iraq. Afghanis are also demonstrating the same.
I'd agree with MR on this one, at least in the short term (say, 2 generations). In the long term (3+ generations), it will be a combination of the two in the form of a literate middle class that is theologically sophisticated, although I doubt that it will look much like the US republican system.
Sic Bisquitus Disintegrat...
Marc W.D. Tyrrell, Ph.D.
Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies,
Senior Research Fellow,
The Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, NPSIA
Carleton University
http://marctyrrell.com/
Qutb
Well, I got the idea based on the writings of Qutb. which is interesting considering his rather revolutionary ideas that men don't need leaders or mullahs to know Allah. You could almost feel sympathetic revolutionary tendencies towards the idea since it reflects our own reformation. Except for the part where he then talks about having to destroy the west because it's ideas transmitted through our capitalist relationships with Islamic nations was causing the ideas of materialism, freedom and democracy (the three demonic minions of Great Satan) to infiltrate the Ummah, splitting good Muslims from the worship of Allah and the right path.
Then there was that whole thing about people of all faiths and nations naturally finding the right way to worship Allah if they were only told. With the conflicting concept that there was only one way to read the Qu'ran and anyone who didn't know the right way or followed the other sixteen schools of jurisprudence were actually takfiri and apostates.
Of course, it does reflect the idea that, if young Muslims read the Qu'ran without "proper direction" they might have their own ideas about religion. But isn't that the problem now? You know that Qutb was listed as a heretic at the Cairo University for doing just that.
The irony is interesting.
I don't think, though, that it precludes the ideas that, yes, indeed, democracy, freedom and capitalism aren't an effective message against radicalism.
Kat-Missouri
Sunnism and DOD
I have also noticed a similarity between Sunni/Salafist and Reformation ecclesiology. Perhaps this is another example of the dangers of too much individual religious interpretation!
Concerning some of the comments on SC, I still believe there needs to be a DOD level organization for organizing the SC of all of the core competencies of each branch of the military services. As I understand things, this was one of the reasons the Office of Strategic Influence (OSI) was established in 2001. There is so much involved in IO across all the various branches that higher level coordination is necessary. I know this is occurring already, but it seems to me it should occur through a formal department.
I don't think, though, that it precludes the ideas that, yes, indeed, democracy, freedom and capitalism aren't an effective message against radicalism.We are here to help the Vietnamese, because inside every gook there is an American trying to get out. It's a hardball world, son. We've gotta keep our heads until this peace craze blows over.
I do think that democracy, capitalism, and freedom are good things. But the world is not flat, blue jeans did not win the Cold War, materialism will not save us, and all three of those very fine things mean very different things to different people, even in America.
DipNote makes a poor subsitute for an OWI
Back when we declared wars we had Office of Strategic Services Morale Operations providing products to make the enemy despair and an Office of War Information providing products to make the Americans persevere. Many people think we could really use products like the OWI produced, and since .gov/.mil can't/won't, volunteer counterpropagandists/cheerleaders attempt it.
All the other public affairs / public relations units do not address national will, nor, realistically, can they.
Are you seriously suggesting the President's Press Secretary is not about influencing the national will? Rumsfeld's press briefings were not about influencing will?
Unless I'm misunderstanding your statement, what you're really talking about is the failure to put together and follow a coherent and flexible and adaptable communications plan. What we've seen from USG is a brittle plan of "let us worry about the big bad guy" without a serious attempt to recruit the people? Reliance on the monolithic enemy has forced the Administration to adjust its message as the enemy transformed.
Hmmm.... could there be a cycling analogy in here? Lots of little peddle strokes -- i.e. high cadence -- means you can quickly and adroitly adapt to changing terrain. A big slow mashing style means slow adjustment. The enemy is Lance Armstrong and the U.S. is Jan Ulrich (w/ the baggage)?
I don't consider Perino and Rumsfeld public affairs / public relations units
Obviously the President and his political operatives will attempt to make the best use of the bully pulpit they can. Rumsfeld's press briefings were definitely about influencing will. The InterAgency and service PA/PR units are less about bolstering the will of the American people to support the war and more about bolstering the will of Congress to fund the organizations they represent. They really can't get too boisterous in their cheer-leading for fear of offending powerful purse-string holders who seek to undermine support for the war.
Civil servants and career military officers usually attempt to maintain at least a facade of non-partisan professionalism and can't be the people overtly cheer-leading for a war half their political masters oppose. The struggle over bolstering or undermining national will is an internal political one. Approval ratings = freedom of action.
some thoughts
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.)
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