It’s a little quiet here on the blog as I focus on two deadlines. When I come back online this weekend, I’ll post at least one book review (I finally read Losing Hearts and Minds?) and maybe another review of another book I just finished that gives a deep understanding of what got Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui so bothered over the West and George Soros nine years ago. There’s a remote (really remote) chance I’ll have a third book review ready to go, but my money says it won’t happen by then.
Monthly Archives: March 2007
Understanding the Enemy: Echevarria and Cordesman and the Long War
See Draconian Observations for his brief post on Anthony Cordesman and Antulio J. Echevarria on the Long War.
The below slide DO posted from Cordesman’s presentation is a statement of the obvious that’s absolutely revolutionary (plug: it’s nice to have real analysts agree with me, see the last paragraph here.)
DO’s summary is, of course, dead-on:
The Long War concept ties together the coming Shaping JOC, the SSTR JOC, AFRICOM and also – because of the holistic, true clausewitzian approach – points to the troubled division of labor between State and Pentagon. But that is another story.
Is Somalia seeking Chinese protection?
Thanks JS (not the Armchair Generalist, another JS) for sending this story on Somalia a while back (that I’m just getting to now):
U.S. hires military contractor to back peacekeeping mission in Somalia
By Chris Tomlinson
ASSOCIATED PRESS
1:20 p.m. March 7, 2007NAIROBI, Kenya – The State Department has hired a major military contractor to help equip and provide logistical support to international peacekeepers in Somalia, giving the United States a significant role in the critical mission without assigning combat forces.
DynCorp International, which also has U.S. contracts in Iraq, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq, will be paid $10 million to help the first peacekeeping mission in Somalia in more than 10 years.
The article continues… blah blah blah… but it concludes on an interesting note:
The United States is not the only country seeking to provide private military services in Africa.
In 2005 the Somali government signed a $50 million contract with New York-based TopCat Marine Security to help create a coast guard to protect its coast and shipping from pirates. The State Department blocked TopCat from deploying because of a U.N. arms embargo, Hassan Abshir Farah, Somalia’s marine resources minister said.
Farah said his government was now discussing a deal with the Chinese government and Chinese marine security firms.
Of course the US isn’t the only one offering protection, private or public, to Africa. (why the focus on private military services? Right, it’s the “in topic”.) DynCorp’s involvement isn’t special, spectacular, or really innovative. Not really interesting but noteworthy is the reason given for the death of the TopCat deal, but I won’t waste my time on TopCat. If you care, see Kathryn Cramer’s post on the cease-and-desist order by State to TopCat Marine or see links off my recent summary of the events around the TopCat screw-up.
What is interesting is the last sentence. The Chinese are in a full court press on the continent, as I’ve noted in various blog posts. While they don’t care about the plight of the people, they do care about the plight of the elites. There’s money to be made on fishing etc (the same fish stocks China’s poaching) that China is more than happy to help the gov’t protect (for a fee). Also, keep in mind the Chinese way of sealing the deal is different than that the Americans. We include lawyers and the Chinese include promises of unrelated business to sway the decision maker as necessary, sweetening the deal and ignoring details to be dealt with later. While we look over the details with lawyers, China says “Deal! We’ll work out the details later.”
It will be interesting to see if we see a headline with both China and Somalia in it in the near future.
Public Diplomacy on the web… by Israel
A story on modern public diplomacy on Salon highlights the activities of the state of Israel. The state has its own MySpace page, it’s own blog, and even a bunch of YouTube videos. Apparently the Foreign Ministry will start publishing their own blog, with the personal thoughts of FM officials, soon.
Hmmm, I wonder if you asked the Foreign Ministry who is tasked with these projects, they’d say “I think four or five“? Definitely an interesting reach out.
Thanks AE for mentioning this.
Smart Power
The term “smart power” is gaining traction. Between the blog and CSIS, the dialogue on balancing hard and soft power should advance, especially after this piece on NPR which probably integral to CSIS’s launch of their project.
Masthead change
Briefly, I’ve changed the masthead slightly. “Counterinsurgency” was removed in favor of “unrestricted warfare”. COIN was too restricted and while URW might be a term in vogue at the moment, it is more encompassing than irregular warfare as conflict is frequently non-kinetic or when working to prevent conflict (i.e. “pre-kinetic”). “Private military companies” was removed in favor of privatization of force to also be more encompassing, if not just to use a bigger word.
Public Diplomacy, Strategic Communications and Unrestricted Warfare
I just returned from a trip that emphasized the importance of my mission statement that I posted before I left (w/ slight mod on my return). Between conversations before and after the conference and the conference itself, it seems much more important that we revisit the concepts of strategic communications, information operations, PSYOPS, and public diplomacy in the age of Unrestricted Warfare.
Public Diplomacy Watch points out an attempt to engage foreign audiences through blogging. This is apparently a low priority project as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes doesn’t even know how many of her people are assigned to the task.
How many are on her office’s blog team? “I think it’s four or five,” says Hughes.
Just the other day another incident occurred that begs a major information campaign based on truth: using children as decoys. Such a wedge issue, similar to the Zarqawari “blooper tape” and Zarqawari’s attack on the Jordanian wedding, can have a real effect. Even if not immediate, it can have a cumulative impact. Arrangements like the release of Sheik Ahmed Shibani (and here) should be integrated into the communication plan as we work against the unresponsiveness of the lingering effects of negative PR like Abu Ghraib.
Of course, there’s a limit to how far Hughes can go because of limits of language acquisition that just seems to be new and unique. Check out our efforts in the past (but don’t tell if not asked).
Enough years have passed, let’s get our strategic communications and public diplomacy house in order already. This doesn’t mean a slick Charlotte Beers / Madison Avenue approach, but a smart grass roots effort based on facts. In the case of the children as decoys, find the parents, link in the soccer balls to parents via IP programs, and highlight the change of tactics on both sides. We’re finally doing real engagement as clear and hold actually means hold and at least one segment of the opposition has degenerated further.
See Noah’s post highlighting why we need a better integration with communication specialists.
Blog Purpose
The purpose of this blog is to explore and discuss the relationships between military force, both public and private, public diplomacy, and modern conflict. Implicit in this is the friction between civil and military institutions as it relates to command and control of military force in a constantly evolving environment where conflict is a political tool of both the weak and the strong. Public diplomacy thus becomes a potential tool an element of national security to shorten, terminate, and prevent conflict to save the lives of both civilians and military personnel as it seeks to influence present and future enemies and their support networks.
This direction is seen by some, oddly enough, as tainting public diplomacy and transforming it into something else (something unclean?). As I contravened local wisdom, a colleague suggested I was “scaling the peaks of public diplomacy”. This quote has now been my laptop’s wallpaper for some time now.
China in Africa: perceptions
Jen Brea’s terrific posts on Africa Beat provides a great insight into the “China in Africa” question. Following up on the theme of the week, China in Africa, here are some valuable and topical posts from Jen.
Jen links to a Singapore-based blogger writing about President Hu’s recent Africa trip:
AFRICOM news
On the heels of news that the new AFRICOM is (perhaps) initially setting up in Stuttgart comes this dig in an OpEd in China’s People’s Daily Online, US Embarrassment in Africa: