Recalling history: the 1947 Smith-Mundt CODEL to Europe

~ Matt Armstrong

For two months in the Autumn of 1947, a Congressional delegation (CODEL) traveled Europe. Their purpose was to study America’s current information and educational exchange service, the conditions affecting it, with the goal of formulating recommendations to shape and make more effective US programs which “can fully implement US foreign policy.” Led by Congressman Karl Mundt (R-SD) and Senator H. Alexander Smith (R-NJ), the delegation was sponsored by the special Mundt subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in support of the pending Smith-Mundt Bill.

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Recalling history: information warfare

~ Matt Armstrong

In 1947, Congress was debating both the legislation and funding for the State Department’s information activities. In May 1947, the House Appropriations Committee took up the issue of the State Department 1948 appropriation, during which Congressman Karl Mundt (R-SD), a former school teacher, made the following argument on the need to engage in the realm of information.

Karl Earl Mundt The forces of aggression are moving rapidly and we must step up our action and increase our efforts in the field of information abroad if we are to prevent the eventuality of confronting a world which has been either coerced or corrupted against us

Congressman Everett Dirksen (R-IL) also argued for the need to fund America’s response to the threat of Russia’s efforts to destroy the “integrity” and the “greatness of the American system.” Representative Harold Cooley (D-NC) said the Communists wanted to vilify America through defaming out “institutions in the eyes of the peoples of the world.”

Source: Parry-Giles, S. J. (2002). The rhetorical presidency, propaganda, and the Cold War, 1945-1955. Westport, Conn., Praeger.

Let me share some news with you: Gates likes the CNAS report but does not like that it is a CNAS report

~ Matt Armstrong

According to the Voice of America, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates endorses the recent report – Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan – authored by Major General Michael Flynn, Captain Matt Pottinger, and Paul D. Batchelor. However, according to VOA, the SecDef took issue with the report being published by CNAS.

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Underwear bomber predicted on The Daily Show back in June 2006

~ Matt Armstrong

Surely I’m not the only guy remembering these things, but back in June of 2006, The Daily Show had a prediction of an ‘underwear bomber’. Calvin Trillin suggested there was a person in AQ named Khalid the Droll who convinced us to remove our shoes at the airport. To get to the point, jump to the 4min mark on the below video.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Calvin Trillin
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
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Recalling History: Secretary of State testifies for information activities

~ Matt Armstrong

Below is testimony and questions from a hearing before a special subcommittee of the House of Representative’s Committee on Foreign Affairs on May 16, 1947. The subject is HR 3342, a bill that would become known as the US Information and Education Exchange Act of 1948, also referred to as the Smith-Mundt Act. George C. Marshall was General of the Army (5-stars), Ambassador to China, Secretary of State, and later Nobel Peace Prize laureate. He was the third Secretary of State in two years. Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., served 1 Dec 1944 – 27 June 1945. James F. Byrnes served 3 July 1945 to 21 January 1947. Marshall served 21 January 1947 to 20 January 1949.

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Understanding and Engaging Now Media: February 8-10 in DC

~ Matt Armstrong

I will again be teaching Understanding and Engaging Now Media in the DC area, more precisely Alexandria, VA. The dates are February 8, 9, and 10 and the time remains 6p – 9p with drinks and sandwiches provided. Materials to read and view prior to the course will be provided to prepare for the course and to maximize the time.

For more information and registration, visit the AOC website. Note: the course description and agenda will be modified slightly.

New iPhone app allows uploads from Iran to VOA

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 2 Comments

The US Government’s Voice of America (VOA) released a Web application that will allow users in Iran to download and send content to VOA’s Persian News Network (PNN). The application is available for iPhones and Android’s and will be (is?) on Apple App Store, PNN’s website, and on PNN’s Facebook page.

According to the VOA, VOA has the largest combined radio and television audience in Iran of all international broadcasters, with one in four adult Iranians tuning in to a VOA program once a week. PNN broadcasts seven hours of television daily, repeated in a 24 hour format, and five hours of radio. Programming is also available around the clock on the Internet.

According to PNN’s acting director, Alex Belida,

This new application gives Iranians a unique opportunity to get the latest news on their mobile devices and to share with the world the news as it happens in their country. It is a groundbreaking way to expand our reach inside Iran and deepen our relationship with a key VOA audience.

On Twitter, Dan McSwain asked whether the VOA app protected personal and if SD cards would be distributed to Iranians. Here is the response from the apps developer, Intridea:

The iPhone application does not send or extract any private information from the user’s iPhone while submitting any reports.  The reports are indeed anonymous.  … the iPhone doesn’t support SD cards.

Guest Post: A Global Call to Arms in the Virtual Century

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 2 Comments

Carl Jung once warned during the Cold War that: “Everywhere in the West [World] there are subversive minorities who, sheltered by our humanitarianism and our sense of justice, hold the incendiary torches ready, with nothing to stop the spread of their ideas except the critical reason of a single, fairly intelligent, mentally stable stratum of the population. One should not, however, overestimate the thickness of this stratum.” (C.G. Jung, “The Undiscovered Self,” 4).

If Carl Jung were still living, we may find him to be rather (appropriately) proud of a modest, rational banker who resides in Nigeria. On December 25th, 2009, the Free World was given a great gift that mirrors the one Jung sought to impart more than 50 years ago.  While the media will mark the day as another attempted 9/11, they miss the mark.  The most profound and courageous feature of this attempted attack has nothing to do with the terrorist himself, but with his father.  A father, who, upon sensing his son was falling into the orbit of radical ideologies, took it upon himself to use this information to protect our global commons by letting authorities know they should be watching his son.  Certainly we can all understand what a grueling and emotionally fracturing experience it must have been for this brave man.  We would all do well to spend a few moments this New Year viewing the world from this man’s shoes.

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Reorganizing Government to meet hybrid threats

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 2 Comments

Read my guest post over at the Stimson Center’s Budget Insight blog titled Hybrid Government:

Nine years ago we went to war with the enemy we had, not the enemy we wanted. For several years after 9/11 we struggled to comprehend how military superiority failed to translate into strategic victory. We created labels like “irregular” and “hybrid” to describe adversaries that did not conform to our structured view of international affairs shaped by the second half of the Cold War. Today, conflict is democratized, not in the sense of bicameral legislatures but strategic influence in the hands of non-state actors empowered by falling barriers to information acquisition, packaging and dissemination as well as easy access to the means of destruction and disruption, physical and virtual.

Calls for “smart power” and a “whole of government” approach has resulted in countless articles, memos, and reports on updating the State Department, the Defense Department, and other agencies to confront the challenges of today and tomorrow. The focus on improving the operational elements of national power, while necessary, ignores a critical national security actor that has received little to no attention or pressure to adapt to the new and emerging requirements: Congress.

Read the whole thing here. Comment there or below.

The Real Psychological Operation for Afghanistan

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 3 Comments

This article is cross-posted at the George C. Marshall Foundation. Also at AOC’s IO Blog.
On December 1, 2009, President Obama announced his Afghanistan strategy and what immediately followed was an expected and unoriginal cacophony of sound bites based on selective memories of the past and shallow and ignorant visions of the present and future. The decline in the public’s support for the struggle is surely a delight for Al Qaeda and the Taliban who, unlike our pundits and some in Congress, understand this is foremost a psychological struggle for the minds of people in “Af-Pak” and around the world to affect their will to act.

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Breaking the silence

~ Matt Armstrong

It’s been quiet here on the blog for several reasons, including a Christmas holiday. Of course, the news hasn’t stopped but I am focusing on clearing a few writing assignments off the desk that will be published elsewhere (I will post links to them when they come out). Among the items on the plate: a recent Congressional Research Service report on public diplomacy (18 December 2009) and required comments on this week’s Walter Pincus article on strategic communication. 

Stay tuned. I hope you’re enjoying the downtime / quiet time.

CRS Report: U.S. Public Diplomacy: Background and Current Issues

~ Matt Armstrong

U.S. Public Diplomacy: Background and Current Issues by Kennon H. Nakamura and Matthew C. Weed, 18 December 2009, at Congressional Research Service.

…The attitudes and perceptions of foreign publics created in this new environment are often as important as reality, and sometimes can even trump reality. These attitudes affect the ability of the United States to form and maintain alliances in pursuit of common policy objectives; impact the cost and the effectiveness of military operations; influence local populations to either cooperate, support or be hostile as the United States pursues foreign policy and/or military objectives in that country; affect the ability to secure support on issues of particular concern in multilateral fora; and dampen foreign publics’ enthusiasm for U.S. business services and products.

This report cites Matt Armstrong and his work several times throughout the report.