Category: Public Diplomacy

Keep Rove off welfare, give him Hughes’ job

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 2 Comments

Thomas Friedman’s op-ed this past weekend is spot on with many a post here at MountainRunner, especially my comment last week about replacing Karen Hughes with Karl Rove. If Rove approached international public opinion, especially public opinion in contested physical and mental states (i.e. Middle East and disenfranchised Muslims in the EU), Osama, Sadr, and all the others would be either running scared or panhandling.

Today, the direct impact of bullets and bombs is often much less than the propaganda opportunities and perceptions they create. A famous dead Prussian once said war is a continuation of politics, but the reality today is that war is politics and nearly every act is an attempt to gain strategic influence over friends, foes, and neutrals. YouTube, blogs, and all forms of other media and connectivity everywhere means every GI Joe and Jihadi gets at least a bit part in the theater of information, for better or worse.

Now imagine Karl Rove takes this to heart and instead of the US telling foreign audiences what we want our own people to hear, we tell them the truth about their false idols?

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Measuring Success

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 9 Comments

Austin Bay posted a list of “measurements of effectiveness” he thinks Petraeus will consider in the too-highly hyped September progress report. Even though Austin acknowledges the importance of perception, he focuses his list on Industrial Age (no, not “3GW”) qualifiers that are essentially the same that led to the “surprise” collapse of the Soviet Union.

Here’s Austin’s nod to perception management:

Recognize this problem: if you tell the enemy what you are measuring and it become very easy for him to frustrate it — at least frustrate it perceptually. The best example (or perhaps “worst example” is more appropriate) is the conclusion that Babil is secure. The leader of an Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia cadre sees that conclusion in a newspaper headline so he sends several suicide bombers to Babil. One gets through and kills twenty Iraqis. What’s the media tout? Petraeus was wrong?

Yes, the enemy sees an opportunity. He’s smart, even when he’s sitting in a cave he’s more adept at us at manipulating public opinion. And what do we do? Nothing. We create his opportunities, do nothing to defend proactively or retroactively. It isn’t a big challenge to be a propaganda officer for an insurgent group, but it should be.

Not only do we need to move away from numbers of officers and soldiers in defining success and toward more qualitative measurements, but we need to have active countermeasures that anticipate and respond to enemy IO.

There’s too much complaining that the media jumps on the bandwagon after a terrorist strike. Who else will they hear? There ain’t nobody else talking to counter the IED or suicide bomber pinpricks. Not only can we not counter enemy IO, we can’t anticipate it, and this inability to manage perceptions continually strikes at our credibility, legitimacy, and lowers confidence. (How’s the urban tourniquet going for those inside the walls? Last I heard, not so great. No mini-PRT to make the walled communities something to be demanded.)

Too many fret about the media jumping the bandwagon driven by insurgents and terrorists, but with such a passive and suicidal stance on IO must include getting the truth out and exposing the lies, deceptions, perversions, and self-serving criminal behavior in the name of Islam or tribe, it’s not surprising. You can go ahead and be upset when the media questions Petraeus, but what else are they supposed to think? What other news do they have to cover? How else are they to frame the messages?

Mash-Up for Friday, August 10, 2007

~ Matt Armstrong

I’m short on time for the blog so I am just going to dump a bunch of recommended reads here. I am at a conference next week, so posting next week is likely to be very light.

From the Pew Research Center: Internet News Audience Highly Critical of News Organizations

The American public continues to fault news organizations for a number of perceived failures, with solid majorities criticizing them for political bias, inaccuracy and failing to acknowledge mistakes. But some of the harshest indictments of the press now come from the growing segment that relies on the internet as its main source for national and international news.

The internet news audience – roughly a quarter of all Americans – tends to be younger and better educated than the public as a whole. People who rely on the internet as their main news source express relatively unfavorable opinions of mainstream news sources and are among the most critical of press performance. As many as 38% of those who rely mostly on the internet for news say they have an unfavorable opinion of cable news networks such as CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC, compared with 25% of the public overall, and just 17% of television news viewers.

DARPA sees the future, and it’s not the world where we can rest on our technological asses. We must take into account a smart and adaptive enemy. The wizz-bang devices don’t play and weren’t designed for the information game. This informational asymmetry reduces the fungibility of our kinetic assets:

There’s a tendency to view Islamists as backwards barbarians, Winter said.  This image is “misleading and very dangerous.”  The terrorist enemy is more likely to be a “engineer in a lab” than an “evildoer in a cave.”

Growth in commercial computing power has “eroded” America’s Cold War “technical edge,” Winter said.  The same – or even better – gear gets out to kids worldwide, before soldiers ever see it.  “The playing field has thus been leveled.”  Just look at how Iraqi insurgents have been able to the Internet to recruit, train, and spread propaganda. And check out the network-like “command and control” structures that these guys are using, compared to our old military hierarchies. 

On PRTs, Richard Fernandez of The Belmont Club, adds some important points on PRTs not raised in my post, namely State’s out of touch regs and a mil-based Civil Response Corps already in operation (h/t SWJ Blog):

I was just on the blogger round table with Philip Reeker, US Embassy Baghdad, on the subject of PRTs. And it was clear that they were trying to building things from the bottom up in a society where the tradition of local government (as opposed to tribal government) was nonexistent. But it was also clear that the assets necessary to accomplish this are pretty thin. They’re still building the doctrine. And there’s no enabling bureaucratic structure. One of the things, for example, that Ambassador Crocker had to do was waive the State Department security regs to get people out. To provide any security at all, the PRTs either have to be embedded or escorted, except in places like Kurdistan where they can mostly operate unescorted.

Interestingly, the PRTs found the military’s reserve system very useful because it provided a pool of specialists for which State had no analogue. There was some reference to the need for the equivalent of a Goldwater-Nichols for the civilian arms of government to provide an institutional cure. But that’s still prospective. The sense you got was that State is trying to field people and is succeeding somewhat, but that many hurdles remain.

To summarize, from what I understand there’s a clear recognition now — and there may have been a former reluctance — to create the capacity to conduct political work at the grassroots. But there remain questions about whether a) it is still possible, given the time elapsed; b) US Government agencies can [mobilize] effectively to accomplish this task.

My own sense, without any pejorative reflection on State, is that they are struggling to match the political work with the security gains. And this is due, I think, almost wholly to the circumstance that we are now asking diplomats to do something they never in their wildest dreams thought they would be doing. As Mr. Reeker ran down the list of this or that person voluntarily leaving a post in such and such European capital for duty in some provincial Iraqi dustbowl you got the sense that the State guys were individually making one heck of an effort but that the institutional capacity still isn’t there.

Abu Muqawama gave this timely link on Jeep’s and Humvee’s that included this important realization:

Yet the Humvee’s biggest drawback may actually be the false sense of security it imparts. American troops, many military theorists now argue, are too removed in their vehicles, fighting for Iraqi hearts and minds with a drive-through mentality. The open-air jeep meant that soldiers could, and had to, interact with the people of occupied nations; the closed, air-conditioned Humvee has only isolated American forces from Iraqis. This is even more of a problem with the MRAP, which offers only small, armored windows to peek out of. Though the tactics of the current surge seek to get troops out of their vehicles more often, many politicians involved in the debate over Humvees assume—perhaps erroneously—that more armor means more safety and success.

Over one thousand contractors have now died in Iraq, but, no surprise, we don’t know the true number. David Ivanovich writes in the Houston Chronicle:

And as of June 30, 1,001 civilian contractors working for U.S. firms had died there since the war’s start more than four years ago, including 231 in the first six months of 2007, according to Labor Department statistics the Chronicle received Tuesday.

How many of those killed were Americans is unclear, since the Labor Department records do not provide the nationalities of the casualties.

Lastly, and for something completely different, cycling’s sponsors have finally had enough of being associated with doping. The latest news on this front is Team Discovery, formerly USPS, will end their sponsorship in February and director Johan Bruyneel will retire. While they team was in negotiations to replace the main sponsor, they decided to cut negotiations because “the situation in the sport is so bad that nobody wants to be involved with us.”

Read: Attacking the al-Qaeda Narrative

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

Read Jim Guirard’s post Attacking the al Qaeda “Narrative” and “semantic infiltration” at the Small Wars Journal blog.

In his June 2007 State Department E-Journal article, New Paradigms For 21st Century Conflicts, Dr. Dave Kilcullen of General David Petraeus’ senior staff in Baghdad called for, among other things, a “New Lexicon” for better defining and more effectively defeating enemies which subscribe to the faith-based mantra of “Death to America, the Great Satan”.

In other public statements and in several Small Wars Journal postings, Kilcullen entered very slowly, very prudently into the virtually verboten realm of attacking al Qaeda-style Terrorism in Islamic religious context, rather than in Western secular terms only — referring to the AQ terrorists as “munafiquun” (hypocrites to authentic, Qur’anic Islam) and pointing out that “they call themselves mujahideen” but are doing barbaric things which are anything but holy.

To which this word warrior says: Spot on! Two small steps for a good man, two giant steps for truth-in-language and truth-in-Islam in the War on al Qaeda-style Terrorism — a.k.a., Irhabi Murderdom and the AQ Apostasy, as this essay recommends as its most appropriate new names.

But even these two measured Kilcullen attacks on the terrorists’ religious legitimacy were in conflict with the State Department’s basic rule in such matters. As stated on page 25 of the US National Strategy For Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication, the official advisory is, in part, as follows: Use caution when dealing with faith issues. Government officials should be extremely cautious and, if possible, avoid using religious language, because it can mean different things and can be easily misunderstood…

…[Lieutenant General Jim Mattis, Commanding General of US Marines Forces Central Command and I Marine Expeditionary Force charged ] in a recent North County Times interview, the al Qaeda narrative in this respect is nothing but tyranny in false religious garb. Although he does not list the specific Islamic terms which constitute that pseudo-religious scam, the most likely ingredients of this patently false but highly seductive, self-sanctifying narrative would be bin Ladenism’s six-word mantra of so-called

(1) Jihad (holy war) by supposed
(2) mujahideen (holy warriors) and UBL-anointed
(3) shuhada (martyrs) destined for a promised 72-virgins
(4) Jennah (Paradise) as reward for killing us alleged
(5) kuffr (infidels) and, in time, the alleged
(6) Shaitan al-Kabir (the Great Satan, America), as well

Notice, please, that the widespread parroting of this AQ-supportive narrative is much akin to the “useful idiocy” of those in the Cold War who parroted (and who demonized those few who would not join them in parroting) the Soviets’ and Fascist Fidel Castro’s deceitful narrative of so-called

(1) Wars of National Liberation by alleged
(2) Progressive Movements and supposed
(3) Patriotic Fronts on their way to heaven-on-earth
(4) People’s Democracy as a reward for killing all of us
(5) Fascists and for defeating the evils of
(6) American Imperialism

You can beat a dead horse only so many times, so briefly… note where the argument for a “new lexicon” is published. In a State Department e-journal, that’s great. Note who wrote it. Someone from the defense community (Kilcullen was working with State before he was poached, but he is mil, period… and Mattis is mil). Note how his seemingly fundamental argument of not adopting the enemy’s vocabulary and grammar is in violation of State’s, and Karen Hughes’ (surprise), policy. Do you hear about such awareness coming from the civilian sector, say State or even our Chief Information Officer Karen Hughes?

Read Jim’s post, I’m working on something else and the horse is dead already.

Monday Mash-Up August 6, 2007

~ Matt Armstrong

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. 

I’m still waiting for somebody to link social obesity with Sageman’s socialization schema. Phil Carter, with highlighting and a special image by Noah Shachtman, did see a link to national security.

“Timendi causa est nescire” : ignorance is the cause of fear — Seneca. Found in the signature line of a public affairs officer.

Seth Weinberger wants to make politics personal.

On robots, Noah counts down the 50 best movie robots.

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.

It’s a good thing because al-Qaeda’s information capabilities having gotten slicker. From Noah (again):

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.

Blogger’s Roundtables and PRTs in Iraq

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

Unfortunately I missed the Blogger Roundtable on PRTs in Iraq with Philip Reeker, counselor for Public Affairs at the Department of State out of the US Embassy, Baghdad. On the call were Andrew Lubin of On Point, Grim of Blackfive, Dave Dilegge of Small Wars Journal / Small Wars Council (go to SWJ’s post for a good summary of questions as well as background resources), Austin Bay, Richard Fernandez of The Belmont Club, David Axe of Aviation Week, Charlie Quidnunc of Whizbang, and Jason Sigger of Armchair Generalist. But not me, the wife’s conference call at the same time and my son waking up messed up my schedule. However, I do have the transcript of this valuable and allegedly secret-handshake-required conference call.

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Targeting Public Opinion is nothing new

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 4 Comments

Targeting the morale of the civilian population is not new and certainly not something absent from 20th Century warfare as many would have you believe. What is new, is the rise of the non-state actors, but attacking the will to fit. The United States hired privateers to attack the will of the British to support the war against us in the 19th Century at the dawn of the nation-state. While the nation-state brought with it problems of governance because the governing lost at least some autonomy over the governed (in the worst cases they had to at least work harder to oppress their people than before). Long before the nation-state, consider Vlad the Impaler’s PSYOP to dissuade trespassing.

In the 20th Century when supposedly warfare was only industrial and between states to the exclusion of the people, German bombing in World War I caused such panic in London that one observer, Giulio Douhet, the influential Italian air warfare theorist, developed a thesis that can best be described as terrorism from the air for maximum psychological affect on the enemy:

At this point I want to stress one aspect of the problem – namely, that the effect of such aerial offensives upon morale may well have more influence upon the conduct of the war than their material effects. For example, take the center of a large city and imagine what would happen among the civilian population during a single attack by a single bombing unit [dropping 20 tons of high-explosive, incendiary and gas bombs.]… First would come explosions, then fires, then deadly gases…By the following day the life of the city would be suspended…

What could happen to a single city in a single day could also happen to ten, twenty, fifty cities. And, since news travels fast, even without telegraph, telephone, or radio, what, I ask you, would be the effect upon civilians of other cities, not yet stricken but equally subject to bombing attacks? What civil or military authority could keep order, public services functioning, and production going under such a threat?…

A complete breakdown of the social structure cannot but take place in a country subjected to this kind of merciless pounding from the air. The time would soon come when, to put an end to the horror and suffering, the people themselves, driven by the instinct of self-preservation, would rise up and demand an end to the war…

In 1939, E. H. Carr also noted the rising “power over opinion” as contemporary war nullified “the distinction between combatant and civilian; and the morale of the civilian population became for the first time a military objective.”

And even the realpolitik author decades later, Hans Morganthau, in his nine elements of national power, included two as unstable: national morale and the quality of diplomacy. Both were subject to domestic and foreign strategic influence campaigns.

Attempting to influence the psychology of populations comes in many forms. If the last resort of kings was war, the first resort was intelligence and linkages from cultural diplomacy. We have clearly forgotten how to participate in the struggle over minds and wills. We used to know. From radio broadcasts to inform and mobilize people over there to influencing the framing of US domestic news of events over there, we fully engaged the public, both ours and theirs.

George Kennan understood the importance of information, public opinion, and morale. As Nicholas Thomson wrote six days after I posted the ending of Kennan’s Long Telegram,

…in a letter to Lippmann that Kennan never mailed (most likely because his boss, Secretary of State George Marshall, had chastened him for causing a ruckus), Kennan explained that he didn’t mean containment with guns. He didn’t want American armed forces to intervene in countries where the Soviets were mucking around but hadn’t gained control, like Greece, Iran and Turkey.

The Soviets are making “first and foremost a political attack,” Kennan wrote. “Their spearheads are the local communists. And the counter-weapon that can beat them is the vigor and soundness of political life in the victim countries.”

Something to think about.

If the surge is working, why are we still losing?

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 5 Comments

Question: if the surge is working, why are we still losing? That’s the oft asked question that starts from the wrong premise: that we’re losing. Seth at Security Dilemmas gets the point of the surge: 

The surge is intended not to pacify the country, but rather to provide sufficient security to create breathing room in which the government can pass needed laws and stabilize the political situation.

But while the surge may be working, the political process is not. All of the people cited above for their optimism on the military aspect of the surge also voiced their pessimism about the political side. Admiral Mullen stated that “there does not appear to be much political progress” in resolving the critical issues that might ease sectarian violence.

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Talking about talking in Iraq, Nineveh specifically

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

On the blogger roundtable last week, I’ll be brief and generally punt to Grim at Blackfive to talk about the Blogger Roundtable Call last Friday with Colonel Stephen (“ste-FAHN” to you and me) Twitty. COL Twitty is commander of the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cav, stationed in Ninewah province, the largest in Iraq. The full transcript is here for your reading pleasure, but a searchable version is here (I’ve asked the PAO to make the bloggers archive version searchable as well).

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While talking about Public Diplomacy in Cyberspace… news on Second Life (updated)

~ Matt Armstrong

Following up on my previous post on electronic media is this article by Frank Rose, writing in Wired, How Madison Avenue Is Wasting Millions on a Deserted Second Life:

For months, Michael Donnelly had been hearing all about the fantastic opportunities in Second Life.

As worldwide head of interactive marketing at Coca-Cola, Donnelly was fascinated by its commercial potential, the way its users could wander through a computer-generated 3-D environment that mimics the mundane world of the flesh. So one day last fall, he downloaded the Second Life software, created an avatar, and set off in search of other brands like his own. American Apparel, Reebok, Scion — the big ones were easy to find, yet something felt wrong: “There was nobody else around.” He teleported over to the Aloft Hotel, a virtual prototype for a real-world chain being developed by the owners of the W. It was deserted, almost creepy. “I felt like I was in The Shining.”

…

Second Life partisans claim meteoric growth, with the number of “residents,” or avatars created, surpassing 7 million in June. There’s no question that more and more people are trying Second Life, but that figure turns out to be wildly misleading. For starters, many people make more than one avatar. According to Linden Lab, the company behind Second Life, the number of avatars created by distinct individuals was closer to 4 million. Of those, only about 1 million had logged on in the previous 30 days (the standard measure of Internet traffic), and barely a third of that total had bothered to drop by in the previous week. Most of those who did were from Europe or Asia, leaving a little more than 100,000 Americans per week to be targeted by US marketers.

Then there’s the question of what people do when they get there. Once you put in several hours flailing around learning how to function in Second Life, there isn’t much to do. That may explain why more than 85 percent of the avatars created have been abandoned. Linden’s in-world traffic tally, which factors in both the number of visitors and time spent, shows that the big draws for those who do return are free money and kinky sex. On a random day in June, the most popular location was Money Island (where Linden dollars, the official currency, are given away gratis), with a score of 136,000. Sexy Beach, one of several regions that offer virtual sex shops, dancing, and no-strings hookups, came in at 133,000. The Sears store on IBM’s Innovation Island had a traffic score of 281; Coke’s Virtual Thirst pavilion, a mere 27. And even when corporate destinations actually draw people, the PR can be less than ideal. Last winter, CNET’s in-world correspondent was conducting a live interview with Anshe Chung, an avatar said to have earned more than $1 million on virtual real estate deals, when Chung was assaulted by flying penises in a griefer attack.

Hmmm…

Joseph Jaffe, the marketing consultant who advised Coke on its in-world presence, dismisses the notion that such efforts might not be worthwhile. “The learning is now,” Jaffe says. “You are a pioneer, and with that comes first-mover advantage” — that chestnut from the Web 1.0 boom. And the paltry numbers? “This is not about reach anymore. This is about connecting. It’s about establishing meaningful, impactful conversations. So when people ask, ‘Why Second Life?’ I ask ‘Why not?'”

Yes, why not? Are you going to see lots of people? No…

…the popular islands are never crowded, because each processor on Linden Lab’s servers can handle a maximum of only 70 avatars at a time; more than that and the service slows to a crawl, some avatars disappear, or the island simply vanishes. “It’s really the software’s fault,” says Andrew Meadows, Linden Lab’s senior developer. “Way back when, we used to say, ‘This is not going to scale.'”

Why go?

“Companies say, ‘It’s an experiment’ — but what are they learning?” Tobaccowala asks. “Basically, they’re learning how to create an avatar and walk around in Second Life.” Which is fine if that’s what you want to do. Just don’t expect to sell a lot of Coke.

Seems like a good place to have a presence. In a cost-benefit analysis, seems like it isn’t the best investment for the money if you’re attempting to counter enemy propaganda through engaging foreign and domestic publics directly. But that’s just me…

Ok, Michael’s got some updates. First, was his post a couple of months ago about SL being a terrorist training tool. But all ICT(information and communication technologies) can be dual purpose, so I’m not concerned there. Better to use technology to empower the good than to fear its use by the bad. We may as well return to the communications systems of the Seventeenth Century to prevent the spread of ideology, food, etc. But here’s the good stuff MT shares: Virtual Terrorists, Hunted in reality, jihadists are turning to artificial online worlds such as Second Life to train and recruit members.

In SL people create their own characters, known as avatars, and live an alternative life, buying goods, real estate and living in a community of more than eight million people from across the world. They go about their lives, attending concerts and seminars, building businesses and socialising.

On the darker side, there are also weapons armouries in SL where people can get access to guns, including automatic weapons and AK47s. Searches of the SL website show there are three jihadi terrorists registered and two elite jihadist terrorist groups.

Once these groups take up residence in SL, it is easy to start spreading propaganda, recruiting and instructing like minds on how to start terrorist cells and carry out jihad.

One radical group, called Second Life Liberation Army, has been responsible for some computer-coded atomic bombings of virtual world stores in the past six months….

Earlier this year Britain’s Fraud Advisory Panel warned that SL players could launder money across national borders without restriction and with little risk of being detected. The FAP says criminal or terrorist gangs can also use the game to avoid surveillance while committing crimes including credit card fraud, identity theft, money laundering and tax evasion.

Perception management by the insurgency

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 4 Comments

This is a video of an EOD robot taking one for the team filmed and posted by an Iraqi Sunni insurgents & supporters. More interesting is the back and forth comments on YouTube about its place in the larger media campaign.

silence34342000 (video poster): can you imagine how many resistance videos are released daily each showing at least 4 marines dying(not considering flying rockets on american bases and operations which didnt get videod)? do you know how many Jihadi groups are in Iraq?
you dont know the size of resistance and its abilities.
plz ark get me one video showing the Mujahidin killing innocent ppl

arkgunslinger: Here’s a few
v=PpOHYdMQOkE “There has been a surge in sectarian violence in Iraq”
v=rdJTOIi0vaQ “Ever more Iraqi civilians murdered”
v=3hnkGxT3gAg “Chlorine truck bombs in Iraq”
v=MPAoQ8jQJPs “Many Killed in Iraq Car Bombing”
v=pFmdaWWKGMI “Typical Car bombing aftermath”

silence34342000: i watched them all and i have one comment
show me ONE Mujahid just one in any of these videos.
see Jihad videos theyre marked by a Jihadi group sign or accompained by comment of a Jihadi leader or Mujahidin themselves appearing in the video.
in the videos you brought it isnt clear who did those bombings and all of them just showing smoke and burnt things without a proof that this was done by Mujahidin

silence34342000: see how Jihad media is clear and simple it shows everything starting from planning an operation and ending with excuting it your media brings the burnt things and tells you the evil Mujahidin did it without any proof and without one Mujahid appearing in the video

The poster, an insurgent supporter at the very least, recognizes the need for IO and the value of a clear and simple media product. Taunting the (presumably) American to “Show me one mujahid…in any of these videos” killing innocent people, he shifts responsibility of demonstrating the contradiction of the insurgents message and tactics to the American.

By the way, what’s State doing to counter these messages? Under the “leadership” of Karen Hughes, State has “four of five” bloggers that search through cyberspace and attempt to correct information with official US position statements. Underwhelming to say the least.

Importance of images and perceptions

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

On framing US domestic images, Why the Military Hates the Left

On the importance of Iraqi domestic perceptions, see the second half of Sean Smith’s film at the Guardian.

Also, see Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack’s article in today’s New York Times.

Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.…

Another surprise was how well the coalition’s new Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Teams are working. Wherever we found a fully staffed team, we also found local Iraqi leaders and businessmen cooperating with it to revive the local economy and build new political structures. Although much more needs to be done to create jobs, a new emphasis on microloans and small-scale projects was having some success where the previous aid programs often built white elephants.

Good news and bad news in a single sentence: “Wherever we found a fully staffed team…”

Monday Mash-Up for July 30, 2007

~ Matt Armstrong

If you want another example of America’s failure to understand the importance of building a bigger and badder Internet infrastructure (hell the report I referenced misses the fundamental requirement!), compare the US e-Government initiative and the UK’s. It isn’t pretty.

“Universal internet access is vital if we are not only to avoid social divisions over the new economy but to create a knowledge economy of the future which is for everyone. Because it’s likely that the internet will be as ubiquitous and as normal as electricity is today. For business. Or for individuals.” – former Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2000

There are advantages to technology, although this example doesn’t include a resolution, in “the F-16 Does What?” segment Noah Schachtman clipped from Michael Yon’s post from .

Bourbon and Lawndarts and SWJ (don’t skip the comments on SWJ’s post) both have good posts on passing up H.R. McMaster, author of the superb Dereliction of Duty and COIN expert, for a promotion.

Foreign Policy cites the latest Pew Global Attitudes Survey showing Muslim support for suicide terrorism is waning. Think the attack on Iraqi soccer fans will be included in a public diplomacy campaign? What about an information operation?

Jason at ArmchairGeneralist also looks at American readiness today, another installment in his ongoing series titled “They’re Breaking My Army.”

Phil Carter posts on the growing girth of Americans and asks about its impact on recruiting in the future.

Paul Kretkowski at the Beacon posted his comments on the DNI Open Source Conference.

Steve Aftergood of FAS noted the Army has revisited its manual on Civil Affairs.

Lastly, adding to my earlier post IEDs as a Weapons of Strategic Influence, Noah writes on JIEDDO’s “strategic flaw” using an insider study (Word doc).

However, what the paper concludes, ultimately, is that the American effort against improvised bombs has been an “unsatisfactory performance [with] an incomplete strategy.”  What’s more, the JIEDDO-led struggle against the hand-made explosives has a “strategic flaw” that may keep the U.S. from ever gaining the upper hand on the bombers, Adamson notes: The lack of authority to knock bureaucratic heads.  He recommends instead establishing a separate, Executive Branch agency with a “laser-like concentration on the hostile use of IEDs.”   

Ideally, every element of the U.S. government would be teaming up to fight IEDs, Adamson writes.  Spies would be uncovering rings of bombers; FBI investigators would be helping examine forensic evidence; diplomats would be applying political pressure to catch bombers; other countries could even be chipping in, offering their own experience with improvised explosives. 

In practice, however, such coordination has been uneven, at best. The  “IA [interagency] process lacks a comprehensive strategy for defeating the global IED threat.”  Outside of the military, few agencies have viewed bomb-beating “as essential to their collective or unilateral missions.”  So they have given the problem short shrift.  For example, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms decided that, “due to resource constraints, [it] could not support greater involvement with DOD’s [the Department of Defense’s] IED effort,” Adamson notes.  Same goes for the nation’s spies.  “Internal reform and mission overload in the IC [intelligence community] cripple[d] its capacity for additional effort.”

Update on the America’s Crusader Castle in Baghdad

~ Matt Armstrong

What’s the latest on the American crusader castle nearing completion in Baghdad you ask? Well, it’s Congressional testimony on the slave-like conditions of the construction workers.  

So, let me get this straight. We build a large fortress in the middle of a foreign capital we occupy, and call it an embassy. We do everything we can to ostracize the locals with this secret construction, including making sure the site very visibly has 24/7 electricity while the rest of the country doesn’t (let alone Baghdad). (Let’s not ignore Bremer’s decision that Baghdad should no longer enjoy a preference for electricity.) We import labor from elsewhere in the world, because we don’t trust the locals whom we supposedly are working to build up to be partners, from countries with strategic stability issues. The workers, who are deceived on where they will work, are mistreated and paid poor wages. And then, the construction is so shoddy, the security force can’t move in.

What a brilliant demonstration of not just short-sightedness, but also of the utter failure of our leadership to comprehend the image we construct around the world.

To work just one point, would it have really have cost so much to pay the foreign workers a good wage (relative to their home country)? This would have not only increased moral, possibly increasing work quality, but also possibly bought off their families at home who benefit from American “largess”.

Perhaps largess isn’t the right word since the embassy, the largest in the world by far, is too small.

The best quote I’ve read (sorry, but I forgot who wrote it) on the US Embassy: it’s like Fort Apache in the middle of Indian country, except this time the Indians have mortars. For more on security of the embassy, read Jason’s post.

Resurrecting history: facing the unknown, destructive and negative threat

~ Matt Armstrong

In what would become known as the “Long Telegram” sent 9pm, February 22, 1946, to the Secretary of State, George Kennan ended with “practical deductions” that are worth reading in today’s environment. 

(1) Our first step must be to apprehend, and recognize for what it is, the nature of the movement with which we are dealing. We must study it with same courage, detachment, objectivity, and same determination not to be emotionally provoked or unseated by it, with which doctor studies unruly and unreasonable individual.

(2) We must see that our public is educated to realities of Russian situation. I cannot over-emphasize importance of this. Press cannot do this alone. It must be done mainly by Government, which is necessarily more experienced and better informed on practical problems involved. In this we need not be deterred by [ugliness?] of picture. I am convinced that there would be far less hysterical anti-Sovietism in our country today if realities of this situation were better understood by our people. There is nothing as dangerous or as terrifying as the unknown….

(3) Much depends on health and vigor of our own society. World communism is like malignant parasite which feeds only on diseased tissue. This is point at which domestic and foreign policies meets Every courageous and incisive measure to solve internal problems of our own society, to improve self-confidence, discipline, morale and community spirit of our own people, is a diplomatic victory over Moscow worth a thousand diplomatic notes and joint communiqués. If we cannot abandon fatalism and indifference in face of deficiencies of our own society, Moscow will profit–Moscow cannot help profiting by them in its foreign policies.

(4) We must formulate and put forward for other nations a much more positive and constructive picture of sort of world we would like to see than we have put forward in past. It is not enough to urge people to develop political processes similar to our own…

(5) Finally we must have courage and self-confidence to cling to our own methods and conceptions of human society. After Al, the greatest danger that can befall us in coping with this problem of Soviet communism, is that we shall allow ourselves to become like those with whom we are coping.

For those who frame the modern conflict in Cold War images, it might be useful to remember the real designs and purposes of early Cold War policies. For those who think public diplomacy is simply a beauty contest to hopefully “win hearts”, should go back to the aggressive “five-dollar, five syllable” foundation of public diplomacy as a psychological struggle for minds and wills against an enemy who understood perception management.

IEDs as “Weapons of Strategic Influence”

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

Armchair Generalist and Plontius discussed IED’s as Weapons of Strategic Influence last month. Some thoughts as Plontius apparently didn’t understand the real, and intended, ability of IEDs to influence public perceptions, and thus opinions, through both direct and indirect actions.

First, Plotinius looked at the mission of the Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO). JIEDDO sees IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) for what they are: tools of influence. IED’s cannot kill enough personnel or destroy enough material to reduce or eliminate American operational capabilities. But through persistence, they can, and have, cause a change in tactics, and posture, to achieve or supplement other informational victories.

IEDs, by forcing a change in tactics and openness alter the effectiveness of American military and civilian personnel. IEDs influence public perception of security not only in Iraq, but around the world, most notably in the United States. As a personal example, the mere suggestion that I might go to Iraq, Wife of MountainRunner immediately responded with a scenario of MountainRunner being killed by an IED. The inability of US forces to protect their own is amplified by insurgent media as well as domestic media, especially as casualties mount.

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Monday Mash-Up July 16, 2007

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

delayed due to network issues

John at OpFor writes there are only 8 Spectres. Eight?? Are we doing the equivalent of circling the bombers around the city to make it look like we have more (ala early Cold War Soviets “showing off” their “immense” strategic bombing fleet).

Preeti Aroon at Foreign Policy posted one way to strike at extremist “pop culture.” Ah, the power of association and persuasion at work.

Foreign Policy also lists “the world’s stupidest Fatwas.” Let’s remind people who can and cannot issue a fatwa and use that in our IO. Let’s start with UBL…

Tom Hayden has this sad diatribe at the Huffington Post:

But counter-insurgency, being based on deception, shadow warfare and propaganda, runs counter to the historic freedom of university life. Why then should Harvard collaborate? Is it now a violation of academic freedom to demand there be protocols limiting professors providing support and legitimacy for inherently secretive, classified and deliberately deceptive programs designed ultimately to kill people?

…the Pentagon occupation of the academic mind may last much longer than its occupation of Iraq, and may require an intellectual insurgency in response.

This is the same ivory tower argument of Roberto Gonzalez. Poor Tom doesn’t get it. He’s the screaming left liberal who apparently didn’t read the COIN manual or understand modern information war.

I have encountered the resistance poor Tom is putting up personally. Comporting with Carnes Lord’s quip that, “like journalists, public diplomats are liberal,” I fought a losing battle against this “liberal” side when I sought support for an open, cross-spectrum discussion on privatization of war and its impact (among other initiatives). Yes, it’s easy to keep your head in the sand and you won’t hear the bad thoughts, but your ass will get (sun)burned.

Talking about talking

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

Activities I wish I were at this week include two conversations about conversations and a third discussion on contemporary conflict. The first was (by now) at the National Defense University:

Strategic Communication: Focus on the Future

The Department or Defense (DoD) Worldwide Strategic Communication (SC) Seminar will be held at the National Defense University (NDU) on July 11-12, 2007, at Roosevelt Hall, Fort Leslie J. McNair, Washington, D.C.  The theme for the seminar is Strategic Communication: Focus on the Future.  This unique global SC event is designed to bring together Service and COCOM SC directors and representatives from SC, Public Affairs (PA), Information Operations (IO), Psychological Operations (PSYOP), Visual Information (VI), J-2, J-3, J-5, State Department and Interagency personnel.  The seminar will promote a common understanding of SC, advance the QDR SC Roadmap implementation progress, and discuss future direction and needs.  The two-day seminar will include daily plenary sessions, break-out sessions, and working exercises.  Senior department leaders and external thought leaders will address key issues surrounding SC.

The Second is right now at the New America Foundation (previously blogged here):

Iraqi Insurgent Media

In their just-released special report, “Iraqi Insurgent Media: The War of Images and Ideas,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty regional analysts Daniel Kimmage and Kathleen Ridolfo take an in-depth look at the multi-layered media efforts of Sunni insurgents, who are responsible for the majority of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq.

Insurgents and their supporters communicate with the world through daily press releases, weekly and monthly magazines, books, video clips, full-length films, countless websites, and even television stations. Mainstream Arab media amplify the insurgent message to a mass audience.

Update: watch the discussion here.

There a third event, the 2007 Boyd Conference, generate some good discussions on what is perceived (but not really… more on that later) to be a “new” attack on national morale and will, even if there is an overabundance of heaving the misleading and poorly defined construct known as Fourth Generation Warfare, or 4GW, about. It should, however, See Smart, er, Small Wars Journal’s blog post on the event here.

In the struggle for minds and wills, how is the US doing? If you listened to the President’s news conference this morning, it’s clear neither the strategic nor tactical imperatives have been internalized. The need to operationalize the struggle to guide both tactics and strategy is required but far from a reality. Maybe these two events will help influence this shift. I’d comment more, but I’m completing my own argument on this.

Upcoming movie screening: No End in Sight

~ Matt Armstrong

If you are in Los Angeles Tuesday, July 24, 2007, you might want to checkout “No End in Sight”, a movie direct by Charles Ferguson, a political scientist and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Based on over 200 hours of footage, this critically acclaimed film provides a candid retelling of the events following the fall of Baghdad in 2003 by high ranking officials such as former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Ambassador Barbara Bodine (in charge of Baghdad during the Spring of 2003), former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, Lawrence Wilkerson, and General Jay Garner (in charge of the occupation of Iraq through May 2003), as well as Iraqi civilians, American soldiers, and prominent analysts.

A panel discussion evaluating the arguments set forth by the film will follow the screening.

RSVP for this event here.

7p at the Landmark Theater in West Los Angeles

10850 West Pico Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90064