Panel 2 - Bifurcated Engagement generally covers the impact of the Act since 9/11 to the present day.
The discussants and moderator for this panel, including their bios, may be found here.
Panel 2 - Bifurcated Engagement generally covers the impact of the Act since 9/11 to the present day.
The discussants and moderator for this panel, including their bios, may be found here.
Interagency coordination and execution for information-based disciplines today is ad hoc, bifurcated, and generally based on the goodwill of its participants. How can this be fixed? Could these disciplines, from public diplomacy to PSYOP to public affairs, act as individual pieces of a National Communication Executive that would require its own interagency doctrine?
A common justification for repealing Smith-Mundt provisions is that they 'hamstring American public diplomacy.' This argument stipulates that, because there is no longer a way to ensure that foreign-targeted information products will not reach domestic audiences, Smith-Mundt seriously limits America's ability to conduct public diplomacy.
This argument couches the debate in terms that minimize concerns over domestic propaganda. In the wake of the Pentagon analyst scandal, called by one Naval Academy professor as "PSYOP on steroids," the question becomes important: could the elimination of Smith-Mundt provisions be interpreted as a legal mandate for conducting large-scale media campaigns to influence American citizens; for propagandizing the Americans?