Category: Public Diplomacy

China, UN Peacekeeping, and Public Diplomacy

~ Matt Armstrong

The Chinese, following their stated plan to do so, continue on their path of engaging the world through peacekeeping. Through participation in UN peacekeeping operations, the Chinese expose their military to different parts of the world, allow others to meet them, and invariably share some culture through engagement with civilians and military alike. It would be a clever move it wasn’t such a well-known option.

From the International Herald Tribune back in September 06:

BEIJING Prime Minister Wen Jiabao confirmed on Monday that his country would increase its UN peacekeeping presence in Lebanon to 1,000 troops, raising China’s profile in the Middle East and bolstering ties with Europe.

Wen recently discussed China’s contribution to United Nations forces in Lebanon with European leaders gathered in Helsinki, but until now China had not publicly specified numbers.

“China has decided to increase its peacekeeping force in Lebanon to 1,000,” Wen said at a joint news conference in Beijing with Prime Minister Romano Prodi of Italy.

“China is very concerned about the situation in Lebanon and hopes it can be fundamentally resolved,” Wen said.

China had contributed 187 troops to the previous, 1,990-strong peacekeeping force in Lebanon, according to the United Nations

[This post has lingered in the draft folder for the last three months…. it’s about time it was published.]

Book Review: Mary Dudziak’s Cold War Civil Rights

~ Matt Armstrong

I read Mary Dudziak’s book, Cold War Civil Rights a few months ago, but since Dudziak just launched her blog, Legal History Blog, I thought I’d reissue my book review.

The book is a must-read for anyone who thinks Las Vegas tourist ads apply to public diplomacy and international relations. If you think media coverage is intense now, consider the impact of coverage forty years ago and its impact on the global information war of the time. Continue reading “Book Review: Mary Dudziak’s Cold War Civil Rights
“ →

Is it Public Diplomacy or Information Operations?

~ Matt Armstrong

“Is it public diplomacy or is it an information operation?” Maybe this will become a “question of the week” as we come across more sites like The Other Iraq (also see my brief and Paul Kretkowski’s deeper comments), like this one lauding the accomplishments of outgoing Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld (see also Greg Djerejian’s comments here).

Briefly, here are some highlights for your reading pleasure:

  • Overall: A multinational coalition has liberated 50 million people in Afghanistan and Iraq, with formation of representative governments and security forces.
  • Liberated 31 million Afghans from Taliban control and destroyed Al-Qaeda sanctuary – conquering elements that successfully fought off the Soviet Union for over nine years – and stood up a Loya Jurga governing council eight months after operations began.
  • Liberated 26.7 million Iraqis from a brutal dictatorship and turned over sovereignty of the country to an Iraqi government in 16 months.
  • Military to Civilian Conversion: About 20,000 positions previously held by uniformed military personnel are now performed by civilians, freeing up troops for military tasks and assignments.

Verdict: neither. Personally, I don’t think this reminiscing is either IO or PD. I think the intended audience for this propaganda is the defense community itself. Comments?

“Shared Values” must really be dead

~ Matt Armstrong

A few of us were talking last week about the recent US elections and the topic of the first Muslim Congressman came up. No, not in the incredibly stupid comments of Glenn Beck of CNN during an ‘interview’:

BECK: OK. No offense, and I know Muslims. I like Muslims. I’ve been to mosques. I really don’t believe that Islam is a religion of evil. I — you know, I think it’s being hijacked, quite frankly.

With that being said, you are a Democrat. You are saying, “Let’s cut and run.” And I have to tell you, I have been nervous about this interview with you, because what I feel like saying is, “Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.”

And I know you’re not. I’m not accusing you of being an enemy, but that’s the way I feel, and I think a lot of Americans will feel that way.

I’m not even going to comment any more on Beck as he wasn’t the focus. No, we were talking about how the US Embassies around the world were surely pumping up the first-ever election to Congress of a Muslim.

Fitting right into the ill-fated and poorly conceptualized Shared Values campaign, you’d think we’d see a spate of stories in the foreign press. Well, I checked last week and again today.

While you can find pages and pages of news items on Google, these are all English language. Using World News Connection gives us a deeper and more realistic look into how the story, if there was one, played out in the foreign press. Enough time should have passed by now, the election was more than two weeks ago, that most if not all the news articles to be translated have been. So what does WNC have for us when searching for ‘Keith Ellison’?

  • Pakistan Writer Asks Muslim Scholars To End Misunderstandings About Islam in US Article by Hamid Mir: “An Encounter With the Condemners of Islam” – Jang – Tuesday – November 21, 2006 – Word Count: 1,061 – World News Connection®
    • Originally in Urdu, first two paragraphs:

      Las Vegas is said to be the United States’ sin city. Until a few years ago, Middle Eastern princes used to stay in that city for several months for some merry making. But the numbers of such visitors to Los Vegas decreased after 11 September 2001. Now the speakers at most of the conferences held in that city of sin consider it a noble deed to criticize Arabs and Muslims. I was given an opportunity to attend a similar conference in Los Vegas last week. This conference was organized in a hotel where the biggest casino in the town is situated. The two-day conference in a hall adjacent to the casino tried to answer the question as to how Islamic extremism should be countered.

      Most of the speakers at the conference, organized by the America Truth Forum (preceding three words in English), criticized Islam instead of Islamic extremism. These speakers were furious over the success of a Muslim, Keith Ellison, in the 7 November mid-term elections. And for the first time I realized that we, Pakistanis, possess more religious tolerance than the Americans, as such hostile speeches are not publicly delivered in our country against Christianity or Judaism.

  • Croatian Commentary: Election Shows United States ‘Divided,’ in Need of Change Commentary by Jurica Koerbler: “A Bill for War in Iraq” – Vjesnik – Wednesday – November 15, 2006 – Word Count: 1,064 – World News Connection®
    • Originally in Croatian, makes only a passing reference to Ellison’s election and in the context of change:

      The election will be unique in many ways. Nancy Pelosi, a fervent opponent of the Iraqi war, is a new U.S. political star and the first woman speaker of the House of Representatives. Democrat Keith Ellison is the first Muslim to be elected into the Congress. The 43-year-old lawyer has also pushed hard for U.S. forces to leave Iraq.

  • Selection List: Egyptian Press 11 Nov 06 The following lists selected items from the Egyptian press on 11 November. To request additional processing, please call OSC at (800) 205-8615, (202) 338-6735; or fax (703) 613-5735 – Egypt — OSC Report – Saturday – November 11, 2006 – Word Count: 1,159 – World News Connection®
    • Originally in Arabic, this index report does not translate the referenced text but interestingly (and possibly appropriately) frames Ellison’s election: Article by Muhammad al-Shabbah argues that a Muslim candidate like Keith Ellison would not have won a seat in Congress if he had not been fighting for gay rights.
  • Saudi Press Selection List, Highlights 9 Nov 06 The following lists selected items from the Saudi press on 9 Nov 06. To request additional processing, please call OSC at (800) 205-8615, (202) 338-6735; or fax (703) 613-5735 – Saudi Arabia — OSC Report – Thursday – November 9, 2006 – Word Count: 1,606 – World News Connection®
    • Original in Arabic, this index briefly mentions of Ellison. The second is simply that he was elected without any other electoral results. The first: An inner-page report headlined: “Keith Ellison: I Refuses To Be Labeled According To Any Religion or Color; Bush Has Failed in Iraq.”
  • FYI — Pan-Arab Media Treatment of US Mid-Term Elections 8 Nov (1) – Middle East — OSC Report – Wednesday – November 8, 2006 – Word Count: 867 – World News Connection®
    • English document stating… well article title says it all. The Ellison reference in the article is essentially the same as the Croatian article above.
  • Israeli Pundit: Growing Muslim Influence on US Voter To Cause Pressure on Israel Commentary by Sha’ul Schiff: “Muslim Arabs Getting Close to Congress” – Hatzofe – Thursday – November 2, 2006 – Word Count: 741 – World News Connection®
    • Originally in Hebrew, this was written before the election.

      • According to an assessment by Al-Watan, a newspaper published in Saudi Arabia, the overwhelming majority of Arab and Muslim candidates for the US Congress will not succeed in getting elected. It transpires that there will be quite a few of these candidates who will be seeking the US voter’s support on 7 November: 37 Arab and non-Arab Muslims, and 17 Arab Christians.

      Nonetheless, one of them does have a chance. Keith Ellison, an American Muslim, is a Democratic Party candidate. If he wins, Ellison will be the first Muslim candidate of US origin to be elected to Congress. Behind Ellison and some of the Arab and Muslim candidates is a lot of money and professional advice from the best brains, and the AIPAC lobby would do well not to belittle the organization of the Muslim vote vis-a-vis the Jewish vote and Jewish money.

Not much. Only six entries and not much really said. Nothing to indicate some kind of full-court press of Ellison’s election and that we’re “Muslim-friendly”. Well, at least Glenn Beck didn’t appear in a search.

China and Africa, a brief update

~ Matt Armstrong

At the beginning of 2006, China released an impressive policy towards Africa that had all the right nouns and verbs for an effective public diplomacy strategy. The real result was to be seen over time as China needed to overcome its reputation in Africa, despite some successes that were mostly lauded by China itself.

This month, however, China seems to be finding some success with its new policy: China and African Nations Set Trade Deals Worth $1.9 Billion.

China and a number of African nations agreed Sunday on 16 trade and investment deals valued at $1.9 billion, as Beijing extended its efforts to create a broad economic and diplomatic partnership with Africa, a resource-rich continent.

President Hu Jintao also pledged to extend $5 billion in loans and credits to Africa, forgive past debts and double foreign aid to the continent.

The aid announcement and deal-making capped a weekend of meetings that brought high-level representatives of 48 of the 53 African countries to Beijing. It was an unusually sweeping diplomatic initiative by China, which until recently had tended to focus mainly on domestic development rather than overseas expansion…

More recently, Mr. Hu has made cultivating new economic and diplomatic ties to Africa a foreign policy priority even as the United States concentrates on combating terrorism.

China has been busy throughout Africa. While China actively moves into areas ignored by and to the detriment of the United States, we continue to borrow from them, partly financing their forays around the continent. As we address problems through largely superficial methods, they are softly and quietly creating (potentially) long-term partnerships.

Let’s not be naive and think China will immediately ‘win’ Africa and have partners for life. For sure China still has to follow through with its commitments and perhaps more importantly, do a better job integrating with Africa to not annoy the locals. However, they are much further along the path of combating the root-causes of terrorism than we are.

On the bright side, al-Qaeda and its associates movements will probably learn to hate the Chinese as well. I’d be interested to hear how believers in the Clash of Civilizations will frame anti-Chinese attacks (when they happen ‘in public’).

See earlier posts on China in Africa.

Technorati tags: China, Africa, Public Diplomacy

The Other Iraq

~ Matt Armstrong

Example of Kurdish public diplomacy or information operations, depending on what chair you’re sitting in.

Have you seen the Other Iraq?
It’s spectacular.
It’s peaceful.
Welcome to Iraqi Kurdistan.
Where democracy has been practiced for over a decade. It’s not a dream.
It’s the other Iraq.

Check it out: http://www.theotheriraq.com/

A few details about this site:

China’s Africa Policy coming to Latin America

~ Matt Armstrong

This article in the WashingtonPost indicates China’s taking its Africa Policy on the road:

BOGOTA, Colombia — Elizabeth Zamora is a busy mother and executive. Still, for three hours every Saturday, she slides into a battered wooden desk at Bogota’s National University and follows along as Yuan Juhua, a language instructor sent here by China’s government, teaches the intricacies of Mandarin.

Zamora already speaks German and English, but she struggles to learn written Chinese characters and mimic tones unknown in Spanish. She persists for a simple reason: China is voraciously scouring Latin America for everything from oil to lumber, and there is money to be made. That prospect has not only Zamora but business people in much of Latin America flocking to learn the Chinese language, increasingly heard in boardrooms and on executive junkets.

Technorati tags: China

Reporters without Borders: dodging the blame

~ Matt Armstrong

A recent analysis by Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans Frontiers, or RSF) paints a disturbing picture of the United States: we have less freedom of the press. According to their Press Freedom Index 2006, is tied for 53rd in press freedom with Botswana, Croatia, and Tonga.

This makes for an interesting dichotomy. On the one side you have people complaining about the liberal anti-war press looking for every opportunity to bash the Administration and the Iraq War. On the other, you have (rather had) people complaining about Fox News being the mouthpiece of the Administration. Remember Jon Stewart joking that when Tony Snow got his new job, nothing was really changing but the logo on the screen?

On the first point, sentiment like this is heard:

“The people of America have no clue what it really happening here and that is because they are being spoon fed anti administration propaganda by a democratic leaning media.”

I’m continually fascinated by this revisionist argument that isn’t supported by the facts. The real blame, which RSF places displaces onto the Administration and away from the reporters, is the Administration for keeping the effort from an ‘all out’ effort and hiding / obfuscating facts and requirements from the press. The RSF report declares the US media as significantly not free while ignoring the media’s own self-censorship to play along with the hand that feeds.

Relations between the media and the Bush administration sharply deteriorated after the president used the pretext of “national security” to regard as suspicious any journalist who questioned his “war on terrorism.” The zeal of federal courts which, unlike those in 33 US states, refuse to recognise the media’s right not to reveal its sources, even threatens journalists whose investigations have no connection at all with terrorism.

The “necessity” to play along with the Scott McClellan / Tony Snow show is ignored. Also ignored is the self-enforced point that the media ITSELF does not feel they have a story UNLESS they have somebody inside the Administration / Government to speak against the same government (this is called “indexing”, Robert Entman writes about this). You can easily trace the traction and trajectory of stories through these means to get a better idea. I still love hearing that Fox News is part of the liberal media bias… even the Administration’s own cheerleaders have been turning against them, which is ignored in sentiments like that above.

Technorati tags: Media, Iraq, GWOT

American Mercenaries of Public Diplomacy

~ Matt Armstrong

The United States increasingly relies private military companies to carry out its foreign policy. This is a statement of fact and yet it is a bit dodgy to say. In “contested” spaces such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan (inside Pakistan actually), Philippines, Colombia (don’t forget the American contractors still held there), Africa (West, East, you name it), the Balkans, etc., private military companies and their contractors carry out the will of the President. Perhaps more importantly and clearly less recognized is the direct and lasting impact these contractor have on the local populations they interact with.
From training military forces in the Balkans to compelling warring parties to meet at Dayton, to providing personal security to Hamid Karzai, Haitian dictators, and more, these companies extend the foreign policy options of the United States in ways too few care to see or appreciate. In March 2004, a most public example of their utility in shaping the image of America happened in Fallujah when contractors were ambushed, burned, dragged through the streets, and ultimately hung from a bridge. The attack on these men was not motivated by their higher pay. These men were attacked as agents of the United States Government (specifically the CIA). The fallout from this ambush was arguably a milestone in the Iraq War as the war of images, perceptions, actions, and words heated up against the United States.

Other examples of contractors representing the United States on the ground include the infamous Aegis video. However, perhaps more long-lasting are the impressions made by our non-security contractors. Failures to build schools, bridges, and other facilities will stand as demonstrations of how the Americans did not truly want to better Iraq. We don’t have to look to KBR and other firms and allegations of running empty trucks on dangerous routes in order to bill the US Government more money. No, we can look at companies that performed like Custer Battles that through greed did their own part to sabotage our efforts at peace and stability in Iraq. The same can be said of the sadistic contractors in Abu Gharib who got little actionable intel from their inhumane treatment (it is hard to argue they didn’t create more enemies globally than they tried to learn about through their actions).

This isn’t to say all contractors or their companies are corrupt. There are good men with good intentions working hard and giving their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, contractors, whether they are the “bad apples” or good guys doing good, shape the perceptions of America and our mission in troubled areas of the world. The reasons the Executive Branch turns to contractors in lieu of US Government resources varies from a lack of political or economic capital or expediency or political favoritism. Whatever the reason, private contractors are agents of the United States.

The private military industry in general has a direct and immediate impact on foreign populations which American policymakers and the media do not see or accept overall. Although the media has been increasingly critical, it has thus far largely relegated project failures and shortcomings to the company and barely connected the company back to the US and local populations now altered perception of America and its power.

In the case of Iraq, the private military industry is frequently in the “last three feet” of contact with the Iraqi public. Waving guns, driving the wrong way and ready to pop a round into a radiator of a “deserving” vehicle in a (appropriately) paranoid environment (see the US Army view of this activity in Afghanistan), they operate with immunity (relative or actual) and radically and substantially alter Iraqi public opinion of Americans and America by their behavior. These contractors do not wear the uniform of the US military and yet this “Coalition of the Billing” directly represents the US and the “Coalition” whether we like it or not.

In the war on terror, when “hearts and minds” are needing to be won, or at least not pissed off, how are these de facto agents of the US, which the US does not acknowledge as extensions of the US Government, contribute to shaping the perception of the US?

Do they contribute to the American image at all?

At the University of Southern California, on October 17th, 2006, I will be hosting discussions that will look at the private security industry in Iraq, looking beyond the Haliburtons and Custer Battles and into the realm of the armed contractors who frequently are in the ‘last three feet’  of contact with the local population. At 6p, there will be a screening of the movie Shadow Company (http://shadowcompanythemovie.com/), followed by a question & answer session with a panel of experts:

  • Nick Bicanic, the movie’s producer / director (confirmed)
  • Robert Young Pelton, author / adventurer; his latest book is Licensed to Kill (confirmed)
  • Pratap Chatterjee of CorpWatch, http://corpwatch.org, author of Iraq, Inc.: A Profitable Occupation (confirmed)
  • Dr. Robert English, USC Professor of International Relations (confirmed)
  • A Former Blackwater contractor with 6 tours in Iraq (confirmed)

Sponsored by the Center for International Studies, with support from the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics, this event aims to increase awareness about the impact of the private military industry, notably the private security contractors. Some of the questions to be explored: If war is ‘not merely an act of policy but a true political instrument’, what is the impact of outsourcing war on foreign and domestic policy? Does the state cede ownership and responsibility of this violence in a way that is different than traditional notions of ‘plausible deniability’? To what degree do the armed contractors represent the contracting state in the eyes of the local population and to what effect?

Private military companies, as employed by the United States, impact international relations, domestic politics, public diplomacy, and even the vocabulary of reporting on war. Please join as they ask these and other questions after the screening of Shadow Company.

Date: Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Time: 6p – 9p
Location: ASC Auditorium Theater (G26)
Cost: Free
DETAILS, DIRECTIONS, and RSVP HERE: http://ascweb.usc.edu/asc.php?pageID=110&story=773

A video of the of the Q&A will be available online after the screening.

(It is noteworthy that the USC Center for Public Diplomacy does not support this event and refused to include it in its regular email newsletter. This is even more interesting as I am a grad student in the public diplomacy program at USC and had to find sponsors and supporters outside of CPD to put on this event. The discussants, whom I knew previously due to my work on private military companies, agreed to come for the price of a hotel, for the cost of gas, or for free.)

New Poll on Pentagon’s Role in Public Diplomacy

~ Matt Armstrong

What do you think about the Defense Department running America’s Public Diplomacy efforts?


Should the Defense Department be given control over the creation and execution of America’s public diplomacy? If so, what should its role be?
Yes and it should be the primary and lead in formulating and carrying out America’s PD
Yes, but it should be co-equals with the State Dept in creation and execution
Yes, but it should only within a limited scope and in deference to State/Other Civilian ownership
No, at most it should be given specific tasks
No, it has no business participating in America’s Public Diplomacy efforts
Other or What’s Public Diplomacy?
Create Free Polls

Powell reminds us of the importance of morality

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 2 Comments

In the ‘fight of good vs evil’, morality must play a significant part. Our civilization, which is supposedly under threat, is based on a moral code that forms the basis of our imperialist tendencies: to propagate this moral code. This code is fundamentally based within our concept of democracy and is largely shared by the other Western democracies.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell (also retired full General and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS)… a somewhat impressive resume that might only be surpassed by President Eisenhower) wrote a letter to Senator John McCain yesterday spelling out what is essentially the core of the US military’s opposition to the Administration’s interogation plans (available here at WaPo and here at NYT).

Highlights:

Continue reading “Powell reminds us of the importance of morality
“ →

Miscellanea

~ Matt Armstrong

Quick hits from the world of private military companies…

With the war continuing to spiral out and a stream of revelations the Administration failed to work to secure the peace, the roles of private security contractors (the ‘shooters’) and private military contractors (technically includes the ‘shooters’ but meant here to include all other commercial businesses providing services previously or historically considered in the domain of the military) in the peace and stability phase of the Iraq War are becoming known.

From CorpWatch comes this headline: US: Pentagon Spends Billions to Outsource Torture. This story hits at the reality of image management in the so-called Global War on Terror (GWOT). The failure to manage certain contracts and practice what we preach gives ammunition to the enemy, which is exactly what Joshua Holland points out.

The thousands of mercenary security contractors employed in the Bush administration’s "War on Terror" are billed to American taxpayers, but they’ve handed Osama Bin Laden his greatest victories — public relations coups that have transformed him from just another face in a crowd of radical clerics to a hero of millions in the global South (posters of Bin Laden have been spotted in largely Catholic Latin America during protests against George W. Bush).

The internet hums with viral videos of British contractors opening fire on civilian vehicles in Iraq as part of a bloody game, stories about CIA contractors killing prisoners in Afghanistan, veterans of Apartheid-era South African and Latin American death squads discovered among contractors’ staffs and notoriously shady Russian arms dealers working for occupation authorities. One Special Forces operator told Amnesty International that some contractors are in it just because they "really want to kill somebody and they can do it easier there … [not] everybody is like that, but a dangerously high element."…

Osama Bin Laden’s greatest victories in the crucial media war have been the series of prisoner abuse scandals at Guantanamo Bay, Bagram airbase in Afghanistan and a number of detention centers across Iraq, the most infamous of which is Saddam Hussein’s former torture complex at Abu Ghraib.

T. Christian Miller gives sort of a bullet list of PMCs in Iraq he discusses in his new book Blood Money. His approach: essentially an agent relationship and false dealings of the PMCs are a direct result of oversight failures, intentional and unintentional. (With regard to actions such as those of Custer Battles? I believe that’s closer to treason than fraud.)

I wrote a story for the Los Angeles Times this weekend about yet another lawsuit accusing Halliburton of fraud in Iraq. This time, the company allegedly bought a big-screen television and tubs of chicken wings and cheese sticks for the Super Bowl, and then stuck us with the tab.

I’m not going to weigh in on the merits of the lawsuit; Halliburton gets blamed for plenty of things it didn’t do. But what is clear is that when it comes to the Bush administration’s record on prosecuting corruption in Iraq, there’s no there there…

The upshot is, either we’ve only sent angels to Iraq, or somebody hasn’t been paying attention. As I document in my new book about the reconstruction of Iraq, Blood Money, the record suggests that the “accountability administration” has let the war profiteers run amok….

That said, Iraq did not have to be the Wild West. There could have been more control. There could have been more order. There could have been the rule of law.

If someone had wanted it.

The Gulf of Guinea, one of the most important places Americans couldn’t find on a map, but will soon

The Gulf of Guinea is one of the more important places most Americans don’t know that they don’t know. I don’t mean to get all Rumsfeldian, but GoG will figure more prominently in news in the coming year. In today’s Washington Post is a story about security concerns in the Gulf. Fortunately, it seems the ‘Risk Entrepreneurs’ weren’t able to pander and the author implicitly acknowledged the difference between Arab fundamentalists and West Africans. While Nigeria has a larger Muslim population than most of the Middle East states combined, we aren’t seeing the same practice of jihad come out of there.

The Army responds to charges it will miss its recruiting goal

The US Army takes its recruiting very seriously and issued a statement essentially saying there’s nothing wrong with the recruits coming in, waivers are nothing new, etc. The reality of Army recruiting, which is lowering its requirements, plus artificial promotions, will lower the quality of the general army. (See post at The War Room besides other posts on here on MountainRunner) Which brings us to the next story… 

Lastly, a story on the difference between Counter-Insurgency and, well, ignorance

A number of bytes have been recorded on this blog about the need to conduct appropriate counter-insurgency and how the US military knows what to do, it just didn’t do it. Some Special Forces units, notably the famed Green Berets, were designed to work with locals for this very purpose. The Washington Post story highlights the difference between the ‘old’ military and the ‘new’, in terms of tactics and skills. An almost ironic clash of culture symbolizes more than different management styles but a root failure to adapt and learn.

Green Berets skilled in working closely with indigenous forces have enlisted one of the largest and most influential tribes in Iraq to launch a regional police force — a rarity in this Sunni insurgent stronghold. Working deals and favors over endless cups of spiced tea, they built up their wasta — or pull — with the ancient tribe, which boasts more than 300,000 members…

But the initial progress has been tempered by friction between the team of elite troops and the U.S. Army’s battalion that oversees the region. At one point this year, the battalion’s commander, uncomfortable with his lack of control over a team he saw as dangerously undisciplined, sought to expel it from his turf, officers on both sides acknowledged.

The conflict in the Anbar camp, while extreme, is not an isolated phenomenon in Iraq, U.S. officers say. It highlights two clashing approaches to the war: the heavy focus of many regular U.S. military units on sweeping combat operations; and the more fine-grained, patient work Special Forces teams put into building rapport with local leaders, security forces and the people — work that experts consider vital in a counterinsurgency.

Where’s the Outrage? asks Karen Hughes… Well, let’s see how we created a mute button

~ Matt Armstrong

On the State Department website and broadcast within the Administration via an internal White House Communications listserv is Karen Hughes OpEd piece in today’s USA Today. Presumably State is hosting its copy on the USINFO.State.gov site, aimed at non-US audiences, to “protect” against propagandizing Americans, but that strict reading of the law is conveniently side stepped when desired. Regardless…

Ms Hughes decries the lack of ‘moral outrage of everyday citizens of every faith and country’ in response to acts of terror. She correct that the ‘everyday citizens’ must participate in rejecting terrorism as a method of communication or warfare. She tugs at the heart strings with stories of Muslims, Iranians, and other around the world who have suffered at the hands of terrorists. 

This is touching and, I would expect, a sincere plea for support to hear a ‘much louder chorus of voices [joining] in condemning [terrorism]’. Drawing a parallel between the moral outrage of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and the mothers and fathers of terrorists and their victims, she clearly didn’t hear on her listening tour. (May I propose an acronym for her group? Mothers Opposed to Terrorists and HatERs, Father-Unassisted KillERS… I’ll let you assemble the acronym.)

Bringing in religion to the terrorist equation negates the reality of terrorism in other regions where what you name your God has no bearing on the goals of the activity. But yet she feels infusing religion into her OpEd is critical to dispelling Huntingon’s false, yet self-fulfilling Clash of Civilizations speech (it still gets me he wasn’t sure Africa was another civilization), and yet by doing so, she keeps the vocabulary in play. (The notion of Born Again versus Born Again is something a religious student should look into…)

We must look to the causes of terrorism. Look at the goals the terrorists seek and why they have the support of the populations within which they roam emotionally, financially, and spiritually. The National Strategy for Countering Terrorism that was released this week gets this. The Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy, arguably one of the most important in the process of developing and executing the DIME or DIMEFIL (Diplomatic, Information, Military, Economic… + Finance, Intelligence, Law Enforcement… you decide if DIME is enough or if DIMEFIL provides the necessary differentiator for your double-whip mocha frap from the other coffee), simply does not appear to be developing a counter-propaganda program. She says she watches the misinformation and stories of hate, but where is State’s counter?

Slavery is an interesting selection she makes to model a grassroots effort. Slavery, a commercial enterprise, was not a tool of communication or a tool of war. I’ll ignore the odd selection of words she, our chief architect of communication to foreign peoples, chose to describe the basis of the British grassroots effort to outlaw slavery (‘born of the conviction that every person has value’) and instead suggest she go back to the myriad of reports making suggestions on her job. These are, Ms Hughes, the ‘too many reports’ you commented on. But perhaps, just as you pulled the Foreign Media Reponses (FMR) off the public website of State.gov because you didn’t like some GQ reporter suggesting your listening trip wasn’t all that successful, and citing FMR material to support his claim, you don’t like to hear or facilitate hearing.

Where’s the Outrage? The outrage on September 12, 2001, came from all corners of the world in support of the United States and against the horrific terrorism Osama bin Laden and his crew carried out against the world in New York, DC, and Pennsylvania. The United States was the most powerful country in the world, perhaps in history, on September 12, 2001, because of all this support.

Where did the outrage go? It was dispelled by the hypocrisy of our policies. We fight for justice and yet provide none. We fight for democracy, yet treat territories as colonial properties to be (mis)managed by modern private mercantile companies.

The outrage you’re looking for, Ms Hughes, has been undercut by a daily outrage of the peoples you ask for support from. Afghanistan was abandoned before it was made ‘safe’ and completed as a democracy project and has slid backwards. Iraq was never given a chance to succeed as an American project. Gitmo, Abu Gharib, house searches, and hundreds of other actions have displaced the outrage you rightly seek. Yet, without listening, you don’t hear those things.

Stuff to read… at Armchair Generalist

~ Matt Armstrong

Ok, so I’m getting lazy, but seriously, Jason’s got some good stuff and I’ve got too many other things to do right now.


On Public Diplomacy
Alternate Reality is about VP Cheney ‘loosing it’, with a great link to a FOXNews transcript of SOS Condi just spinning her wheels.  What again is the purpose of State? Where is Karen Hughes?

On Recruiting
Scraping Bottom is about one of my favorite topics: recruiting woes. This Administration is doing its best to destroy the readiness of our military and the Army is the canary in the coal mine.


On Civil-Military Relations
More Bad Press for Rumsfeld is on one of my other favorite topics…

Five Years Later: a National Strategy on Terror, Tribunal Rules, and Managing an Image

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

Five years later and the anniversary of 9/11 is here and gone and yet the Bush Administration still doesn’t ‘get it’. The President makes speeches, the Vice President and Secretaries of State and Defense go forth and speak, and policies are published emphasizing an invigorated strategy. Nevermind the disjunction between words and policies, that simply complicates reality. 

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Corn, Clausewitz, and the True Nature of Conflict

~ Matt Armstrong

Thanks Eddie at FDNF for alerting me to another fine piece by Tony Corn: Clausewitz in Wonderland. I don’t have the time to put together a coherent review (but I do look forward to the many commentaries that will surely appear over the weekend), so here’s Corn’s opening paragraphs:

"Amateurs talk about strategy, professionals talk about logistics." In the five years since the 9/11 events, the old military adage has undergone a "transformation" of its own: Amateurs, to be sure, continue to talk about strategy, but real professionals increasingly talk about — anthropology.

In Iraq as in Afghanistan, real professionals have learned the hard way that — to put it in a nutshell — the injunction "Know Thy Enemy, Know Thyself" matters more than the bookish "Know Thy Clausewitz" taught in war colleges. Know thy enemy: At the tactical and operational levels at least, it is anthropology, not Clausewitzology, that will shed light on the grammar and logic of tribal warfare and provide the conceptual weapons necessary to return fire. Know thyself: It is only through anthropological "distanciation" that the U.S. military (and its various "tribes": Army, Navy, etc.) will become aware of its own cultural quirks — including a monomaniacal obsession with Clausewitz — and adapt its military culture to the new enemy.

While I think Clausewitz still has a place on military reading lists, it is imperative that cultural-warfare understanding take priority. The rules of conflict learned from Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, Mao, Machievelli, etc (and what about ibn Zafar?) must be placed into the context of society. The strategy is important, but too simplified. Logistics no longer means the same as before. Knowing the enemy is the penultimate requirement that shapes the strategy and creates the logistical requirement.

I suggested my own modification to the adage, but I like Corn’s replacement better than my augmentation.