NDU conference

[Adrian]

I work at NDU, putting on monthly conferences. This month's conference is titled "The Battle of Ideas: Messages, Mediums and Methods." It's at NDU in DC, free and open to the public (non-attribution policy applies). I figured it would be of interest to the SWJ community, especially if you read this forum.

Highlighted topics will include Arab media, US gov't info ops, stratcom and public diplomacy efforts so far, lessons from the private sector, a case study of info ops in Ramadi, domestic media coverage, and future stratcom scenarios.

September 25, 1PM-5PM, and September 26, 9AM-5PM. You're welcome to come to all of it or whatever parts you can make. Directions. To register, email CTNSP-NCO@ndu.edu.

Presenters/panel members include:

Marc Lynch, Jon Alterman, Michael Hudson, Bob Reilly, Todd Helmus, Chris Paul, John McCary (former intel E5 in Ramadi), Kyle Teamey, Harvey Rishikof, Frank Sesno, John Robb, and TX Hammes.

Any questions/comments?

[SWJED]

Adrian,

Thanks much for posting this. I'm sure you will get some takers from the SWJ, including myself.

Dave

[Ken White]

Hopefully some of the items discussed can be shared afterwards...

[Adrian]

Originally Posted by Ken White

Hopefully some of the items discussed can be shared afterwards...

NDU's non-attribution policy would limit what I could share, like specific observations by different people, etc. But I could share general observations I think - I'll check on that with my boss.

[Rex Brynen]

Originally Posted by Adrian

NDU's non-attribution policy would limit what I could share, like specific observations by different people, etc. But I could share general observations I think - I'll check on that with my boss.

Marc Lynch may end up summarizing some of it at his excellent blog, Abu Aardvark--many at SWJ will find it useful both for its take on media in the Arab world and (more lately) the public debates among Islamist groups.

(By the way--great speakers, Adrian. Wish I lived much closer!)

On a side note, as an academic who always scrupulously observes "non-attribution" ground-rules, I was bemused during my time in government to find that all of our internal reporting of discussions held under "Chatham House Rules" always violated all the rules! ("The first speaker, Ambassador So-and-so, said.... ")

[Adrian]

We have an addition - Michael S. Doran, currently DASD/Support to Public Diplomacy, will be sitting on a panel.

[Cavguy]

Who's presenting Info Ops in Ramadi?

[Adrian]

Kyle Teamey, former O3, coauthor of the COIN manual, and John McCary, former E5, currently a grad student in Georgetown's SSP (same program I'm in).

[Adrian]

The NDU PAO stuck it up on the website so now you know it's official. The link to the official agenda actually links to something else - I'll try to fix it Monday. There might be one or two additions to the schedule but it's pretty much set in stone now.

[JD]

Will you be publishing proceedings or making the presentations available afterwords because that may be very useful.

JD

[Adrian]

Originally Posted by JD

Will you be publishing proceedings or making the presentations available afterwords because that may be very useful.

JD

Like I mentioned above, it's a tricky question because of the non-attribution issue. Still haven't resolved it with the bosses.

[SteveMetz]

Originally Posted by Adrian

Like I mentioned above, it's a tricky question because of the non-attribution issue. Still haven't resolved it with the bosses.

At the Strategic Studies Institute we publish conference briefs which do not name specific speakers. E.g. this one.

[Adrian]

It looks like we will do a 4 to 5 page writeup of the conference that we'll be sending to the Pentagon and posting on our website. Once that goes up I'll post the link.

[Adrian]

In what I am chalking up as a lesson in government bureaucracy, the writeup has been sent out for security review (after it was reviewed by other various people) and will be posted anywhere between a week and a month...

[SteveMetz]

Originally Posted by Adrian

In what I am chalking up as a lesson in government bureaucracy, the writeup has been sent out for security review (after it was reviewed by other various people) and will be posted anywhere between a week and a month...

Welcome to my world. I've been strongly pushing my organization to do podcasts. Because the bureaucracy no comprendo new media and time imperativeness, they treat the clearance process like a written report. This means it takes months. So I just decided to drop it. There's no use in even bothering with a two month old podcast.

Same with my involvement here. I can't get the bureaucracy to decide whether blogging is the same as "publication" and hence requires public affairs clearance or not.

This illustrates the pathology of the bureaucracy: no one ever gets in trouble for saying "no" but they can get in trouble for saying "yes" if problems arise. I don't know who is worse, our PAO or our IT people. A pox on both their houses.

[Ken White]

Originally Posted by SteveMetz

Welcome to my world...
. . .
This illustrates the pathology of the bureaucracy: no one ever gets in trouble for saying "no" but they can get in trouble for saying "yes" if problems arise. I don't know who is worse, our PAO or our IT people. A pox on both their houses.

one but it has merit. The bureaucracy is so stifling and so encourages inaction as 'safe' that I used the old "better to seek forgiveness than to ask permission" routine so often that it became a habit. Only got threatened with firing on three occasions in 18 years...

Of course, I was once briefly barred from ForsCom headquarters -- but I took that as a win...

[Tom Odom]

The bureaucracy is so stifling and so encourages inaction as 'safe' that I used the old "better to seek forgiveness than to ask permission" routine so often that it became a habit. Only got threatened with firing on three occasions in 18 years...

Ken that was SOP for Stan and me in Zaire and again for me with my Navy Chief in Rwanda. Where it really got liberating for us in Rwanda was when I sent my retirement papers in....

Only 3 times???

Tom

[Ken White]

chewings -- which really, really, really distressed me no end, honest -- were uncountable. However, stuff got done which is the important thing...