As a graduate student I once was told by a former Prof. in Defense & Strategic Studies, in reference to Strategic Communication that one must always remember that your SC messages have more than one audience and must be crafted to meet essential policy aims simultaneously.
As such, I will apply another historical example of SC as utilized by the highest level of public official addressing a massive audience but also cognizant of key players within the context.
In 2009, at a speech at the United States Military Academy, President Barack Obama declared that the U.S would commit 30,000 troops to an Afghanistan surge for eighteen months. This speech was popularized by Brad Pitt’s movie War Machine (2017) and provides insight into the difficulty of strategic messaging. After that, withdrawal from Afghanistan would tentatively begin. For war-hhawks and profiteers in the MIC, this statement was counterproductive to the U.S. objectives in Afghanistan. Instead of showing U.S. commitment, it had an opposite effect. It also ham-stringed the counterinsurgency and stability operations in Afghanistan. Some would contend that this statement was a result of the tension between the domestic and international politics in the U.S.
A discussion of the objectives is important to show where and how President Obama’s statement was unwise. Christopher Paul writes that the executive should be in charge of coordinating strategic themes, messages, and policies, so I used the National Security Strategy of 2010 to define some of those objectives. The 2010 NSS emphasized a military rebalance toward “counter-terrorism, counter insurgency, and stability operations” (The White House, 2010, p. 15). It also stressed the importance of strategic communication, demanding that the U.S. “align actions with [its] words” (ibid. p. 16). President Obama’s announcement that called for a surge of troops with a defined limited time-line failed in that it provided an inappropriate public diplomacy message that detracted from the objectives of counterinsurgency and stability operations n Afghanistan.
Instead of showing the United States commitment to an infant, Afghan government, President Obama declared that U.S. support was limited with a hard deadline. This can be viewed as a failure in public diplomacy, defined as the “communication from one government to the people of another” (Paul, 2008, p. 8). The Afghan insurgents heard, “Bide your time for eighteen months, then U.S. will be leaving.” The Afghan government and population heard the same message, but they probably received it with less enthusiasm.
This failure of public diplomacy contradicted the tenets of counterinsurgency, a declared U.S. objective in Afghanistan. Counterinsurgency requires a force to be present and invested in the development of the communities. Preferably, provide security and stability so the communities can develop or rebuild themselves. The process shape, clear, hold, build, and transition illustrates a common COIN process (JP 324, 2009, II10). The longest aspects are hold and build. In this stage, security and stability are paramount. Rushing into the transition phase or imposing a time-line on the latter stages is counterproductive, because it provides an adversary hope for success.
Rather than being a malignant attempt undermine U.S. efforts, as some many neocon voices contended, the statement reflected a discontinuity between U.S. international and domestic politics. The U.S. COIN objectives required troops, so President Obama decided to “send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan” (2009). However, the American people were weary of war, so the President reassured them that the troops would return home after eighteen months. The attempt to balance the contradicting domestic and international goals resulted in two opposing strategic messages. This “intermestic” tension shows how difficult it is to form coherent strategic communications (Snow, 2015, p. 10). Hence the difficulty in crafting coherent SC when dealing with a diversity of audiences and why so much of public control rests upon distraction and divide and conquer methods as a means to enable effective SC to be properly employed.
References:
Joint Publication 324, Counterinsurgency. (2013). Web. dtic.mil/doctrine/new_pubs/jp3_24.pdf
Obama, Barack (2009). “Transcript of Obama speech on Afghanistan.” CNN. 2 December 2009. http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/12/01/obama.afghanistan.speech.transcript/index.html
Paul, Christopher (2008). Information Operations Doctrine and Practice. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Security International.
The White House (2010). National Security Strategy. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/national_security_strategy.pdf
Snow, Donald (2015). National Security for a New Era.
Image: Official White House Photograph, PD: President Barack Obama convenes an Oval Office meeting with his national security team to discuss the situation in Iraq, June 13, 2014.
Image: US Army Official, Fort Stewart - Saluting the Commander-in-chief.
Hello!
In order to prevent identity theft, identity deception of all types, and content theft we like to encourage users that have an online identity, post for a website or blog, are creators of art and celebrities of all notoriety to verify themselves. Verified users tend to receive a better reception from the community.
Any reasonable verification method is accepted. Examples include:
In order to confirm your authorship of the content. Please make a mention about Steemit or add a hyperlink to Steemit on your FB:
https://www.facebook.com/miss.brigitte.bauer
Or on your Twitter:
https://twitter.com/BrigitteCBauer
If we don't receive your confirmation within the next 24 hours, we will have to blacklist you for Identity Deception.
Thank you,
More Info: Introducing Identity/Content Verification Reporting & Lookup
Steemit has become inundated with paranoia equivalent to the idiocy of the US media in their collective efforts to perpetuate the Cold War 2.0. The platform is dominated by pedantic moron bots which seek to undermine creativity by enforcing all kinds of moronic rules and policies.
Here you go dummies: https://www.facebook.com/miss.brigitte.bauer
and: https://twitter.com/BrigitteCBauer
Do you need screen-shots of the actual links and posts referencing Steemit? Should I hold your hand too?
Happy now? Maybe instead of these stupid verification rules you should work on this shitty design of the platform which still looks like AOL before the Time Warner Takeover!
Thank You for confirming your authorship.
Your very welcome Robbie The Robot. No more Danger Danger Will Robisnon.....
Steemcleaners asked you for routine ID verification after you have been caught plagiarizing content on many posts. You have posted these posts as your own work. Steemit does not does not support and rewards plagiarizm.
Steemcleaners/Cheetah commented on your plagiarized content many times with warnings but you have completely ignored them and kept plagiarizing. On some of our warnings, you responded with aggressive comments.
You plagiarize whole paragraphs from different sources, then mix them up and post article as your own written work without giving sources.
On some other posts you give general sources to books, while it is still copypasta of paragraphs without nothing original added to content.
You have been on the platform for long enough to understand that such behaviour is frowned upon by Steemit community.
Here are examples of some of the articles that you have plagiarized:
https://steemit.com/psychology/@fugetaboutit/mindwar-the-concept-of-psychological-warfare-modern-origins
https://steemit.com/science/@fugetaboutit/strategic-communication-and-war-the-us-efforts-in-contemporary-propaganda-operations
https://steemit.com/science/@fugetaboutit/psychological-warfare-the-mindwar-mw-concept-and-application
https://steemit.com/education/@fugetaboutit/the-two-types-of-intellectuals-academia-defined
I get it spam bot content police. Stop being a pest with your silly reminders. You have ZERO interest in my content which covers a diversity of academic subjects of interest. You simply spam cut and paste responses reiterating pedantic policies in an effort to police this platform. You are undermining the seriousness of the subjects by posting spam and text which interferes with the presentation of these topics. If you had any true use you would spend more time on development and improvements to the design which sucks. It is something a child learning basic HTML would create. This is not AOL anymore. Even a cheap free Wordpress template would be an improvement.
As for your links you posted. The last one is MY OWN article posted on my own domain. It was simply utilized here as the theme was in concert with my subject matter.
Second you exaggerate. Those links all contain references as separate biblio or within the actual content matter which I allude to in my research. I think the general audience and user base from my small and selective readership is intelligent enough to discern. Try reading the articles instead of contributing to the useless automation we are already accustomed to in real time.
always remember that your SC messages have more than one audience and must be crafted to meet essential policy aims simultaneously.its impossible, when you must secure domestic support in proxy wars all over the world, but still insisting on being
good boy, fighting the world villains and defending our freedoms.they did made a choice, and decided to target their own audience. doesnt really matter how it sounds to the rest of the world. everyone is ready to forgive if you sanction my neighbor, give me independent state or fight for my biblical rights..
edit> i dont want to politize the subject, just saying its maybe not the best example.
p.s.
seriously, i expected to find some original thoughts on strategic communication in so much of comments ive seen in preview.
i guess when you have no opinion or knowledge about anything, being a cop and sticking up to your
rulesis the only option.