By PHK
Yesterday I read Army Colonel Ralph Baker’s “The Decisive Weapon: A Brigade Combat Team Commander’s Perspective on Information Operations,” in the May-June 2006 Military Review. I understood that Baker’s article was excellent and had printed it out shortly after it appeared, but other things – like the opera, oboe practice, meetings, parties and various out of town visitors - intervened.
Baker’s is one of the most sensible, pragmatic articles I have read recently on how both U.S. public diplomacy – yes, public diplomacy – and “information operations” in US military jargon should be conducted. In fact, the model that Baker outlines strikingly resembles that used in U.S. Embassy public affairs offices prior to 1999 or at the very least during the Cold War and its immediate aftermath when there were such things as functioning public diplomacy country plans.
If I was involved in training an incoming State Department class of junior officers, I would include Baker’s article in the must read list. I would also invite Baker as a speaker. In fact, I’d probably add his article to more senior embassy officer training because many of the lessons learned and antidotes described are equally applicable to US embassy public affairs efforts.
Yet, why it should have been left up to Baker to devise this plan and implement it on his own – and what happened in Baghdad after he left in 2004 as the situation has turned from bad to worse – are questions that beg for answers.
Regardless, let me highlight a few of Baker’s recommendations which I think are equally valuable for successful public diplomacy as for military information operations:
1. tell the truth so that the people you talk to can develop trust and confidence in your message;
2. you have no influence over the media (that includes critical or “hostile” media like Al Jazeera) if you do not talk to them;
3. know the society and culture in which you operate and engage – in particular - the people who can influence the opinions of others and also understand what they are saying;
4. use different communications forms to reach different audiences at different times;
5. tailor themes and messages to specific audiences, keep them simple and don’t be afraid to repeat them;
6. be able to respond rapidly to untoward and unforeseen events;
7. develop a set of criteria to measure effectiveness and use the information to devise more effective responses; and
8. obtain personal commitment from all leadership levels and make sure that this personal commitment is well understood by the staff who implement the plan.
To do what Baker tells us worked in three areas of Baghdad between 2003 and 2004 would mean not only an overhaul of army operations to increase media training for personnel at all levels, to develop far more language and area specialists by rewarding them for their efforts (this begs the question as to whether there are enough), and to create a more flexible and rapid response mechanism in a huge stodgy bureaucratic organization to meet the demands of the instantaneous globalized-media environment.
But will the army leadership agree? And as importantly, how can this be accomplished when the civilians who make US foreign policy skate on thin ice when it comes to telling the truth?
Although Karen Hughes may have learned a little and is trying to incorporate recommendations two and six in State Department public affairs efforts, what about the other six recommendations? Like credibility (#1), for instance?
The Missing Credibility Imperative
How can any of these recommendations work when we have an administration that treats truth telling – at home or abroad – as a farce? When twisted fact-after-twisted-fact is used to justify one misguided policy after another in the Middle East? And when – as CKR has just pointed out – the media doesn’t get it – and doesn’t seem to care that it doesn’t?
Or when the Defense Department blissfully continues to fund private contractors like the Lincoln Group, SAIC, Rendon and SY Coleman Inc. to produce and disseminate fake “good” news reports for placement in the Iraqi media? Come on. A lie is a lie no matter how you twist it, spin it or clothe it.
No nation and no individual can expect to have it both ways. Credibility is as credibility does. For my money, this administration deserves to be expelled – not just suspended - for its refusal to tell the truth at home and abroad. Couldn’t we please make it sooner rather than later?