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.