Adam Elkus links to a Washington Post article noting the Bush Administration’s failure to compete effectively in the domestic information “war”:
Interesting story on Internet campaigning in 2008. I don’t think it will be the decisive factor, but a candidate who cannot effectively use the medium is going to suffer for it.
Sounds oddly familiar…
This was going to be the Monday Mash-Up… but it suddenly evolved into a thematic post
On war as information, read Jonathan Winer’s post at Counter Terrorism Blog titled “Battle of the Brands“.
Still thinking about perceptions? Considering a few posts on the reactions to torture policy. Read the Armchair Generalist who quotes from an article on retired Generals Charles “Not like Yesterday” Krulak and Joseph Hoar. And read Abu Muquwama’s post on the same.
Last bit on perceptions, a little something called “wave tactics” from Lt. Gen. Mattis.
As he met recently with U.S. Marines at several locations across the sprawling Al Anbar province, Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis explained what he termed “wave tactics” to combat the Sunni Arab insurgency in its longtime stronghold. Mattis…is urging his troops to show respect to ordinary Iraqis and exercise restraint in the use of deadly force to prevent civilian deaths and injury…”Mad Dog” ordered his troops to be aggressive in fighting Iraqi forces but to show “soldierly compassion” toward civilians and prisoners. And last week, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, sent a message to troops not to let their frustration or anger override their training and judgment. His message followed a Pentagon survey that showed only 55% of soldiers and 40% of Marines would report a colleague for abusing civilians.
Abuse by our soldiers is counterproductive and simply unacceptable. Consider Sun Tzu and Mao’s admonition against it (and their statements for the opposite behavior) and even the the basis of our Third Amendment (among others).
On a related note, Michael Tanji notes the US Army is training gangsters. From the article he quotes:
The gang’s initials and main symbol, the six-pointed star, have been tagged on concrete blast barriers, armored vehicles, and even remote firebase guard shacks. In an astonishing study of just three Army bases over the past four years, a Department of Defense detective identified more than 300 active gang members. Some experts estimate that up to 2 percent of the soldiers on active duty–perhaps as many as 20,000–have sworn allegiance to one gang or another.
Unfortunately, the gang issue isn’t new and largely, if not entirely, the result of lowered standards for entry. Are these the guys we want fighting our information war?
Next week MountainRunner will be chairing two panels at the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Stakeholder’s Conference at the Reagan Convention Center in Washington, D.C.
On Tuesday, May 22, at 4p is “Science as Diplomacy”. On the panel is:
The panel description:
Science and technology are ubiquitous in the modern world. S&T transcends political and cultural divides and fosters long lasting relationships based on networking and collaboration both domestically and internationally. Understanding the value of these relationships, as channels for global cooperation and democracy building, and utilizing them have effects beyond the initial contact.
Working with foreign scientists, as well as their communities, either here or abroad, not only taps into and develops additional research and development capacity, it also promotes changes in commercial, academic, infrastructure, and legal system that form the foundation of democratic institutions, creating a win-win for people and societies and S&T. Polls continue to show American science and technology are admired by countries that increasingly oppose American politics. S&T is thus a bridge to continue a connection or to establish new communication channels to policy and decision makers and their advisors.
This panel brings together a variety of perspectives to discuss science as diplomacy and its use not only as a direct source of S&T in the pursuit of national security, but also as a means of foster security beyond our borders through bottom-up pressures to democratize.
On Wednesday, May 23, at 4p is the panel “Blogging for Technology: Science and the New Media”. On this panel:
Panel Description:
Blogs are an additional forum for creating awareness of and collaboration on science and technology. Subject matter experts (and the not so expert) share and often debate new ideas, policies, and highlight items otherwise lost or ignored by the media. Forming a dynamic and informal web of information and knowledge, blogs provide both immediacy and longevity. Information located in academia, government, industry, media, and other blogs are linked together to create and facilitate informal multidisciplinary research and discussion.
This panel includes both providers and consumers of the blogosphere and will look at how bloggers change the discussion and create awareness of S&T in the context of national security.
Both panels are the real deal with heavy hitters in their fields. Each will be giving a 10min presentation and then we’ll have Q&A. My role as chair is to stay out of their way, they are the ones you want to listen to. Let me know if you plan on attending.
Rajiv Chandrasekaran, the author of the current handbook on how to manufacture an insurgency, Imperial Life in the Emerald City, wrote another damning article on the failure of the Administration make the children get along.
Following the Bremer-esque line that things must be built back better or not at all, State has called Paul Brinkley, a deputy undersecretary of defense, a Stalinist for his efforts to reopen dozens of government-owned factories.
[Comrade] Brinkley said embassy staffers called him a Stalinist bent on restoring a command economy. Another told him that if he rehabilitated factories, Iraqis “are going to use those machines to make more complicated weapons to kill our troops with.”
Two embassy staff members confirmed Brinkley’s depiction of the tension but blame him for the rupture. “Here was this guy who parachuted in from Washington who thought he had all of the answers and that we were just a bunch of idiots sitting around in the Green Zone,” said one of the staff members, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss the matter. “Had he bothered to think about all of the reasons why pouring money into these factories is a bad idea?”
And what exactly did Comrade Brinkley fail to consider?
Embassy officials warned Brinkley that if he opened factories in Sunni areas first, he risked angering Shiites. Moreover, the electricity needed by production lines would mean less for residences. Would people really be happier, embassy officials asked, if they had jobs but less power at home?
Right, because State is doing such a bang up job on anticipating and staying ahead of what the Iraqi’s want and need. Iraqis would rather be unemployed, sitting at home playing XBox.
The conflict between State and Defense (and everyone else) kills not only any hope of reconstruction, but also soldiers and Marines. Who’s in charge here?
(H/T PCR Project)
Warfare in a globalized society is theater, making information king. The “old” style of warfare, occasionally still played out in Afghanistan, the Philippines, inside Pakistan, and elsewhere in the Long War (or whatever it is named today), is a rarity. Camera phones, cheap digital video cameras, YouTube and LiveLeak, and connectivity everywhere means every Joe and Jihadi gets at least a bit part in the theater of information.
No time for anything other than a recommendation to read the Small Wars Council discussion on the Milblogging crackdown. The discussion has evolved from one of freedom of communication to one of public diplomacy and information warfare.
This quote from Council Member Rob Thornton (MountainRunner is also a council member) really frames the crackdown within the mindset of the military:
As is the new tradition here at MountainRunner, Tuesday is Chinese Tuesday, the day I post selected news and links on China.
Briefly, Douglas Farah of the Counterterrorism Blog writes about a few topics frequented here on MountainRunner. While I disagree with his shifting blame from resting squarely on the Administration’s shoulders, I agree with most everything else.
What is “Science Diplomacy”? Science Diplomacy (SD) is the exchange of Science and Technology across borders. A valuable resource and little understood tool of awareness, understanding, and capacity building, its power is not widely known or considered often enough.
The approach to state-building in Iraq is anchored in Western concepts of governing. Many, myself included, would argue this was an acceptable approach in the Golden Hour after the initial resistance was crushed or crumbled before resistance could organize and the shock wore off. In this power vacuum, the United States was dealing with a largely secular state that had a strong sense of national identity (see Adeed Dawisha’s excellent book Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century for details). However, as the Golden Hour slipped away and the opportunity to rebuild was squandered and religious men, fakers, and criminals stepped into the vacuum, the framework for discourse changed. The Western Machiavellian mindset was being displaced by a retreat into religion and tribalism, neither of which are “accepted” by the Machiavellian power model.
Especially today, four years into the occupation of an Arab country at the cross-roads of Sunni and Shia, Arab and Persian, and West and East, we should reconsider how power is spoken, framed, and understood. Other authors have written on this, some I have reviewed previously, and some I will review in the future.
Quickly, Draconian Observations blogs on the NYT article of the “re-christening” of the war, er, struggle:
Can the tactical mistakes get any worse? Building a wall around Baghdad’s communities, starting with Al a’zamiyah, or Adhamiya? The prime contractor may as well have been Arbeit Macht Der-Frei Gmbh as the idea of partitioning any part of the city devastates any chance for peace, or “victory” if you prefer. This is another brick in a different kind of wall, the wall of moral legitimacy and strategic appreciation of the requirements to succeed. Neither political nor military doctrine or logic can justify this folly.
On the evolution of Robocop, see Danger Room:
Back in January I posted the Washington Times book review of reviews Losing Hearts and Minds?: Public Diplomacy and Strategic Influence in the Age of Terror. However, after reading the book myself, I found Josh Sinai’s review incomplete (although I do recommend reading his review as well as mine below).
Carnes Lord, a professor at the Navy War College, takes on the question of how to win the “hearts and minds” in, just as Foreign Affairs wrote in their review of the book, a controversial manner. A look at the table of contents, one finds he is taking a rather in-depth look, with chapter titles ranging from Strategic Influence and Soft Power, Public Diplomacy and Psychological-Political Warfare, Problems of Organization, and, Defense Department: Into the Act?. Lord sets out to look at bureaucratic obstacles, friction from domestic politics, and the impact of media.
From the start, I found myself in agreement with “controversial” label from Walter Russell Mead’s review in Foreign Affairs, but I don’t know if our independent assessment was for the same reason(s). I had trouble with Lord’s definition, arguments and positions.
The recent news an Army general is writing a biweekly column for a US newspaper caused a stir. The column by Major General Rick Lynch is shown as having to contributors, at least one of which is an Army public affairs officer, has raised questions about the division of news and propaganda, or self-promotion. But does it really matter that he’s writing at all? Will anybody read it buy it, truthful or not?
A recent Pew Research Poll has some interesting findings:
Four years into the Iraq war, most Americans say they have little or no confidence in the information they receive – from either the military or the media – about how things are going on the ground. Fewer than half (46%) say they have a great deal or fair amount of confidence that the U.S. military is giving the public an accurate picture of the situation, and even fewer (38%) are confident in the press’s portrayal of the war…
On the negative side, 21% now say they have no confidence in military reports, while 27% have no confidence in press reports on the war. At the start of the war, virtually nobody expressed such views.
Perhaps has the Georgia paper was on to something: publish military authors to boost the paper’s cred.
I suggest you at least glance at the whole Pew Report for comparisons between news interest / coverage over Iraq, Anna Nicole Smith, Brit sailors enjoying some R&R, and the 2008 campaign.
Switching gears…
On now for something completely different…
The rabbit died. Well, actually a dozen died, killed actually and eaten not by starving North Koreans as a new staple but as exotic food by DPRK’s leadership. That’s one big rabbit… you’d need more than theI asked the question a while back about whether Defense should be given control over the creation and execution of US public diplomacy efforts. Here were the results of the poll:
The poll indicates that readers believe Defense should have at most a limited role in America’s public diplomacy and an equal number believe Defense should be out of the PD business entirely.
I revisit this poll from many months ago because of an article Eddie forwarded from the Armed Forces Journal, Why the military can’d do it all. You should read the whole article, but here is some of the red meat pertinent to the above survey results (highlights are mine):
…We cannot as a nation or military give way to mission creep because the interagency was shortsighted or underfunded in fulfilling its charter. This is not a question of being inflexible in the face of modern challenges; it’s about knowing your own capabilities and core competencies, as well as those of your potential enemies or perceived threats. I am not taking aim directly at State or any other department or agency within the federal government. Instead, I am looking at the individual charters of each organization and correlating their current project resources and budget levels.
For example, the current budget request for the Defense Department is more than $387 billion, while State’s is about $9.2 billion and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) requests $8.3 billion. It should be clear that the only organization poised to make an impact with this accounting is the Defense Department. I would argue that providing State and the USAID increases in personnel and resources is necessary to balance the instruments of power and to put the right face on U.S. foreign policy.
Remember, the primary mission of our forces is to provide physical security for the nation by defending national and vital interests, while defeating all enemies, foreign and domestic. This shouldn’t change in any context or medium. Relevancy at this basic level is timeless. This fits perfectly within the construct of the instruments of power and the DIMEFIL. It provides the hard power we rely on when absolutely necessary. Unlike the tools used by a mechanic or a surgeon, these so-called “instruments” do not come with owner’s manuals or certification processes, although all are embedded with rules and restrictions set forth in the pages of the U.S. Constitution.
As I watched our commander in chief give the latest State of the Union address, I was impressed to see and hear each of our nation’s instruments of power was embedded throughout his speech, but I also find it difficult to understand why our civilian and military leadership continues to overemphasize the capabilities of the armed forces as we continue well beyond our core competencies. If we are to create a generalized military force, there are serious debates to be had. This isn’t a case of our military forces being incapable or unable to protect our nation and win its wars. It is about our nation’s leadership realizing that it must demand all components of the DIMEFIL be used in concert and ensuring the interagency does its fair share to reach national-level objectives that affect our national and vital interests. It is up to the leadership of the Defense Department to realize that we are not always the best tool for every situation and to ensure our leadership is fully aware of the consequences when the military instrument of power is brought to bear against all enemies, foreign or domestic….
In the past year, I have heard much debate on the necessity of legislating a follow-on to the Goldwater-Nichols Act for the interagency and for increasing jointness among the services. I propose a different tack. I recommend using the stand-up of U.S. Africa Command as a platform for integrating the interagency and instruments of power.
This effort should be resourced and led by State. The current situation elevates the combatant commanders to the historical level of viceroy by virtue of structure, budget and resources. I recommend the creation of a civilian counterpart to which the combatant commander is subordinate. Create a leader for each continent of the globe and make no exceptions. Within the continents there would be the equivalent of an interagency joint task force for each country, with the military component subordinate to the civilian ambassador or equivalent. This would assume that the civilian departments of the federal government have trained experts in their professions, and that the USAID is able to fulfill its charter with organic personnel and resources. The Defense Department would provide support and physical security for mission accomplishment as directed by its civilian leaders….
The final structural iteration would provide for all federal departments and agencies to restructure their organizations into this newly formed integrated global entity. So, when federal departments coordinate, the lines of authority and responsibility would be clearly delineated, and each organization would be able to reach its counterparts at the same level and breadth. This is why the stand-up of Africa Command is important to the future of our foreign policy.
A story on modern public diplomacy on Salon highlights the activities of the state of Israel. The state has its own MySpace page, it’s own blog, and even a bunch of YouTube videos. Apparently the Foreign Ministry will start publishing their own blog, with the personal thoughts of FM officials, soon.
Hmmm, I wonder if you asked the Foreign Ministry who is tasked with these projects, they’d say “I think four or five“? Definitely an interesting reach out.
Thanks AE for mentioning this.
The term “smart power” is gaining traction. Between the blog and CSIS, the dialogue on balancing hard and soft power should advance, especially after this piece on NPR which probably integral to CSIS’s launch of their project.
