
This morning I attended day 2 of the Current Strategy Forum at the US Naval War College, which turned out excellent this year with some high profile speakers and presenters. I really enjoyed the symposium, and cannot give enough credit to the NWC Foundation for putting on such a lively event. Tuesday's focus was military strategy, one of my favorite subjects, and featured speakers like Economics Professor
Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University and the CNO Admiral Gary Roughead. The panels on Tuesday were also lively, with insights from G. John Ikenberry of Princeton University, Stephen Walt of Harvard University, the infamous Donald Kagan of Yale University, and my personal favorite Eliot Cohen of John Hopskins University. I have plenty to discuss from Tuesday, but on Wednesday morning the topic shifted to Public Diplomacy and Policy and it is on the Wednesday morning topic I want to discuss first.
Given the make up of the audience, it is a fair assessment that only a handful of naval personnel who either work at the NWC, on the staff's of the various officers in attendance, or were part of the military public affairs offices were younger than I am, and a fairly safe bet that at 33 I was at least among the youngest 5 folks in attendance. I think my age, my background in IT, and my experience in social software may have shaped my opinions regarding Tuesday mornings discussions, so I am putting it out there as something people can blame should my observations be taken as offensive, inaccurate, or simply unjustified.
I was very impressed with
Dr. Anne-Marie Slaughter, she is in my opinion a breathe of fresh air when it comes to discussing and representing diplomacy and policy for the US State Department. The primary point of her keynote address was that in the 21st century, alliances and treaties will rarely dominate the diplomatic space and instead, in a period of rising Great Powers, informal partnerships will be developed and cultivates based on mutual interest. She gave numerous examples, highlighting how an informal economic partnership exists between the US and China in dealing with the global economic problems we face today, while no security partnership exists between the US and China. She described the partnerships as targeted, directed, and loose, but also important in meeting diplomatic objectives in both regional and global challenges that might arise.
She also described a world where hierarchy is replaced with networks, and it is through networks the United States will foster relationships and promote interests with diplomacy. She described networking not only as state centered politics but also people centered politics. It was within these mutual ideas that she lost me, and I was somewhat taken back when on a panel titled "The Strategy of Influence"
Michael Doren of NYU,
Thomas Finger of Stanford University, and
Shibley Telhami of the University of Maryland endorsed her vision of public diplomacy.
I personally think the vision outlined in the Current Strategy Forum had a rather enormous gap as a policy, would incorrectly guide strategy, and I would even suggest that while Dr. Shibley Telhami spent 20 minutes going through some fascinating poll results, he completely missed the point by suggesting popularity is a factor of influence, when indeed these are mutually exclusive concepts.
Dr. Slaughter specifically described the world changing from a hierarchical world to a horizontal world, and noted specifically that technology tools are enabling this shift. The tools allow public diplomacy to make connections to peoples in other country without an embassy, indeed creates a conceptual view of a potential virtual embassy in some places in the future. The problem I had with the articulation of this position is that everyone described the shift as a linear vertical hierchy into a linear horizontal, and generates a flat world in the spirit of Thomas Friedman. Sounds great, rings true, etc... right? Not exactly.
The Digital Planet and Analog WorldI don't know if Dr. Slaughters presentation of the emerging networked planet was intentionally linear for explanation purposes, but the world isn't rapidly shifting from a vertical, linear network model into a flat, horizontal, linear network model of strategic communications and public diplomacy as described by the experts, rather a better way to describe the network is one of a three-dimensional spacial grid. The grid has many types of connections: some are unilateral connections, some are bi-directional connections, and some are multidirectional connections. While it can be accurate to associate tools into the various categories, I noted a technology dependency as a foundation for the arguments made by the experts, which implied to me the network model is missing an important feature. It turns out that in the State Departments digital world of strategic communications and public diplomacy outlined by the experts at the Current Strategy Forum, many people are not on the grid, and in the digital planet most of the people we want to communicate with live in an analog world.
I believe the necessity to articulate networks as spacial grids and not linear models in policy is critical, because strategy developed from policy absolutely will be three-dimensional, complex networked information strategies or they will fail to reach intended targets in communication. Network analogies are important, and linear thinking is damaging.
Information As a WeaponMichael Doran opened his presentation by stating as fact that "we don't do influence in the DoD." His point was that the DoD looks at information as a weapon, and the implication was that this condition may represent a problem. He went on to make an interesting point, the DoD does not have a leader in what needs to be an information influence enterprise. The topic of leadership within the information networks was a reoccurring theme, the suggestion being that in a linear model there are no leaders, otherwise it would be a hierarchical system. Well, because a leader is apparently required, I would suggest that perhaps the State Department is using the wrong model.
In the emerging spacial grid network, the leader is the node with the most connections, and in the digital world that leader is the United States. This is globally accepted, when countries need to get together to discuss an economic meeting, perhaps calling together the G-20, no other country in the world can do this except the United States. The reason China promotes the idea of the G-2 is because they are attempting to position themselves as a leader, a nation that can call a meeting of the G-20 (for example) and reasonably expect every nation to show up. China's problem is, when China calls for the G-20 meeting, 18 countries ask the question... Will the United States be there? In other words, the country with the largest number of strong connections will always be the leader in the emerging network model.
It is unclear to me if Michael Doren was suggesting it is a problem that the DoD sees information as a weapon, because from a perspective of strategy I would suggest information is one of the preferred weapons of influence. The question is not whether to use information as a weapon, because in fact our technology, transparency, and open society already allows our citizens to use information as both a shield and a weapon every day, the Iran elections is actually a good example of this. The challenge I see in using information as a weapon is how do we direct information when so many target audiences are off the grid? Dr. Salughter's Facebook, Twitter, and Blogosphere isn't going to reach those folks, and air dropping a few million cell phones isn't going to work either.... because 18 hours later the phone batteries are dead.
Strategic Network LinksIn my opinion, Michael Doran is half right, but he is also half wrong. I found it ironic that in front of the Navy centric audience he suggested the DoD doesn't do influence, because he apparently doesn't know much about how the Navy is using hospital ships and amphibious ships for proactive medical diplomacy and engagement. These deployments as well as the Global Partnership Stations typically take place in areas of the world where telecommunications links do not exist, otherwise known as off the grid. The Navy engages in activities that promote the US national interest in these places, change perceptions, and the Navy even evaluates these efforts through polling data.
Ahh... so while Michael Doren is half wrong, he is also half right. There is no organized communication strategy to coincide with these naval diplomacy efforts, and that is probably the case because 99% of the population is completely off the grid. In order to prepare the local population for the arrival of these ships, the State Department acts as a communication proxy to inform the local citizenship that free medical care is coming. These proxy channels are an example how we connect those people disconnected from the grid to the grid. The idea of proxies are not new, indeed our enemies use proxies in strategic communication to great effect.
In Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Taliban has distributed several micro-broadcasting radio stations throughout the region to broadcast openly to people otherwise disconnected from the communication grid. AM/FM radio is what I call unidirectional communications, essentially from the grid to an audience that is typically off the grid. These AM/FM Taliban stations act as proxies, and are typically run by people who are on the internet (thus connected to the grid) to organize folks off the grid and disseminate the latest talking points and propaganda. We should be using proxies as well, indeed the Navy should be leveraging as much as possible the use of proxies to coincide with the efforts and activities of our naval diplomacy.
Executing Strategic Communications and Maritime StrategyMy good friend
Matt Armstrong is an expert in public diplomacy, and one thing he often describes is what he calls the "first three feet." The essential idea is the development of proxies for strategic communication and public diplomacy, and to him the 'first three feet' is the local media. In most of the places the Navy deploys ships for medical diplomacy, the reporters are on the grid while most of the people are not. Furthermore, the distribution of information is off the grid, whether paper or AM/FM radio.
While US citizens may occasionally take cheap shots at American media entities like the
New York Times, globally the
New York Times represents an institution in journalism circles, a prestigious organization of credible journalistic integrity and respect that credentialed professional media members globally desire to emulate. One major problem exists in the third world though, there is a real lack of training and education for journalism in many of the places where the Navy is engaging in influence activities.
So hire a professor and put on a journalism class as part of the diplomatic program, and invite journalists to participate. The DoD should look to hire someone like
Jay Rosen at NYU, ask him to develop a 2 week class for journalists in places where the Navy intends to engage in medical diplomacy, and train objectivity and transparency to the local media. On some of these stops, the Navy is treating more than 10,000 people. If the Navy is able to get objective and transparent reporting through local media from these activities, then these programs now have a complimentary strategic communications strategy for disseminating activities throughout a region of influence. The State Department understands the value of an objective, well trained local media in foreign countries, so the benefits from the education provided go far beyond the efforts of the medical diplomacy activities. When media members are trained and educated to be objective, the effects can influence many levels of a state. More importantly, an objective local media perspective could potentially result in better polling samples to measure the success, failure, and general value of our maritime soft power, joint agency initiatives.
If the State Department is focused in on developing connectivity through the grid as a way of population centric diplomacy, then the only way ahead for reaching the masses off the grid is with proxies. The best proxies for the disconnected places the Navy visits is the local media. Incorporating them into the medical diplomacy program seems to be a logical step, after all, not only do they get the training, but it engages the communicators in the local regions we target which gives the US a potential opportunity to get an objective local report on our activities.