Tag: public diplomacy

Glassman reaches out to bloggers (Updated)

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 3 Comments

Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Jim Glassman is on a mission to let people know that American public diplomacy, as well as his office, is changing.  This is the message he’s been refining since his Wall Street Journal opinion piece after being sworn in as Under Secretary.  He updated it in the CFR briefing a week later, and again at the Washington Institute. 

However, only the initial WSJ article received much attention by the media, if only because it was in the WSJ.  Even what Karen Hughes wore on her head received more attention by “traditional” media and by the blogosphere. 

Under Secretary Jim Glassman is pushing an aggressive public diplomacy that’s reminiscent of the information, cultural, and educational activities of the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s (a vision I’ve pushed for on this blog) and creating distance from the “neutered beauty contest” (my phrase not his) style of the last decade and more.  My read is he’s pushing for a return to the struggle for minds and wills and away from the phrase “winning the hearts and minds” (see related post on the need for this shift here). 

At State’s Foreign Press Center in DC (transcript here), he updated his message and explained to foreign media the points of his program and mission in a way not just foreign media and audiences need to hear, but in clear and direct language that also must be transmitted to the American public and Congress. 

As part of the effort to create a dialogue on the subject within the United States, a teleconference with bloggers was quickly arranged for today.  On the call were Steve Corman of COMOPS, Melinda Brower of Foreign Policy Association’s public diplomacy blog, and myself.  In reality, it was just Steve and myself as Melinda opted to listen in and not ask questions, which was odd considering her critique of his strategy last week (see Steve’s reply here and a related reply here). 

The teleconference was to be a follow up to the Foreign Press Center briefing the day before, so he began with reiterating only a few points.  These included the intention to engage foreign publics to “help achieve the national interest” and to use the “tools of ideological engagement to create an environment hostile to violent extremism”, among other points.  Note the absence of “Islam” as he emphasizes this is a broader struggle that beyond Al-Qaeda while not minimizing AQ.  His intent is to use “words, deeds, and images to break” the links to “support for violent extremism.” 

The Under Secretary also emphasized that the United States is “not at the center of the War of Ideas” (an appropriate description, but one I believe helps with Congress) but at the same time “we cannot be a bystander.” 

A purpose of public diplomacy, according to the Under Secretary, is to “construct viable alternatives” to violent extremism.  Public diplomacy must be used to exploit the fact that Al-Qaeda’s “ideology contains seeds of the [its] own destruction,” as has been shown in Iraq.  Public diplomacy is a tool of “diversion”, a “facilitator of choice”, and the War of Ideas is “really a battle of alternatives.” 

There were several key take-aways from the teleconference.  First, the Under Secretary said the teleconference would take place “every now & then”.  He is looking for a recurring engagement with the blogosphere to discuss what is going on in public diplomacy.

On resurrecting USIA or heavy restructuring of the elements under him, he said does not want to spend his short time in office advocating restructuring.  He has done some reorganization to reinforce his position as the government’s lead in strategic communication and to have better oversight over the processes (see below for details).

Asked what his advice for the next administration would be, he had two requests.  First, that the next administration adopt the platform and structure that’s being constructed now.  Second, to maintain the commitment to public diplomacy (that presumably this administration will have at the end of the year, which is growing but still now broad enough). 

However, as Secretary of Defense Gates pointed out again this week, “America’s civilian institutions of diplomacy and development have been chronically undermanned and underfunded for far too long.”  While Under Secretary Glassman is pushing to put State back into the communications void since filled by Defense, he needs support from his boss for money and resources while he works toward the goals he’s laid out.  As he put it:

I have two jobs. One of them is running public diplomacy in the State Department. But the second one is being the inter-agency lead in the War of Ideas.

And State has a role in War of Ideas program. DOD has a [role]. Other agencies have a [role]. And, but, it is my responsibility to be the lead and this is going to be a major focus of my efforts.

Much of the call focused on information, the “fast” communication, but as the Under Secretary made sure to include the “slow” engagement, he continued to show his focus is on the things he can change quickly:

You know, the restructuring sort of allows us to – allowed us to shift focus. And let me add – let me just add one thing. This is not in any way a diminution or de-emphasis on the importance of education and cultural affairs.

We have the biggest budget that we have had in years. We have a very, very good Assistant Secretary and it is the same thing at IIP. It is just that my time, probably because the President designated me as the inter-agency lead and partly because I think this is where my background is, it is going to be focused on the War of Ideas efforts.

(A side note: depending on who you talk to about public diplomacy, the educational and cultural parts of a kind of ‘third rail’ or the only real public diplomacy there is.  A tangent to this post, it is undoubtedly shaping the Under Secretary’s plan of action.)

Even though he wants to avoid the restructuring debate, from the bills on the Hill I’ve seen and heard of, he needs to spend more time getting his vision to the public if he doesn’t want to speak directly to Congress.  

The Under Secretary was late to the teleconference attending the launch of the Civilian Response Corps, an issue close to this bloggers interest. 

This teleconference was a good start at outreach and engagement, but Steve and I were both caught a bit off guard that it was only us asking the questions.  Hopefully next time more bloggers will attend.  The DOD Blogger Roundtable has proven effective and it’s about time State stands-up its own version. 

Update:

The transcript of the call is available.  Below are the comments of the Under Secretary on the internal restructuring:

Well we – I am the Chair of the Policy Coordinating Committee on Strategic Communications which we take to be a synonym for War of Ideas. And there are representatives from a number of other agencies – DOD, the intelligence community, NCTC, Treasury and so forth.

This is a PCC that has been operating for several years now, I think two years. And in fact I went to one of the meetings when I was Chairman of the BBG. And this is the main body that sets strategy and decides on programs.

It meets – it was meeting roughly once a quarter. It will be roughly once a month.

One of the sub-PCCs that is part of this PCC is called The Global Strategic Engagement Center or GSEC. And that is an inter-agency office, believe it is about a dozen people, that is headquarter – is situated here at State but it does have people from other agencies who are part of it.

And those of you who know a lot of these details that went before, there was an organization called the CTCC, Counter Terrorism Communication Center.

And really the CTCC has been turned into the GSEC. And the G, but GSEC has a different function. The GSEC is really the coordinating and day to day operating authority for the PCC.

Then, we have – we are setting up a strategic advisory council which is a public private organization, will be quite small, probably ten members, five – two from each of five different broad sectors.

And they will be able to reach out into the private sector to draw a private sector participant in War of Ideas Strategic Communications Activities.

See also:

Reading lists on ethnographic intelligence/human terrain mapping, and some thoughts on same

~ Matt Armstrong

Check out CTLab’s reading list on Ethnographic Intelligence and Human Terrain Mapping. 

At the same time, I’ll point out a reading list I’m putting together on the same topic (very draft at this time, subject to radical change and expansion), except it goes by the name of Public Diplomacy.  We seem to forget that the bilateral nature of exchanges and information that is what was and is public diplomacy are essentially tools of intelligence.  Cultural and educational exchange are the “slow” transmission and information activities are the “fast”, but both seek to provide intelligence on what the Other thinks, operates, and ticks and to provide the Other with insight into how you think, operate, and tick. 

Don’t tell public diplomats this, they usually cringe at the suggestion.  But that’s not how it always was. 

The difference between the two lists is the scientific approach and methodology.  One uses experts to dissect the mind of one side while the other strives to increase the awareness and knowledge of both sides about the other.  One expert imparts deep knowledge versus having many people with qualified insights.  Both are necessary, neither is fully supported. 

The Strategic Communication of Unmanned Warfare

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 3 Comments

Modern conflict is increasingly a struggle for strategic influence above territory.  This struggle is, at its essence, a battle over perceptions and narratives within a psychological terrain under the influence of local and global pressures.  One of the unspoken lessons embedded in the Counterinsurgency Manual (FM3-24) is that we risk strategic success relying on a lawyerly conduct of war that rests on finely tuned arguments of why and why not.  When too much defense and too much offense can be detrimental, we must consider the impact of our actions, the information effects.  The propaganda of the deed must match the propaganda of the word.

As Giulio Douhet wrote in 1928,

“A man who wants to make a good instrument must first have a precise understanding of what the instrument is to be used for; and he who intends to build a good instrument of war must first ask himself what the next war will be like.”

Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates has said that there is too much spending geared toward the wrong way of war.  I find this to be particularly true in the area of battlefield robots.  Much (if not all) of the unmanned systems planning and discussion, especially with regards to unmanned ground combat vehicles, is not taking into account the nature of the next war, let alone the current conflict.

Last year I posted an unscientific survey that explored how a ground combat robot operating away from humans (remote controlled or autonomous) might shape the opinions of the local host family.  The survey also explored the propaganda value of these systems to the enemy, in the media markets of our allies, Muslim countries, and here in the United States.  The survey results weren’t surprising.

Serviam Magazine just published what could be construed as an executive summary of a larger paper of mine to be published by Proteus later this year.  That paper is about four times longer and adds a few points with more details.  In the meantime, my article that appeared in Serviam, “Combat Robots and Perception Management,” is below.

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Local is Global: how the TVA board impacts America’s Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication

~ Matt Armstrong

Bartholomew Sullivan, a reporter with the 150-year old Memphis paper Commercial Appeal, wrote a couple of interesting articles on the fight between Senators Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) on the Republican to Democrat ratio of the board of the Tennessee Valley Authority.  What seems to be a minor squabble, at least to those outside of Tennessee, is having a global impact and yet goes under-reported. 

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Strategic Miscommunication and Smith-Mundt

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

Briefly, Andrew Exum wrote a very good response over at the Guardian’s Comment is Free to the media’s recoil that some their analysts, who weren’t vetted, may have been influenced by a skilled influence operation to manage the perceptions of Americans of the war.  What a shock.  Isn’t that why the media is supposed to vet their analysts in the first place?  In the rush to get a face on the air, and keep him (any “hers”?) there, they skipped the background checks or simply ignored what came back.  I can understand the one-off, but this was systemic and ongoing. 

To my surprise, Smith-Mundt has not been recalled as often as I expected.  However, Andrew does highlight Smith-Mundt and its purpose of preventing the government from using information created for overseas broadcast from being used within our borders.  He makes the argument that “the most significant clause in the act remains a good one: propaganda cannot and should not be directed by government officials toward the people they represent.” 

If we, in fact, look back we’ll find something interesting.  Smith-Mundt intended, if implicitly and through behind the scenes handshakes, that propaganda designed for overseas broadcast to be shared with the people through the American media.   

There are two important aspects of Smith-Mundt to consider here.  First, one of the pillars of Smith-Mundt was preventing the U.S. government from bypassing the media in its conversations with the general public.  Various reasons were given, the most notable of which was the foreseen impact on the profits of newspaper and radio companies both large and small and the infringing on their First Amendment rights to speak.  The latter was directly related to concerns that the dominance of previous government agencies, the Committee for Public Information (President Wilson’s domestic propaganda office) and the Office of War Information (President Roosevelt’s domestic propaganda office), in speaking to the public would drown out private media, and oh yeah, alternative views. 

Second, Smith-Mundt’s prohibition was against direct dissemination of materials designed for overseas information campaigns by specific U.S. information and exchange agencies (i.e. VOA, later USIA, parts of the Department of Stateetc).  The media, scholars, the public, and Congress, were permitted to view and access the material.  It was not until 1972, 24 years after Smith-Mundt was enacted, were the limitation expanded to prohibit virtually all access and dissemination of information created for overseas use by the same agencies.  Also keep in mind that Smith-Mundt came out of the Foreign Relations / Foreign Affairs Committee in the Senate and House and not a domestic oversight committee, such as telecommunications. 

Propagandizing the American people was never off limits.  Just briefly, consider the monthly tests of air raid sirens, the now-campy warnings of communism and atomic warfare, deep cooperation between the military and Hollywood, and a slew of other campaigns of influence and persuasion undertaken by the government or by private parties on behalf of the government.  Those were intended for overseas consumption and weren’t created by government overseas broadcasters, so were fair game to be broadcast at home, in schools or through the media. 

In other words, Smith-Mundt is not, and never was, applicable and would not have prevented the “Hidden Hand.”  The generals were not sharing information designed for or intended for overseas consumption, they where not sharing information from State, and the government itself was not directly informing the public. 

This doesn’t make what they did excusable.  Far from it, as Andrew capably points out.  The biggest concern we should take-away from David Barstow’s Hidden Hand, is what Andrew closes with (and I mention here):

In the end, I was more heartened by the revelations about the Pentagon’s strategic communications programme than I was disgusted. What disgusted me, by contrast, was that while this well-oiled effort was underway in America, our strategic communications efforts in Iraq and the greater Middle East remained bumbling and inept.

In 2004, for example, when the US mistakenly and horrifically targeted a wedding party in Iraq, killing 40 innocent people, the spokesman in Iraq at the time lamely insisted that “bad people have parties too.”

Now that was something to get upset about.

The fact is, the United States and its allies have largely ceded the strategic communications battlefield to the insurgents and terrorists since 2001. If the Pentagon invested as much time and effort communicating to the audience of al-Jazeera as it does communicating to the audience of Fox News, more Americans soldiers in Iraq might be home by now.

See also:

Anthropology and Global Counterinsurgency: to some, a natural pairing, to others, not so much

~ Matt Armstrong

This should be interesting.  This weekend the University of Chicago holds a conference titled Anthropology and Global Counterinsurgency that will explore

Anthropology’s relationship to the United States’ global projection of its power, while simultaneously mounting an anthropological inquiry into the nature of that power and of the changing world in which it operates.

Don’t mistake this as a chance to discuss revisions to the Counterinsurgency Manual.  On the contrary, 

We seek ethnographic understanding of global responses to recent deployments of the US military, and of US military actions in comparison to other forms of coercion, compellance, and intervention.  Reading US military theorists, we seek to understand the emerging interest in study of culture in the broad context of military responses to US military failures (and opportunities).  We pursue the full implications of the connection now being sought by the US military between culture and insurgency and turn an anthropological lens on the nature of violence and order in the current era.

The presenters are a varied group and, for the most part, will probably do their best at Ivory Tower analysis to talk past each other.  Below the fold are a few of the abstracts that caught my eye for the “1.6” day event (cocktails/keynote Friday night + all day Saturday + half of Sunday).

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Book Review: Practicing Public Diplomacy

~ Matt Armstrong

imageFriend and colleague, John Brown, reviewed Yale Richmond’s latest book, Practicing Public Diplomacy: A Cold War Odyssey, at AmericanDiplomacy.org.  From John’s review:

In his memoir, Practicing Public Diplomacy: A Cold War Odyssey, Yale Richmond tells us what public diplomacy is in a lively and personal way, by recounting his many experiences, in Asia and Eastern Europe (as well as Washington, DC), as a Foreign Service officer (FSO) handling press, educational, and cultural affairs during the second half of the past century. Thanks to his subtle, engaging, and witty narrative about his distinguished 30-year career, the reader learns a great deal about how public diplomacy is carried out in the field by a model FSO (for what overarching policy purposes, however, is not covered in detail by this slim volume).

Richmond’s elucidating anecdotes about the key persons he met throughout his career abroad underscore that public diplomacy — as Edward R. Murrow, the Director of the United States Information Agency (USIA) during the Kennedy administration, famously said — “is not so much moving information or guidance or policy five or 10,000 miles. … The real art is to move it the last three feet in face to face conversation.” Focusing on individuals (rather than governments), public diplomacy encompasses an infinite variety of activities, some of which can have important (but hard to quantify) long-term consequences: from building “national consciousness in a new country” (Richmond on what he did while posted in Laos in 1954-1956) to organizing educational exchanges, a “vital part of Public Diplomacy” (to cite Richmond again) which (in the case of the Soviet Union, where Richmond served 1967-1969) can be effective “in bringing about change in a country that had isolated itself from the West for so many years.”

Read the whole review at AmericanDiplomacy.org as well as an excerpt shows the style of most of the book.  It does not read like a text book, but as a series of first hand experiences told by a remarkable individual that, as Pat Kushlis remarked, is “one of our very best practitioners” of public diplomacy. 

Understanding the Purpose Public Diplomacy

~ Matt Armstrong

Marc Lynch’s comments this week on my “powerful and pointed case” sparked a much needed discussion on what I see as the most significant piece of ignored legislation in all the reports and conversations on public diplomacy and strategic communications. My response is in two parts. This post looks at the definition and purpose of the thing called “public diplomacy” sparked by a statement by one of Marc’s readers. A second post responds directly to Marc’s “mixed feelings” of my critique of Smith-Mundt.

To start, Marc opened his post with a statement from Donna Marie Oglesby, a former counselor for the United States Information Agency in the Clinton Administration:

McCain appears less interested in public diplomacy than in what we used to call advocacy and is now called strategic communication. His interest is in the “war of ideas” and advancing American objectives in the global information battle-space."

While Public diplomacy is a nebulous concept without an agreed upon definition, a central tenant has always been to influence foreign audiences. At its heart, public diplomacy, and its precursors, has always been about advocating a position, inhibiting or preventing the adoption of adversarial positions, and is by nature a tool of national security, American or otherwise.

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Not Afraid to Talk: our adversaries aren’t, why are we?

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 3 Comments

For an unabridged version of the below post, go here. Otherwise read on.

GWU professor Marc Lynch, perhaps more commonly known as Abu Aardvark, revealed the positions on public diplomacy of the current presidential candidates:

I came across something interesting while doing some research on public diplomacy for an unrelated project.  Since at least the 9/11 Commission Report, almost every foreign policy blueprint or platform has for better or for worse mentioned the need to fix American public diplomacy and to engage with the "war of ideas" in the Islamic world.   I expected all three remaining Presidential candidates to offer at least some boilerplate rhetoric on the theme.  What I found was different.

Marc highlighted the differences between the presidential candidates on what is arguably the most important and yet least understood element of our national security. At the end of his post, he challenged John Brown, Patricia Kushlis, and this blogger to offer our thoughts.  Patricia at Whirled View responded, as did John Brown and a few others. I suggest you read their responses.

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IEDs as “Weapons of Strategic Influence”

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

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

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

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

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Of Information Operations, DIME, and America’s Ambassadors

~ Matt Armstrong

Society is a very mysterious animal with many faces and hidden potentialities, and… it’s extremely shortsighted to believe that the face society happens to be presenting to you at a given moment is its only true face. None of us knows all the potentialities that slumber in the spirit of the population. – Valclav Havel, 31 May 1990

Modern conflict relies heavily on influencing social strata spanning many lands. Information campaigns are waged, neglected, and abused by attempts to manipulate various audiences. We’ve read the news about how the Pentagon made such a bad decision to hire the Lincoln Group to provide news insertion and pondered over the “real” purpose of the ill-fated Office of Strategic Influence. I’ve sat in meetings listening to individuals more intelligent and more knowledgeable than myself use these examples, among many, to fuel their arguments against the validity today or in the future of any link between the Pentagon and “Public Diplomacy”. An erroneous viewpoint in my opinion that’s removed from reality. Their position isn’t surprising, however. The second paragraph of Joseph Nye’s preface to Soft Power gives Rumsfeld’s opinion on soft power to reinforce the argument: “I don’t know what it means.”

The SecDef may have learned the meaning of Soft Power by now, but regardless of if he has and regardless of academics accepting the military as participants, with major and possibly central roles, in American Public Diplomacy, the military is in “the last three feet”.

If you’re a reader of MountainRunner, or have searched the archives, you’ll have seen many posts highlighting examples of how the Defense Department, or sometimes more accurately elements within the Defense Department, “gets it”. For example, from the Office of Naval Research Global and its Science Visitor Program (SVP) that’s on par with the old International Visitors Program (IVP) of the State Department to a submarine tender making port calls in the Gulf of Guinea, we see the Navy smoothly sliding into a role of America’s Ambassador.

You may have read my recent post on CSM Daniel Wood, in writing his memo last month, and how he certainly understood the concept of soft power. While some may think we’re in a new way of war, it is clear by Thucydides’ account of the Peloponnesian War the value of creating and engendering cooperation, as in the Mytilenian Debate, is really older than our civilization, let alone a generational shift.

You may also have seen my comments on Counter-Insurgency (COIN) on this site and references to insightful military authors on how to conduct relations at the personal level. Authors such as John Nagl (Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife) have discussed the value of working with and not against or simply amongst populations. Just as the insurgents are, in Mao’s words, fish in the sea of the people, so too are we and we must use the sea as a force multiplier. Books like Ahmed Hashim’s Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency in Iraq read like case studies on how to work with the “mysterious animal” that our real ambassadors — the military and its agents — come in contact with daily.

In places that increasingly count ("sanctuaries", disaster zones, etc), the “last three feet” of contact with foreign publics is increasingly “owned” by our military. Modern conflict is both kinetic (bullets whizzing and missiles flying) and non-kinetic (creating influence and disruption) requiring new methods of prevention and counter-action. The war of words and pictures are of greater importance over “traditional” metrics of warfighting. In this reality, we’re seeing old texts resurface and get dusted off like Galula (1964), Calwell (1906), and even USMC’s own Small Wars Manual (1940).

These all have something in common: learning to work with and understand the “mysterious animal”. Robert Scales (Culture-Centric Warfare, Clausewitz and World War IV), George W. Smith (Avoiding a Napoleonic Ulcer: Bridging the Gap of Cultural Intelligence), Montgomery McFate (Anthropology and Counterinsurgency, Military Utility of Understanding Adversary Culture), Robert Pape (Dying to Win), Marc Sageman (Understanding Terrorist Networks), and others have essentially written about using soft power to "get" what Newt Gingrich observed: “The real key is not how many enemy do I kill. The real key is how many allies do I grow.”

Military-authored material on the importance of cultural understanding, building trust, and managing communications appears nearly every day. We can see how insurgents use information operations to cleave our allies and distract us.

Of interest, if only for what it uncovers, is recent monograph by Major Joseph L. Cox, Information Operations in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom – What Went Wrong? You should read Marc Lynch / Abu Aardvark’s highlighting contradictions and surprising admissions made by Cox. Unfortunately, Cox seems to have normalized “information operations” to the point of improperly conflated it “information warfare”. It also very interesting that Cox argues and accepts the firewalling of IO from Public Affairs (PA), as General Myers, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2004, suggested. This forces the very stove-piping Major Cox said contributed to IO failures elsewhere in his paper. Successful IO requires horizontal integration of interagency operations. Co-mingling of Information Warfare (IW) and IO is a necessary evil in the world of manipulated media. Cox does more than co-mingle but treats them as synonyms based on Army usage.

This is essentially the crux of the post by Patricia Kushlis of WhirledView. PHK rightly condemns the Pentagon for using Rendon and its cut-outs like Lincoln to design IO that will knowingly deceive for short-term gain and reflect this bad information back into the US.

Another look at Colonel Ralph Baker’s The Decisive Weapon: A Brigade Combat Team Commander’s Perspective on Information Operations is instructive. The role of the military as the front-line ‘ambassador’ for the US must be accepted. The theme of Baker’s piece echoes Nagl (if you don’t want to read his book, then I urge you to watch his presentation), Scales, Calwell, and virtually all else on counter-insurgency and “Small Wars”. Sounds like Public Diplomacy? That’s because the principles are the same.

Read the following monograph by Robert D. Steele at the Army’s Strategic Studies Institute: Putting the ‘I’ Back into DIME. Where is the DIME (Diplomacy, Information, Military, Economics)? Where does State really come into DIME? Are they doing diplomacy relevant to contemporary issues?

DOD hits the hotspots while State hides behind fortresses, insulated from the outside (to be fair, too frequently and detrimentally the military is allowed to create mini-America in their fortifications for the comfort of home), requiring new rules to “force” rotations to “hardship” posts.

Is it because Defense emphasizes learning? Afterall, all these monographs are being written by DOD personnel and is there anything from State? Learning is a low (not just lower) priority at State, budgeting maybe 5% of the total budget while Defense allocated 10-15% for this purpose. This is one more example of Defense moving ahead to engage the world. As Robert Scales wrote in Culture-Centric Warfare (US Naval Institute Proceedings, Oct 2004):

“Leveraging non-military advantages requires creating alliances, reading intentions, building trust, converting opinions, and managing perceptions… all tasks that demand an exceptional ability to understand people, their culture and their motivation.”

Defense’s initiatives result from greater funding, but also, and more importantly, a greater prioritization as Eccentric Star points out.

Again, where is State? Where are the reports examining State’s role? We do have countless reports criticizing different aspects of American Public Diplomacy, as conducted by State, but no academic and scholarly analyses from within the establishment like Cox’s and Steele’s. Those “many reports” often have valid points, some don’t go far enough, and others miss the point completely. Reports like the 2004 Defense Sciences Board (DSB) “get it” and call on a new “jointness”:

  • “… treat learning knowledge of culture and developing language skills as seriously as we treat learning combat skills: both are needed for success in achieving US political and military objectives.”
  • “…Public diplomacy, public affairs, PSYOP and open military information operations must be coordinated…”
  • “Nothing shapes U.S. policies and global perceptions of U.S. foreign and national security objectives more powerfully than the President’s statements and actions… Policies will not succeed unless they are communicated to global and domestic audiences in ways that are credible and allow them to make informed, independent judgments. Words in tone and substance should avoid offence where possible; messages should seek to reduce, not increase, perceptions of arrogance, opportunism, and double standards.”
  • “Policies and strategic communication cannot be separated.”

Other reports, like the Djerejian Report (2003), missed the point and emphasized measuring the immeasurable, a focus on unilateral communication (the “if only they knew us” theory that results in fallacies like Shared Values as “was well conceived and based on solid research”), and ignorance of social networks. And the GAO Report of 2003 falls in the middle with good and bad information, but more importantly missed opportunities. In its appendix, questions in its survey to PAOs simply weren’t analyzed:

  • Is the US Public Diplomacy effort in your country increasing US understanding of foreign publics? 75% Moderate or less
  • Is there limited use / access to Internet by population: 44% Moderate to Very Major
  • Is there opposition to current US policies elsewhere: 61% Moderate to Very Major
  • Do you coordinate with USAID or US Military? 42% (USAID), 59% (Mil) Very to Great Extent
  • FY04 Plan include strategic goal of “mutual understanding”? 77% No

PHK’s concern of what will happen as the military continues to ‘own’ public diplomacy is well-placed, but who else will fill the gap? By PHK’s own observation, the military is filling a void and providing training documents for our public diplomats:

In fact, the model that Baker outlines strikingly resembles that used in U.S. Embassy public affairs offices prior to 1999 or at the very least during the Cold War and its immediate aftermath when there were such things as functioning public diplomacy country plans.

If I was involved in training an incoming State Department class of junior officers, I would include Baker’s article in the must read list. I would also invite Baker as a speaker. In fact, I’d probably add his article to more senior embassy officer training because many of the lessons learned and antidotes described are equally applicable to US embassy public affairs efforts.

Lest we forget the man in charge of officially countering misinformation at State has been ordered to not speak to the press while the military actually incorporates media relations into battle exercises with radio, television, and blog media in their own studios to enhance the realism. By the way, if you’re in the US, you’ll have to Google for the Countering Misinformation website because it is intentionally not available via State.gov for fear of "propagandizing" domestic audiences (even though it is the truth).

Lest we also forget Presidential Decision Directive 68 (PDD 68) that established the International Public Information Core Group (ICG), chaired by the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, to coordinate all agencies’ (DOD, State, etc) International Public Information (IPI) activities. PSYOPS were to operate under this umbrella. According to the IPIG Charter:

The objective of IPI is to synchronize the informational objectives, themes and messages that will be projected overseas . . . to prevent and mitigate crises and to influence foreign audiences in ways favorable to the achievement of U.S. foreign policy objectives." The charter insists that information distributed through IPI should be designed not "to mislead foreign audiences" and that information programs "must be truthful.

The Defense Sciences Board report on “PSYOP in Time of Military Conflict” (May 2000) explicitly lists PSYSOP as a tool under IPI: “PSYOP actions are a subset of Information Operations (IO) and International Public Information (IPI) as described by Presidential Decision Directive (PDD) 68.”

In working with the mysterious animals that are the societies that are or have the potential of becoming threats to our national security, we need to create a new Jointness like the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, except between DOD and State. PHK is rightly concerned, but with militarized humanitarian aid, physical security concerns, and institutional commitment, we can’t throw out the military’s role when State doesn’t step up.

The Case for Cultural Diplomacy: Engaging Foreign Audiences

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

Making the case against the Clash of Civilizations and its wholesale aggregations (see other posts in the Cultural Warfare category), Helena Finn (in 2003) explains the need to engage. From the socio-political perspective this means listening and understanding. From the military-political persepective, this is the groundwork and foundation for Cultural Warfare. Either way, it is necessary to not see a binary world and not to assume that Arab speakers, Muslims, or some other "condition" as some would call it, as inherently defective and antagonistic to "us".

The Case for Cultural Diplomacy: Engaging Foreign Audiences (also at Foreign Affairs) abstract:

In the past few years there has been an alarming rise in anti-American sentiment around the globe, centered in the Middle East. To reverse this tide, the United States must begin working immediately to establish meaningful contact with the silent majority in the Muslim world, in ways other than through military force or traditional diplomacy. The anti-U.S. aggression witnessed today represents the boiling over of intense frustration, exacerbated by a sense that Muslims have somehow fallen behind. Rather than assuming that Islam is inherently more violent than other religions, U.S. policymakers should realize that there are practical causes of the widespread discontent in the Middle East, and try to offer practical solutions. As they do so, they should take inspiration from the successful cultural diplomacy of the Cold War, while tailoring their efforts to the new circumstances and enemies with which they are confronted. Cultural diplomacy is one of the most potent weapons in the United States’ armory, yet its importance has been consistently downplayed in favor of dramatic displays of military might.Like its predecessors during the early Cold War era, the Bush administration must realize that in waging its self-proclaimed war against extremism, winning foreigners’ voluntary allegiance to the American project will be the most important prize of all.

Cultural Warfare, continued

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

A vigourous discussion on an earlier post "How Not to Conduct Cultural Warfare" (to be continued here in a new category "Cultural Warfare") should have a greater obvious context with recent news. As Eccentric Star ("Murdered US Soldiers Linked to Rape & Murder of Iraqi Civilians") notes:

A link — however tenuous — between the two US soldiers who were abducted, tortured, and murdered in Iraq recently and the rape of an Iraqi woman and subsequent murder of her and her family is explosive. From an Iraqi’s perspective, this must make the insurgents who killed the US soldiers look more like righteous avengers than anything else.

At some point who we are, or rather how we see ourselves, becomes disjointed with what we do. At some point, what we do is who we are, especially if it is repeated often enough. Put yourself in the shoes of locals and consider the trend from their perspective. Cultural warfare and public diplomacy (wartime and peacetime sides of the same coin) does this and the Haditha videos (commented on in How Not to Conduct Cultural Warfare) reinforces stereotypes, the wrong stereotypes.

From the US side, Shawn Howard in The Difference Between Us and Them, writing before the news of the rape, echoed a sentiment leaning toward "kill them all, let [insert deity here] sort ’em out" (by the way, I’m not being politically correct, it’s just a tool to ack different perspectives… for all I care, assume God is written there):

…These insurgents have a long pattern of obscene violence that goes well beyond the rules of engagement.

I will not argue that the U.S. military and the private contractors are always choir boys….Also, when we find out about alleged atrocities, we investigate them and hold people accountable.  The insurgents are praised when they commit disgusting atrocities….

What we are fighting is a barbaric culture that refuses to develop into a civilized society.  Even if we stay for a decade, we will never be able to teach them to respect human life.  That is a fight we will not win.

This last paragraph essentially echoes Dan of tdaxp (in the comments here) in our recent discussion, most notably [for this discussion, I’ll move past the comment about investigating and holding contractors accountable]:

Iraq and Afghanistan are not Core [as in Core-Gap of Barnett’s Pentagon’s New Map] states that somehow went off the rails (like Germany and Japan did). They are from the deepest part of the AfroIslamic Gap.

As such a "hearts and minds," or even a narrow Westernization, strategy is out of the question . Attempting to make Iraqi Shia and Sunni like us because of who we are is a fools errand. So would attempting the reverse. Neither is much possible. We’re not going to enrage Iraqis with things like this. Too little, too late.

There is little need for our side to descend to aggregations of Them into a collective evil. It is wrong to say

…the "All in all, I’d rather not have Americans here right now" ship has long since sailed. Those Iraqis that support us do so because they think we can improve their lives…

There are more Iraqis that would support us if a) procedures and policies of both military and private forces and reconstruction efforts considered locals as assets and part of the solution, and b) fear keeps many from secretly or openly from supporting us and hence pushing away criminal and "insurgent" groups.

The reality is, now and in the past (another dig against tempo-centric and situational unaware 4GW here), that an overall environment is necessary to bring out allies as force multipliers (consider the role and purpose of the Green Berets and the fact we don’t need warm and cuddly friendships, just a mutual understanding who the bad guy is).

David Galula, writing in his 1965 CounterInsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice, noted the clear need to get the population on your side which you do not do by alienating them. As an example, Galula cites mainland Chinese who, when expected to side with Nationalists during a quick hit and run in fact fought back viciously. Why? Because they knew where they were living and reality of the attack (not to free the people but simply to prick the side of Mao).

Does cultural intelligence matter? Consider this CS Monitor story "What US wants in its troops: cultural savvy" (and many other references to be posted soon, but the CS Monitor article was timely… posted this evening). If cultural awareness matters on the battlefield to diffuse or prevent tensions, why not in peacetime? Hence, public diplomacy… CW (cultural warfare) is a variant of PD (public diplomacy).

Before reforming public diplomacy, we need a strategy

~ Matt Armstrong

For all the governement and special commission reports, all of the blogs and media analysis, and for all of the books, the United States still does not get public diplomacy. It does not matter if a team in the State Department "gets it" or if the Pentagon "gets it". What really matters is the very top "gets it". Without participation and buy-in from the very top, we are wasting our time fanstasizing about the efficacy of official public diplomacy, wondering about cultural imperialism of the entertainment industy, and "advocacy" of our "ideals".

The reality of getting "them" to "know us" and what we’re about seems a little misguided when only 33% of American’s like what we do. When the world has lost the seperation between America and American — sentiments like "we dislike your President, but love your country" is in the past — what are we really doing?

The 28 April 2006 Wall Street Journal demonstrates how talk on reshaping US Public Diplomacy apparatus is nothing but folly. We missing the crucial keystone of an effective public diplomacy: acceptance and support from the very top. Until then the public diplomacy of the United States will continue to be a hodge podge of efforts chiefly led by the US military and not the State Department. 

Even before China’s bolder courtship of Africa began to galvanize new attention in Washington, Gen. Jones was executing the Bush administration’s national-security doctrine of preventive action there "in an effort to preclude parts of Africa from becoming the Iraqs and Afghanistans of the future," he says.

He and Deputy Commander Chuck Wald, his point man for Africa at the European Command headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, are overseeing a think tank on Africa. To improve coordination of U.S. initiatives, they have put together a group in Stuttgart with the participation of 15 U.S. government agencies. Gen. Jones has worked with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to bring business leaders with him to Africa. It’s all in service of what he sees as the military’s new role as forward scout and animator for integrated U.S. response.

"The fight in the 21st century," he says, "is about coordinating all elements of national influence so that it works together in a seamless way. If nothing follows the military in Africa, we won’t succeed."

"Coordinating all elements of national influence" sounds a lot like "smart power". Reaching out proactively to engage and understand is generally understood to be the mission of public diplomacy. So where is Karen Hughes in this critical region of national importance?

The value and shortcomings of US public diplomacy is captured in "too many reports", in Karen Hughes’ own words, and books. Yet, very little action has been done or attempted to address these concerns spanning a few years. Ah, you might say bureaucracies take time to change. Surely recreating USIA or something similar isn’t even close to creating the Department of Homeland Security, perhaps the second worse strike against the security of this nation by this Administration to protect our nation (Iraq having slid into #1)? Anything, right or wrong, can be done if the will is there. A commitment from the top is required and the will trickles, or floods, down from there.

Made clear is that Karen Hughes is not on the "take-off’s and
landings" and that Condoleeza Rice will not give or fight for Hughes or her mission. Let’s stop wasting our time wondering how a certain policy of Karen
Hughes will impact public diplomacy. The reality is this President
continues to appointment Ambassadors as political favors without consideration to competency or value to America,
continues to empower the Defense Department as the communicator and
coordinator with civilian agencies and governments, and continues to work around instead of reform programs (e.g. creating the
Millenium Challange Account outside of USAID). Repeatedly, this President reiterates his lack of lack of vision and understanding of the value of image and content, policy and deeds, while at the same time demanding other countries follow up words with action. Until the President understands "small" things like 20,000 non-military security contractors operating in Iraq reflect back on the United States, that Iraqi reconstruction projects after years of effort are still unfinished or extremely poorly done reflect back onto the United States, and that the value of the word of the United States has diminished as a result of his policies (consider Iran’s challenge on sanctions), we will not have an effective public diplomacy strategy because we will constantly be fighting our own messages and actions, leaving no room to educate, engage, or counter misinformation.

The National Security Strategy of 2006 completely ignores notions of mutual understanding
and two-way communication, despite "too many" reports highlighting their
significance. However in a flood of academic articles, the US military increasing acknowledges and incorporates cultural awareness and understanding as critical to "scouting", preventing, and short-circuiting conflict.

Back at State, Hughes’ Four E’s emphasize "advocacy" without understanding and without real listening. Obviously, Hughes did not read the reports or what was in but not reported in the reports. The GAO
report of 2003 included survey questions that were, interestingly, not addressed in the report itself. Among these were questions noting that while 87% of US diplomatic posts responded
"public diplomacy" was a "strategy and/or tactic for meeting other
strategic goals", 77% responded that "mutual understanding" was no in
their Mission Performance Plans. Other questions noted the 42% of the diplomatic posts worked coordinated with the USAID office in country while 59% coordinated with US military elements in country.

President Bush has dictated a policy of unilateralism but the
military sees the writing on the wall. Perhaps it is because they are a
more agile organization than State, but when papers like "Avoiding a
Napoleonic Ulcer- Bridging the Gap of Cultural Intelligence (Or,Have We
Focused on the Wrong Transformation)" (from 2004) are published seeking
cultural-based models of the past, present and future, we have to ask where
is State?

Should we be concerned that Rumsfeld is asked about his vision of USIA? When was the last time Rice was asked about USIA?
 

Apparently the impact of policy, perception, demographics, and knowledge on our
security is not apparent to State. While the military conducts exercises with media
(TV, radio, web) participating to practice media diplomacy, State Department officers dedicated to
countering-misinformation from speaking directly to the press

National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice once implored we must

undertand
their challenges and their cultures and their hopes; to speak their
languages and read their literature; to know their cultures in the
deepest sense. Our interaction must be a conversation, not a monologue.
We must reach out and explain, but we must also listen.

Yet as Secretary of State we don’t see this. Is it really bureaucratic resistance or a lack of commitment to at least establish a policy? Too often we simple attribute the failure of State to move as intranginsince of career officers. It isn’t just State conducting our public diplomacy, and it isn’t just the Defense Department stepping up to the plate. Worthy organizations like Keith Reinhard’s Business for Diplomatic Action step up to fill an obvious void. This is not privatizing as much as its outsourcing by default.

State provides Shared Values and sons of Shared Values. If we just tell the story a little different next time maybe it’ll work. Long term visionaries like Norm Pattiz are cut at the knees because they don’t "advocate" the US position enough or don’t show the "numbers" to "prove" success. As Albert Einstein once said, "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts." In a Long War we need to have patience.

Listening requires connections through radio or in-person. Consular offices that are described as "Crusader Castles" or maximum security prisons inhibit any kind of communication. Is the "last three feet" the no man’s land / killing zone between the 10′ fence topped with razor wire and the walls with tiny windows? Stories about visa procedures ($100 non-refundable application fee??) and entry problems abound. An over-arching strategy and commitment, if it existed, must trickle down to TSA supervisors and officers to be aware of their role in forming the image of the United States. Instead, we consider huge projects like the "model" terminal in Houston.

In Baghdad, we are building the largest embassy in the world, a facility larger than Vatican City, built with imported Southeastern Asian labor housed in miserable conditions. If the Istanbul Consulate is a "crusader castle", what will this monstrosity be called?

It was General Abizaid of CENTCOM who said

In order to fight this long war, we ought to become as ‘expert’ in the Middle East as we were ‘expert’ in Central Europe for the past 50 years… we have to educate, train and develop the next generation of leadership to be as familiar and comfortable with this culture, it’s threats and opportunities. The near term battle is for linguists, intelligence experts and FAOs (foreign area officers). The long term battle is to develop an Officer Corps (and Senior NCO Corps) that is as comfortable and acculturated operating in this region tomorrow, as we were in Central Europe yesterday.

The effort to inoculate, a word used by SACEUR General Jones to Congress in 2005, is the goal of the mission described in the Wall Street Journal article. It is import to deny sanctuary to terrorist beliefs, support networks (implicit and explicit), and overall build up the security and, more importantly, capacity of states around the world to reject terrorists and guerrillas. But again, where is State and where does all of this fit into our Public Diplomacy strategy? Until we pressure for a top-level strategy, we’re justing wasting bandwidth, time, and energy chasing windmills while Bush and Company go about their merry way.

Phase IV, 4GW, and Comprehensive Solutions

~ Matt Armstrong

To continue my previous post, the myth of Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW) is distracting from the reality of present andfuture threats. I previously
focused primarily on legitimacy issues of the State and of the use of
force. This post has lingered in various draft forms for a week or so,
even getting posted briefly (and thus picked up by a number of RSS
readers) before I took it down.

Continue reading “Phase IV, 4GW, and Comprehensive Solutions
“ →

Shadow Company movie review

~ Matt Armstrong

Later this month in Texas, the movie Shadow Company will make its debut at the South by Southwest Film Festival. Self-described as a “ground breaking investigative” documentary, Shadow Company explores the origins and “destinations” of private security contractors (PSCs).

Back in January, Onnesha Roychoudhuri interviewed Nick Bicanic, Shadow Company’s director and co-founder of the production company putting the movie out. If you haven’t read the interview, you should.

Not to be redundent with Roychoudhuri, I asked Nick why he made Shadow Company.

"I decided to make this film because I could see that the Rules of War have changed. There was a relevant message about modern warfare that did not come across in other media. While wars are more and more in the public eye – they are also more and more in private hands. Thousands of private security contractors – soldiers for hire – were working in Iraq and I wanted to find out a number of things about them. What exactly do they do? What kind of people are they? What motivates them to do it?"

There are two interwoven themes in the movie. The first is a description and history of mercenaries. The second is the role of private military companies (PMCs), focusing on the subset of private security companies (PSCs), in modern conflict.

This movie will open some eyes, as it should. When you see the movie, go in with an open mind. Afterwards, consider investigations of corruption and bad behavior of firms like AEGIS, CusterBattles and financial improprieties from KBR, etc. The incident with the Blackwater contractors in Fallujah is discussed, but understandably not included is a lawsuit alleging a corporate penny pinching contributed to or allowed the incident to happen in the first place. Also keep in mind that of the dozens and dozens of firms operating in Iraq today, you’ve heard of only a few.

Will you be swayed for or against privatization of war zone duties? According to Nick, an early test screening was polarized: half of the audience felt the movie was biased for PMCs and the other half saw a movie biased against PMCs.

I would have complicated the survey if I were in that early test audience. To me, the movie showed a failure in usage and control. The powers that be intentionally grant too much autonomy to corporate entities and assume the mantle of responsibility is on the company. Nick does a great job in showing how PMCs operate at arms-length from the military; the US Armed Forces are hardly seen or referenced.

Delegation of authority is done without consideration of lost accountability. Academic debate over PSCs frequently begins or quickly gets to issues of accountability. This movie, however, hints at a deeper implicit, if not explicit, leeway USG grants the PSCs. It also highlights the US’s reliance on PSCs, which you, as the viewer, should judge as appropriate or not.

Engaging companies with poor and unsatisfactory track records, even tainted leadership, indicate bad policy. The choice to allow AEGIS to “fail upward” is, in my opinion, central to understanding the impact of PMCs.

Rarely, if ever, discussed is the impact PMCs have on our overall mission, which isn’t military. Interviews with Robert Young Pelton touch on this and the insurgent interview nails it.

If you saw Gunner Palace (see it if you haven’t) and saw a movie about inappropriate staffing (cannon-cockers working missions they weren’t trained for), you’ll probably see what I’m talking about in Shadow Company.

Overall, the film is well-done and thought provoking and does a good job distinguishing between mercenaries and PMCs, which too many people still can’t fathom. Interviews with Robert Young Pelton and Cobus Claassens, and the voice over by Oxford-grad James (an Operator), were excellent.

When you see this movie, ask yourself “What is the real impact of PMCs?” If you’re not concerned after watching the film, you weren’t paying attention.

Technorati Tags:
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Practicing Effective Public Diplomacy in Africa (or elsewhere)

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 6 Comments

Let’s say you’re charged with finding the path to partnership with a few dozen African countries that have resources you want and need. How would you approach the them to establish a relationship to establish a partnership? This might be especially important if you are locking for priority treatment or even to lockout a competitor. A blocking strategy would really entail developing a deep partnership of trust, or coercion. If you want to go with the trust route, believing that it will cost less in the long run (i.e. soft power vs hard power) it would make sense to establish and build trust and understanding. Perhaps even a spirit of mutual assistance since. A little give, a little take. Making governments and people comfortable with your overtures would require a coherent policy, right? What might that policy look like?

Relationships begin with dialogs. The goal is to build trust. Trust cannot be manufactured, it has to be earned. On a personal level now, how did you come to trust your best friend? Was a bond of trust "created" or did it evolve over time? It probably built up over time through actions by both you and the other person after some initial, perhaps small, amount of trust was placed in the both of you by the other. We build trust, we do not "create" trust. We can build and maintain trust just as we can "fritter" it away, to quote Martin Rose of the British Council.

So, in this hypothetical let me add something. Let’s say you’ve had a presence in the region for a few decades. Nearly fifty years ago you initiated a program to assist, convert really, the peoples and governments to your way of thinking. This established contacts in the region. It didn’t go over the way you really wanted, but it didn’t end up in flames either. The reasons for that original approach are now in the pages of history and the contacts have been maintained and in the last few years, you reactivated them to get to a new level. So, with the knowledge that you have at least some amount of trust built up with these countries. What would you do next?

You might consider documenting a policy to share with Africa. This would describe how important sincerity, friendship and equality are to you. It would also put you on a moral high ground when contrasted with other global players. It would emphasize your belief in the mutual benefit of economic and social development and cooperation, especially focusing on reciprocity and common prosperity.  This would probably sound like a good, if not great, deal to the Africans, corrupt or not. There is something of a track record that leans toward the positive side, if not completely positive.

The idea of riches to be made in global economy might be appealing, or even just being heard when you suggest how you will help them strengthen their role in global institutions through coordination and support. Those are great words to use, in fact. Non-threatening, friendly, and reciprocal. All key in building trust and deepening ties.

This relationship you’re seeking to build upon and expand would cause each side to learn and develop. So you would suggest cultural, civic, and educational exchanges to deepen understanding and awareness of each other as you learn from each other and create a sustainable world. Well, you can hope for a sustainable world, which is what you want to try for, right? You do not want to pollute. You want a moral high ground, especially when considering the beautiful African continent. Perhaps you might suggest something to your friends on this? There is money to be made in eco-toursism, after all.

How about cooperation on resources, tourism (means $), debt reduction ($ — offering assistance with the global institutions), infrastructure (goods, people and tourists have to get around), agriculture ($ greater crop density and quality), education, media, consular affairs (helping in the international community, did I mention you’re a big country with pull?), disaster reduction, relief and humanitarian assistance, military training, police, courts, and more.

Sounds pretty fancy. Too much to lay out in a document, isn’t it? I mean, who would really go so far to do this? Africa does have all that oil, natural gas, and plenty of other fantastic resources, energy and otherwise.

Does it sound too fantastic if you have already been building prestige buildings on Africa? You’d offer the people the choice of a sports stadium or a government building. Most of the time they picked stadium, but once the bureaucrats got lucky and a government building was built. Africans might see the friendly side you’re trying to promote, right?

They might also see a friendly culture if you’re broadcasting the English language TV into Africa. That would be great, wouldn’t it? Let’s say you’re doing that already.

Does it sound like I’m trying to sell you a bridge or ocean front property (sorry, US-centric joke)? I’m not. The policy document I described exists and was published January 2006. China reportedly gets over a quarter of its oil from Africa, so it is not surprising it’s interested in building up and maintaining relations on the continent. In 2000, Beijing established the China-Africa Cooperation Forum (CACF) to promote trade and investment with 44 African countries. In 2003, Prime Minister Wen visited several oil-producing African states accompanied by Chinese oil executives, and President Hu toured Algeria, Egypt, and Gabon. China has been working closely with governments in the Gulf of Guinea, from Angola to Nigeria, as well as with the Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Libya, Niger, and Sudan. (See Sep/Oct 2005 Foreign Affairs: China’s Global Hunt for Energy)

In mid-January 2006, China issued an African Policy Paper. The strategy China has laid out, besides being laid out open for all to see, should cause concern at State. This paper is divided into six parts:

    1. Africa’s Position and Role
    2. China’s Relations with Africa
    3. China’s African Policy
    4. Enhancing All-round Cooperation Between China and Africa
    5. Forum on China-Africa Cooperation And Its Follow-up Actions
    6. China’s Relations with African Regional Organizations

The document is easily available as html, making accessibility as universal as possible. The English is simple and straight forward, making it easy to read for those who first, or even second or third, language is not English. This document is public diplomacy at its finest. The Chinese are doing a bang-up job in the region. China’s connection with the public goes beyond building prestige buildings for the public. Offered the option of a sports stadium or government building, the public gets to chose, only once did a public group chose the government building. Television in the region is also becoming largely English language broadcast from China. In the culture war, the West, and the US specifically, is losing.

The most visible American presence in the area is a multinational military base on the Horn and corporate oil on the Gulf of Guinea. The rhetoric out of Washington is militaristic and focused on counter-insurgency (COIN) and counter-terrorism. Efforts at public diplomacy, economic and cultural connections are not heard when they are spoken at all. They are drowned out by louder actions and lousy follow through.

The African Policy Paper is quite impressive. It is a great piece of propaganda (in the pure sense) and a tremendous example of what public diplomacy can look like. Working from an equality in partnership, establishing two-way communication and understanding is done through exchanges and commitments to build trust through assistance in all sectors of the civil sector. Textbook.

With established relationships with nearly all the countries on the continent, including expanding cultural and economic ties, this policy could very easily be seen as likely steps the Chinese would fulfill. The Chinese are not perfect, despite the appearance of The Policy. Holes in both reality and the document will be discussed in a follow up post. As well as the importance of China in the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review.

The international military on the Horn is an effective fighting force working with some USAID elements, but where is the full frontal effort on public, cultural, and diplomacy diplomacy to build deep relationships and trust? Building schools, roads, economies, and social structures is the best way to prevent terrorism and to assure a resource supply that will be steady and sure. The Chinese seem to know that. Does the United States want to sit back and see if the plan works? Countering such a plan is just like countering and preventing terrorism: a long and steady effort. Will it happen? We’ll have to see, unfortunately, I doubt Las Vegas bookies will give me good odds on it.

Technorati Tags: Africa, Horn of Africa, QDR, Current Affairs,
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Pentagon “roadmap” calls for “boundaries”…

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 4 Comments

Heads up on a report just acquired by FOIA by National Security Archive: Information Operations Roadmap. The National Security Archive headline describes it thus:

A secret Pentagon "roadmap" on war propaganda, personally approved by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in October 2003, calls for "boundaries" between information operations abroad and the news media at home, but provides for no such limits and claims that as long as the American public is not "targeted," any leakage of PSYOP to the American public does not matter.

Obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the National Security Archive at George Washington University and posted on the Web today, the 74-page "Information Operations Roadmap" admits that "information intended for foreign audiences, including public diplomacy and PSYOP, increasingly is consumed by our domestic audience and vice-versa," but argues that "the distinction between foreign and domestic audiences becomes more a question of USG [U.S. government] intent rather than information dissemination practices."

The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, amended in 1972 and 1998, prohibits the U.S. government from propagandizing the American public with information and psychological operations directed at foreign audiences; and several presidential directives, including Reagan’s NSD-77 in 1983, Clinton’s PDD-68 in 1999, and Bush’s NSPD-16 in July 2002 (the latter two still classified), have set up specific structures to carry out public diplomacy and information operations. These and other documents relating to U.S. PSYOP programs were posted today as part of a new Archive Electronic Breifing Book.

Several press accounts have referred to the 2003 Pentagon document but today’s posting is the first time the text has been publicly available. Sections of the document relating to computer network attack (CNA) and "offensive cyber operations" remain classified under black highlighting.

There is a lot to digest in this and related documents. Other priorities prevent me from diving deep right now, but I’ll return to this later.

UPDATE 1 Feb 06 See ZenPundit’s posting on same (but with a different title and 3 days after this post :).

L. Paul Bremer joins the band wagon: We needed more troops

~ Matt Armstrong

The WashingtonPost has a story on L. Paul Bremer’s new book and how his request for more troops was denied (either explicitly or implicitly). According to the article (I have ordered but not read the book yet), "Bremer recounted how Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, then the top U.S. commander in Iraq, reinforced this view, telling Bremer that with two more divisions, Baghdad could be controlled."

Continue reading “L. Paul Bremer joins the band wagon: We needed more troops
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