Off the cuff: Part 1.5 of What the SecDef Didn’t Say

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 2 Comments

“Today, American public diplomacy wears combat boots.” This is how I started the post the Small Wars Journal that intentionally implied more than it stated. In an era when fewer Americans know a soldier, sailor, Marine, or airman, the global audience increasingly shapes their opinion by our armed forces. While this irony is seemingly lost on our chief diplomat, Condoleezza Rice, and our chief public diplomat, Karen Hughes, it fortunately isn’t lost on Mr. Gates. Also not lost on Mr. Gates is the importance of information in today’s struggle over minds and wills. As I’ve written elsewhere, increased information asymmetry decreases the fungibility of force. The recent U.S. Army Counterinsurgency Manual understands that, although it does not use these words to say so. What we need is less of a focus on precision-guided munitions and greater attention on precision-guided media.

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Computer problems…

~ Matt Armstrong

…are not fun. The hard drive in my newest Dell laptop failed this morning and won’t boot with several different error codes including this fun one: Uncorrectable data error or media is write protected. The last backup was Friday night, but between then and this morning, but a lot of work (including a final paper for one of my last classes, fortunately it was submitted yesterday) and correspondence created between then and earlier this morning has seemingly been lost.

Because of this, posting will be delayed until Dell follows through on the “Next Day” support I paid for.

Topics I’m working on (and will post when I can):

  • Part II of my Smith-Mundt article that goes to the points discussed with some in off-line correspondence. (Did you see the Heritage Foundation article on Smith-Mundt that went up today? Timing is everything…)
  • A post on another call with Major General Doug Stone, chief of detainee (not ‘prisoner’) operations in Iraq. Stone’s doing some great things, which I’ll write about soon.
  • A post on S/CRS and the Civilian Response Corps following up on an interesting discussion yesterday about S/CRS and CRC.

At present, I’m working off my old Dell, a laptop (now used for my IT consulting work which apparently I’ll be doing most of today) that has had the CPU replaced twice, the system board replaced three times, the hard drive replaced three (or four?) times, screen replaced once, and outer plastics replaced once. The new laptop, about as old as my daughter, 8 weeks, seems to want to catch up w/ the old laptop. I’m not happy. Not happy at all.

I’m thinking an HP for the next go round, an acquisition that might be sooner than later…

DoD PD vs DoS PD

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

From Kim Andrew Elliott:

Defense Department public diplomacy versus State Department public diplomacy: has the invasion of turf begun?

"The United States has also lost several tools that were central to winning the Cold War. Notably, U.S. institutions of public diplomacy and strategic communications — both critical to the current struggle of ideas against Islamic radicalism — no longer exist. Some believed that after the fall of the Soviet Union such mechanisms were no longer needed and could even threaten the free flow of information. But when the U.S. Information Agency became part of the State Department in 1999, the country lost what had been a valuable institution capable of communicating America’s message to international audiences powerfully and repeatedly." Donald Rumsfeld, Washington Post, 2 December 2007. Discussion of public diplomacy aspects of the U.S. Navy’s relief efforts in parts of Bangladesh affected by tropical storm Sidr. Department of Defense transcript, 30 November 2007. "Major Brian Yarbrough, who, until recently headed up all [PSYOP] work in Anbar province, told me, ‘We operate within [PSYOP] objectives determined in Washington. Baghdad draws up the supporting objectives. Then we work out specific themes and actions.’" Noah Shachtman, Wired Danger Room blog, 30 November 2007. See previous posts on 29 November and 27 November about same subject.

No time for my comment now, but read Rumsfeld’s WaPo contribution and I’ll be back later. Talk amongst yourselves…

(H/T CH)

Slight delay in posting… but stay tuned

~ Matt Armstrong

While I haven’t put anything up here since linking to my article on Small Wars Journal’s blog doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy. I’ve been working offline responding on that article, clarifying it, and prepping a follow up article. No specifics on when that will be ready, but hopefully Dave @ SWJ will post that as well. Other stuff is in the works as well, so stay tuned. I may have something up tonight, but definitely tomorrow, not on Smith-Mundt, but on some other topics you may be interested in, including a post on my call with General Doug Stone this morning (see this post for a hint of what’s coming) as well as a post on S/CRS and the Civil Response Corps.

What the SecDef Didn’t Say at Kansas But Should Have (Updated)

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

Checkout my post on what Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates didn’t say in his Kansas State University speech.

Today, American public diplomacy wears combat boots. In the global media and the blogosphere, the military and its uniformed leaders shape the image of the United States. But that is not how it has always been. On the contrary, American public diplomacy was born out of the need to directly engage the global psyche and avoid direct martial engagement.

On November 26, 2007, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, speaking at Kansas State University, recalled how the United States marshaled its national power at the beginning of the Cold War. Mr. Gates reminded his audience that sixty years ago the United States dramatically restructured itself in the face of a global threat and passed the National Security Act of 1947, created the United States Information Agency and the United States Agency for International Development, among other agencies and institutions. Key to the success of all of these was the timely creation and transmission of quality information, or truthful propaganda.

In his clarion call to revamp the current structures of government to meet modern threats, Mr. Gates sidestepped an obstacle that has been misinterpreted and misapplied over the last three decades: Public Law 402: United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948, commonly known as the Smith-Mundt Act. Despite popular belief, the restrictions the Act is known for today were not designed or intended to be a prophylactic for sensitive American eyes and ears.

Read the whole thing at the Small Wars Journal.

Defense Secretary Urges More Spending on the “Civilian Instruments of National Security”

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 2 Comments

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wants other agencies to step up, get funded, and do the work they excel at. He wants the other parts of government to not only start participating in the national security of the United States, but doing a better job if not simply starting to do something. Speaking at Kansas State University today, SecDef Gates sounded like a man truly concerned with national security, as he should, and concerned other parts of government are not being mobilized and funded to do their part.

There’s a change a comin’.

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Readings on Public Diplomacy, #1 (Updated)

~ Matt Armstrong

In just a couple of weeks and barring any last minute problems, a colleague (Yael Swerdlow) and I will be the first in the U.S. (the world?) to be earn a Masters in Public Diplomacy. So what does one do with such a unique, yet extremely timely, degree? Good question. That’s a very good question. Of course I’m actively looking now and I’m open for suggestions (or offers ;).

Partly because I’m being introspective and partly motivated by Abu Muqawama’s counterinsurgency book club, this is the first of an occasional series on books and resources (that may or may not have been used in my program) I found particularly useful. In the spirit of James Traub’s NYT Magazine article this weekend, this series kicks off with one of my recent favorites. 

totalcoldwarKenneth Osgood’s Total Cold War: Eisenhower’s Secret Propaganda Battle at Home And Abroad is a timely read on the original intents and purpose of what has been stripped and twisted into the public diplomacy we know today. Shaped by Charlotte Beers and Karen Hughes, public diplomacy as it is commonly understood today is a far cry from what it was. Osgood gets into the gritty details of why and how the whole of government approach toward the psychological struggle for minds and wills was developed. It was a Total War. 

While the National Security Act of 1947 was debated, revised, and subsequently passed, Public Law 402, otherwise known as the Smith-Mundt Act, was also being debated, modified, and then passed in the following year. A few years later, presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower would attack President Truman for being soft in the ideological war. Experienced in PSYOP, Eisenhower knew the importance of the "psychological struggle over minds and wills" and included such in his speeches on foreign policy.

The former general was attacking President Harry S Truman for ignoring the grass roots, the battleground where the enemy was present. Truman, however, was set on engaging people through the international institutions he was busy promoting, such as the United Nations, NATO, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and even the Marshall Plan. We might call that soft power (although economics were explicitly excluded from Joseph Nye’s original definition of soft power). None of these "looked" like the public diplomacy we talk about today. In the struggle for minds and wills, these institutions effectively supported and enhanced the image and impact of the West, albeit in primarily in contested spaces that culturally similar.

In the 1950’s, to those paying attention, policy and propaganda were inextricably intertwined. Morganthau recognized the importance of national morale and the quality of diplomacy as the world struggle shifted from the arena of power to the arena of ideas and international persuasion. Osgood walks you through a time when Smith-Mundt was not about protecting the American public from the government, but about competing against a different threat than the traditional territorial threat. As Osgood puts it, the

primary threat was not that the Soviet Union would take territory through military force, but…capitalize on economic and social unrest, expanding its power through subversion and manipulation.

Understanding the history and evolution of public diplomacy is important when critiquing and suggesting changes to it today. Returning to history is important if we seek "causes, sources,and conditions of overt changes of patterns and structures in society" as well its systems.

Osgood’s book will give you a strong appreciation of what was public diplomacy before Edward Gullion coined the term (because, as Gullion put it, "propaganda was already taken"), as well as the creation of USIA and USAID. The neutered beauty contest we know today was both more vertical and horizontal, cutting across the whole of government and relied less on muscular approaches in contested spaces both abroad and in the home front. Back then, it wasn’t about "hearts" even if communism played on the hopes for a better life (sidenote: contrast with the hope of communism today with the fear peddled today by AQ). There was no love to be gained or earned, but respect and ideological attractiveness (probably the source of ‘love’). 

How we’ve traveled from that original path is for another post, however.

I strongly suggest most of this book for anyone interested in public diplomacy or strategic communications. My copy is full of flags and highlights.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s got a blog!

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

The president of Iran is posting what he calls his "personal musings". From the Guardian (h/t Opinio Juris):

When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, wanted to create a forum to trumpet his populist political message without the interference of media and opposition catcalls he launched his own blog….

Somewhat gleefully, the reformist newspaper Etemad reported yesterday that some respondents were venting their spleen with little regard for pleasantries.

One writer – calling himself Sadegh Al Ebrahim – sarcastically congratulated Ahmadinejad on his success in creating new jobs through last summer’s decision to ration petrol. "In our city before rationing there were two petrol stations, of which one was always shut. But now, due to you, we have 3,000 petrol sellers," the message reads, hinting at the rampant black market.

Another, claiming to be "on behalf of the more than 50 million people who didn’t vote for you", berates Ahmadinejad for high unemployment and high inflation. The writer says: "Instead of useless provincial trips, fake propaganda on state TV and unrealistic news fed to you by your aides, you should come to the heart of the society."

The blog’s been around for a while, but Ahmadinejad made his first post two weeks ago after a five month hiatus. Promising at least fifteen minutes a week and writing in his most recent post that he spent much more reading the comments, he may have laughed at the irony in this comment, ostensibly from an American:

I hate you. you are retarted [sic]. that simple mentally retarted [sic]

Public diplomacy goes both ways with a blog. Perhaps the comments on a blog really can shape perceptions. Hmm…

Update: See Hamid Tehrani‘s article on HNN for more insight on Iranian blogging.

Iranian Islamist blogs probably provide one of the best places to learn information and news about power and state-related issues in the Islamic Republic, because some of their writers have close ties with Iranian leaders and some of them even are leading figures in the regime….

In the last two years, Islamist bloggers became much more active and organized than before. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory played a key role in mobilizing these blogs in different ways. Reformist bloggers found themselves out of power and started to use the blogs as instruments to get votes. Government itself supports — directly or indirectly — organizations such as the Office for Religious Blogs Development (ORBD). This office has a project to help every religious student get a blog. But we should emphasize that Islamist bloggers existed before the Ahmadinejad era.

Happy Thanksgiving

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

Happy Thanksgiving to all. And to those who don’t want the American holiday that celebrates a 386 year old meal, happy Thursday.

While my tradition of a 10k meter Thanksgiving Day pool workout ended a couple of years ago, a six year old tradition of giving thanks for our troops overseas has not. While giving thanks for family, food, friends, and shelter, remember the soldiers, sailors, Marines and Airmen on duty around the world, not just those in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A couple of admin notes:

  • I’ve updated the blogroll, adding some blogs that were accidentally dropped and updating others.
  • Checkout ZenPundit’s cool new design and new url.
  • Checkout Adam’s new blog, Rethinking Security (his old blog, Simulated Laughter is going away)

Of the few foreign fighters in Iraq, most come from two allies

~ Matt Armstrong

Interesting story in 22 Nov 07 New York Times: Foreign Fighters in Iraq Are Tied to Allies of U.S.

Saudi Arabia and Libya, both considered allies by the United States in its fight against terrorism, were the source of about 60 percent of the foreign fighters who came to Iraq in the past year to serve as suicide bombers or to facilitate other attacks, according to senior American military officials.

The data come largely from a trove of documents and computers discovered in September, when American forces raided a tent camp in the desert near Sinjar, close to the Syrian border. …

The most significant discovery was a collection of biographical sketches that listed hometowns and other details for more than 700 fighters brought into Iraq since August 2006.

…The documents indicate that each foreigner brought about $1,000 with him, used mostly to finance operations of the smuggling cell. Saudis brought more money per person than fighters from other nations, the American officials said.

…According to the rosters found in the raid, the third-largest source of foreign fighters was Yemen, with 68. There were 64 from Algeria, 50 from Morocco, 38 from Tunisia, 14 from Jordan, 6 from Turkey and 2 from Egypt.

Two quick (and not the most important) thoughts. First, this suggests you can’t pull our people out of allied lands to go elsewhere just because they’re allies ("transformation"=bad). Although in at least one source country, you can question the depth of the support for the U.S. vice internal control.

Second, five terabytes of data? Wait, I didn’t share that part yet:

In addition to $18,000 in cash and assorted weapons, troops found five terabytes of data that included detailed questionnaires filled out by incoming fighters. Background information on more than 900 fighters was found, or about 750 after eliminating duplicates and questionnaires that were mostly incomplete.

Typo or these guys were running a small data center. Were the drives striped with a hot spare? More importantly, did they have an offsite backup? Engineering degrees at work…

MountainRunner around the web

~ Matt Armstrong

Who linked to MountainRunner recently? Not much this time…

Mike starts his Christmas list recalling an offline comment on his pink Pearl (maybe it’s not pink, but it may as well be). 

There are times when I see something that interests a friend and forward it with the hopes it spurs a smart post). Jason’s post, Depth of Stupidity, is one example.

A few linked to Doing Strategic Communications in Iraq, or Not: Dave at SWJ noted I got my "dander up"; Josh Foust gave me two hands: the (first hand) Conjecturer and the Second Hand Conjecturer; and Wolf Pangloss’s Fish Taco Stand (?) linked to it as well for a definition of CLCs.

Dave at SWJ linked again: MountainRunner cuts to the quick in pointing out something we should be very concerned about in Iraq OKs Raids on Blackwater.

Alias linked to Bringing the real world home and knowing their real world.

Los Angeles Times, two days late…worth getting your news from the Blogosphere

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 2 Comments

Maybe they should pay attention to the Blogger’s Roundtable. From the LA Times today, 15 Nov 07:

"We have not seen any recent evidence that weapons continue to come across the border into Iraq. We believe that the initiatives and the commitments that the Iranians have made appear to be holding up," Army Gen. James Simmons said.

From the Blogger’s Roundtable with COL Donald "Bits" Bacon two days earlier:

Now, we would like to talk a little about the Iranian origin of some of these caches. We do find EFP stockpiles — or the explosively foreign penetrators — and also the rockets that are Iranian origin. So we have found quite a few of those. In October we found in Saidiyah 120 EFP stockpile, 100 mortars, 30 rockets — all of Iranian origin. Shortly thereafter, in Husseiniyah, we found 10 EFPs and lots of components to build more.

But here’s the interesting thing that we would like to stress is that Iran has, in September, promised Iraq that they would stop and try to be a supporting role here to stop the violence here in Iraq. And as we studied these caches, they were both older than the September timeline of when, you know, they made that promise. So really, we haven’t found any caches as of late that we can attribute that they arrived in-country after Iran made that promise to Iraq.

(I was going to post the Iran item in this post, but I’m trying to raise the editorial standards here…. If I’m not going to proofread my stuff, at least I’ll try to keep it on point, somewhat.)

U.S. Enlists Arab Bloggers for Info War (Updated)

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 2 Comments

Read Noah’s pre-emptive post on today’s hearings on strategic communications before the House Armed Services Committee’s panel on terrorism.

My thoughts on State’s blogger outreach team: not impressed. (Thanks Noah for the link.)

DoD’s Mike Doran, testifying to the Committee, has the right ideas. 

When al-Qaida launched its attacks on 9/11 its primary goal was not to cripple the United States, but to create a perception of American weakness and vulnerability among key audiences. Similarly, when terrorists launch IED attacks in Iraq today, we see them expending great effort to capture the event so that it can be posted on the Internet, often within hours. The spectacle of the attack is as important to them — sometimes more important — than the destructive effect itself….

The Iraqi example underscores the idea that CIST [Countering Ideological Support to Terrorism] is not primarily about creating “Brand America.” It should not be reduced solely to public diplomacy campaigns with the objective of burnishing the image of America. Those are laudable and important efforts, carried out principally by the US Department of State, and we fully support and encourage them. They are a critical element of the CIST mission, but they are not its essence.

The key to the CIST mission is influencing a primarily intra-Muslim conversation, with the goal of undermining the intellectual and perceptual underpinnings of terrorism. Much of the appeal of terrorist groups rests on a collective sense of victimization, a sense of an impending existential threat. Terrorist leaders actively foster the perception that the global Islamic community is under threat of extinction. To counter the terrorists, we must inject critical doubt among key populations about the terrorists’ singular vision of hate and fear. It is important for us to realize that this sense of threat often derives from internal Muslim political processes as much as it does from perceptions of American intent.

Shouldn’t some of these thoughts be visible not only in DoS policy and programs but in the language DoS uses in its public diplomacy?

Will we see a change when Karen Hughes leaves office? Is this IIP’s fault? Should we gift Duncan MacInnes an account with a blog aggregator so he can see what’s going on out there?

How is it possible for the type of inane activity of State’s bloggers get condoned? Is it true that none of the people behind the policy actually read blogs or participate in the blogosphere? We’re talking a certain kind of culture here, and God help us when State ventures into Second Life, hopefully they’ll have the help of the Center for Public Diplomacy’s after their half-mil grant. State’s demonstrated at the highest levels, not at the hamstrung and overworked tactical levels, an inability to comprehend anything other than mirrored imaging U.S. politics.

State used to be able to understand foreign audiences, but that was in the first decades of the Cold War. Now, not so much. Back then, State was on a war footing. Now, not so much.

It is no wonder State’s budget is so low. Not only do they not hammer on Congress for more money, but Congress doesn’t see a real payback for what they are receiving now. Where’s the leadership at State to bring them into the 21st Century, into Information Age conflict?

Should State just abdicate to DoD’s Support for Public Diplomacy, as Thom Shanker closed in his NYT article today? I don’t know, but this will be default if State doesn’t get a capable leader soon.

Update: Rep. Adam Smith comments on the Danger Room post:

We gaveled our hearing about an hour ago. My sense after the hearing remains that we are not adequately resourcing our online activities, both in terms of funding and in terms of giving the people on the front lines authority to act outside of a lengthy bureaucratic review process. We’re also not doing enough to reach out to online communities and bloggers based here in the U.S. to get the benefit of their expertise.

Your point about having two bloggers posting with a moderate number of page views illustrates my concern, and I agree with Matt Armstrong’s comment about our post hoc strategy…if we are serious about fighting the battle of ideas, waiting until after the messages hit the Internet to get active on them is not the best way to go.

A lot of that has to do with the way government bureaucracies work; the person posting for us has to get approval in advance for whatever they are going to send to or post in an online community, and that means we’re constantly behind. One of our subcommittee members suggested to State and DoD that they empower their people to act quickly outside that process in order to be more effective, and I think that is an excellent suggestion.