Last month the Defense Department’s Inspector General issued the first of three reports, D-2009-091: Information Operations in Iraq (2.2mb PDF), on a series of contracts issued to support information activities in Iraq last year. Congress requested these reports after Karen DeYoung and Walter Pincus wrote about the awarding of up to $300 million in information operations contracts over three years to four private firms last year in "U.S. to Fund Pro-American Publicity in Iraqi Media".
Arguably the goal of the contracts to "engage and inspire" Iraqis to support the US and the Iraqi Government should have been led by the State Department’s public diplomacy, a practice which used to include such goals as "bolstering moral and extending hope". But for a variety of reasons – ranging from incompatibilities with modern requirements and current sense of mission, leadership, and capabilities – the void left by inaction and the dismantling of America’s arsenal of persuasion in terms of theory and practice, has been filled by the Defense Department. The DOD, who until recently rejected the term "public diplomacy" as something only the State Department did, developed the yet-to-be-well-defined rubric of strategic communication which reflects a subtle but significant difference between the State Department and the Defense Department.
A newly released report from the Department of Defense may be the first to specifically consider the role of science and technology (S&T) efforts supporting the broad range of Strategic Communication (SC) activities across the whole of government. The Strategic Communication Science and Technology Plan, April 2009, (PDF) produced by the Rapid Reaction Technology Office (RRTO) within the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Director, Defense Research Engineering (DDRE), responds to direction in the Fiscal Year 2009 National Defense Authorization Act, which calls for the Department to leverage these efforts to designate an “S&T thrust area for strategic communication and focus on critical S&T opportunities.” Congress and RRTO authorized publication of this report on MountainRunner.us.
“The world today can be much better understood if you think of it from the perspective of regions and not states,” said Gen. Jim Jones
International affairs is increasingly shaped by geography that disregards state boundaries and the primacy of governments. Discussions around America’s ability to operate in this modern reality often ignore the effect bureaucratic structures and cultures.
In the debates over how the State Department will engage foreign publics, lost in the shuffle is how the State Department remains oriented on countries instead of regions. The Department of State needs to become the Department of Non-State if it is to be effective as international affairs transcend the increasingly quaint issues of bilateral diplomacy.
For a variety of reasons, the Department of Defence has increased its role in foreign affairs. Decades ago, at the same time USIA was introduced, State was to have primacy in international affairs. Now it is one member of the interagency collaboration of unequal partners.
The map below gives a clue to an aspect of continuing incompatibility between these two agencies, and suggests an functional division that does not match modern needs. The lack of alignment in three critical area – Africa, Middle East, and South Asia – is one issue. Another, arguably more critical, is not indicated by the map: while Defense looks at regions, State functions at the country level. This is a problem when public affairs officers in one country does not have the same priorities as the PAO in the neighboring country. The greater issue is when the ambassadors in a region do not agree or concur on courses of action.
Source: Depeartment of State http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/65617.pdf
State can, and must, do more to be a partner, or a leader among equals. Authorities at several levels of leaders do not equate across the agencies, the ranks do not match, and resources available fosters real and perceived differences in power to affect change with audiences abroad and domestically.
As collaboration between State and Defense increases, State and Defense must align how they divide up the world and adjust their organizations accordingly. As it is, State should adapt its nineteenth century model to Defense’s model. This means State needs to do some promoting and one elimination. State must get rid of the Under Secretary for Political Affairs and elevate the Assistant Secretaries in charge of each regional bureaus to Under Secretary, making the head of the regional bureau the equivalent of a four-star general and thus a co-equal, by rank, to the Combatant Commander. Whenever a Combatant Commander appears on the Hill, so to should the Regional Under Secretary.
I’ve received some push back on this structure because of the additional reporting to the Secretary of State, but if the Secretary of Defense can have Combatant Commanders report directly to him, why can’t the Secretary of State have Regional Bureaus report directly to here? Let’s flatten the hierarchy and move away from the 19th century alignment. Food for thought: should State instantiate a Joint Chiefs-like entity for an additional advisor?
Sure, Ambassadors would lose some independence as the Bureaus become more powerful as State shifts to a regional view from a country-level view, but this isn’t necessarily a zero-sum. (Side note: regarding Ambassadors, keep in mind that everyone at State and Defense are the President’s representative.)
H/T to DF who scored big time finding the above map.
One of the most famous aphorisms of Edward R. Murrow is his statement on the “last three feet”: The really crucial link in the international communication chain is the last three feet, which is bridged by personal contact, one person talking to another. The importance of face-to-face, personal contact in counterinsurgency cannot be emphasized enough. Engaging in this last three feet requires more than figuring out the right words and establishing a grammar to communicate with locals. It means understanding we have a “say-do” gap (the propaganda of deeds versus the propaganda of words) that requires emphasizing actions over words and public and private pronouncements.
Marine Corps General Doug Stone, commander of Task Force 134, Detainee Operations, in Iraq has just signed off on a smart strategic communication plan that should be used as a model for other units. It clearly communicates intent and provides guidance and has the buy-in of General Petraeus.
It makes perfect sense to focus on detainee operations. As Stone notes, “detainee operations is certainly a battlefield; it is the battlefield of the mind, and it is one of the most important fights in counterinsurgency.” Besides the fact he has a captive audience, by definition, his charges have decided to take significant action against the Coalition. For more on the operations of TF134, read this post.
The primary audience and the primary target of the plan is the Task Force itself, which, as one reviewer noted, is a statement that the military culture still requires tweaking. The challenge will be, according to another reviewer, translating the high-level guidance into action.
The plan isn’t long, so if you’re at all interested, I suggest you read it. To encourage that, excerpts from the Overview and Purpose are below the fold.
From 1987 until 2002, the State Department published an annual report titled, Political Violence Against Americans, formerly Significant Incidents of Political Violence Against Americans. It was a report mandated by Congress and
produced by the Bureau of Diplomatic Security’s Office of Intelligence and Threat Analysis (DS/DSS/ITA) to provide readers with a comprehensive picture of the broad spectrum of political violence that American citizens and interests have encountered abroad on an annual basis.
Jason Sigger again wrote about general military readiness, adaptability, and capability. This is one of my “favorite” topics I’ve let slide in the last few months, so I’m glad Jason is staying up on it. Manpower and equipment problems lingering below the surface may force certain decisions if not addressed ASAP.
In the same vein, Amy R. Gershkoff, writing in the Washington Post, writes about saving soldiers’ jobs:
For tens of thousands of members of the National Guard and reserves who are called up to serve in Iraq, returning home safely may be the beginning — not the end — of their worst nightmare. Reservists lucky enough to make it home often find their civilian jobs gone and face unsympathetic employers and a government that has restricted access to civilian job-loss reports rather than prosecuting offending employers.
The Army is finally getting that we’re in an information war and it’s rewriting a core operations manual to address the “important business of influencing and informing populations — both our own and in the area in which we operate.” I’m sure this rewrite will have a greater impact than the book chapter I just wrote arguing the same at the national level.
We all know Al-Qaeda’s propaganda videos are getting slicker and slicker. Here’s the newest evidence: a computer-animated recreation of a March 2006 suicide attack that killed U.S. diplomat David Foy in Karachi, Pakistan. Okay, no one is going to confuse the clip with Finding Nemo or some other digitally-generated Pixar classic. But it does show just how sophisticated the terror group’s production techniques are becoming.
While Al-Qaeda is probably happy with the brand promotion by Washington, America must do a better job of changing its media image. Our office of public diplomacy might consider reading Washington Post’s Susan Kinzie and Ellen Nakashima look at “reputation management” as relabeled public relations that works at a most granular level: person to person.
In Iraq, the mini-Americas that double as bases are might be confused for suburban malls if you take away the guns according to the Los Angeles Times’ Molly Hennessy-Fiske. She writes about the (too) expansive menus of “fattening fare, from cheese steaks to tacos and Rocky Road ice cream” that is causing hungry soldiers to gain more than 15 pounds on a deployment.
And if the money spent on fattening up our warfighters with unhealthy food, and the lives endangered by transporting all of that crap, isn’t enough, consider IraqSlogger’s post on Colin Powell describing his two and a half hours trying to convince President Bush not to go into Iraq.
Randomly, here are the top 5 Google searches used to find MountainRunner on July 5th, 2007:
cheetah cubs arab mobile email reports somalia uranium ivory coast private military the worst directors in nollywood
Brief reminder, if you want to read MountainRunner on your Google homepage, get the MountainRunner gadget. Comments on the gadget are welcome.
A new survey of 1,502 adults released Sunday by Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that despite the mass appeal of the Internet and cable news since a previous poll in 1989, Americans’ knowledge of national affairs has slipped a little. For example, only 69% know that Dick Cheney is vice president, while 74% could identify Dan Quayle in that post in 1989. Other details are equally eye-opening. Pew judged the levels of knowledgeability (correct answers) among those surveyed and found that those who scored the highest were regular watchers of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show and Colbert Report. They tied with regular readers of major newspapers in the top spot — with 54% of them getting 2 out of 3 questions correct. Watchers of the Lehrer News Hour on PBS followed just behind. Virtually bringing up the rear were regular watchers of Fox News. Only 1 in 3 could answer 2 out of 3 questions correctly. Fox topped only network morning show viewers. Told that Shia was one group of Muslims struggling in Iraq, only 32% of the total sample could name “Sunni” as the other key group.
“Some 122,000 Iraqi children died in 2005 before reaching their fifth birthday. More than half of these deaths were among newborn babies in the first month of life,” Save the Children said, listing “armed conflict and social instability” among the principal reasons for Iraq’s child mortality rate.
Remind me again how we achieve moral legitimacy over a population that is suffering like this?
Compared to 1996, the Air Force now spends 87% more on maintenance for a warplane fleet that is less ready to fly. The average Air Force warplane is 23.5 years old.
For your reference. While this story is not as bad as Russian army bases needing handouts or Russian sub bases "conquoring" local power generators to keep their lights on, the Iraq War continues to damage military readiness in subtle ways.
Long have been the attempts to reduce or delay inhibitors to combat effectiveness. Militaries have sought to extend and prolong combat effectiveness through pharmacology to simple selection processes to wash out those unable to be minimally functional in physically challenging situations, including sleep deprivation and environmental extremes.
Last month the Defense Department’s Inspector General issued the first of three reports, D-2009-091: Information Operations in Iraq (2.2mb PDF), on a series of contracts issued to support information activities in Iraq last year. Congress requested these reports after Karen DeYoung and Walter Pincus wrote about the awarding of up to $300 million in information operations contracts over three years to four private firms last year in "U.S. to Fund Pro-American Publicity in Iraqi Media". 
A newly released report from the Department of Defense may be the first to specifically consider the role of science and technology (S&T) efforts supporting the broad range of Strategic Communication (SC) activities across the whole of government. The 
