Peacekeeping and Cultural Diplomacy – unofficial mil videos

After reading more on insurgent’s use of video propaganda in Iraq, I thought it might be interesting to look at a few bored soldier "home" movies… First, there is this video by those crazy Norwegians, filmed in Kosovo. It is a few years old now and is a great example of how not to conduct civil affairs… listen carefully to the lyrics. I don’t suppose the Joint Public Affairs Support Element would recommend this method of outreach. The Serbs were apparently not thrilled when they found out about this movie.

Somalia, Grenada, or rescuing Kuwait-ah; We screwed ya; Rwanda; Wished we coulda helped ya; Iraqi embargo, how it is we don’t know…."

Clearly this movie is a political statement. Which is not what this next movie is about at all. This one is about moral of the troops. WindsOfChange.net has the lyrics and info on a Royal Dragoon Guards video that crashed the Minstry of Defense servers. But the MoD wasn’t upset, but rather proud over the quality of the video, according to the BBC, spoofing "This is the Way to Armadillo" (26.2mb).

The UK Royal Navy apparently has its own video, Bohemian Rhapsody (12.9mb)

Then there’s always the Japanese Maritime SDF recruiting video which doesn’t quite rank as high as the above flicks…

More fun is Born to Raise Hell which I’d hazard has a very different audience than the vids above. In fact, I know it does. The impact on cultural diplomacy of the BtRH video is, to understate it, a little different than Armadillo or Kosovo…

And then there’s the unmilitary but still fun video of the race across Manhattan

5 thoughts on “Peacekeeping and Cultural Diplomacy – unofficial mil videos

  1. The selection, or rather the lack of inclusion, was intentional. The Juba sniper, like the Blackwater sniper and BIAP road videos found elsewhere on this site, are substantially different than the Armadillo, Kosovo, Rhapsody, and even the JMSDF video. These videos are political (Kosovo) or humanizing and therefore part of cultural and public diplomacy. The Born to Raise Hell video may also fit into CD in that it meshes with the popular image of American service personnel. The Blackwater and ERSM (BIAP road) videos involve PSCs, for one, and are simply voyeuristic. The Juba is similiar as is the AEGIS video.I appreciate the comment and the links. Have you looked at GoogleVideo? There are plenty of other OIF vids out there, including another on Blackwater Air. The quality of some of these testify to the reality of mil / psd life: a lot of free time. It is nothing like the movies or video games (I’ve heard stories of people thinking they’re all ready for PSC training because they’ve played the latest Xbox first-person shooter… frightening).

  2. Only 500 words? Damn, that will be difficult. Might squeeze the definition of public diplomacy and cultural diplomacy into that space. Explaining how the videos fit that, that would require more dead trees than one page’s worth.Trivia question: identify the scenes in Born to Raise Hell… and tell me you didn’t watch that more than once…

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