The Bling Cycle

Battle of Perception or Base Coercion?

2010-01-01T19:15:00.000-08:00

In his August assessment of the war effort, top allied commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal called for a whole new approach in Afghanistan’s “important battle of perception.” McChrystals’ fixes included the use of social media and the exposure of militants’ “anti-Islamic and indiscriminate use of violence.”
Instead [of responding to attacks], the soldiers of Task Force Legion are playing up their own use of violence. It’s a way to break the Taliban’s aura of invincibility, Lt. Col. Jeff French tells Naylor.

So French is handing out calling cards, to the town elders.
The cards show pictures of a Stryker and an OH-58D firing on the left, with photographs of U.S. troops hosting a shura and handing out gifts to children on the right, accompanied by the words, “We’re not going anywhere — it’s your choice,” in English and Pashto.

Ah the information war. This "peaceful communications" is almost a caricature of the Foucauldian "war by other means" theory. "Battle of Perception" seems like a lot of window dressing for what are essentially threats.

McChrystal to Turn Afghan InfoWar Up to 11

2010-01-01T19:02:00.000-08:00

From Danger Room:

The American counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan isn’t just short on troops, strategy, and a credible government in Kabul, according to a new assessment by the top commander there. The U.S. military and its allies are also losing the “important battle of perception” in Afghanistan to the Taliban. To turn things around, they’ll need more that just hire a few new spinmeisters. They’ll need to bolster Afghanistan’s retro “communications infrastructure,” move quicker to counter Taliban propaganda, get smarter about “new/social media” — and “demonstrably change behavior and actions on the ground.”

The stakes in this information conflict couldn’t be higher, Gen. Stanley McChrystal writes in a six-page annex to his scathing review of the Afghan campaign. In this conflict, the “operational center of gravity [is] the support of the Afghan people.” If those people continue to lose trust in Afghanistan government and the international military coalition supporting it, the entire war effort could be lost.
“Every member of ISAF [must] be able to clearly articulate a short narrative of what ISAF wants to achieve in Afghanistan and how it is going to do it. Every soldier must be a empowered to be a StratCom [strategic communications] messenger for ISAF,” the review notes.
ut spreading those messages won’t be easy, in a country where electricity — let alone TV antennas or satellite dishes or cell towers — are in such short supply. So McChrystal and his team are pushing for ISAF to work with “the Afghan commercial sector” to “empowering the population though access to telecommunications and information via TV and radio.”

I find the idea that "every soldier must..be a StratCom messenger" interesting. Is the military demanding more and more "immaterial labor" from its troops? Also, the emphasis on commercial sector media as a metric/partner for security again highlights the intersection of security and politcal economy.

Congress Cuts Strategic Communication Funding; Commissions Report

2010-01-01T18:19:00.000-08:00

This is a bit old, but pretty big news, so worth logging. Again, from Walter Pincus:

Lawmakers are voicing concerns about the Pentagon's strategic communications programs, through which the military aims to win over civilians and erode support for adversaries in countries around the world.

The programs have grown too fast and are spread through the Defense Department budget in a way that hampers oversight, complain the House and Senate Armed Services committees and the House Appropriations Committee. They also suggest that the military is producing propaganda and other materials that mask U.S. government sponsorship and focus "far beyond a traditional military information operations."

The Pentagon spends nearly $1 billion a year on its strategic communications, its contribution to the "war of ideas" that until recent years had been the sole province of the State Department's public diplomacy effort.

Last week, the House Appropriations Committee, in approving the fiscal 2010 defense funding bill, said that it had identified 10 strategic communications programs that had grown from $9 million in fiscal 2005 to a "staggering $988 million request for fiscal 2010." The committee said many of the costlier programs appear as "alarmingly non-military propaganda, public relations, and behavioral modification messaging."

Several of the 10 classified programs "should be terminated immediately," said the panel, and it threatened to withhold funding for all 10 for next year until Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates reports to the committee about their "target audiences, goals, and measures of effectiveness." It also cut $500 million from the Pentagon's overall total for strategic communications.

I know I can't wait for this report, which the official wording says:

should encompass the period from fiscal years 2005 through 2010 and include all Department of Defense information operation programs for which base budget, supplemental, or overseas contingency operation funds have been appropriated or requested. The report shall include: program strategies, target audiences, goals, and measures of effectiveness; budget exhibits at the appropriations account and sub-activity level; spend plans (including positions and other direct costs); and production and dissemination mechanisms and locations. The report shall also include an annex for the inclusion of necessary explanatory and supporting classified information. The Secretary shall submit this report in writing not later than 180 days after enactment of this Act.

DoD has a long history of obstructing and misrepresenting both its communications activities and how much it spends on them. Indeed, as Pincus notes, they are spread out in such a way that oversight and accountability are difficult. We shall see how this turns out.

Edit:

Matt Armstrong highlights several passages from the House and Senate reports that show an overall sense of support for the strategic communication effort. Whether or not this is simply congress playing conciliatory politics (who wants to be seen as "weak on terror"?), I'm not sure. The passages Matt highlights are, nonetheless, notable:

The committee encourages the development of strategic communications capability within the Department of Defense as a softpower complement to traditional hard-power tools (374)

The committee believes that to prevail in an information-centric fight, the Department of Defense and its partners must develop and employ innovative strategies that dominate the information spectrum both in terms of the network and the message. (363)

The committee believes that online strategic communications are essential tools for the Department to effectively counter the propaganda of violent extremist groups abroad. Many of these groups operate exclusively in this arena and execute online media operations that greatly outnumber, outpace, and outperform United States government initiatives. (375)

OPSEC and Journalist Sourcing

2010-01-01T17:43:00.000-08:00

From Walter Pincus, regarding a proposed law that would protect journalists from having to reveal their sources:

The Obama administration, while favoring a shield law in principle, this month took the position that national security cases should be exempt from a "balancing test," in which a judge weighs the importance of the public having certain information against the damage such disclosure could do to national security.

The new compromise handles national security cases in different ways. When the government can show that disclosure of a source of information is necessary to prevent or mitigate a terrorist act or identify a perpetrator, there will be no balancing test.

That language, which is also contained in the shield law bill that passed the House in March, is designed to prevent propagandists for terrorist organizations from being protected, according to media supporters of the legislation. It is not clear how it would relate to journalists working in the United States for media owned by foreign governments, such as al-Jazeera, which is owned by the Qatari government.

While I do think that national security exemptions are important, I'm concerned about how security can come to be understood. What seems clear from reading the conversations of government and defense "strategic communicators" is that, because public opinion is vital to winning long, elective counterinsurgency wars like Iraq, then countering enemy "propaganda", or even just alternative narratives, is equated with protecting national security. The logic goes: "Success in this war is necessary to keep people safe. Success in this war depends on maintaining positive public opinion. Positive public opinion, therefore, is a matter of national security." If this seems like a stretch, consider the case of

Sami al-Hajj, the Al Jazeera cameraman who was abducted by the U.S. in late 2001, tortured at Bagram, sent to Guantanamo for seven years -- where he was never charged with any crime and was interrogated overwhelmingly about Al Jazeera's operations, not about Terrorism.

What this boils down to is operational security (OPSEC). OPSEC is not a trivial consideration, which I think is generally understood. However it is preceisely this seriousness (and the general understanding of it) that allows this logic to overstep its bounds to the point where public opinion becomes mission critical to the point that it cannibalizes the democratic process. More on this topic to come.

Unattributed DoD Ads on Business Magazine's Website

2010-01-01T17:24:00.000-08:00

From Foreign Policy:

U.S. taxpayer money that was supposed to be used for emergency purposes in Iraq was spent to buy a special advertising issue for an Anbar businessman in a British trade magazine, a U.S. government investigation has found.
FDI magazine, a bimonthly print publication and website owned by the Financial Times, nearly simultaneously showered Anbar Governor Qasim Abid Muhammad Hammadi Al Fahadawi with positive coverage, praising the dangerous Anbar province as "a hot place to invest in" and giving the businessman an award as "Global Personality of the Year for 2009."
FDI's award was announced three days before the "Special Report" on Anbar, entitled, "Bridge to the Future," was published on its website. The award was immediately praised by the U.S. military in Iraq, without mention of the U.S. funds spent on the supplement, and the website makes no mention of it having been paid for by the American government.

Eeached by The Cable, Fingar confirmed the U.S. government had spent "in the neighborhood of $50,000" on the special supplement but denied her magazine's content had been bought and paid for, calling the report on Anbar "balanced and accurate."
[The magazine's editor] admitted that the special edition of the publication was paid for by the U.S. government and claimed it had a clearly identified sponsor, but the website version of the supplement made no mention the U.S. government involvement.

Covert, directed at an American/Allied audience, which seems to be one of the driving functions of strategic communications: stories planted overseas are sure to make it to domestic audiences. Moreover, I find it interesting that DoD is soliciting FDI. Seems indicative of DoD mission creep into political economic areas.

DoD Lacks Numbers on Afghanistan Contractors

2010-01-01T17:11:00.000-08:00

From Reuters:

The U.S. government does not know exactly how many contractors it employs in Afghanistan, a U.S. commission said on Monday, raising basic questions about oversight of wartime operations.

A traditional manual count by the U.S. military's Central Command turned up nearly 74,000 U.S. Defense Department contractors in Afghanistan as of June 30 -- more than twice the number shown in another survey by the Pentagon.

Something I've been looking at recently is how contracting/privatization of military/government services often amounts, if not directly then indirectly, to a kind of "deregulation" of these services. In the case of Blackwater, for example, privatization went hand in hand with deregulation, if only because their operations didn't fall under any particular law. Similarly, it seems that the above lack of oversight – not even knowing how many contractors are employed – amounts to default deregulation, because even if they are ostensibly regulated, the lack of oversight makes it impossible in practice.

More Privatization of Forces in Afghanistan

2009-07-27T13:35:00.000-07:00

The latest from Walter Pincus at WaPo:

The U.S. military command is considering contracting a private firm to manage security on the front lines of the war in Afghanistan, even as Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates says that the Pentagon intends to cut back on the use of private security contractors.

The request for information comes as Gates is moving to put soldiers back in charge of security roles that contractors have filled in recent years.
The Commission on Wartime Contracting, a bipartisan congressional panel, noted in a recent report that in previous wars, military police protected bases while other service members pursued the enemy. "Contractors are now literally in the center of the battlefield in unprecedented numbers," the commission said, creating "a need to define specific functions that are not appropriate for performance by contractors in a contingency operation."

Meanwhile, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), chairman of the Senate subcommittee on contracting oversight, said her panel had "revealed major concerns about the use of private security contractors in Afghanistan." She added that a hard look needs to be taken "at where we have gone wrong in the past, to ensure that the military does not repeat history."

Afghan forward operating bases are often considered dangerous posts. An American soldier was critically injured this month when insurgents attacked Forward Operating Base Salerno, near the eastern border town of Khost. Two U.S. troops died July 4 at Combat Outpost Zerok, also near the Pakistan border, in an insurgent assault.
In the worst attack on an outpost, roughly 200 insurgents broke through security walls last year at an outpost in Konar province and killed nine American soldiers.

Interesting that DoD is looking to put enlisted personnel back into the less dangerous security positions (i.e. body guards for politicians) while putting mercenaries on the front lines. I can't help but think that the PR disaster that was Blackwater influenced this decision. From a PR point of view this has another benefit: if mercs are dying on the front lines, "real" soliders are not, which is good for homefront morale. I wonder who will get the contract – If Americans have a stronger stomach for foreign mercanaries casualites, this could be a serious boon for the privtization of forces.

KRG Strategic Communicatons to Target USA

2009-07-27T13:04:00.000-07:00

Via PR Watch via O'Dwyer's:

Northern Iraq -- touted as "the other Iraq" in an advertising and public relations campaign by the Republican-leaning PR firm Russo Marsh & Rogers -- now has more PR help. The Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq (KRG) has hired Qorvis Communications for work on "strategic communications, internet consulting, media relations support, [and] writing / editing documents," according to the foreign lobbyist disclosure form (pdf). The firm says it will "educate and inform the American media and policy makers" and "work to change travel advisories or other statements from the USG [U.S. government] when they are inaccurate." KRG officials are happy that the U.S. State Department currently describes northern Iraq as "more stable than the rest of Iraq," with "fewer terrorist attacks," reports O'Dwyer's. The officials hope such language will "further encourage U.S. business to look into many investment opportunities available in the Kurdistan Region." KRG previously retained the Cassidy & Associates and BGR Holdings LLC lobbying firms.

Strategic Communications as Rhetorical Construct

2009-07-27T12:29:00.000-07:00

H/t to Kim Andew Elliot for picking up on this passage from the newly released Strategic Communication Science and Technology Plan, April 2009:

We are in a global “now media” information environment. Understand the difference between public diplomacy and strategic communication. For the former, the audience is outside the geographic territory of the United States. For the latter, the audience is global. Science and Technology solutions do not generally discriminate based on geographic location, nor should they. The domains of strategic communication can not be limited to those with public affairs authority – everyone should be viewed as a strategic communicator.

To this Kim says:

Brilliant. This report has found a way to work around the Smith-Mundt clause prohibiting the domestic dissemination of public diplomacy. Just call it "strategic communication."

I think two things about this are interesting. First, that Kim points out that the whole discourse around "Strategic Communications" is bogus. I've listened to IO people talk about Strategic Communications, and no one has a clue what it actually means because it actually doesn't mean anything. It is a euphemism at best, and at worst the latest in a long line of re-brands for the good, honest word "propaganda". The above paragraph makes it abundantly clear: Strategic Communications exists as a discursive construct to bring propaganda activities outside the regulatory grasp of a long history of (albeit toothless and ineffective) laws against the use of domestic propaganda.

Second, the argument appeals to the ideological behemoths of Technology and Globalization, both of which, it seems, have an implied and inevitable teleology. This is, I admit, an excellent rhetorical strategy. Consider these arguments in the light of Chapter 8 of FM 33-1-1 (Psychological Operations Techniques and Procedures):

Inevitability Themes. These themes stress that the opponent will inevitably lose and the friendly side will inevitably win. They capitalize on the successful programs or military actions of friendly forces. They also exploit the failure and defeats of the opposing forces (OPFOR). PSYOP personnel use the inevitability theme to convince the target audience that it is futile to support OPFOR but advantageous to support friendly programs and policies. This type of theme is particularly useful when a victory by the friendly forces is inevitable.

The argument for technological determinism, I think, achieves this goal, and does excellent propaganda for propaganda. The overall result is to diminish the democratic electorate's sense of political agency in the face of capital "S" capital "T" Science & Technology. To the extent that Strategic Communications coincides with the rise of the counterinsurgency paradigm of warfare, the move to Strategic Communications seems consistent with the move to undemocratic forms of governance.

GAO Toothless on Pundits

2009-07-27T10:55:00.000-07:00

In the wake of David Barstow's Pulitzer prize winning expose on the Pentagon Pundit scandal, Congress commissioned reports from the Pentagon's Inspector General, the Government Accountability Office, and the Federal Communications Commission. The IG report absolved DoD of any wrong doing in an at-best disingenuous report which it subsequently withdrew after the gross inadequecy of its methodology was made public. It seems that the IG is calling it quits, which amounts to an obstruction of Congress' demand for an adequate report. Check & Balance #1 down.

Now the GAO report has come out, also denying any wrong-doing on the grounds that the Pundits were not paid, and that the program was not covert. Diane Farsetta at the Center for Media and Democracy addresses these issues in turn:

In finding that the pundits "clearly were not paid by DOD," the GAO ignores well-documented evidence -- including statements from some of the pundits themselves -- that the Pentagon access and information they received was as good as gold.

Many of the pundits are lobbyists, executives or consultants for military contractors. In these roles, their ability to attract clients and the rates they're able to charge are directly related to the number of influential Pentagon contacts they have and their ability to learn privileged information. The Pentagon pundit program provided both in spades. "Some Pentagon officials said they were well aware that some analysts viewed their special access as a business advantage," reported the New York Times' David Barstow. Brent Krueger, a former Pentagon aide involved in the pundit program, told Barstow, "Of course we realized that. ... We weren't naive."

The Pentagon program even provided financial benefits to pundits without military industry ties. "Many analysts were being paid by the 'hit,' the number of times they appeared on TV," explained the Times. "The more an analyst could boast of fresh inside information from high-level Pentagon 'sources,' the more hits he could expect."

and:

To back up its assertion that the Pentagon didn't conceal the existence of its pundit program, the GAO cites a New York Times article from April 2006. At the time, pressure was mounting on then-Defense Secretary Rumsfeld to resign. To push back, Rumsfeld called an emergency meeting of the Pentagon pundits. Word of Rumsfeld's efforts leaked, and the Times obtained a memo sent to the pundits. Its 2006 article reported that the memo had been sent to "retired generals who appear regularly on television" and who Pentagon officials "consider to be influential in shaping public opinion."

That oblique reference to a massive -- and, at the time, growing -- Pentagon attempt to shape public opinion on many controversial issues falls far short of any realistic standard of meaningful disclosure. Moreover, the GAO fails to acknowledge that the 2006 Times report and others like it were prompted by a leak, which the Pentagon scrambled to cover. "This is very, very sensitive now," a Pentagon official warned others about the pundit program at the time, according to the Times' April 2008 report. That article also reported that program "participants were instructed not to quote their briefers directly or otherwise describe their contacts with the Pentagon."

Lastly, if the Pentagon was so forthcoming, why did the New York Times and its lawyers have to engage in a two-year-long legal battle, to have the Pentagon respond to its Freedom of Information Act request for documents about the pundit program?

Check and Balance #2 down.

The GAO report, again, seems at best disingenous. It ranges from relying on Pentagon legal advice regarding its own oversight (p. 4), to appeals to the "philosophical underpinnings" of policies (p.8). In the last analysis, the report notes that,

although the prohibition on the use of appropriated funds for publicity or propaganda has been in effect, in one form or another, for decades, we have rarely found violations of the prohibition. This reflects the wide discretion that we have historically recognized agencies have in their informational activities and defense of their policies.

Mmmm, that's goooood acountability. I'm surprised that Barstow hasn't yet written about this. It is to be seen, then, how the FCC – Check & Balance #3 – will respond, though it seems like the stage is set for a Triple Crown fuck-you-buddy.

House Commissions Report on Pentagon IO

2009-07-27T10:15:00.000-07:00

From Politico:

The House Appropriations Committee fired the first shot Tuesday, cutting the 2010 budget in half and terminating many IO activities now under way. That left still $498 million, and this too would be frozen until the Defense Department submits a fuller accounting of its plans and where the money has been going since 2005.

“According to the department’s limited response for information on this funding, IO programs have grown at an enormous rate, from approximately $9 million in fiscal year 2005 to a staggering $998 million request for the fiscal year 2010,” the report reads. “The requested growth in these programs from fiscal year 2009 to fiscal year 2010 alone is just over $200 million.”
In a classified annex, the panel lists those programs it wants terminated immediately. The remaining funds, about $498 million, would be available in fiscal year 2010, which begins Oct. 1. But none of the money could be obligated for 30 days until after Gates has submitted a report covering expenditures from 2005 forward to today.

That report must be submitted within six months after enactment of the budget bill and include “all Department of Defense information operations programs for which base budget, supplemental or overseas contingency operation funds have been appropriated or requested.”

In addition, the House report demands that the report the DoD must produce concerning its IO from 2005-2010

shall include: program strategies, target audiences, goals, and measures of effectiveness; budget exhibits at the appropriations account and sub-activity level; spend plans (including positions and other direct costs); and production and dissemination mechanisms and locations.

I wonder if this report will be classified, as is the information about the IO programs the house wants immediately axed. Given that Public Affairs is a "related capacity" of IO, will the report include more information on the Pentagon Pundit Scandal? Will the report include "Strategic Communications" programs, or will an exemption be one of the tangible benefits of the Stratcom re-brand?

Propaganda of Commodities

2009-07-27T10:01:00.000-07:00

From Saturday's Globe and Mail on the 1959 Moscow Wolrd Expo. Really brings out what Dallas Smythe meant by the "propaganda of commodities":

"The exhibition ended a long period of almost total cultural estrangement between the United States and the Soviet Union, and ended it with a smile,” Stanley Abercrombie wrote in his biography of George Nelson, the legendary “designer's designer” who led the team of geniuses who programmed the fair.

Recently declassified National Security Council documents describe it rather differently as “the most productive single psychological effort” of the Cold War, a description amply reinforced by the memories of Muscovites who attended.

It had the effect of a “poisoned blanket” that helped to destroy the credibility of communist ideology among the capital's cultural elite, according to Vladimir Paperny, an émigré who was among the 2.7 million Russians who crammed the 10-acre site in Sokolniki Park to get their first view of what they thought was the real America.

“The exhibition was a very significant cultural shock for all the people who went there,” says Mr. Paperny, now 65, an architectural historian and graphic designer living in Los Angeles. “All of a sudden, we were exposed to things and themes we had never seen before. It was something that came from a different planet.”

One consequence of the exhibition, he jokes, is that today he and his friends drink “Jack Daniels, not brake fluid” when they gather to discuss its influence. But it wasn't the so-called kitchen debate that made such an impression on the young Muscovite, nor even the Fuller-inspired geodesic dome in which the Eames brothers staged the world's first multimedia extravaganza, Glimpses of the U.S.A., a McLuhanesque barrage of more than 2,000 images flashed on seven giant screens over 12 breathless minutes.

“If you ask people of my age who went to the exhibition, ‘What is the single thing you remember most?' everybody would say Pepsi-Cola,” Mr. Paperny recalls.

Police Take PSYOP Cue on G-20

2009-07-27T09:33:00.000-07:00

Mike Boda, from the Pittsburgh Grassroots Examiner, brings up some interesting connections between the proposed communication strategy for the upcoming G-20 Summit and military Psychological Operations. Boda is essentially pointing to the counterinsurgent nature of the police strategy. What really caught my eye, though, was this bit that he pulled from Chapter 8 of FM 33-1-1:

The concept of a PSYOP theme is similar to the concept of commercial advertising. In U.S. advertising, for example, a TV commercial for soft drinks is directed not only to those who are presently thirsty but also to those who may be thirsty in the future. Commercial advertisers do not stop at attacking obvious vulnerabilities. They also help create perceived needs and, therefore, more vulnerabilities. Once a vulnerability is known, the advertiser can play upon it, but only if the target audience is susceptible to influence. The same reasoning applies to PSYOP efforts.

Comparing military communications strategies to advertising, marketing, and public relations, it seems, is becoming paradigmatic. I think this is consistent with the privatization and commodification of security. The idea that America "exports" security isn't particularly new, but it seems useful to think about military communications in this way as an adjunct of a commodity.

Toil and Trouble?

2009-05-14T14:30:00.000-07:00

From the new "Whole of Government" Counterinsurgency Guide

Stanton on "COIN for the Masses"

2009-05-14T14:24:00.000-07:00

Very good article by John Stanton, in its entirety. H/t to Max Forte:

Counterinsurgency for the Masses: Educating Americans for Campaigns of National Interest

by John StantonThursday, 23 April, 2009

It is vitally important for the American public to be educated on the whys and wherefores of US counterinsurgency doctrine (COIN). President Barak Obama’s strategy for success — however one may define that — in Afghanistan/Pakistan is reliant on the belief that resurrecting COIN strategies dating back to the Vietnam Era and applying them via CENTCOM to Afghanistan/Pakistan is the recipe for success there. Add a dash of 21^st Century US technology and a measure of human terrain analysis theory to US COIN and it’ll only be a matter of time before the insurgents in the failed state of Afghanistan and the failing state of Pakistan will give in to US forces. It is Afghanistan and Pakistan that may become the New Vietnam for Americans. But it will not end there. It is a certainty that as America deploys into Africa under AFRICOM and back into Southeast Asia via PACOM that more Vietnam-like experiences will occur. There is no geographic limit on where US COIN can be applied. Success in this fascinating endeavor will extend at least 150 years into the future (two US lifetimes). Of course, that’s assuming climate change, pandemics, or the release of nuclear weapons doesn’t happen.

The release of the Bush Torture Doctrine (BTD) memos in March 2009 will prove to have been crucial to the application of US COIN. Why? Below the lofty rhetoric of COIN proponents, who invoke peace, love, soft power and understanding through human terrain analysis theory, lies the reality that US COIN is a nasty, brutish affair involving violence of the type used under the BTD, to include eliminating people and things. It is a reality that Americans refuse to accept. It is easier to believe that America does not torture but its employees and allies do. It’s easier to believe that America does not kill civilians, its UAV’s do.

To keep America at war for 150 years is an ambitious undertaking. It will require Americans to become desensitized to the type of violence US COIN requires or simply accept the proclamations of US national leadership of that the US is not an aggressor nation. Americans must support the US national interest and that means sacrificing ideals. To maintain the fat and happy American way of life demands that Americans understand, clearly, what it takes to maintain security, and keep cheap food and gas on the market. It’s often very, very ugly. The Phoenix Project Operatives and the Selous Scouts can attest to that, as can the current crop of USSOCOM operators who operate in the dark for the US national interest. Americans must become accustomed to the trickle of American dead and wounded who will return each week from the frontlines — wherever that may be — for 150 years. Showing returning US dead in flag-draped coffins helps remind Americans that US COIN means decades and decades of conflict.

A Dog in Every Fight

COIN proponents and supporters may or may not recognize that they have developed a fascinating and elegant US COIN-based national strategy that combines, under one umbrella, all long standing US National Interest Campaigns: The War on Drugs, The War on Terrorism, The War on Crime, The War on Poverty, The War in Afghanistan/Pakistan, The War in Iraq, Information Warfare, Cyber Warfare, Environmental Security, Energy Security, Food Security, etc. In this era, US National Interest Campaigns are foreign and domestic, private and public, and extend from home computers in Washington, DC to the Hindu Kush. The battlefield is everywhere and everyone is involved. The American people must be prepared to contribute (persevere?) to the ongoing National Interest Campaign. It is the national interest-infrequently ideal and mostly economic-that drives the America. The Bush Administration did not adequately prepare Americans for a constant state of war. The Obama Administration appears set on re-educating the American public for war.

National political, military, academic and multinational corporate leaders are undertaking efforts to get the American public motivated. For example, the US Government’s Counterinsurgency Guide, dated January 2009, says as much and also bears a logo that indicates this: Whole of Government, Whole of Society. The document is available through On The Homefront: Homeland Security Digital Library at http://www.hsdl.org/hslog/?q=node/4707 and www.state.gov/documents/organization/119629.pdf. The US Department of Agriculture and Transportation also contributed to the study.

“American counterinsurgency practice rests on a number of assumptions: that the decisive effort is rarely military (although security is the essential prerequisite for success); that our efforts must be directed to the creation of local and national governmental structures that will serve their populations, and, over time, replace the efforts of foreign partners; that superior knowledge, and in particular, understanding of the ‘human terrain’ is essential; and that we must have the patience to persevere in what will necessarily prove long struggles.”

Lots of Coin to Implement COIN

The US Army solicitation listed above, and quoted below, represents some of the operational requirements necessary to meet the Obama Administrations US COIN-based national security strategy (should be published in the coming months). Released in April 8, 2009 with a close date of May 8, 2009, a sole contract winner gets a guarantee of $60 Million (US) with a possibility to reach the $450 Million (US) mark. 100 personnel or more are required for this effort. Coincidentally, the close date is the same day that Don Ayala-former US Army Human Terrain System contractor-will be sentenced for involuntary manslaughter of an Afghani national.

“U.S. Army Contracting Command, Rock Island Contracting Center, has a requirement to provide US Forces Afghanistan (USFOR-A)with the capability to collect, analyze, and disseminate open source (i.e. sociological or anthropological) information throughout the Afghanistan Theater of Operations(ATO); monitor, track and measure trends in local sentiment regarding USFORA programs and policies; provide professional advice and assistance with regard to cultural, social, religious, political, economic and tribal matters and communication strategies; integrate open source atmospheric information into pre- and post-operational U.S. strategic, operational and tactical decision making; and develop and manage relationships with influential local leaders. The Contractor will share this information with other Government agencies. The Performance Work Statement (PWS) is classified as “secret” and firms will be required to have a facility clearance and access to classified information. The PWS is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Proof of clearances must be submitted and verified before release of the PWS. SIPRnet access is required to view the PWS. A section of the PWS is classified as NOFORN. Distribution to non-US citizens is prohibited, regardless of their clearance or access permissions. Verification of US Citizenship will be required prior to the release of that section.”

BAE Systems (US Army Human Terrain System contractor), Crescent Resources, LLC of New Orleans, CALNET of Reston, Virginia, and Shee Atika Services of Fayetteville, NC have expressed interest in this effort.

HTS Soap Opera Continues

Meanwhile over at the US Army’s Human Terrain System (HTS), troublesome activity is the norm. Asia Times under the heading “Ambush deep in the valley of death“ reports that an unidentified Human Terrain Team member narrowly escaped with his/her life during an ambush in Afghanistan. “Also along for the ride were Pentagon intelligence agents, including an unarmed member of the Human Terrain Team.” One source reports that a sexual assault/rape of a “June Cycle” class member took place but is being kept under close hold by HTS management. [For a related item of interest, see here.]

One source says this:

“I see the drama of HTS is still not subsiding. Rotkoff [deputy program manager] is leaving, going back to Foreign Military Studies Office, so he lost nothing in all this. But there doesn’t seem to be a push, or plan, to open the new office in Oyster Point [Virginia] or to get rid of the non-training folks at Leavenworth. Everyone is in limbo, although some of the military folks are making plans to relocate… LT Jones, featured in Robert Young Pelton’s story [Men's Journal] finished his tour with HTS and is back in Theater again with his Civil Affairs Unit. 1LT Perez, from the Dudley-Flores affair, was ordered back to CONUS but no one from HTS has seen him. He’s either AWOL or the “brass” didn’t want him to report back to Leavenworth, so who knows.”

Who knows if a US national security strategy centered on US COIN will work? In this case, if the the US Army intends to run W52P1J09R008 like it did TRADOC HTS, disaster is guaranteed.

In the end, the key is the American public.

Professors in the Trenches

2009-05-14T11:55:00.000-07:00

From the Small Wars Journal's series "Professors in the Trenches: Deployed Soldiers and Social Science Academics":

“the emerging importance of cultural identity and its inherent frictions make it imperative for soldiers and leaders -- military and civilian -- to understand societal and cultural norms of populaces in which they operate and function. They must appreciate, understand, and respect those norms and use them as tools for shaping operations and the effects they expect to achieve.” Such a call for cultural and linguistic agility in the US Armed Forces is not new; it was repeatedly proposed during the Vietnam War but never really fully implemented. Might we even suggest that the lessons of Vietnam were never learned. (sic)

new perceptions about the challenges in Iraq and Afghanistan led the US military to create the ‘Human Terrain System’ emphasizing a greater cultural agility for specially trained teams assisting Brigade commanders with cultural information in decision-making. However, this new intellectual, knowledge-based environment in the US military requires a new, truly cooperative, greatly invigorated partnership with American academe in general and social science/anthropology in particular. Moreover, fundamentally, this new realization, that just maybe brains might be more important than bullets, requires a giant leap in how the US Armed Forces trains their soldiers and prepares Human Terrain Teams for deployment—and uses their experience after deployment. In fighting 4th generation, asymmetric conflicts, cultural agility and foreign language fluency must not be the skill of a selected few soldiers but should become skills valued throughout the US Armed Forces. In the 21st century, differences between military and academic learning has become ever more insignificant and a new, far more cooperative, relationship should be agreed to by both constituencies and rapidly implemented.

Art and Science of PSYOP

2009-05-14T10:50:00.000-07:00

Its interesting to see how the increased focus on communications that results from the breakdown of the division between civilian and military in counterinsurgency is fitting so easily into the framework of corporate retail. As political choices are increasingly rendered as "consumer" choices, it's not surprising that the increased role of the military in the political sphere is drawing on the experiences of the business community, particularly the service sector.

From Small War Journal: "Advancing the Art and Science of Psychological Operations Requires a Serious Investment" by Timothy D. Huening:

Another way to achieve greater skills proficiency and/or professional competence is to tailor PSYOP recruiting. There are certain civilian skills that parallel PSYOP unique occupational skills like media entertainment, film and cinematography, broadcast journalism, and media industry experience. A civilian comparison to the skills required for PSYOP would be those desired by Madison Avenue marketing firms or political campaign organizations which expend millions of dollars on research, analysis, and educated individuals to convince the public to buy or vote a certain way.

Ideally, PSYOP research and analysis regarding foreign audiences should be empirical, utilizing a wide range of national intelligence capabilities while leveraging the latest modern and sophisticated, commercial marketing and polling techniques. PSYOP personnel therefore require education and in-depth training in social marketing, public relations, polling, surveying and media production skills.

In today’s ubiquitous media environment where information technology has reached what might be the most primitive and underdeveloped areas of the globe, opportunities for PSYOP are infinite. Information and influence have become commander’s business. Non-kinetic targeting has become the topic of choice among many leaders in operations centers around the globe. Never before could we conceive of a time when information might be the main effort, that day has come.

A media savvy consumer who is accessible and vulnerable is a suitable target of influence. PSYOP is the unit of action. Accordingly, it is essential for our practitioners of influence to be masters of the art and science of influence techniques. This ability must be matched with the capability to integrate these techniques at all levels of warfare, covering military and interagency operations and across the spectrum of conflict.

"Information Operations: A Perspective from the Field"

2009-05-14T10:40:00.000-07:00

One LTC Clark waxes philosophic re: "mind war":

Warfare is waged in the air, at sea, on land, in space, and first and foremost, in the mind. Actions in conflict begin in the human brain and are governed by thought; both logical and emotional. People engaged in warfare across all spectra, make decisions based on reason and emotion. Military operations, especially ones battling for ‘human terrain,’ should focus on influencing the emotions, perceptions, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of those involved. Warfare is fundamentally is a human social activity. One must recognize that the ultimate judge of the success or failure of military operations is a decision arrived at based on thought. Influencing those thoughts and decisions should weigh heavily into military operations.

The most successful Information Operations to achieve desired effects are by commanders that understand the maximum effective range of an idea is far greater than an M-4 rifle. In order to achieve that effect commanders understand that they need to be proactive with their use of PSYOP, Combat Camera and with their PAO to get messages out to the public domain. Successful commanders understand their audiences because they listen (active listening) and understand the population's needs. They continually assess their environment and adapt to those changes. They understanding that when talking to reporters that you are actually talking to the reporter’s audience, not just the reporter. Commander’s (sic) that operate in the information domain understand that they communicate globally with many audiences; their soldiers, other leaders, and friendly, enemy and neutral populations.

Air Force Ponders Social Media

2009-05-14T09:11:00.000-07:00

Interesting post from awhile back by Galhran from Information Dissemination. He's really running with the Christopher Paul/Enlisting Madison Avenue idea about approaching military communications from a business point of view, which suggests that

social marketing is the application of well-grounded commercial marketing techniques to inﬂuence noncommercial behavioral change (e.g., quitting smoking and giving blood) in a target audience. Social marketing practices provide a template for U.S. military efforts to motivate speciﬁc behaviors in the indigenous population.

I guess the business community is the pedigree of "strategic communications". Highlights from Galhran:

The US Air Force has a slogan that captures the essence of their new media approach: "every Airman is a communicator."
[...]
The point is that "every Airman is a communicator" is as best I can tell not only the slogan, but the business strategy of the Air Force, and because I had no problem playing the role of the critic, my question is whether or not that is a smart communication strategy? I would suggest it could be, but it may also be the perfect example of why the military services, other than the Coast Guard, are struggling to find their voice with new media.

Strategic Communications content that is published consistency in social media (including comments) is considered branding. For example, a disclaimer that gives name or rank would represent a brand. If the services want to build an online brand through social media, they have to know how all their activities work together. There needs to be a consistency and congruency to these activities. Each part of the social media puzzle builds into a picture people have of the brand, how they imagine the brand to be as it relates to how the agency or enterprise really is will be determined based on how well this stuff is done right. Best of all, these activities don't require micromanagement to get right, they can be done effectively if the big ideas are done right and executed properly.

I would use the example of the USNI blog, where the authors do not actually coordinate topics nor does the Naval Institute put out guidance regarding content. We all understand the big idea though, and each have a good idea how to execute it. This allows the individual authors, without coordination, to represent the brand with integrity while producing content that can carry multiple points of view, including opposite points of view in posts.

From an organizational perspective, the complexities extend to how the services brand comes together when multiple individuals are posting topics for discussion. The impact of consistency and congruency on any topic centric strategic communication effort can and will often have a shaping effect. This is an important concept for military organizations today, because as part of our wars, we also find ourselves in an information war.

It's intersting that this is pretty similar to the argument that Herman and Chomsky make in Manufacturing Consent: Propaganda in a democratic society doesn't involve direct censorship or intervention, but a loose coordination of media professionals who all "understand who their boss is", what Galhran here calls "understanding the big idea".

Information warfare through social media is often described as asymmetric warfare. For example, identity is information, a shaping operation for information context, so the identity of a military service blogger in cyberspace is part of a tactical shaping operation for the information being transmitted. By saying you are the US Navy for example, the Navy would be taking a symmetric warfare tactical approach in information shaping operations with their strategic communications. By using an alias when posting a comment, it is essentially taking an assymmetric warfare tactical approach in information shaping operations.

Sock puppets? The answer is sock puppets?

NATO PSYOPS

2009-05-14T08:51:00.000-07:00

From PR Watch:

As the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) turns 60 and some ask why the Cold War alliance still exists, NATO is launching new media and public relations efforts. The NewsMarket, an online source of b-roll and video news release footage, is providing NATO-produced videos to journalists. Not surprisingly, given Barack Obama's controversial plans to increase troops in Afghanistan, the NATO / NewsMarket channel features videos on "mentoring the Afghan Army" and "taking the fight to the Taliban," along with an interview of U.S. National Security Adviser James Jones, a proponent of NATO expansion. "NATO Public Diplomacy Division has developed a comprehensive strategy to engage with young audiences," according to the NATO / NewsMarket press release. NATO's youth outreach includes an "Internet TV" channel and "unconventional advertisement videos" posted to YouTube. NATO spent 500,000 Euros (U.S.$666,000) on the videos, which use the slogan "Peace and security. That's our mission."

Check out these Ads. If these aren't PSYOP, I'm not sure what are. The right side of the clips are cut off, but you can click them and see the whole thing via youtube.

More Mercs

2009-05-14T08:32:00.000-07:00

Catching up on some blogging. Jeremy Schahill on Triple Canopy:

Beginning May 7th, Triple Canopy will officially take over Xe/Blackwater's mega-contract with the U.S. State Department for guarding occupation officials in Iraq. It's sure to be a lucrative deal: Obama's Iraq plan will inevitably rely on an increased use of private contractors, including an army of mercenaries to protect his surge of diplomats operating out of the monstrous U.S. embassy in Baghdad.

The company is operating under the State Department's Worldwide Personal Protection Program (WPPS), which provides for private security/military companies to operate on the U.S. government payroll in countries such as Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq, and Israel.

The Obama administration may have traded Blackwater for Triple Canopy in Iraq, but it is likely that some of Blackwater's operatives, too, will simply jump over to Triple Canopy to keep working as armed security guards for occupation officials.

Also like Blackwater, Triple Canopy has hired mercenaries from countries with atrocious human rights records and histories of violent counter-insurgencies. Among them: Peru, Chile, Colombia and El Salvador. In fact, in Iraq, Triple Canopy hired far more "Third Country Nationals" than Blackwater and DynCorp and has used more TCNs than US citizens or Iraqis. As I reported in my book, Triple Canopy used the same Chilean recruiter (who served in Augusto Pinochet's military) Blackwater used when it hired Chilean forces, including some "seasoned veterans" of the Pinochet era.

Barstow on Democracy Now

2009-05-09T11:06:00.000-07:00

David Barstow's first and only broadcast appearance on, surprise surprise, Democracy Now:

Secret IO Budget?

2009-05-08T03:29:00.000-07:00

Interesting post from Danger Room on the Pentagon's black budget:

The Pentagon wants to spend just over $50 billion on classified programs next year, newly-released Defense Department budget documents reveal. “That’s the largest-ever sum,” according to Aviation Week’s Bill Sweetman, a longtime black-budget seer — a three percent increase over last year’s total.

But what caught my eye:

Many of the secret budgets still remain clandestine, however. In the research budget, the line item for a “Special Program”of the super-secret National Security Agency is a string of zeros. Same goes for an NSA “Cyber Security Initiative” kitty. And don’t even ask about NSA’s “Intelligence Support to Information Operations” account. That’s a blank slate, too.

Pentagon Pundit IG Report Withdrawn

2009-05-06T13:24:00.000-07:00

The IO bloggers have been pretty quiet on this one:

In a highly unusual reversal, the Defense Department’s inspector general’s office has withdrawn a report it issued in January exonerating a Pentagon public relations program that made extensive use of retired officers who worked as military analysts for television and radio networks.

Donald M. Horstman, the Pentagon’s deputy inspector general for policy and oversight, said in a memorandum released on Tuesday that the report was so riddled with flaws and inaccuracies that none of its conclusions could be relied upon. In addition to repudiating its own report, the inspector general’s office took the additional step of removing the report from its Web site.

A spokesman for the inspector general’s office refused to release the internal review on Tuesday. He also declined to say whether any officials were disciplined for the flawed report. Mr. Horstman’s memorandum said that no additional investigative work would be done to reissue the report because the public relations program has been terminated and the senior officials who oversaw it have left the Pentagon.

I wonder if congress will demand another report. The Hodes Amendment stipulated that the Pentagon Inspector General produce a report for congress. If this one was withdrawn, have they really fulfilled their obligation?

Propaganda Rebranded

2009-05-04T20:43:00.000-07:00

Leafing through Christopher Paul's (et al) Enlisting Madison Avenue: The Marketing Approach to Earning Popular Support in Theaters of Operation I came across the following gem:

[T]he credibility of PSYOP and its IO brethren are impaired. This credibility problem has limited the degree to which PA, CA, and interagency partners are willing to coordinate their activities with PSYOP and its IO umbrella. Part of this stems from the correct perception that PSYOP and IO are tools of inﬂuence. More substantively, however, although 99 percent of IO and PSYOP effort is truthful, these organizations are known to house deceptive operations. As long as deceptive manipulation is within an organization’s auspices, it is going to suffer from a deceitful reputation.

Consequently, it is suitable to discuss potential reorganization for PSYOP and IO. To return to the corporate analogy, when U.S. businesses face serious threats to their credibility and prestige, they sometimes choose the route of rebranding. Rebranding an organization involves changing the people’s perceptions of that organization. Negatively perceived structures or practices are eliminated or divested, other operations are changed to suit the new brand identity, and the corporate name and logo are often changed.

Such a route may be necessary for IO and PSYOP. This section opened with Joseph Galloway’s quote admonishing us not to mix “the liars and the truth-tellers in one pot.” The overarching recommendation is to be truthful while still allowing deception as required. Such an approach may prove particularly valuable for PSYOP and IO. We recommend consideration of dividing both into deceptive and truthful entities. Maintain coordination, but do not mix the two.

Changing organizational names may also be important. An anonymous PA officer observed, “I think we need to change the name, because ‘information operations’ is tainted. If you ask a general citizen about information operations, they immediately think about half-truths, military deception, propaganda.”

Considering Paul's most recent (I think) publication Whiter Strategic Communication, it seems pretty obvious now that Strategic Communications is doing exactly what he's outlined above: taking a damaged brand (IO, PSYOP, PA, take your pick), and rebranding it. This is doubly advantageous insofar as restrictions on, and between, PSYOP and PA don't necessarily apply to Strategic Communications, which is, of course, an entirely discursive entity.

However, this is pretty standard operating procedure. It took until the late 1950s for Communications scholars on the DoD payroll to replace the increasingly pejorative "propaganda" with the less offensive, more scientistic (read: era-appropriate) "psychological warfare". When psychological warfare started sounding too scary, it made its way to "psychological operations", and got couched within the even less offensive "information operations". I think that the rise of "strategic communications" as a term has to do with more than just rebranding, but it does seem like the next of kin in a long line of euphemisms for propaganda.

Killing People Getting You Down?

2009-05-02T09:51:00.000-07:00

Take a soma vacation:

Officers' Communication Gets Strategic

2009-04-09T11:04:00.000-07:00

From a CGSC Blog:

The Strategic Communications requirements for officers attending Intermediate Level Education at the Command and General Staff College is intended to expose our officers to the ever broadening scope of the media and public opinion in today’s global environment and its impact on our profession, and to make them more confident in their ability to operate in this environment. I believe interactions between our military officers and the general public serve the dual purpose of educating each group about different perspectives while helping to narrow the common misperceptions.

Interesting. Stragegic Communications is, from the sound of things here, becoming a requirement for officers. The comments on this post are interesting too – It seems some ROTCers and some MBAs had a get togther, which I find telling re: the military-market nexus.

COIN & Perception

2009-04-07T09:31:00.000-07:00

From WaPo:

In a broader sense, [General] McKiernan declares, "Political power is the central issue in insurgencies and counterinsurgencies; each side aims to influence the people to accept its governance or authority as legitimate." Along with providing security and governance, he writes, there is the need to "win the battle of perceptions."

Irregular War, Everyone's Abuzz

2009-04-06T22:05:00.000-07:00

In testimony prepared for the Senate Armed Services Committee, Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, U.S. Joint Forces Command chief, said American "forces must develop a mastery of the irregular fight on par with our conventional and nuclear capabilities."
Echoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Mattis told the panel "our forces must be flexible and adaptable enough to operate across the spectrum of conflict - this is not an either/or proposition."

From Small Wars Journal:

U.S. Joint Forces Command [Commander Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis] has released an irregular warfare vision [pdf] designed to help develop joint forces that are as effective in conducting irregular warfare as they are in conventional warfare.
The vision outlines a timeline and expectations from directorates and subordinate commands. Over the next six to 12 months the command will focus its IW efforts in concept development and experimentation, capability development/joint integration and interoperability, training and education, joint provision/global force management and external engagement.

The vision augers that:

IW will likely be the most persistent form of conflict our nation faces over the next two decades, often manifesting itself in war's usual "chameleon" or "hybrid" manner,

while exhorting us to,

always remember that "The decisive combat occurs in and about the minds of civilians, not on the battlefield" and "Military defeat of the irregular force is desirable, but not essential. It is his political defeat, his delegitimation, that is crucial." [emphasis in original]

To this end, the vision portends that "Information and the Battle of Competing Narratives" tops the list of capacities central to Irregular Warfare. Taking a philosophical turn, the vision reminds us that,

IW is war, and war is principally a human endeavor. Common characteristics of irregular and complex operations extend beyond the military domain. Understanding the culture, beliefs, values and expectations of the relevant population is fundamental to success.

And it looks like we can expect more where this came from. The Washington Post, quoting Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell, reports that

[the 2010 defense] budget moves the needle closer to irregular warfare and counterinsurgency. It is not an abandonment of the need to prepare for conventional conflicts. But even moving that needle is a revolutionary thing in this building.

WaPo continues:

The changes reflect the growing prominence of the military's counterinsurgency camp -- the most prominent member of which is Petraeus -- in the Pentagon. President Obama, whose strategy in Afghanistan is focused on protecting the local population and denying the Islamist radicals a safe haven, has largely backed this group.

And in case there is any doubt about whether or not Irregular Warfare has it roots in particularly egregious imperialism, Kings of War clears things up:

In our search for new paradigms to fathom the evolution of war, ‘hybrid wars’ is one of the descriptions doing the rounds. Basically, its the notion that irregular and regular forms of war are fusing and overlapping, creating new compounds. Three cases of historical hybrid wars I’ve noticed over the past week:

The Anglo-Boer: where the Boer guerrillas surprised the Brits with their use of artillery.

The Maratha war: British commanders Lake and Wellsley expected to fight against irregulars with mounted warriors and guerrilla methods. But the Marathas employed modern weapons systems - like artillery. At the battle of Assaye on 23 September 1803, Wellesley’s army suffered casualties of more than 30%. In his later incarnation as the Duke of Wellington, he judged it to be his hardest battle.

The Maori wars: where the Maori improvised a trench defence system that anticipated the more elaborate ones of the Western Front, using their traditional wooden palisades as decoys.

David Harvey on Military-Industry

2009-04-03T10:34:00.000-07:00

From Democracy Now:

Since 1945, what you call the military-industrial complex, it’s been a terribly important vehicle in American development. It has been the center of what we call military Keynesianism. I mean, it’s the one sector where deficit financing was thoroughly permitted, and it was the one sector under Reagan that expanded immensely and has never been let go, in spite of the end of the Cold War. So there’s been a very important economic function to what the military is about.

The second thing is that, as we’ve seen over the last couple of years, commodity prices are very unstable. And command over commodities and resources becomes absolutely crucial. So, in my view, a lot of the interventionism in the Middle East and elsewhere has been clearly built around US interest in controlling oil supplies. And it’s not only about that, but it’s very strongly connected with that, so that then arguments are made about, well, we’ve got to get rid of a dictator. Well, there have been plenty of dictators around the world the United States has not taken any notice of, because it didn’t control oil. And so, the kind of war machine, if you like, and the covert machines starts to become very important in terms of maintaining corporate access to the resources of the world and, at some point, also to the labor resources of the world, not only the natural resources.

Democracy or Dominance?

2009-03-19T09:34:00.000-07:00

Chris Paparone, a blogger from the US Army Combined Arms Center writes:

As officers (and I am on the retired reserve rolls) we should not be out to further the Army's cause as an organization. The Army exists to defend the cause of freedom and democracy that includes the freedom of the press (whether that press reports incorrectly or not, in our collective opinion). We should understand that being reactionary to news stories is an inherent disadvantage to an army in a democracy - and the Army is going to have to accept that. Trying to get ahead of the news cycle with our version of the story (with an unstated intent to "damage an opposing cause") is just plain dangerous to the ethical role of the military in a democratic society.

It's refreshing to hear this perspective coming from within the military community. The idea that losing information dominance is a good thing, is something I hope more officers have a long, hard think about.

Slooow Blogging

2009-02-17T12:29:00.000-08:00

A perfect storm of ridiculous grad school work, personal illness, and busted computer have conspired to make blogging pretty much nonexistent recently. If any of these things let up, I'll be sure to get back at 'er.

Some Welcome News News

2009-02-10T11:17:00.000-08:00

New, indepth story on DoD PR from AP. Comments to come. Intro:

As it fights two wars, the Pentagon is steadily and dramatically increasing the money it spends to win what it calls "the human terrain" of world public opinion. In the process, it is raising concerns of spreading propaganda at home in violation of federal law.
An Associated Press investigation found that over the past five years, the money the military spends on winning hearts and minds at home and abroad has grown by 63 percent, to at least $4.7 billion this year, according to Department of Defense budgets and other documents. That's almost as much as it spent on body armor for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2004 and 2006.

This year, the Pentagon will employ 27,000 people just for recruitment, advertising and public relations — almost as many as the total 30,000-person work force in the State Department.

"We have such a massive apparatus selling the military to us, it has become hard to ask questions about whether this is too much money or if it's bloated," says Sheldon Rampton, research director for the Committee on Media and Democracy, which tracks the military's media operations. "As the war has become less popular, they have felt they need to respond to that more."

Grand Theft Venezuela

2009-01-29T21:05:00.000-08:00

Via Reuters via Swedish Meatball,

A video game depicting mercenaries storming Venezuela, which has been criticized in the oil-rich South American country as a blueprint for an invasion, will be released by a U.S. company this weekend.
(...)
The game, "Mercenaries 2: World in Flames," will be released on Sunday by a division of Electronic Arts Inc and is set in a "fully destructible Venezuela," the company said in a news release.

"A power hungry tyrant uses Venezuela's oil supply to overthrow the government and turns the country into a war zone," the company says of the game on its Web site.

In 2006, when the game was first announced, lawmakers from Chavez's coalition called it an example of a U.S. government-inspired propaganda campaign against Chavez that could even help lay the psychological groundwork for an actual invasion.

"All the controversy around this is kind of comical," Electronic Arts spokesman Jeff Brown said. "At the end of the day you have to remind yourself it's a damned video game."

The government on Friday said it could not immediately comment on the game's release.
(...)
A trailer for the game, set in 2010, features mercenaries with American accents storming oil installations during a bloody coup by a tyrant called Ramon Solano.

"It is time the Venezuelan people stop paying for the greed of foreign interests, we will make them pay dearly for our oil. From this day forward everybody pays," the character says before shots of helicopter gunships and tanks attacking familiar Venezuelan landscapes.

Chavez has nationalized oil projects owned by U.S. companies like Exxon and ConocoPhillips.

Fatherware

2009-01-29T20:50:00.000-08:00

You can't make this up. From Danger Room:

The Department of Defense is soliciting proposals from small businesses for a computer program that would replicate troops serving abroad, during phone conversations and video conferences with their families.
The program, first reported by Outguessing the Machine and later covered by Slate, is billed as a "Virtual Dialogue Application for Families of Deployed Service Members. It's meant to address the strain on children caused by long deployments -- by using the same kind of automated voice recognition software that airlines, banks, and phone companies all use to keep us from real customer service. The program would play pre-recorded messages from service members when prompted by phrases like "I love you" or "I miss you mommy/daddy."

"I miss you too, son or daughter"

IG Report on Pentagon Pundits

2009-01-28T21:19:00.000-08:00

Surprise, surprise. Though I had expected as much. It will be interesting to see how the FCC's investigation turns out. NY Times:

The office of the Defense Department’s inspector general said in a report Friday that it had found no wrongdoing in a Pentagon public relations program that made use of retired officers who worked as military analysts for television and radio networks.
[...]
the inspector general’s office, noting the absence of a clear legal definition of propaganda, said there was an “insufficient basis” to conclude that the program had violated laws prohibiting the government’s domestic use of it.
[...]
Representative Paul W. Hodes, Democrat of New Hampshire, remarked: “To say there are factual inaccuracies in this report is the understatement of the century. I think it is a whitewash. It appears to be the parting gift of the Pentagon to the president.”

The Murder Channel

2009-01-03T14:43:00.000-08:00

So I was watching some of the snuff films that the Israeli government put on youtube, and eventually came across this article at the BBC:

Israel has tried to take the initiative in the propaganda war over Gaza but, in one important instance, its version has been seriously challenged.
The incident raises the question of how to interpret video taken from the air.
Israel released video of an air attack on 28 December, which appeared to show rockets being loaded onto a truck. The truck and those close to it were then destroyed by a missile.

This was clear evidence, the Israelis said, of how accurate their strikes were and how well justified. A special unit it has set up to coordinate its informational plan put the video onto YouTube as part of its effort to use modern means of communications to get Israel's case across.
The YouTube video has a large caption on it saying "Grad missiles being loaded onto the Hamas vehicle." As of Saturday morning UK time, more than 260,000 people had watched it.
It turned out, however, that a 55-year-old Gaza resident named Ahmed Sanur, or Samur, claimed that the truck was his and that he and members of his family and his workers were moving oxygen cylinders from his workshop.

This workshop had been damaged when a building next door was bombed by the Israelis and he was afraid of looters, he said.
The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem put Mr Sanur's account on its website, together with a photograph of burned out oxygen cylinders.
Mr Sanur said that eight people, one of them his son, had been killed. He subsequently told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz: "These were not Hamas, they were our children... They were not Grad missiles.".
The Israeli response was that the "materiel" was being taken from a site that had stored weapons. The video remains on You Tube.
But the incident shows how an apparently definitive piece of video can turn into something much more doubtful

It is reminiscent of an event in the Nato war against Serbia over Kosovo in 1999. In that case, a video taken from the air seemed to show a military convoy which was then attacked.
On the ground however it was discovered that the "trucks" were in fact tractors towing cartloads of civilian refugees, many of whom were killed.

Support

2009-01-03T13:09:00.000-08:00

A Canadian Solider is being charged with second degree murder for allegedly shooting an unarmed Afghan, who may or may not have been Taliban. This has given rise to a facebook group called “Support the Freedom of Capt. Robert Semrau.” Since the details aren't really available, most of the people commenting on the group are sticking to comfortable speculations about Capt. Semrau killing a Taliban insurgent who would have been more than happy to kill capt. Semrau, had he not killed him first. Nevermind that one of the only things the reports seem to consistently indicate is that the victim was unarmed, and his "Taliban" status remains only "suspected." One or two commentators have chosen the "trigger happy, dumb soldier" explanation, and one or two think that we should kill all the Afghans. For the most part, however, the general consensus is that war is a confusing thing, that the facts don't really matter, and that the most important thing is to support Capt. Semrau.

This blog is usually pretty critical of the military, and even more of the "support our troops" trope, but this whole ordeal seems pretty ridiculous to me. Now, the details are not available yet, and to be honest, I'm sure Capt. Semrau did murder the person involved, but it doesn't make any sense to prosecute this person for a practice that is so widespread. Afghanistan is a counterinsurgency war, which necessarily blurs the distinction between solider and civilian. This means that civilians are going to be murdered, and probably lots of them. Anyone who has heard Iraq or Afghanistan veterans speak honestly about what goes on in these wars, wouldn't be surprised to learn that it's pretty easy for the nice people they knew back home to murder people in Iraq and Afghanistan. It will be interesting to see exactly what the circumstances surrounding this case will be, but it seems that, more than anything, by allowing someone like this to be scapegoated it creates the illusion that this sort of thing doesn't happen often. It also creates the illusion that the criminality of the war is not endemic; that it can be isolated.

The efficacy of the "support" trope is pretty shocking here. Most of the comments I read don't really care what actually happened, don't really care that this is what happens in the type of war we're fighting, and are likely to be fighting from now on. "Support" is magical, a panacea. It lets us sweep the ugliness of this war under the rug, while allowing us a comfortable way to organize our thoughts and feelings about the war we're sending our soldiers to.

It's A Media War!

2009-01-02T21:22:00.000-08:00

From the Guardian:

Israel believes its has won broad international support in the media for its actions in Gaza thanks to its PR strategy, which through a new body has for months been concerned with formulating plans and role-playing to ensure that government officials deliver a clear, unified message to the world's press.
The body, known as the National Information Directorate, was set up eight months ago following recommendations from an Israeli inquiry into the 2006 Lebanon war. Its role is to deal with hasbara - meaning, in Hebrew, "explanation", and referring variously to information, spin, and propaganda.
The directorate acts across ministries and decides key messages on a daily basis. Of its core messages for the media, there has been the advice that Hamas broke the ceasefire agreements with Israel; that Israel's objective is the defence of its population; and that Hamas is a terror organisation targeting Israeli civilians. "In general, we think we are succeeding in getting the message across," said Vatikai.
Israeli officials have also enjoyed a clear edge with coverage. An Israeli foreign ministry assessment of eight hours of coverage across international broadcast media reported that Israeli representatives got 58 minutes of airtime while the Palestinians got only 19 minutes. Speaking for the Israeli military, Major Avital Leibovich said: "Quite a few outlets are very favourable to Israel, namely by showing [it] suffering ... I am sure it is a result of the new co-ordination."
One of the challenges of Israel's media offensive has been to counter the disturbing images of Gaza in the conflict. "In the war of the pictures we lose, so you need to correct, explain or balance it in other ways," said Aviv Shir-On, foreign ministry deputy director-general for public affairs.

Which, of course, explains why Israel,

is again preventing journalists from entering Gaza to report firsthand on the escalating crisis there as its military operation, codenamed Operation Cast Lead, enters its fifth day.
Israel imposed an unprecedented news blackout in November and banned foreign journalists from the Gaza Strip for an entire month.

This followed an Israeli cross-border military incursion into the coastal territory which broke the fragile ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, and set off the current cycle of violence.

The media ban was eventually lifted after the Foreign Press Association (FPA) in Israel petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court, and editors from a number of foreign media outlets sent a letter of protest to the Israeli government.

The foreign media is once again petitioning an Israeli court for permission to enter Gaza and cover the conflict.

Media outlets have had to rely on international human rights activists, aid organizations and Palestinian journalists based in Gaza to update them on unfolding events.

Meanwhile the number of civilian casualties continues to rise. The total Palestinian death toll now stands at 390 with 1,800 injured. Two Israeli Arabs and one Jewish Israeli have been killed in rocket attacks from Gaza.

The civilian toll on the Palestinian side is shooting up. On Sunday a family from the Jabaliya refugee camp near Gaza city lost five sisters, aged 4 to 17, when an Israeli air strike hit a mosque next to their home.

The same day seven teenagers from a UN Relief and Welfare Agency (UNRWA) school were killed when a missile hit them as they waited after school for a bus to take them home. The UN has called for an investigation into their deaths.

On Tuesday two sisters, aged 4 and 11, perished in an air strike as they rode in a donkey cart in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza.

All the while,

In Sderot, a town pummelled by rockets that Hamas had launched from Gaza, a pressroom was set up to offer Israel’s perspective on the war the officials knew was coming. Coffee and cookies were readied for the hordes of journalists that were expected to arrive with the war. A photographer was poised to shoot images of the damage that was likely to be effected by the rockets that Hamas would fire in retaliation.
Bar-Ilan University academic Mordechai Kedar, who served for 25 years in IDF military intelligence, specializing in Arab political discourse, and now researches Palestinian use of the media, sees the operation as something akin to a battle on two fronts — one in Gaza, and one in the media. He described it as a “media-accompanied” war and believes that Israel has planned well for it.

“I’m trying not to limit myself,” [deputy Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Andy] David said. “My message is to say that the aim is very simple: that what has happened in the last eight years [rocket fire in southern Israel] will not happen in the future. The aim is to change the reality.”

Methinks he doth protest too much.

Make LoLs, Not War

2009-01-02T21:05:00.000-08:00

I honor of the recent hubub about tweeting, I felt I should go one further.

New Media "Another War Zone"

2008-12-30T14:55:00.000-08:00

From Danger Room:

Days after sending aircraft to strike Hamas militants in Gaza, the Israeli government is launching a campaign to dominate the blogosphere.
Among other things, the Israeli military has started its own YouTube channel to distribute footage of precision airstrikes. And as I type, the Israeli consulate in New York is hosting a press conference on microblogging site Twitter. It's pretty interesting to see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict reduced to tweets of 140 characters or less ("We hav 2 prtct R ctzens 2, only way fwd through neogtiations, & left Gaza in 05. y Hamas launch missiles not peace?"; "we're not at war with the PAL people. we're at war with a group declared by the EU& US a terrorist org").

The Jerusalem Post quotes Maj. Avital Leibovich, the head of the Israeli Defense Forces' foreign press branch on the digital media campaign. "The blogosphere and new media are another war zone," she says. "We have to be relevant there."

Rick Hillier Sounds Off

2008-12-30T10:00:00.000-08:00

CBC radio's Ideas recently broadcasted a very good debate about humanitarian intervention between advocates Mia Farrow & Gareth Evans, and detractors - get this - General Rick Hillier and John Bolton. Yeah. What I found most interesting was that Gen. Hillier's arguments came across as a pretty clear indictment of NATO's mission in Afghanistan. Check him out:

the capacities and the capabilities and the size of those things necessary for intervention operations simply do not exist. In the military, special forces, intelligence, UAVs and amphibious platforms are all things you need in intervention operations, but they simply are not there and you also, of course, need soldiers, you need boots on the ground. If we were serious about participating in humanitarian interventions, the armed forces of Australia and Canada would have to be doubled in size. The civilian capabilities simply are not there. Along with the security of a population in an intervention, you also have to help build a government so that when you leave you’ve left it in an improved state. You have to develop the country in question so that when you leave the people there can have hope for the future. The capacity to go into a given country and do that sort of work does not exist in the international community.

Finally, I would say that the countries that comprise the international community simply do not have the collective will to conduct an enduring operation. We are conditioned, by one hour TV shows where you have a cataclysmic evident followed by 50 minutes of events that sum it up before giving you a happy ending ‐‐ all interfered with by 10 minutes of commercials – to expect the same in an intervention operation. But the reality is that all of those missions become enduring missions, and go on for what another officer said to me are generations. Populations don’t have the robustness of will to accept collateral damage, and that is dangerous because it leads to what we in the military call “TV tactics”. This means shaping your tactics so that they appear better to the folks back home.

I'd like to think that Hillier recognizes "humanitarian intervention" to be the a justification of geopolitical wars. Since the cold war there has been an ideological vaccum, and as we saw with Kuwait, humanitarian intervention is one narrative that can fill it, the other, of course, being security. But even when the security narrative fails, as they have in Iraq and Afghanistan, the switch to the humanitarianism is ready to hand. Is Hillier's reluctance to support humanitarian intervention somewhat informed by his understanding that its ostensible rightousness will be used as media cover for future wars of choice?

Also, considering looming funding cuts for militaries, where the money goes is probably going to determine military priorities - Traditional Defence vs. Transformation. Hillier says we don't have the capacity to strategically win COIN wars, but its unclear whether he thinks we should develop that capacity, or stick to traditional defence. One thing Hillier said, however, caught my attention:

Where is, for example, government‐in‐a‐box? Which organization in our world, in our country, in any country actually, has a deployable government‐building battalion designed to do what was done in World War II? I’m not talking about individuals. I’m talking about a trained, built, cohesive capability that you deploy into Darfur, into Afghanistan, in order to help them build the kind of government they need to sustain their country after we leave.

It's here.

Misc Articles

2008-12-30T09:53:00.000-08:00

Holiday Reading I never got to, via Small Wars Journal:

Military Police Operations and Counterinsurgency (Full PDF Article)
The SWORD Model of Counterinsurgency (Full PDF Article)
On the Future and Options (Full PDF Article)
U.S. Prepares to Fight 'Irregular' Wars for Years to Come

Wente Attempts, Fails Sarcasm

2008-12-23T07:56:00.000-08:00

This is a little off topic, but I couldn't resist.

Just behind Christie Blatchford on my list of people I can't stand in the Canadian media has to be Margaret Wente. Today she's miffed about some other media hacks getting senate appointments, so she attempts a sarcastic op-ed, complaining about not getting her own senate appointment as a reward for being such a hack:

So can't you find a Senate seat for me, too? If Mike Duffy and Pamela Wallin can be senators, then surely there is room for me. Like them, I am a lifelong hack....Seriously, you can't deny that I have what it takes to be a first-class senator. I am accustomed to being underworked and overpaid, and I am able to emit hot air on any subject on demand....I have glib and superficial opinions about everything, especially things I know nothing about....From now on, I'll cut the sarcasm and reveal to readers what I know to be the truth. You are that rarest of men in public life - a statesman, a visionary, one who combines heart and head and never stoops to petty political revenge when the nation's future is at stake.

Reading over the comments online, I was happy to see that most people recognized this as a failed piece of sarcasm, except for the Wente-lovers, who, as if to prove their own stupidity, mocked these people for failing to detect Wente's subtle brand of sarcasm.

Kim Andrew Elliot on Smith-Mundt

2008-12-21T08:18:00.000-08:00

Great stuff. Kim's comments appear in italics:

Myths of domestic dissemination:

"The State Department is prohibited from actively publicizing the work it does in land mine removal. Without the efforts of non-governmental groups like Roots of Peace, the public would go largely unaware of the positive impact and the role individual citizens can play in removing land mines." Marin (CA) Independent Journal, 18 December 2008.

Really? At www.state.gov, there is plenty of information about State Department efforts in landmine removal, including SAFE PASSAGE: A Newsletter for the Humanitarian Mine Action and Small Arms/Light Weapons Communities, October 2008.

On more controversial topics, State Department officials don't hesitate to defend U.S. policies domestically. See, for example, Secretary of State Rice defending U.S. actions in Iraq, during an interview with the Council on Foreign Relation's Robert McMahon, Washington Post, 19 December 2008.

Now, if the State Department or White House, sometime before 20 January, purchases full page ads in the New York Times and Washington Post defending Bush Administration policies in the Middle East, that might actually rouse the ghosts of Smith and Mundt.

And in response to Matt Armstrong's recent piece in the Washington Times:

Re-examining Smith-Mundt. But to what end?:

The Smith-Mundt Act has largely been superceded by subsequent legislation, most recently the International Broadcasting Act of 1994 and the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998.

The latter act eliminated the United States Information Agency and folded its public diplomacy functions back into the State Department, which is where they were when Smith-Mundt was signed into law in 1948. Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) was the prime mover of the 1998 legislation. Always keen to reduce the size of government, he saw that the USIA worked so closely with State that it might as well be part of State.

Both acts brought about the separation of U.S. international broadcasting from U.S. public diplomacy. This independence was necessary to achieve the credibility that is required for success in international broadcasting. For all the wisdom contained in Smith-Mundt, its authors thought that international broadcasting could be employed as just another form of propaganda. (Yes, the act says "tell the truth," but in the persuasive arts, that means accentuating some truths and downplaying other truths.)

Any re-absorption of international broadcasting into U.S. public diplomacy, now advocated by many public diplomacy experts, would result in the failure of U.S. international broadcasting. It would bring about a model of international broadcasting that is centrally planned rather than market based. The market for international broadcasting does not seek propaganda. Instead, they tune in for the reliable, credible news that is the antidote to propaganda.

A Major, a Journalist, and a Businessman Walk Into a War...

2008-12-21T08:09:00.000-08:00

...and we all know the punchline. From the American Forces Press Service:

A monumental achievement has been accomplished in the highly populated Baghdad district of Sadr City. This time, it isn't a record number of barriers put in place or another insurgent captured, it is the publication of the first local Sadr City newspaper, the Al Medina.

The paper was conceived more than five months ago when U.S. Army Maj. Mike Humphreys, a public affairs officer with the 4th Infantry Division’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team, had a chance encounter with Al-Tamimi, a journalist, and a Sadr City businessman, Dhahir Al-Musa. Humphreys expressed his vision to create an independent Sadr City newspaper that could get the people's message out. In cooperation with Provincial Reconstruction Team 3, Humphreys offered $25,000 in what is known as “quick reaction” funds to help the two entrepreneurs start their paper.

"I knew we needed a paper in Sadr City," Humphreys said. "I believe that one key to success in Iraq is a free and independent press that educates and informs the people while holding government officials accountable."

Zing!

French Military Reality PR

2008-12-21T07:43:00.000-08:00

Since it's French, technically, it's hyperreality. I guess Fox has been running COPS for 20 years now, so nothing new, but interesting still.

French Army turns to reality TV for new recruits:

[T]he French Army is hailing the hapless half dozen [participants] for their role in what it says is the world’s first military venture into reality television.
In a bid to improve its image among the young, l’Armeé de Terre recruited six bloggers on a popular internet chat forum and dispatched them for a five-day training course with the 152nd Infantry Regiment at Colmar in eastern France. They were filmed night and day, and the scenes are being broadcast until the end of the year on Mode Immersion, a web TV set up by the French Ministry of Defence.

Also noteworthy:

Homeland Security Goes Hollywood:

A new reality television show focused on the agencies and employees of the Department of Homeland Security is sure to find fans among bureaucrats and department observers, and also is likely to draw some criticism from those who wonder if a primetime television show is the best use of the agency's time.
"Homeland Security USA" debuts Jan. 6 on ABC. The show's producer, Arnold Shapiro (creator of the CBS reality hit "Big Brother") recently told the Hollywood Reporter, “I love investigative journalism, but that’s not what we’re doing. This show is heartening. It makes you feel good about these people who are doing their best to protect us.”

Reversing the Bling Cycle

2008-12-21T07:16:00.001-08:00

Looks like those liberal peaceniks at the NYT are at it again. An op-ed today suggests places where the Pentagon could "trim" (did someone say turkey?) it's budget. They suggest some sensible cuts, like to the F-22 program, that could save up to $25 billion a year. Their liberal peacenik cred ends, however, when they suggest that this money could be used to increase, among other things, the size of ground forces, which will be needed for years of counterinsurgency wars to come, right? I'm reminded of one of those old SNL deep thoughts: Instead of trying to build newer and bigger weapons of destruction, we should be thinking about getting more use out of the ones we already have.

One point, at least, is well taken:

Congress will need to develop a lot more realism and restraint. Lobbyists pushing costly and unneeded weapons systems find ready allies in lawmakers looking to create or protect federally financed jobs in their districts. Big contractors like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and General Dynamics have become masters at spreading those jobs around to assemble broad Congressional voting blocs. Work on the F-22 has been parceled out to subcontractors in 44 states.

But for my part, I'm with Sven Ortmann at Defence and Freedom:

The same self-inflicted slow poisoning that happened to the Big 3 will happen to the U.S. government as a whole in a few decades unless its obligations will be de-valued (and effectively a huge portion of the citizens be robbed).

There are many problems in many Western societies like public debt, public long-term obligations (pensions and other), bad economy structures, unsustainable trade balances, inefficient political processes, unsustainable non-renewable resource consumption, neglect of lower class youths and excessive consumption and service expectations of citizens.

Meanwhile, some people still fantasize about future 'necessary' military spending and grandiose R&D + procurement programs. The detachment from reality will likely last for at least another year, and some people will never catch up with reality.

Many Western states need to reform themselves a lot, even need to rebuild their industrial base and re-orient their economy. Any avoidable military expenditures needs to be avoided - and the expectations in military affairs need to be tuned down to proper alliance self-defence and participation in explicitly U.N.-authorized defense of nations.

Military expenditures are pure consumption in macroeconomics - mostly useless for the economic development. Their only unquestionable utility lies in national security. There's rarely any convincing utility beyond that. You don't need to have almost half of the world military spending (purchasing power parity) for your national security if you're in the most powerful alliance ever.

Mission Creep

2008-12-21T06:55:00.000-08:00

Thomas Schweich, Bush administration ambassador for counter-narcotics in Afghanistan and deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement affairs, thinks we need to address Pentagon mission creep:

We no longer have a civilian-led government. It is hard for a lifelong Republican and son of a retired Air Force colonel to say this, but the most unnerving legacy of the Bush administration is the encroachment of the Department of Defense into a striking number of aspects of civilian government. Our Constitution is at risk.

President-elect Barack Obama's selections of James L. Jones, a retired four-star Marine general, to be his national security adviser and, it appears, retired Navy Adm. Dennis C. Blair to be his director of national intelligence present the incoming administration with an important opportunity -- and a major risk. These appointments could pave the way for these respected military officers to reverse the current trend of Pentagon encroachment upon civilian government functions, or they could complete the silent military coup d'etat that has been steadily gaining ground below the radar screen of most Americans and the media.

keep reading

PR Watch: America Scams You

2008-12-18T15:05:00.000-08:00

PR Watch nicely sums up the Pentagon Inspector General's long list of damning charges against Allison Barber's management of the America Supports You campaign. Highlights:

Defense Department policies clearly forbid asking for donations, as well as implicitly or explicitly endorsing non-government entities. To avoid potential conflicts of interest and undue outside influence on the nation's military, U.S. law specifically directs how gift funds may be used to benefit service members. Pentagon lawyers periodically reminded Allison Barber of these restrictions, but she seemed not to understand or care that she was breaking the rules.
In a September 2005 email quoted in the Inspector General's report, Barber asked if she could accept a "token check" from the PGA Tour at one of their events. The Tour "had raised over [$]300,000 for the military charities," Barber wrote. "[I]sn't that great?"

The response she received was less than enthusiastic. Department of Defense (DoD) officials "could not endorse the PGA or solicit funds," cautioned the Standards of Conduct Office attorney. Instead of accepting the check, the lawyer suggested that Barber "thank the PGA and stand on the perimeter of the presentation of the bogus check to a representative of the military relief societies." Then the lawyer asked, "Is this event appropriate for DoD to participate in? Is it a fundraiser?"

It's clear from the Inspector General's report that ASY poured significant time and resources into seeking corporate support. Several examples of Barber eagerly courting companies can also be found in the Pentagon pundit documents, as I reported previously:

In an April 2006 email referring to an upcoming event with some 50 members of the Business Council, Barber excitedly wrote to fellow Pentagon public affairs staffer Dallas Lawrence that "we could have our entire corporate outreach for asy [sic] done in one meeting!" ... The agenda for a June 2006 Pentagon meeting with the National Association of Manufacturers lists Barber as giving the "welcome and America Supports You update." ASY is the only program mentioned by name. Other documents name NASCAR, Ringling Brothers and Babies "R" Us as ASY corporate contacts.

ASY's emphasis on corporate outreach happened by design. Susan Davis International (SDI), the private firm that did public relations work for ASY, developed a "corporate toolkit" to recruit companies. "The toolkit makes many promises of publicity for corporations in return for their support of the ASY program," notes the Inspector General's report. As described in ASY's "corporate toolkit," these quid pro quo offers included features on the American Forces Radio and Television Service and the Pentagon Channel, ads in the Stars and Stripes newspaper, and mentions in ASY's "weekly e-newsletter ... delivered to thousands of key supporters nationwide, to Congress, and to the news media."

In addition, the America Supports You website featured the logos of its corporate supporters, in violation of Defense Department policies. (That page has since been removed from the ASY site, but an archived version can be seen here.)

Lastly, ASY gave "Office of the Secretary of Defense Exceptional Public Service Awards" to individual and corporate ASY supporters. SDI suggested giving the awards, to create hooks for "op-eds, regional media, newsletters, member radio / TV shows." The Inspector General's report questions this "recognition program," noting that "there are no written criteria for selecting the recipients of this award." In other words, public honors could be given out to the highest bidders.
Will Allison Barber be held accountable for the nepotism, misuse of public funds and multiple breaches of Pentagon policy -- not to mention the misdirection of resources intended to benefit U.S. service members -- that have been documented at ASY? Or will she be quietly return to the private sector, perhaps providing PR advice to the same companies to which she once gave Defense Department awards?

On DND Public Affairs

2008-12-18T14:50:00.000-08:00

Nice pair of post from David Pugliese:

It seems that I'm not the only one who is getting “non answers” from the public affairs branch of Assistant Deputy Minister for Materiel Dan Ross.

For at least the last 20 months, Mr. Ross’s public affairs team has communicated with journalists almost entirely by email. No longer are equipment project managers allowed to answer questions directly about how they are spending hundreds of millions if not billions of taxpayer’s dollars.

When a journalist asks a question they are almost guaranteed they won’t get it by their deadline. It usually takes several weeks, if not a month to get a response.

Take for instance, this example. The highly respected military magazine, Jane's, was recently looking for answers about the status of the development of a new policy regarding the defence industry. The federal government briefly talked about this in a June 2008 response to the Commons Defence Committee.

Jane’s asked the question on Oct. 23, requesting an update from Mr. Ross’s public affairs branch on what exactly was happening in regards to the development of a defence industrial strategy for Canada.

On Nov. 27 it received this emailed answer from the branch regarding the “Defence Industrial Strategy”:

“The Department of National Defence has a long history of working with industry to develop technology that meets the needs of the Canadian Forces. The Canada First Defence Strategy, announced last May and released in a public document in June, will set the stage for a renewed relationship with Canadian defence industry and research and development organizations across the country.” Wow….I can see why it took more than a month to come up with that fact-filled answer.

By the way, Mr. Ross has recently blamed the news media for not writing about the good news stories coming out of his procurement branch.

Also:

A Defence Department public affairs branch appears to have a new tactic for dealing with questions from journalists. It is recycling the same answers they provided to reporters more than 20 months ago as new answers for different questions asked this year.

Take for example the case of the Operational Training Systems Provider (OTSP). Recently I asked to speak to a subject matter expert on the timelines on when this training package for the Chinooks and C-130Js would unfold. It wasn’t an unreasonable request since more than $100 million of taxpayer’s money is being spent on this program.

I had actually been given the details by industry on the project but I wanted to get DND’s view to round out my article. What I was asking for were the “milestones” of the program; the basic details when the contract was expected to be signed and when the program was expected to start. Really, it was a no-brainer for DND to respond to.

Well of course, there was absolutely no response (as is par for the course these days) from the public affairs branch handing queries to the office of Dan Ross, the Assistant Deputy Minister for Materiel. So I went ahead and published my article in the Citizen.

Then about a week after my deadline a DND PR person did phone me and told me that she had emailed me the response.

I informed her two things. The main thing was that the emailed answer didn’t answer my question. The second was that the emailed answer looked mighty familiar….at which point she informed me that was definitely not the case and it was her understanding that I didn’t even know what OTSP stood for (actually I do….having written several articles on the project).

So I did some checking in my emails from long ago, and sure enough, the bulk of this latest response from Dan Ross’s office was exactly the same as the one his PR branch had emailed me in March 2007 when I asked about the project .....but at that time with a different set of questions.

With Apologies

2008-12-18T10:07:00.001-08:00

PSYOP Blogger Ponders Domestic Ops

2008-12-16T19:30:00.000-08:00

From PSYOP Regimental, on hypothetical PSYOP operations adjacent emergency response from the new domestic brigade:

“The Pentagon's plan calls for three rapid-reaction forces to be ready for emergency response by September 2011. The first 4,700-person unit, built around an active-duty combat brigade based at Fort Stewart, Ga., was available as of Oct. 1, said Gen. Victor E. Renuart Jr., commander of the U.S. Northern Command.

If funding continues, two additional teams will join nearly 80 smaller National Guard and reserve units made up of about 6,000 troops in supporting local and state officials nationwide. All would be trained to respond to a domestic chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-yield explosive attack, or CBRNE event, as the military calls it.”

While I haven’t seen all the details – presumably there are more, two things jump out at me: 1. Concentration is on the warfighting skills that military people bring to the party and 2. PSYOP support for this force would ‘technically’ come from the Reserve Component since these forces are not part of Special Operations and therefore not supported by the 4th POG.

As to the first concern, I suspect that there has been scant attention paid to the nature of PAO and how PSYOP forces may be employed as emergency information providing responders. Also I suspect that there has been no guidance issued to develop contingency planning that includes working closely with local mass media (TV and Radio especially), nor has there been much attention to funding the training and travel that would be necessary for assigned military personnel to develop and maintain relationships with local media.

Keep reading

Study: Al-Jazeera Reduces Dogmatism

2008-12-16T18:44:00.000-08:00

A Study by Queens University of Charlotte and USC Annenberg scholars finds the television network reduces dogmatic thinking in its audiences around the world

Researchers at Queens University of Charlotte and the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication have released a study finding the Arabic television network Al-Jazeera English (AJE) is more likely to cover contentious issues in a way that creates an environment conducive to cooperation, negotiation and reconciliation.

Keep reading

h/t Intermap

Air Force Blog Policy

2008-12-16T18:40:00.000-08:00

Click image for full view.
h/t D-Ring.

Milspeak & The Right

2008-12-16T18:25:00.000-08:00

Writing on geographical divisions in the rates of military service Danielle Allen makes an interesting observation (h/t Daily Kos):

I spotted the link between military service and regional partisan divisions when I was researching not military history but Internet political communication.

After spending time on political Web sites of the right and left, I noticed that posts on right-leaning sites often employed military lingo — habits of developing monikers and jingles and of using the vocabulary of military tactics and strategy.

Left-leaning sites, in contrast, mostly lacked any easily recognizable features of military language.

This is one sign that our public sphere already suffers from a division between military and nonmilitary cultures. The division is not trivial, and without institutional change it is likely to be durable.

2008-12-16T13:46:00.000-08:00

America Exploits You

2008-12-14T15:37:00.000-08:00

I'm shocked, shocked to learn that DoD's America Supports You public relations campaign wasn't really about helping the troops. H/t to Noah at Danger Room:

A Defense Department project, supposedly designed to support U.S. troops, was used instead to channel millions of dollars to personal friends and allies of its chief. The "America Supports You," or ASY, program was led in a "questionable and unregulated manner," according to a Department of Defense Inspector General report, obtained by Danger Room. At least $9.2 million was "inappropriately transferred" by the project's managers. Much of that money served only to further promote ASY, instead of assisting servicemembers.

Keep Reading

Petagon Inspector Accuses DoD of Propaganda

2008-12-12T22:18:00.000-08:00

By Walter Pincus:

The Pentagon's inspector general said yesterday that the Defense Department's public affairs office may have "inappropriately" merged public affairs and propaganda operations in 2007 and 2008 when it contracted out $1 million in work for a strategic communications plan for use by the military in collaboration with the State Department.

"Without clearly defined strategic communications responsibilities, DoD may appear to merge inappropriately the public affairs and information operations functions," the inspector general said in a report released yesterday. Strategic communications programs, which have become a major part of the Pentagon's information operations carried out in the "war of ideas" in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East, should be under the oversight of the undersecretary of defense for policy, the report added.

Keep Reading

NATO to Merge PSYOP & PA

2008-12-12T22:08:00.000-08:00

From Reuters:

The U.S. general commanding NATO forces in Afghanistan has ordered a merger of the office that releases news with "Psy Ops," which deals with propaganda, a move that goes against the alliance's policy, three officials said.
The move has worried Washington's European NATO allies -- Germany has already threatened to pull out of media operations in Afghanistan -- and the officials said it could undermine the credibility of information released to the public.
U.S. General David McKiernan, the commander of 50,000 troops from more than 40 nations in NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), ordered the combination of the Public Affairs Office (PAO), Information Operations and Psy Ops (Psychological Operations) from December 1, said a NATO official with detailed knowledge of the move.

"This will totally undermine the credibility of the information released to the press and the public," said the official, who declined to be named.
Keep Reading

Barstow's Latest

2008-12-12T21:48:00.000-08:00

In the spring of 2007 a tiny military contractor with a slender track record went shopping for a precious Beltway commodity.
The company, Defense Solutions, sought the services of a retired general with national stature, someone who could open doors at the highest levels of government and help it win a huge prize: the right to supply Iraq with thousands of armored vehicles.
Access like this does not come cheap, but it was an opportunity potentially worth billions in sales, and Defense Solutions soon found its man. The company signed Barry R. McCaffrey, a retired four-star Army general and military analyst for NBC News, to a consulting contract starting June 15, 2007.
Four days later the general swung into action. He sent a personal note and 15-page briefing packet to David H. Petraeus, the commanding general in Iraq, strongly recommending Defense Solutions and its offer to supply Iraq with 5,000 armored vehicles from Eastern Europe. ''No other proposal is quicker, less costly, or more certain to succeed,'' he said.
Thus, within days of hiring General McCaffrey, the Defense Solutions sales pitch was in the hands of the American commander with the greatest influence over Iraq's expanding military.
''That's what I pay him for,'' Timothy D. Ringgold, chief executive of Defense Solutions, said in an interview.
General McCaffrey did not mention his new contract with Defense Solutions in his letter to General Petraeus. Nor did he disclose it when he went on CNBC that same week and praised the commander Defense Solutions was now counting on for help -- ''He's got the heart of a lion'' -- or when he told Congress the next month that it should immediately supply Iraq with large numbers of armored vehicles and other equipment.
Keep Reading

Go Team

2008-12-12T21:43:00.000-08:00

DND Press Release:

Along with other participation by the Canadian Forces, General Walt Natynczyk, Chief of the Defence Staff, will perform the coin toss during the opening ceremonies of the Canadian Football League’s 96th Grey Cup final on Sunday.
“On behalf of the members of the Canadian Forces, I extend my sincere thanks to the CFL for their support to the troops,” said General Natynczyk. “This season, the CFL hosted six CF appreciation games across the country where CF members and families were recognized for their service. I look forward to an exciting Canadian football final.”

“The CFL and the CF share a rich history as national institutions, which is why CFL games are such a great venue to showcase the contributions of CF personnel both at home and abroad,” said Vice-Admiral Dean McFadden, Commander of Canada Command, the military organisation responsible for routine and contingency CF operations in Canada.

Some 30 CF veterans of Afghanistan will be present on the field during the opening ceremonies where they will unfurl a large Canadian flag and will carry both the Canadian and Quebec flags. The Royal 22 Regiment Band will perform the National Anthem.

DMA "Breaks Down Barriers"

2008-12-12T21:34:00.000-08:00

From the American Forces Press Service:

Nov. 6, 2008 – The Defense Media Activity is all about breaking down barriers between reporting disciplines, the new organization’s chief of staff said in an interview yesterday.
The activity, which stood up Oct. 1, combines the internal information portions of the services’ and Defense Department’s public affairs functions in one headquarters.

The Soldiers Media Center, the Air Force News Service, the Navy Media Center, Marine Corps News, the Stars & Stripes newspaper and the Defense Information School, as well as the former American Forces Information Service, all are part of the new activity.

Changing the cultures of these organizations is part of the challenge for the leaders of the new activity.
Keep reading

I think "breaking down the barriers" is the phrase to watch on this one.

Obama & COIN

2008-11-24T18:20:00.001-08:00

Great post from Danger Room about Obama stacking up COIN experts. Granted, the US is involved in two COIN wars, this still seems to indicate that transformation will continue under Obama:

David Kilcullen, the Australian counterinsurgency guru, is joining a think tank that is likely to punch above its weight in shaping national security policy during the next administration.

In December, Kilcullen leaves his current post at the U.S. Department of State -- where he serves as special advisor for counterinsurgency to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice -- and joins the Center for a New American Security. CNAS, co-founded by last year by former Clinton administration officials Kurt Campbell and Michèle Flournoy, is a small outfit compared with the American Enterprise Institute or the Brookings Institution. But as Yochi Dreazen of the Wall Street Journal observed earlier this week, it is shaping up as a "top farm team" for the new administration. Flournoy is one of the top members of Obama's defense transition team; she may be in line for high-ranking post at the Pentagon.

Spencer Ackerman has an apt description of CNAS: "Obama's Pentagon-in-waiting." It's also home to folks like John Nagl, Vikram Singh and Nathaniel Fick, all prominent thinkers on irregular warfare.

Kilcullen was a top counterinsurgency advisor to Gen. David Petraeus, and was part of a small team that cooked up the “surge” strategy. He spent months in the field evangelizing the principles of counterinsurgency to units in the field. He also penned the influential "Twenty-eight Articles: Fundamentals of Company-Level Counterinsurgency" (money quote: "Counterinsurgency is armed social work"). More recently, he led an effort to draft of a "government-wide" counterinsurgency guide, a sort of COIN handbook for civilian policymakers.

Terrorizing Dissent

2008-11-24T18:14:00.000-08:00

From PR Watch:

In November 2005, activists from the Chesapeake Climate Action Network peacefully protested against the failure by then-Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr to significantly curb pollution from coal-fired power stations in Maryland. After their protest, Maryland police categorized them as terrorists and added them to a federal database of people to be monitored. Lisa Rein and Josh White report that other groups spied on by an undercover police operation included those opposing the death penalty, the Iraq war, "the manufacture of cluster munitions, globalization and the government's expansion of biodefense research at Fort Detrick." The American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, which has been acting for some of those spied on, commented that records made public so far reveal the "infiltration of activist meetings, dossiers on activists’ political affiliations ... and more spying on individuals who have never committed any crime and were never suspected of committing any crimes."

Red, White & Blue Herring?

2008-11-24T18:00:00.000-08:00

From O'Dwyer's Blog:

New York media treasure Pete Hamill and New York Times columnist Bill Kristol erupted into a verbal brawl yesterday over the Pentagon’s ban on showing pictures of coffins of returning soldiers from Iraq.

Voice of the people Hamill can’t get enough of them, while the editor of the conservative Weekly Standard sees it all a bit unseemly.

Kristol defended the restriction as a “matter of taste.” Hamill, a former columnist and editor-in-chief of both the New York Daily News and New York Post, wants as many coffin pictures as it takes to arouse public opinion against the continued occupation of Iraq. He wants images of “blood on the ground.” Kristol retorted that people understand soldiers die in wars. Americans, after all, are not “idiots,” he said.

Hamill bemoaned tight military control over the media that was instituted after Vietnam, where reporters could go anywhere they wanted to report on the fighting. Kristol doesn’t believe the current media are hindered by the Pentagon. He noted that CBS, a mainstream media outfit, broke the news about Abu Ghraib.

I can't help but feel this deflects attention away from serious military-media efforts.

Game Cream

2008-11-24T17:54:00.000-08:00

From Danger Room:

The Army's Training and Doctrine Command is getting ready to pour $50 million into videogames that'll help troops get ready for combat.

Development won't start until 2010, Stars & Stripes reports. The games themselves wont be ready until 2015. By then, the U.S. military will be in its eighth decade, using games to prep troops for war -- starting with primitive, 1940s flight simulators bought from a Coney Island amusement park.

This isn't the Army's first stab at developing games, either. In 1999, the Army teamed up with gaming and Hollywood pros to found the Institute for Creative Technologies in Los Angeles; it's become one of the world's most advanced schools for simulation-building. 2002 saw the debut of the wildly-successful shoot-em-up, America's Army, developed by the military as a recruiting tool. In 2004, the Army set up a videogame studio in North Carolina. Last year, Training and Doctrine Command opened a new office for gaming.

While soldiers wait to see the results from the Army's latest, $50 million gaming venture, troops around the world will get new gaming consoles.

Leslie Duvow, project director for gaming at PEO-STRI (Program Executive Office - Simulation and Training), tells Stars & Stripes that the Army will have 70 gaming systems in 53 locations in the United States, Germany, Italy and South Korea by September 2009.

Science Cream

2008-11-24T17:51:00.000-08:00

From PR Watch:

Science reporting "is more and more the direct product of PR shops," according to Charles Petit, a veteran science reporter who runs MIT’s online Knight Science Journalism Tracker. Petit says information spoon-fed to reporters through news releases has "become a powerful subversive tool eroding the chance that reporters will craft their own stories." Cristine Russell reports that "institutional news offices from universities, government research agencies, and corporations are putting out large press packages that provide well-written press releases, graphics, and even video in a form that can be used directly by news outlets that are hungry for stories but lack the resources, time, and/or experience to do more thorough reporting. ... Institutional publicity operations are becoming more sophisticated at the same time that newsrooms are decimating the ranks of fulltime specialty science staff."

DoD Cream

2008-11-24T17:46:00.000-08:00

Sorry to my *ahem* loyal readers for the brief hiatus. School etc. etc. I'll try to keep posting up, even if commentary is at a minimum.

From Danger Room:

Give the boys in the Pentagon credit; they've got chutzpah. While the federal government hemorrhages money -- and everyone from Goldman Sachs to General Motors to the city of Philadelphia is looking for more Washington cash -- the Defense Department is getting ready to ask for its biggest budget yet. The Pentagon is telling the Obama transition team that it wants $581 billion for the next fiscal year, an increase of $67 billion. And that doesn't even count cash needed to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The cash request "includes $524 billion in spending authority approved by the White House Office of Management and Budget this spring... as well as $57 billion in additional needs the Office of the Secretary of Defense identified over the summer," reports Inside Defense.

The final figure does includes some money -- $12 billion -- to pay for a few "predictable war costs," Inside Defense adds. But that's less than what operations in Afghanistan and Iraq cost every month.

In contrast, President Bush inherited a Pentagon budget that was a mere $302 billion.

DND Cream

2008-11-24T17:24:00.000-08:00

From David Pugliese:

Ottawa, ON – On Friday, the Raging Grannies will protest the Ross Munro Media Award, an award handed out yearly by the Conference of Defence Associations (CDA) to a journalist who covers military issues. The CDA receives significant funding and support from the Department of National Defence. The 2008 award, which carries a cash prize of $2,500, will be given to Le Devoir journalist Alec Castonguay during the CDA’s Vimy Dinner ceremony at the Canadian War Museum.

“The Raging Grannies are deeply concerned about this cozy relationship between the media and an organization that is receiving $500,000 from the federal government to ‘support’ its efforts in building public support for the war in Afghanistan,” said Ria Heynen, a member of the Raging Grannies.

“Frankly, this award should be shunned by journalists who are as concerned as we are about the integrity and independence of journalism in Canada,” said Jo Wood, another member of the Raging Grannies.

“Journalists must say no to the CDA’s Ross Munro Award,” said Wood

Christie Blatchford has, of course, already won it.

Support the Troops this Remberance/Veterans Day

2008-11-11T14:20:00.000-08:00

On Veterans Day, 15 Vets of Iraq and Afghanistan Face Trial for Antiwar Protest. Today, on Veterans Day, we turn to the voices of veterans who are speaking out about the crimes they committed and the impact of the war on their lives.

Read on.

Ding Dong....

2008-10-22T15:10:00.000-07:00

Allison Barber resigns.

Some Thoughts on Information & Influence

2008-10-22T14:31:00.000-07:00

Taking issue with my criticisms of DoD Public Affairs, a reader raises several important issues, which I have turned into two pointed questions:

- Are facts opposed to emotions?
- Is it possible to inform without influencing?

What is interesting here is that these questions deal the issue of information content. They concern the emotional, influential, and factual with respect to the content of messages. In my article I note two reasons for being skeptical about the effectiveness of the Hodes amendment in curbing DoD propaganda, and neither of them deal with information content. To recap, I suggest that the Hodes amendment will be ineffective because it, (1) fails to define propaganda in any normative way, and (2) it ignores Public Affairs, and the structural organization of DoD propaganda. If I simply answer these questions about what is appropriate Public Affairs content, I immediately lose, because propaganda is less about message content, and more about the institutional structures that produce it.

That said, the issues the reader raises, especially the second, are increasingly used as the intellectual justification for expanding Information Operations, and I would be remiss in not addressing them.

What is important for answering these question is a focus on how we’re using these terms. In the example my reader gives, there is no conflict between facts and emotions because he is using the word “fact” to denote the existence of emotions, i.e., it is a fact that John Doe was nervous. In this sense there is no real way in which facts are fundamentally opposed to emotions. This is not the issue however. The real question is: Are emotions opposed to objective reasoning? The doctrine I quoted seems to suggest that it is:

Psychological operations (PSYOP) are planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals.

Propaganda is defined as, “any form of communication in support of national objectives designed to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, or behavior of the people of the United States in order to benefit the sponsor, either directly or indirectly.”

I’ll be the first to admit that these definitions are perhaps too broad, and could conceivably be thought to apply to regular political discussion or debates, but there is the sense here of a very common-sense understanding of the difference between “understanding” and “feeling”. It has its basis in an enlightenment way to thinking that wants to separate reason from unreason. The idea that PSYOP intends to influence “objective reasoning” actually says a lot about the philosophical position of joint doctrine. What’s causing the trouble here is that this more or less “modernist” way of thinking about propaganda is being opposed by the “postmodern” ideas that pervade the new way of IO thinking. The idea that “one cannot inform without influencing” seems to be a call to arms for IOers who seem to be aware that joint doctrine is philosophically antiquated.

The popularity of this trope is widespread, and its truth generally taken for granted. To the extent that the idea of “influence” is a flexible one, any form of information can be thought to have influential consequences. Influence, to the extent that it is a conceivable thing, is a behaviorist concept, and will be for this reason, at best, difficult to to define. Everyone can agree, however, that the word “influence” has everyday, non-controversial meaning and use. And it is this everyday usage [I walked to work (influence) because the the price of gas was so high (information)] that the new IOers use to sell the idea that one cannot inform without influencing. The crux of this argument is that information and influence are equivalent. The argument goes:

Because all information influences, it is impossible to inform without influencing. Because it is impossible to inform without influencing, Public Affairs should be allowed to influence.

What happens, however, when we turn this idea on its head? How does “one cannot influence without informing” sound? By turning the equation around we get the sense in which the equivalence of information and influence is a false one. Indeed, in this iteration the subordination of information to influence becomes apparent, and in both cases, the latter term is a by-product of the first. All information produces some measure of influence (broadly defined), and all influence requires some measure of information (broadly defines), but simply because one is required for the other does not create an equivalence between these terms.

Public Affairs has a mandate to inform the public. Arguing that all information produces influential by-products does not constitute a mandate to turn this formula on its head; to engage in influence operations that produce informational by-products. The separation of information and influence, like the separation of reason and emotion, are not perfect ones. Like the modernist project itself, these separations are intellectual edifices, but they are useful ones. Arguing that the absence of “pure Reason” or “pure Information” leaves us with nothing that we can call “reason” or “information” does us a great disservice, and we should be cautious when these arguments are used as justifications for expanding the structural and institutional control of our information environment.

New Recruitment Ads

2008-10-21T13:39:00.001-07:00

From DoD Press Releases:

“The Department of Defense recognizes that parents are a key factor in young people’s decisions to join the military,” said Matt Boehmer, director of Joint Advertising Market Research and Studies (JAMRS).

“There are few things as influential as the parents’ advice and support. That’s why we want parents to know the facts [about military service],” said Air Force Maj. Michele A. Gill with JAMRS. JAMRS is a small office located in Arlington, Va., not far from the Pentagon. It places advertising and conducts research for the Defense Department, which it shares with each military service’s recruiting command.

But the program is not a recruiting agency, Gill said, and its primary focus is on educating those influential in the decisions of potential recruits. This ad campaign targets the middle-aged parents of young adults between 17 and 22 years old. In fact, Gill said, it is simply the conversation about military service they are after, not necessarily an endorsement of military service from the parent. DoD officials want military service to be considered as an option equally with college or vocational training, she said.

Not an endorsement? You decide:

Were I not a keen, rational observer of media, I might think that joining the military is important; will impress my parents; is something I was meant to do; is doing something that is bigger than myself; will make a difference; will prove I'm a leader; is honorable; will make my dad respect me; is something mom, and probably girls in general, just don't understand; will fulfill my romantic ideas of stoicism; will be just like football; and perhaps most importantly, will prove that I'm an adult.

DMA Up and Running

2008-10-21T13:28:00.000-07:00

Awkwardly shot video from DoD:

“This transformational change in public affairs will improve the effectiveness and efficiency of DoD’s internal communications capabilities while continuing to provide unparalleled support for those who serve our nation,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Robert T. Hastings. “Ensuring the continued free flow of timely and accurate news and information to our military personnel is the primary mission of DMA.”

“I think it is one of the most exciting things to happen to DoD Public Affairs in a long time. It’s our opportunity to change the way we deliver news and information to our internal audience,” said Hastings.

I like how the name "Defense Media Activity" implies a verb, not a noun, like the "Ministry of Truth" would.

Defense Department, Entertainment Division

2008-10-21T13:07:00.000-07:00

Hat tip again to Danger Room:

The Air Force's latest killer drone, the MQ-9 Reaper, plays a key role in the new action flick Eagle Eye. But shooting the drone meant getting Pentagon permission.
The film crew's access was managed by the Pentagon's Entertainment Liaison Office, which previously provided F-22s to Iron Man and F-22s, V-22s, ships and helicopters to Transformers. What does the Pentagon get in return for all this hardware?

Publicity, and significant input on the script. On Eagle Eye, that meant adding a character who "allowed us to depict the Air Force as being on the front lines of the war on terrorism," according to Colonel Francisco Hamm, who heads the air service's Hollywood efforts.
Nobody seems terribly alarmed at the Pentagon's growing influence in Hollywood. Well, almost nobody. "The Pentagon is managing to keep a steady stream of pro-military blockbusters in front of young eyes" despite some less-than-stellar performances in real wars overseas, Nick Turse, from Tomdispatch.com, wrote during Iron Man's $320-million run.

Cult of the Amateur?

2008-10-21T12:34:00.000-07:00

H/t to Danger Room for bringing up this interesting bit on the "legitimacy" of blogs:

In the wake of allegations [against the Navy], two popular Coast Guard-centric blogs filed Freedom of Information Act requests asking for documentation related to the [allegation].
The Coast Guard replied that it would cost $18,000 to provide the documents. Locating them would "require the Coast Guard to undertake a largely manual search of voluminous data," the service told Peter Stinson of Unofficial Coast Guard Blog.

Media are eligible for fee waivers in cases like this, but blogs don't yet count as media, the Coast Guard insisted. The service called blogs "a new and evolving area of the law."

Highlights from the Navy's response:

Whether alternative media (i.e. bloggers) are eligible for categorization as "representative of the news media" is an evolving legal issue based on the extent to which the alternative media has infused its content with sufficient journalistic rigor and whether it is organized and operated to publish or broadcast news to the public. Simply put, not all online content constitutes journalism that warrants the cost of FOIA production to be borne by the American taxpayer. This is not a value judgment on the content of a blog or other online site, it is simply the application of federal law and guidelines.

If blogs really do constitute a "cult of amateurs", then why aren't the "professionals" filing these FOIA requests? Usually I'd dismiss these kinds of haters as luddites, or you know, idiots, but here the "professional/credentialed" meme is acutally getting the way of real journalism.

Military + Marketing = Malarky?

2008-10-21T11:58:00.000-07:00

More from WaPo's Walter Pincus on U.S. media efforts in Iraq:

The U.S. military is planning a large polling and focus-group operation in Iraq over the next three years to help "build robust and positive relations with the people of Iraq and to assist the Iraqi people in forming a new government," according to a proposal seeking private contractors for the program.

The $15 million-a-year initiative will supplement the military's $100 million-a-year strategic communications operation, which aims to produce content for Iraqi media that will "engage and inspire" the population. The proposed polling contract, which has yet to be awarded, would centralize activities currently conducted by four different commands within Multi-National Force-Iraq and the Psychological Operations and Information Operations task forces.
As with the media activity, the fact that the polls and focus groups are financed by the U.S. military may not be revealed to participants.

Last year RAND published a manuscript, pictured above, titled "Enlisting Madison Avenue: The Marketing Approach to Earning Popular Support in Theaters of Operation". In it they suggest the "segmentation of the population" as part of larger efforts to applying marketing and advertising principles to America's counterinsurgency wars. Looks like someone's been listening! They also suggest applying branding concepts to the US Forces. PR Week reports:

The US Navy Seals recently awarded Washington-based Gallup Consulting a six-month, $500,000 contract to help it develop a new branding and marketing strategy.

Damn these people are good! Finally, DoD dropping some free market science. Nevermind that,

[A] former official noted that $15 million is far more than the State Department allocates annually for its polling activities worldwide.
The expansion of military involvement in such activities, which were once the province of the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), is raising concerns not only on Capitol Hill but also inside the Defense Department.

Last week, House and Senate conferees said in their report on the fiscal 2009 defense appropriations bill that the Pentagon's enormous resources are upsetting the "appropriate balance of the civilian and military instruments of national security," adding that neither Pentagon interests nor national interests "are well served by this institutional shift of responsibility . . . from U.S. civilian agencies to the military."
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has repeatedly called for Congress to provide additional funds to the State Department and USAID. Last month, during an appearance at the National Defense University, Gates said that until civilian agencies are able, the military "will probably end up carrying most of the burden" of reconstruction.

Ban, Ban, Propaganda-Ban

2008-10-08T10:54:00.000-07:00

Introduction

In response to the recent “Pentagon Pundit” scandal surrounding the United States Department of Defense’s coordinated use of retired military officials as “message force multipliers”(1) during the lead up to the Iraq War, (Barstow, 2008) Congress has passed an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009 stipulating that, “no part of any funds authorized to be appropriated in this or any other Act shall be used by the Department of Defense for propaganda purposes within the United States not otherwise specifically authorized by law.” (as cited in Karina, 2008)

Though it is difficult to speculate, it is reasonable to suggest that the amendment, having received little media attention, will fail to curb Department of Defense propaganda. An initial difficulty arises from the fact that the word “propaganda” is often used as a pejorative that does not suggest a normative range of activities to curtail. In what follows we shall examine the doctrinal structure of Department of Defense Public Affairs – the office that organized the Pentagon Pundits – with a focus on one if its prominent public relations campaigns, “America Supports You.” We shall argue that a shift in Public Affairs is underway that is transforming it from a passive information service to a proactive propaganda effort, and that any legislative effort to reduce or eliminate propaganda must look seriously at this institution.

What are Public Affairs?

The Department of Defense conducts a wide range of informational activities that loosely fall under the umbrella term “Information Operations” (IO). For the purposes of this study we shall focus on “Public Affairs”, a related capability of Information Operations, as it is the organization tasked with relaying information to the American public.(2) To understand the role of Public Affairs, however, it is important to understand its relationship to the wider array of Department of Defense Information Operations. To this end it is worthwhile to become familiar with Department of Defense doctrine. Joint Publication 3-13 on Information Operations defines Information Operations as,

the integrated employment of electronic warfare (EW), computer network operations (CNO), psychological operations (PSYOP), military deception (MILDEC), and operations security (OPSEC), in concert with specified supporting and related capabilities, to influence, disrupt, corrupt, or usurp adversarial human and automated decision making while protecting our own. (Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2006, p. 18)

There are three military functions, public affairs (PA), civil-military operations (CMO), and defense support to public diplomacy, specified as related capabilities for IO. (Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2006, p. 11)

Commentators on Information Operations (Paul, 2008) note that the five pillars of Information Operations make for strange bedfellows, due to the fact that EW and CNO concern information systems, while PSYOP, MILDEC, OPSEC and the related capabilities concern information content and development. For the purposes of this inquiry we shall limit ourselves to an examination of the elements of Information Operations that involve the development of information content. In particular we shall focus on Psychological Operations and Public Affairs.

Joint Publication 3-53 on Psychological Operations states that,

the effectiveness of deterrence hinges on US ability to influence the perceptions of others. Psychological operations (PSYOP) are planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals. The purpose of PSYOP are to induce or reinforce foreign attitudes and behavior favorable to the originator’s objectives. (Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2003, p. 16)

In contrast to Psychological Operations, which seek to influence foreign audiences, Public Affairs targets an American audience, but according to doctrine uses only truthful and accurate information. Joint Publication 3-61 on Public Affairs states that,

PA capabilities are related to IO, but PA is not an IO discipline or psychological operations (PSYOP) tool. PA activities contribute to IO by providing truthful, accurate and timely information, using approved DOD public affairs guidance to keep the public informed about the military’s missions and operations, countering adversary propaganda, deterring adversary actions, and maintain trust and confidence of the US population, and our friends and allies. PA activities affect, and are affected by, PSYOP, and are planned and executed in coordination with PSYOP planning and operations. PA must be aware of the practice of PSYOP, but should have no role in planning or executing these operations. (Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2005, p. 12)

The danger that Public Affairs will overstep its bounds, engaging the American public with Psychological Operaitons, is always a source of tension. The charge of propaganda, therefore, is vigorously denied. As a September, 2000 Department of Defense directive to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs states,

a free flow of general and military information will be made available, without censorship or propaganda, to the men and women of the Armed Forces and their dependents.

The Department of Defense’s obligation to provide the public with information on its major programs may require detailed public affairs planning and coordination within the Department of Defense and with the other Government agencies. The sole purpose of such activity is to expedite the flow of information to the public; propaganda has no place in DoD public affairs programs. (United States Department of Defense, 2000, p. 8)

It is widely accepted in Joint Doctrine that Public Affairs must be closely affiliated with Psychological Operations so as to avoid projecting conflicting messages. However, the operational and planning relationship between Public Affairs and Psychological Operations is a contentious one. Traditional Public Affairs culture holds that Public Affairs missions are to inform, not influence, (Glenn, Helmus, & Paul, 2007) while Psychological Operations are explicitly designed to persuade.(3) Plainly, this means, as Former head Public Affairs Officer for Afghanistan Lieutenant Colonel Pamela Keeton writes, “Public Affairs is charged with informing the public with factual, truthful information, while IO and PSYOP seek to influence their audiences to change perceptions or behavior.” (Keeton & McCann, 2005, p. 84)

This traditional view of Public Affairs as a passive conduit for information is, however, being challenged. As former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wrote in an opinion piece for the Los Angeles Times in 2006,

the standard U.S. government public affairs operation was designed primarily to respond to individual requests for information. It tends to be reactive, rather than proactive, and it operates for the most part on an eight hour, five-days-a-week basis, while world events – and our enemies – are operating 24/7 across every time zone. That is an unacceptably dangerous deficiency. (Rumsfeld, 2006)

Similarly, the Air Force is unequivocal about the role Public Affairs should play in consciously shaping public opinion:

Influence Operations are operations focused on affecting the perceptions and behaviors of leaders, groups, or entire populations by projecting operations, communicating military perspective, and projecting information to achieve desired efforts across the cognitive domain. These effects should result in modified behavior or a change in the adversary's decision cycles that will align with the commander's objectives. Public affairs operations are an important military capability of influence operations [emphasis in original]. (United States Air Force, 2005 p. 10)

There is a growing inconsistency between the letter of Public Affairs doctrine and its execution. Propaganda is always vigorously denied, but subtler euphemisms arise, be it Rumsfeld’s, “proactive public affairs” or the Air Force’s, “influence operations”. Having now some familiarity with the structure of Public Affairs, we shall examine some of its output, specifically the “America Supports You” public relations campaign.

Targeting Local Media

“America Supports You” is a joint public relations effort between the Department of Defense and Susan Davis International, a public relations firm that has recently been offered upwards of $6.5 million for its work at the Pentagon. (Schogol, 2008) Launched in 2004 by Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Liaison and Internal Communications Allison Barber, the campaign falls under the jurisdiction of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs.

At the annual “America Supports You” summit in January of 2008, high ranking employees of Susan Davis International held a seminar at the Pentagon titled “How to Target Local Media.” (Whittlesey, Mosher & Preitkis, 2008) The seminar instructs “homefront groups”(4) on how to publicize their efforts in their local media. Aavailable online through the Pentagon’s new media channel, (ibid) the seminar is largely instructional, teaching participants how to create press lists; how write press releases; how to prepare for television, radio or print interviews; how to configure cameras for print-quality photos, etc.

Particularly interesting, however, are the two overarching themes that the seminar develops, namely the “laziness” of reporters, and the subsequent prioritization of emotional over factual or informational news coverage.

The economic incentives that give rise to the “laziness” of reporters and “human interest” news – media conglomeration, newsroom budget cuts, and pressure to attract to ever wider audiences – are often cited as obstacles to a journalistic establishment that benefits democracy and operates in the public interest.(5) It is interesting that, far from lamenting lazy reporters and overly-emotional news, the Susan Davis team frames them as an asset. “The media landscape is changing, and it is changing rapidly” notes Judy Whittlesey, executive vice president of Susan Davis. “The stories that really resonate in the local news are the stories of human beings, the personal stories, so you have something that the media needs.” (Whittlesey et. al, 2008)

The theme of employing the emotional over the informational becomes a motif of the Susan Davis presentation. The seminar is explicit about the importance of targeting the emotions of media consumers. Early in the presentation, Whittlesey explains that local media is particularly important because of the emotional relationship it enjoys with its public:

Local media is so popular. I think we’re all aware, that there’s been over the last 4 or 5 years, a lot of media bashing. People have negative attitudes toward the media in general. Telling scary stories, telling bad stories, not necessarily telling the good news stories, but the Pew research center has documented over several years that nobody feels that way about their hometown paper. It’s very important in every community. The local paper is always such an important resource, even when people aren’t feeling so great about media generally, the local paper enjoys a special position in most people’s heart. (Whittlesey et. al, 2008)

Consider also the following statements from various points in the Susan Davis presentation:

The media is sick of telling these negative stories. They want to hear these positive stories about what you all are doing to help the troops. So, you have them, and you can use them for your number one resource.

Photos are really important. It’s a really good way to show your story as opposed to tell your story.

Every reporter will say this to you “how does that make you feel?” They want emotions. So get impassioned. (Whittlesey et. al, 2008)

The Susan Davis presentation suggests a media focus on personal stories; on the sense of community that local media creates; on the visual over the textual; on the emotional over the factual. We submit that the American Supports You preference for the emotional over the informational challenges Public Affairs’ traditional role as a simple source of information. Moreover, it is indicative of a transformation in Public Affairs thinking that sees itself playing an active role in shaping the experiences of the American public. To see how these principles are applied in the America Supports You campaign’s own work, we shall look at one its most successful efforts.

The “America Supports You” Freedom Walk

These explicit efforts of emotional appeal targeted at American citizens should inform how we think about what is perhaps the America Supports You campaign’s most successful event, the American Supports You “Freedom Walk.” Available online through the The Pentagon’s Video Blog, part of its new media initiative, is a short video explaining the Freedom Walks. (United States Department of Defense, 2008)

Ostensibly a commemoration of the September 11th attacks, the Freedom Walks organize citizens from communities around the United States to, “reflect on the lives lost September 11, 2001, to remember those who responded, to honor our veterans and to renew our commitment to freedom.” (ibid) The Freedom Walks, however, employ the strategies discussed in the Susan Davis ‘How to Target Local Media’ seminar. Allison Barber’s comments are particularly telling:

We create an experience for our citizens that resonates, so it's real. The people who were here at the first freedom walk, it made sense to them to be a part of an America Supports You Freedom Walk, and they took that idea back to their community, and the America Supports You Freedom Walk has become a new national tradition. And I think it becomes a new national tradition because it makes great sense.

Its giving people the opportunity to say we won't forget what happened on this tragic day in our country. Just as importantly we will come together as a community or a classroom, or a school, church, a boy scout group, a corporation, it doesn't matter. We'll come together and say we won't forget what happened and we'll move together as a community to focus on our future as a nation. (ibid)

Barber is surprisingly candid about the purpose of the Freedom Walks. “We create an experience for our citizens that resonates” says Barber, “so it's real.” (ibid) In light of what has been discussed above, the choice of the word “resonate” can reasonably be understood to imply a sense of emotional connection. Because of this emotional resonance, Barber says, the experience “is real.” There is, then, a sense in which the abstract idea of showing support for “the troops” becomes reified into a community experience that, as Barber twice mentions, “makes sense.”(6) This is, in our estimation, the overarching purpose of not only the America Supports You campaign, but of the “support our troops” trope in general: it provides a portion of the public a tool for situating their believes and opinions toward a political matter – the war – that does not require actual political thought or engagement. To the extent that the Department of Defense is involved in the de-politicization of attitudes concerning their activities, they will be open to the charge of creating propaganda.

The Department of Defense’s role in organizing and publicizing Freedom Walks arguably crosses the line between informational Public Affairs and influential Psychological Operations. One of the core elements of Psychological Operations involves influencing the emotions and objective reasoning of a population. In explicitly targeting the emotional dimension of its public, the America Supports You campaign clearly crosses this line.(7) Though it is more difficult to prove, it can also be argued that the campaign interferes with the objective reasoning of the public. Insofar as the Freedom Walks link support for the troops (and tacitly their mission in Iraq) with the September 11th attacks, they also reinforce lingering misconceptions about the link between America’s current military operations in Iraq and the September 11th attacks. A September 2003 poll by the Washington Post (Deane & Milbank, 2003) revealed that almost seventy percent of Americans believed at that time that Saddam Hussein was involved in the September 11th attacks, while a Zogby International poll (Zogby International, 2006) showed that as recently as 2006, as many as fourty-six percent of Americans still made the same connection. It is unlikely that the Department of Defense is unaware of this conflation, therefore careful attempts to aesthetically link the two appears as a calculated effort to obstruct objective reasoning, a staple of PSYOP practice.

What is to be Done?

Current Public Affairs practices have gone well beyond their traditional role of passively transmitting information, to actively setting media agendas within the United States. The Pentagon Pundit Scandal revealed this agenda setting on a national level, and the America Supports You campaign is indicative of efforts to set agendas at a local level. As mentioned at the outset, Congress has passed an amendment that will ban the Department of Defense of from engaging the American public with propaganda, whereas propaganda is defined as, “any form of communication in support of national objectives designed to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, or behavior of the people of the United States in order to benefit the sponsor, either directly or indirectly.” (as cited in Karina, 2008)

Reasons for skepticism abound. The difficulty of limiting propaganda is in this case exacerbated by the fact that the word “propaganda” is being used simply as a pejorative label that does not suggest a normative range of activities. The congressional definition is broad enough to render it inapplicable, therefore alternative criteria for what constitutes acceptable communication must be established. Perhaps it is not too surprising that such a framework is suggested by former head of Public Affairs for Afghanistan, Lieutenant Colonel Pamela Keeton:

Public affairs’ function is to provide factual, timely information, not to affect public opinion by leading grassroots efforts or engaging in lobbying. Public affairs does not exist to create news or overtly influence public opinion; it exists to provide factual information so its audience can make informed opinions. (Keeton & McCann, 2005, p. 84)

This simple statement provides a basis for thinking about normative rules about what types of communication are and are not in the best interest of the public. Moreover, Keeton’s definition of Public Affairs is closer in keeping with the anti-propaganda bent of actual Public Affairs doctrine. The sentiment of the Congressional amendment is laudable, but without greater engagement with the praxis of propaganda, little progress can be made to curtail it.

A second occasion for skepticism regarding the Congressional amendment comes about with respect to the Department of Defense’s establishment of a central media agency called the Defense Media Activity (DMA). Established in January of 2008, the Defense Media Activity will fall under the jurisdiction of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs. The Washington Post reports that the Defense Media Activity,

combines formerly separate Pentagon media organizations. The primary mission of DMA, according to the directive that set it up, is to "provide a wide variety of information products to the entire DoD family." That "family" includes active, National Guard and Reserve service members; their dependents; retirees; Defense civilian and contract employees; and "external audiences." [emphasis mine]

Along with communicating "messages and themes" from senior Defense officials, DMA will provide radio and television news and entertainment programming.

No other department in government has so large an internal communications operation whose work is also designed for public consumption. (Pincus, 2008)

The establishment of the DMA signals a final departure from the traditional and doctrinal views of the Public Affairs establishment. By consolidating its media activities, the DMA will allow the Department of Defense to expand it’s ability to shape news coverage of its missions and operations. As the Washington Post reports, the DMA will provide, "throughout the Department of Defense and to the American public, high quality visual information products." (ibid) Considering that DMA’s oversight board will consist only of Public Affairs officials, most of which will be internal to the DMA itself, (ibid) there is little reason to believe that these information products will not engage in Psychological Operations.(8) If Congress is to take seriously the task of curbing Department of Defense propaganda it will need to examine the changing structure and activities of Defense Public Affairs. It is only by circumscribing an acceptable range of activities, while clearly defining those activities which are not acceptable, that the problems raised by the recent congressional amendment will be addressed.

NOTES

1 For an account of the extent to which the Pentagon set the media agenda in the lead up to the Iraq war, read David Barstow’s New York Times article, “Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand.” (Barstow, 2008)

2 The “Pentagon Pundit” scandal that inspired the anti-propaganda Congressional amendment was the work of Victoria Clarke, then Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs. The “America Supports You” public relations campaign we wish to examine is also a Public Affairs effort.

3 Within the military, PSYOP is commonly understood to be propaganda in a non-pejorative way. Defenders of PSYOP argue that it is “soft power”; that it can prevent physical conflict with an enemy, and should therefore be encouraged. This idea is, in theory, not without some merit.

4 “Homefront groups” are generally comprised of ordinary people, often families of service members, who make earnest, material efforts to improve the lives of active service members and veterans through the delivery of care packages, caring for returning veterans, etc. It is not our intention to criticize the actions of these groups. We wish, rather, to examine the work of the America Supports You public relations campaign that appropriates their efforts.

5 An examination of these factors is, unfortunately, outside the scope of this discussion. However it is interesting to note that declining standards for journalism create an the environment in which ordinary people can be instructed on how to shape the media environment. The Susan Davis presentation is very condescending toward the media, portraying them (perhaps not unfairly) as easily manipulated. Whittelsey suggests that,

reporters, they’re lazy. You can basically write this story form this press release, and that’s what you want to do. It’s got quotes from Allison [Barber], very important. Because the reporters will probably just put that quote right in the story. And for us, writing a press release, we know we’ve hit it when they steal our headline, and put it at the top of the story. . .The press release helps the reporter write the story. (Whittlesey et. al, 2008)

6 The Freedom Walks are particularly interesting in that, unlike the many “homefront groups” that provide material support for the troops, the Freedom Walks embody support that is entirely abstract, more as a point of view or attitude condensed into a community event.

7 Allison Barber succinctly reveals the America Supports You campaign’s purpose, saying, “what we have learned is that the American people are beginning to fatigue, even in their support for the troops. I don’t think we have a minute to lose when it comes to maximizing support for our military, especially in the new political environment.” (Cloud, 2007)

8 The Pentagon Pundit program was called “PSYOP on steroids” by former NBC military analyst Kenneth Allard, who has taught information warfare at the National Defense University. (Barstow, 2008)

WORKS CITED
(couldn't be bothered to format the bib properly. It's a blog people)

Barstow, D. (2008, April 20). Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand. New York Times,
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/washington/20generals.html

Cloud, D. (2007, May 12). Pentagon Opens Inquiry of Troop-Support Group. New York Times,
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/12/washington/12pentagon.html

Deane, C. & Milbank, D. (2003, September 6). Hussein Link to 9/11 Lingers in Many Minds.
Washington Post, p. A1.

Glenn R., Helmus T. & Paul C. (2007) Enlisting Madison Avenue: The Marketing Approach to
Earning Popular Support in Theaters of Operation. Santa Monica: RAND.

Joint Chiefs of Staff (2006), Information Operations, Joint Publications 3-13, United States
Department of Defense.

Joint Chiefs of Staff (2003), Doctrine for Joint Psychological Operations, Joint Publications
3-53, United States Department of Defense.

Joint Chiefs of Staff (2005), Doctrine for Public Affairs in Joint Operations, Joint Publications
3-61, United States Department of Defense.

Karina (2008). House Passes Amendment calling for an Investigation of the Pentagon’s
“Information Dominance” Program. The Gavel. http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=1356.

Keeton, P. & McCann M. (2005). Information Operations, STRATCOM, and Public Affairs.
Military Review. November-December, 83-86.

Paul, C. (2008) Information Operations: Doctrine and Practice. Westport: Praeger Security
International.

Pincus, W. (2008, August 25) New Pentagon Media Agency Seeks to Fill Top Job. Washington
Post, p. A15.

Rumsfeld D. (2006, February 23). War in the Information Age. Los Angeles Times, p. B13.

Schogol, J. (2008, February 10). Report: DoD may award PR contract for America Supports
You. Stars and Stripes, Mideast Edition.
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=59775&archive=true.

United States Air Force (2005). Public Affairs Operations, AFDD 2-5.3

United States Department of Defense (2000). Directive 5122.5.
http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/512205p.pdf.

United States Department of Defense (2008, August 6). Nation Prepares for Freedom Walk
98. New Media Vlog August 6,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAtYog695cQ

Whittlesey, J., Mosher, L., & Preitkis, D. (2008). How to Target Local Media. Seminar
conducted at the ‘American Supports You Summit’, Virginia, United States.
http://www.dodvclips.mil/?fr_story=FRdamp245235&rf=sitemap

Zogby International. (2006). 9/11 + 5 Reveals Dramatic Partisan Split. Retrieved September
10, 2008, http://www.zogby.com/News/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1169.

FCC Does Something, Millions Shocked

2008-10-08T10:42:00.000-07:00

From PR Watch:

The Federal Communications Commission has begun notifying several TV military analysts that it is probing congressional complaints that the pundits did not properly disclose their ties to the Pentagon when reviewing the war in Iraq on air," reports Paul Bedard. The FCC sent letters to some of the so-called "Pentagon pundits" on October 2, in response to a complaint filed with the agency by Representatives John Dingell and Rosa DeLauro. Several of the pundits named in the New York Times expose of the Pentagon pundit program were employees of or lobbyists for military contractors. The FCC letter to the pundits "suggests that TV stations and networks may have violated two sections of the Communications Act of 1934 by not identifying the ties to the Pentagon." The agency is asking the pundits "to respond to the allegations of wrongdoing within 30 days.

Excuse me? The FCC? Alright, let's see where this goes.

Also, PR Watch calls bullshit on Congress' recent "Propaganda ban" against the Pentagon. I called bullshit awhile ago in a paper I wrote, which I think I'll post [above]. Basically the Dems are passing a law against propaganda, defined broadly enough to encompass just about anything, and therefore nothing. It's the meaningless left-wing companion to "support our troops": everyone agrees, but it don't really mean anything.

$300 Million for Iraq PR

2008-10-08T10:18:00.000-07:00

PR Watch and MountainRunner both comment, but I'll leave you with highlights from WaPo's Walter Pincus:

The Defense Department will pay private U.S. contractors in Iraq up to $300 million over the next three years to produce news stories, entertainment programs and public service advertisements for the Iraqi media in an effort to "engage and inspire" the local population to support U.S. objectives and the Iraqi government.

The new contracts -- awarded last week to four companies -- will expand and consolidate what the U.S. Military calls "information/psychological operations" in Iraq far into the future, even as violence appears to be abating and U.S. troops have begun drawing down.

The military's role in the war of ideas has been fundamentally transformed in recent years, the result of both the Pentagon 's outsized resources and a counterinsurgency doctrine in which information control is considered key to success.

Folllow the link at the top to keep reading.

Brownback Bill

2008-09-30T20:30:00.000-07:00

...sounds like a gun-slinger, no? From MountainRunner:

Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) this week introduced S.3546 titled “The Strategic Communications Act of 2008.” The Senator knows the bill will not be passed in this Congress and feels more discussion on the subject matter is required. His bill is, in part, intended to provoke that discourse.

The National Center for Strategic Communication [which the bill would establish] is largely based on the National Counter Terrorism Center model. The bill recognizes that the current system is flawed and needs to be fixed. Driving this bill are concerns over present day quality of broadcasting, concerns over the Broadcasting Board of Governors, and a general failure of the public diplomacy apparatus to function effectively since 9/11.

Alright, I'm writing this post at the nudging of Matt from Mountainrunner. The bill can be found here. Basically the bill calls for the establishment of the "National Center for Strategic Communication", a USIA-like agency that would take over Public Diplomacy from State Department. Matt, Craig, Steve, and Kim Elliot have all commented on the bill, with two of the major criticisms being (1) the use of the term "Strategic Communication" and (2) the framing of the bill as a response to "radical Islam." Of the former Craig writes:

This bill’s terminological shift is political. If names and labels perform their own symbolic function – I would argue that “strategic communication” as a master term links what some call “public diplomacy” to the instrumental aspect of propaganda in the pejorative sense. Sure, it’s just a name. But Strategic Communication as generally understood doesn’t really connote more dialogue, listening, and culture-centric aspects that are less obviously instrumental or, well, manipulative. (of course, this may be changing in the way the DoD is wrestling with the term). This institution created overtly proclaims itself in a way that carries the historical baggage of propaganda and manipulation (it may as well be called the Ministry of Information) – perceptions that already exist in the crucial target audiences for the Center’s activities. Why play into the foreign suspicion of U.S. advocacy that masquerades as impartial international broadcasting? Symbols, names, and language matter.

While Steve thinks that Strategic Communications is dandy enough a term, I tend to think that Craig is right: people aren't going to be comfortable with that name, but perhaps that's not the point. As Matt points out, this bill wasn't introduced to be passed, it was introduced to spark discussion. "Strategic Communications" won't do as the name for the activity itself when its time comes, but it will get across the way the bill wants you to be thinking about US communications. I won't comment on the second. Using "radical Islam" to justify a national strategic communications apparatus is ridiculous for more reasons than the fact that it enforces perceptions of America as crusader.

Let's look at some of the meat (tofu?) of the bill. First it would sack that pesky subsection of Smith-Mundt that is commonly understood as a ban on domestic propaganda:

DISSEMINATION ABROAD OF INFORMATION ABOUT THE UNITED STATES.—
Title V of the United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948 (22 U.S.C. 1461) is amended—[...] by striking subsection (a)

The section of Smith-Mundt it repeals being:

The Secretary is authorized, when he finds it appropriate, to provide for the preparation, and dissemination abroad, of information about the United States, its people, and its policies, through press, publications, radio, motion pictures, and other information media, and through information centers and instructors abroad. Subject to subsection (b) of this section, any such information (other than “Problems of Communism” and the “English Teaching Forum” which may be sold by the Government Printing Office) shall not be disseminated within the United States, its territories, or possessions, but, on request, shall be available in the English language at the Department of State, at all reasonable times following its release as information abroad, for examination only by representatives of United States press associations, newspapers, magazines, radio systems, and stations, and by research students and scholars, and, on request, shall be made available for examination only to Members of Congress.

This is of course, what Matt has been pushing for, and is, indeed, one of the only things he really likes about the bill. Matt and I both agree that Smith-Mundt is an obsolete law, but whereas I believe it only to be functionally obsolete, Matt thinks it's ideologically obsolete. I won't throw down on Smith-Mundt at this point in time, but I will add that if we think that democracy, even in a vauge way, should be part of the law-making process, then you have to wonder what most Americans would think, were they hip to the game, about sacking a law that is generally construed as repsresenting their communications rights, without replacing it with another one that reflects the modern information environment. Regardless, the inclusion of a Smith-Mundt amendment in the Brownback bill shows that it's not just Matt and a few IO'ers that are interesting in sacking Smith-Mundt. Next:

(f) GENERAL AUTHORIZATION.—Subject to the direction of the President, the Director may design and implement programs and activities intended to achieve the missions described in subsection (e) through—
(1) the dissemination of truthful information across all forms of information media;
(2) information centers and instructors located outside of the United States;
(3) cooperative efforts with private, nonprofit, and nongovernmental organizations;
(4) joint initiatives with other agencies of the United States Government, as appropriate; and
(5) exchange programs.

Two points on this section. (1) & (3) in particular should remind us of something. If we combine "cooperative efforts with private, nongovernmental organizations" with "the dissemination of truthful information across all forms of information media" we basically get the Pentagon Pundit scandal. Matt blames the press for this debacle, but really at issue is a lack of oversight and agreed upon accepted methods for DoD communications. As Matt mentions,

the military constantly refers to law (and strategy documents) to see what they can do. There must be a channel established to permit and even encourage, but not necessarily legislate (which is what they want to avoid), the military to use the NCSC.

Of course it's in DoD's interest to avoid regulative communications legislation. What would become of the DMA if public interest guidelines were put on DoD? I'm assuming here that the Hodes amendment will fail to curb the Public Affairs activities it was enacted to curtail (post forthcoming). Anyway, (1) suggests the employment of only truthful information. This is interesting because it is a promise that comes up again and again in strategic communication literature (to use an umbrella term), but one that makes some practical and philosophical assumptions about the Truth that, at best, might not be realistic, and, at worst, dishonest. I will have more to say about this soon. (3) Raises the question of transparency. When attribution is in question, hidden attribution always indicates a black PSYOP. If the NCSC is going to be using adjuncts, what type of transparency can we expect? There are, after all, some blemishes on the old track record. Still, we're promised that the,

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR INFORMATION OPERATIONS.–
ensure[s] the transparency of the content of United States foreign broadcasts;

even though at the same time the,

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR GLOBAL NETWORKS.—
award[s] grants to private and nonprofit organizations to perform information operations consistent with the missions of the Center and the national strategic communications strategy;

These seem like pretty inimical goals. Maybe the private organizations that the NCSC commisions will make discolsures (ha), but if the FCC can't even get news stations to disclose advertising, what are the chances a NCSC will?

Further in this vein:

The national strategic communications strategy shall include the following components:

(2) Research activities, including research into the attitudes and behaviors of foreign audiences and assessments of past strategic communications efforts; and (C) the acquisition or development of editorial content, including content for Internet Web sites and print publications.
(3) Developing a more rigorous, research-based, targeted approach to strategic communications efforts differentiated for specific target audiences in various countries and regions.
(4) Developing rigorous monitoring and evaluation mechanisms.
(5) Making greater use of participation from private sector entities, academic institutions, not-for profit organizations, and other nongovernmental organizations in supporting strategic communications efforts.
(6) Using all available forms of information technology.

You could argue that nothing here is outside the regular business of a modern election campaign, but I'm still concerned about the permanent application of this type of communications apparatus that can deliberately (not just by proxy) target its own population. I'm relieved that this bill will be, for now, a non-starter. When the time is right for this kind of legislation (and there seems to be a sense of inevitability) my big worry is that, as Kim Elliott points out, foreign publics, being much, much smarter than the American public (his words), will be able to identify NCSC efforts for the propaganda they are, whereas the American public might not. Here's a question for the pro strategic communications crowd: What type of oversight would you put on a NCSC, or more importantly the DMA, to convince a weary public that it can trust them? Or is this putting the cart before the horse?

Nice PR, Denver Police

2008-09-30T10:48:00.001-07:00

The Denver police recently had T shirts made. Cute:

Imprisoned Afghan Journalist Freed

2008-09-23T11:25:00.000-07:00

Jawed Ahmad was finally released from Bagram prison in Afghanistan. He worked as a journalist for the Canadian news network CTV and was named an "enemy combatant" early in 2008, at which time he was tortured and accused of being a spy. He was held without charge for almost a year, and has been released with no explaination.

From the Globe and Mail:

[In] October [Mr. Ahmad] says he received a phone call from a male caller who described himself as a U.S. public-affairs officer who wanted to conduct an opinion survey of Afghan journalists. Mr. Ahmad agreed to meet the officer at KAF's main gate. A red pickup truck arrived, he said, and the driver asked him to climb inside.
They drove into the U.S. Special Forces compound at KAF, he said, and soon events started unfolding like a movie. His story from this point becomes impossible to verify.

"I had seen that film, Road to Guantanamo, and the same things were happening to me," he said.

His hands were bound with plastic ties, and he was hooded with a heavy bag. In the following days, he says, he was questioned, taunted, screamed at, beaten with chairs and slammed into walls.

US Army to Establish Permanent Domestic Force

2008-09-23T11:05:00.000-07:00

From Army Times:

The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys.
Now they’re training for the same mission — with a twist — at home.
Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.
this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities.

After 1st BCT finishes its dwell-time mission, expectations are that another, as yet unnamed, active-duty brigade will take over and that the mission will be a permanent one.

They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.

The brigade will not change its name, but the force will be known for the next year as a CBRNE Consequence Management Response Force, or CCMRF (pronounced “sea-smurf”).

I couldn't find any mainstream news source talking about this, just blogs.

Healthcare Giant Pressures Local Newspaper

2008-09-16T11:19:00.000-07:00

From PR Watch:

"A hospital complains about a reporter and pulls ads from the paper. The paper reassigns him. The paper -- offered three chances -- declines to deny that one caused the other," summarizes the Columbia Journalism Review. CJR was following up on a Wall Street Journal article about Carilion Health System, which is Roanoke, Virginia's sole healthcare provider. Since Carilion established a local monopoly, "health-insurance rates in Roanoke have gone from being the lowest in the state to the highest." In 2006, independent local doctors concerned about Carilion's impact on the community and their practices launched the "Coalition for Responsible Healthcare." Roanoke Times healthcare reporter Jeff Sturgeon reported on the controversy. But the paper "moved Mr. Sturgeon off the health-care beat after Carilion complained repeatedly about his coverage. Carilion says it communicated its displeasure to the paper's editors, but never asked that Mr. Sturgeon be reassigned. Carilion withdrew most of its advertising from the paper, but says it did that as part of a reallocation of its ad budget." Roanoke Times' managing editor told CJR, "We feel like we cover Carilion better than any other news media organization." But he wouldn't explain Sturgeon's reassignment to transportation, saying, "We don't get into personnel decisions and why we change beats."

Perfect example of Chomsky's "propaganda model" of the media. The journalist is now covering a different beat, declining to comment on what happened. He's just happy to still have his job I bet. I'm guessing he won't act up again.

Palin, Miliary Push Iraq-9/11 Link

2008-09-15T00:17:00.000-07:00

From the Washington Post:

Gov. Sarah Palin linked the war in Iraq with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, telling an Iraq-bound brigade of soldiers that included her son that they would "defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans."

The idea that the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein helped al-Qaeda plan the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a view once promoted by Bush administration officials, has since been rejected even by the president himself.

Col. Burt Thompson had arranged the deployment ceremony to coincide with the Sept. 11 anniversary as a symbol of the importance of the military. "That was intentional," Hyde said, describing the effort as a "theatrical" one.

Benjamin on War & Aesthetics

2008-09-14T23:58:00.000-07:00

Posting has been slow recently, mostly on account of me being back in school. This may also result, unfortunately, in my posts having an unnecessary and irrelevant cerebral bent. Ughh, sorry folks. I'll fight the academic socialization when possible. For now, I'll share with you the epilogue from Walter Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction:

The growing proletarianization of modern man and the increasing formation of masses are two aspects of the same process. Fascism attempts to organize the newly created proletarian masses without affecting the property structure which the masses strive to eliminate. Fascism sees its salvation in giving these masses not their right, but instead a chance to express themselves. The masses have a right to change property relations; Fascism seeks to give them an expression while preserving property. The logical result of Fascism is the introduction of aesthetics into political life. The violation of the masses, whom Fascism, with its Führer cult, forces to their knees, has its counterpart in the violation of an apparatus which is pressed into the production of ritual values.

All efforts to render politics aesthetic culminate in one thing: war. War and war only can set a goal for mass movements on the largest scale while respecting the traditional property system. This is the political formula for the situation. The technological formula may be stated as follows: Only war makes it possible to mobilize all of today’s technical resources while maintaining the property system. It goes without saying that the Fascist apotheosis of war does not employ such arguments. Still, Marinetti says in his manifesto on the Ethiopian colonial war:

“For twenty-seven years we Futurists have rebelled against the branding of war as anti-aesthetic ... Accordingly we state:... War is beautiful because it establishes man’s dominion over the subjugated machinery by means of gas masks, terrifying megaphones, flame throwers, and small tanks. War is beautiful because it initiates the dreamt-of metalization of the human body. War is beautiful because it enriches a flowering meadow with the fiery orchids of machine guns. War is beautiful because it combines the gunfire, the cannonades, the cease-fire, the scents, and the stench of putrefaction into a symphony. War is beautiful because it creates new architecture, like that of the big tanks, the geometrical formation flights, the smoke spirals from burning villages, and many others ... Poets and artists of Futurism! ... remember these principles of an aesthetics of war so that your struggle for a new literature and a new graphic art ... may be illumined by them!”

This manifesto has the virtue of clarity. Its formulations deserve to be accepted by dialecticians. To the latter, the aesthetics of today’s war appears as follows: If the natural utilization of productive forces is impeded by the property system, the increase in technical devices, in speed, and in the sources of energy will press for an unnatural utilization, and this is found in war. The destructiveness of war furnishes proof that society has not been mature enough to incorporate technology as its organ, that technology has not been sufficiently developed to cope with the elemental forces of society. The horrible features of imperialistic warfare are attributable to the discrepancy between the tremendous means of production and their inadequate utilization in the process of production – in other words, to unemployment and the lack of markets. Imperialistic war is a rebellion of technology which collects, in the form of “human material,” the claims to which society has denied its natural materrial. Instead of draining rivers, society directs a human stream into a bed of trenches; instead of dropping seeds from airplanes, it drops incendiary bombs over cities; and through gas warfare the aura is abolished in a new way.

“Fiat ars – pereat mundus”, says Fascism, and, as Marinetti admits, expects war to supply the artistic gratification of a sense perception that has been changed by technology. This is evidently the consummation of “l’art pour l’art.” Mankind, which in Homer’s time was an object of contemplation for the Olympian gods, now is one for itself. Its self-alienation has reached such a degree that it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order. This is the situation of politics which Fascism is rendering aesthetic. Communism responds by politicizing art

Poetry Break

2008-09-12T00:30:00.000-07:00

Talking about the military all the time can be a serious downer. I thought I'd take a Bling Cycle mental health break. Here's one of my favorite poems. It was written by Gerard Manley Hopkins in 1877. He thought it was the best thing he'd ever written. I have to agree. One thing Hopkins didn't realize, however, was that he actually wrote this poem about Charlie Parker, not Jesus. Honest mistake. I've fixed this in the body of the text. Enjoy.

THE WINDHOVER

To ~~Christ~~ Charlie Parker our Lord

I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

Globe Points to Taliban "Propaganda"

2008-09-08T09:34:00.000-07:00

'Taliban Learn to Win Key Propaganda Battles', Globe and Mail, Sept. 8, 2008.

The Taliban, once dismissed as too stupid to know they would lose if they dared to fight well-trained Canadian and allied troops, have proved themselves resilient, if still ill-equipped, warriors, learning from their early defeats and adapting to stage sophisticated attacks, inflicting serious casualties and winning key propaganda battles.

"They are showing greater political savvy, too," said a military analyst, who asked not to be further identified. "They understand they don't have to defeat us, they just have to defeat the will of the people back home."

"These spectacular attacks have psychological impact that far exceeds their tactical significance," said Christine Fair, a senior political scientist at U.S.-based think tank the Rand Corporation and an expert on Afghanistan. "But that is, of course, the point."

It's interesting that, despite the fact that most of this article details the increasing strength of the Taliban, the Globe chooses to frame the Taliban's tactical victories as propaganda. Framing the discussion in this way almost suggests that critical analysis of the war is equivalent to Taliban propaganda. It takes an extraordinary amount of doublethink to characterize the Taliban's tactical victories as propaganda, while hawking Christie Blatchford's latest emotional bludgeon as journalism:

They are the shadows on my heart, these soldiers. I didn't know them in the flesh (though I remember Capt. Snyder's sunlit face) but I know well some of those who served alongside them, and feel oddly connected to them all. It is part of the enduring hold the Canadian soldier has upon me. I can hardly bear reading or watching any news about the troops, and neither can I stop.

Obama and Ailes Call Truce?

2008-09-06T10:28:00.000-07:00

I watched the first part of Bill O'Reilly's interview with Obama, and was surprised at how much common ground they were finding. Obama's performance didn't surprise me, afterall it's important that he sells himself as a tough guy to the O'Reilly crowd. What did surprise me, however, was that O'Reilly behaved himself, and actually sought common ground. My first thought was that O'Reilly must be sucking up to the new boss. Then I came across this interesting article in Vanity Fair (h/t Andrew Sullivan):

Murdoch has traditionally liked politicians to come to him. His historic shift in the 1990s to Tony Blair came after Blair made a pilgrimage to Australia.
Obama, on the other hand, was snubbing Murdoch. Every time he reached out (Murdoch executives tried to get the Kennedys to help smooth the way to an introduction), nothing. The Fox stain was on Murdoch.

It wasn’t until early in the summer that Obama relented and a secret courtesy meeting was arranged. The meeting began with Murdoch sitting down, knee to knee with Obama, at the Waldorf-Astoria. The younger man was deferential—and interested in his story. Obama pursued: What was Murdoch’s relationship with his father? How had he gotten from Adelaide to the top of the world?

Murdoch, for his part, had a simple thought to share with Obama. He had known possibly as many heads of state as anyone living today—had met every American president from Harry Truman on—and this is what he understood: nobody got much time to make an impression. Leadership was about what you did in the first six months.

Then, after he said his piece, Murdoch switched places and let his special guest, Roger Ailes, sit knee to knee with Obama.

Obama lit into Ailes. He said that he didn’t want to waste his time talking to Ailes if Fox was just going to continue to abuse him and his wife, that Fox had relentlessly portrayed him as suspicious, foreign, fearsome—just short of a terrorist.

Ailes, unruffled, said it might not have been this way if Obama had more willingly come on the air instead of so often giving Fox the back of his hand.

A tentative truce, which may or may not have vast historical significance, was at that moment agreed upon.

Interesting that O'Reilly is admitting Iraq was the wrong war. Is there a cozying up here? I wonder where the rest of the interview will go:

Sears to Market Offical Military Apparel

2008-09-05T22:53:00.000-07:00

From PR Watch:

Sears has entered into a first-ever deal with the United States Military to market a new line of officially sanctioned, military-styled clothing to men, women and boys. The military has officially licensed a "soldier chic" line of clothing to Sears called the "All American Army Brand First Infantry Division" collection. The garb, to be launched in 550 Sears stores in October -- just in time for the holiday season -- consists of "authentic lifestyle reinterpretations" of regulation uniforms and military-issued gear like T-shirts, hooded sweatshirts, denim and other outerwear. The partnership is part of a marketing strategy to raise the public profile of the U.S. military. Sears already carries some military-themed merchandise on its Web site, like a Modern Military Figure Special Forces Soldier toy for ages 8 and up, a musical DVD titled "Death Chants, Breakdowns and Military Waltzes, Vol. 2," which lists song titles like "Cadaver Recovery Man" and "Mud & Guts," and a Self-esteem Zip Military Style Vest for Juniors.

Amy Goodman Arrested at RNC

2008-09-02T15:12:00.000-07:00

Its worth watching Amy and her producers talk about being arrested yesterday. Lots of footage showing how police were handling the press.

Kremlin Enters Media War, Hires PR Firm

2008-09-02T14:11:00.000-07:00

Highlights, from Reuters:

Russia easily won its brief war with Georgia, but despite a media blitz to project its side of the story, it concedes it still has a way to go to win the propaganda battle.
Facing an international outcry, the Kremlin finally weighed into the war of spin, granting a flurry of interviews with President Dmitry Medvedev to foreign media about Moscow's gamble in the Caucasus.
Observers say the Kremlin, which is being advised by New York-based public relations giant Omnicom Group, launched the unprecedented media access in an attempt to stem the tide of negative coverage of the conflict.

"Yes, naturally, certain conclusions will be made from this situation," a Kremlin source told Reuters. "Practice has shown that a confrontation in such situations is not limited to armed conflict and diplomatic battles but is carried through into the communications sphere. "Unlike the Georgian side, which has been praised by some for 'a successful information campaign', Russia had not prepared for this war

"In this information war we still have much to do, we have already spoken about this and we have received some very serious experience in the current situation," [Colonel-General Anatoly] Nogovitsyn told Reuters.
"Perhaps we did not fully appreciate the importance of the information bloc before," he said.

Brown on PD and Propaganda

2008-09-02T12:05:00.000-07:00

Somewhat interesting article by John Brown, who resigned from the State Department in 2003. Tries to etch out the line between Public Diplomacy and Propaganda. I think that thinking about this distinction is important. As my previous post highlights, the "firewall" problem results in an inability to protect domestic populations from propaganda targeted at foreign populations. If domestic populations are to be protected then, it seems to me that it must happen as a result of overall changes in what is permissible as an information operation. Brown's attempt to highlight some of the differences between acceptable and unacceptable practices is, I think, a step in the right direction:

Not long after 9/11, former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke, in a Washington Post article, “Get the Message Out” (October 28, 2001) asked a key question regarding the so-called “war on terror”:

How could a mass murderer who publicly praised the terrorists of Sept. 11 be winning the hearts and minds of anyone? How can a man in a cave outcommunicate the world's leading communications society?

What was needed to offset terrorists, Holbrooke wrote, was “public diplomacy, or public affairs, or psychological warfare, or -- if you really want to be blunt -- propaganda.”

Holbrooke is not the first person to equate public diplomacy[1] with propaganda[2]. Some public diplomacy supporters say it’s a no-nonsense tool of foreign policy that can win the struggle for hearts and minds (or propaganda, seen favorably, for example, by Mr. Holbrooke). Public diplomacy critics argue that it’s just a fancy term for prevarication and manipulation (again propaganda, but this time seen unfavorably).

Public diplomacy and propaganda, however, can’t be lumped together à la Holbrooke, either to support or criticize them. Think of two circles, one that contains public diplomacy and the other propaganda. These two circles do intersect, but neither circle is within the other. The observation[3] by the American ambassador who coined the term “public diplomacy” in the mid-1960s, Edmund Gullion, a dean at the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy, is useful in this regard:

Even beyond the organ of the Government set up to handle information about the United States and to explain our policies, what is important today is the interaction of groups, peoples, and cultures beyond national borders, influencing the way groups and peoples in other countries think about foreign affairs, react to our policies, and affect the policies of their respective governments.

To connote this activity, we at the Fletcher School tried to find a name. I would have liked to call it “propaganda.” It seemed like the nearest thing in the pure interpretation of the word to what we were doing. But “propaganda” has always a pejorative connotation in this country. To describe the whole range of communications, information, and propaganda, we hit upon “public diplomacy” [my italics].

Gullion’s treatment of public diplomacy makes it clear that while public diplomacy does contain elements of propaganda, it is not identical to it. Interestingly, some compare propaganda to pornography: you can tell it when you see it, but you can’t define it. In contrast, public diplomacy, as a rule, does not evoke such a reaction, but it too doesn’t have a universally accepted definition.

At its best, public diplomacy:

Provides a truthful, factual exposition and explication of a nation’s foreign policy and way of life to overseas audiences;
Encourages international understanding;
Listens and engages in dialogue;
Objectively displays national achievements overseas, including in the arts.

At its worst, propaganda:

Forces its messages on an audience, often by repetition and slogans;
Demonizes elements of the outside world;
Simplifies complex issues;
Misrepresents the truth or deliberately lies.

Both public diplomacy and propaganda, at their best or their worst, can achieve credibility with their audiences. However, the best public diplomacy achieves credibility through careful presentation of fact and thoughtful argumentation, while the worst propaganda achieves credibility by falsification and sensationalism. As a rule, public diplomacy at its best, which appeals to the intellect, is believed in the long run, while propaganda at its worst, which inflames atavistic emotions, is believed only for short periods. The best public diplomacy convinces audiences that its content and purpose mesh, and that therefore it is honest; the worst propaganda leads audiences to believe that its content do not reveal its true purpose, and that therefore it is dishonest.

Brown on his decision to resign:

Huber on the Smith-Mundt Problem

2008-09-02T11:49:00.000-07:00

Jeff Huber gets polemical, with an interesting nod to the Smith-Mundt problem:

Yet the Pentagon's approach to warfare continues to drift from efforts at shaping the battlefield to efforts at shaping perceptions. It has eliminated any pretense of a separation between public affairs and information operations. Bribing the overseas press to print disinformation as news has become standard operating procedure, and nobody seriously believes it is possible to erect a firewall between the foreign and domestic media. Any given operational or strategic deception operation is just as likely to target the American pubic as it is to influence the "enemy." (And believe you me, to a lot of these info warriors, the American public is the enemy.)

It's nice to see Huber, a retired Navy Commander, write this. Most people thinking about Smith-Mundt see the "firewall" problem as evidence that the reach of U.S. Information Operations should be extended domestically. I've yet to see anyone write about the firewall problem with respect to protecting Americans from government propaganda.

Canada to Hire Blackwater

2008-08-28T15:55:00.000-07:00

Both the Globe and Mail and The Star are reporting on Canada's plan to hire Blackwater's private intelligence agency to train Canadian soldiers in, "insurgent tactics, surveillance and intelligence gathering, weapons, financing and propaganda." According to the Department of National Defence, the Globe reports,

the Terrorism Research Center has been asked to provide training in operational cultural motivators to Canadian Forces personnel for counter-insurgency operations, including information on the history of Islam, customs, and cultural and ideological issues that influence insurgent decision making. The contract, announced after weeks of particularly brutal violence in Afghanistan that has claimed the lives of five Canadian soldiers and two aid workers this month, is technically up for competition.

Great. I'm sure Blackwater is as serious as everyone else about responsibly establishing security and making a timely withdrawal. After all, It's not like Blackwater's most basic economic incentive is to prolong war.

Rock and Roll Jesus Says...

2008-08-28T15:32:00.000-07:00

American Forces Press Service:

The National Guard has enlisted two superstars to attract new members and remind those already serving what the Guard is all about through a new nationwide theater advertising campaign that made its debut last week.
The new “Warrior” campaign includes music from Kid Rock and features Dale Earnhardt Jr., the National Guard-sponsored NASCAR Sprint Cup driver.

Over the next two months, the “Warrior” video will appear in more than 3,000 theaters and on more than 27,000 screens around the country. The video and pre-show slides will air before every movie except those rated G and PG.

Kid Rock wrote a song, “Warrior,” specifically for the Army National Guard. He was chosen for this project because of his popularity among the 17-to-24-year-old market and his demonstrated support of the military.

The campaign is a multi-dimensional marketing approach consisting of the new two-minute music video, lobby stands, popcorn bag advertising, pre-show slides, a lobby presence, an interactive micro-site, a free mp3 download of the “Warrior” song and print advertising in national magazines.

Here's the one from 3 Doors Down, titled "Citizen Soldier":

UK Government to Set Media Agenda on al-Qaida

2008-08-28T15:14:00.000-07:00

The Guardian reports:

"A Whitehall counter-terrorism unit is targeting the BBC and other media organisations as part of a new global propaganda push designed to 'taint the al-Qaida brand', according to a secret Home Office paper seen by the Guardian. ... The report, headed, Challenging violent extremist ideology through communications, says: 'We are pushing this material to UK media channels, eg a BBC radio programme exposing tensions between AQ leadership and supporters. And a restricted working group will communicate niche messages through media and non-media.' The disclosure that a Whitehall counter-terrorism propaganda operation is promoting material to the BBC and other media will raise fresh concerns about official news management in a highly sensitive area."

Matt Armstrong suggests that,

this isn’t original. A certain element of the Defense Department has been working the angle of attacking Al-Qaeda’s brand for a year or more. What is new is that it’s in the public sphere.

Similarly, Kim Andrew Elliot suggests,

this is not startling news, unless the counter-terrorism unit is engaging in disinformation. Any government agency can and should propose story ideas and interviews to the news media. The media, in turn, decide what is newsworthy, and present the content according to their own standards.

Hmm, Kim almost has a point. If declining standards for journalism weren't such a huge issue these days, the argument might hold water. As it stands, the state of professional journalism is an asset for propagandists, not a check.

Airstrikes are the Message

2008-08-28T13:51:00.000-07:00

Al Jazeera reports:

Afghanistan's cabinet has demanded a change in the rules governing international troops in the country, after more than 90 civilians were killed in US-led air attacks last week.

The cabinet said on Monday that a review should focus on the "authorities and responsibilities" of troops and demand an end to air attacks in civilian areas, illegal detentions and unilateral house searches.

The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) human rights team said on Tuesday it found "convincing evidence" that 90 civilians, including 60 children, were killed in the US-led air attacks in the western province of Herat on Friday.

Based on UN investigations, it is the highest civilian death toll from international military action since US-led forces invaded in 2001 to remove the Taliban government.
The US-led coalition said Friday's air raids were on Taliban fighters and 30 of them had been killed, although it is investigating claims of civilian casualties. [emphasis mine].

Danger Room adds:

the U.N. and Afghan army corroborated the report, but the Pentagon called it "false intelligence" spread by the Taliban,

while Jason at Armchair Generalist notes that,

the amazing thing is, despite all the civilian deaths and bad strategic communication implications in Afghanistan, the US military refuses to limit noncombatant deaths caused by airstrikes.

This is the part I don't get. I may be a critic of "strategic communications", but I don't necessarily think everyone concerned with strategic communications is a fascist propagandist, out to control the minds of the unwashed masses, etc. In fact, one of the positive things that could come out of strategic communications is the idea that, for it to be successful, a military has to close the "say-do" gap between what they claim to be doing and what they're actually doing. Helmus et al suggest that all kinetic operations are now also information operations by virtue of the modern media landscape. This means that kinetic operations are going to have to get a lot more media friendly, which means less civilian deaths. The U.S. is not learning this lesson in Afghanistan.

I could care less about the success of American strategic communications, but for those who do care, step one is to stop killing civilians, or at least stop being so damn glib about it. As Andrew Sullivan points out, even the Russians (however hypocritically) are calling us on this. Tass reports:

All parties to the Afghan conflict should observe international law, including its humanitarian component, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Monday.

Moscow, "is seriously concerned about a new case of mass death of civilians in Afghanistan and expresses sincere condolences to the families of those killed."

The ministry, "urges the command of the foreign military contingents deployed in Afghanistan to take all measures to prevent such ' indiscriminate' strikes that lead to the loss of human life among civilians."

If the U.S. wants better strategic communication it needs a paradigm shift. Current thinking seems to be, 'do whatever is militarily expedient, manage the media as best as possible'. This is a top-down approach to strategic communications, which operates with a wide "say-do" gap. If the military attempted to close the gap by actually thinking about the informational dimension of kinetic operations, it could be genuinely good for the U.S. image, and might make things a little less hellish for the people at the pointy end.