PoliticalWarfare.org

VOA to kill broadcasts into rural China, Tibet

As the Chinese regime steps up the sophistication and tempo of its international propaganda operations, the United States government is curtailing a mainstay of providing unfiltered news and information to the most restive large areas under one-party control.

The Voice of America (VOA) has announced plans to terminate its shortwave broadcasts into rural China and Tibet, citing cost-cutting measures and its move toward more digital programming. 

Rural China and Tibet have been major sore points for the communist regime.

Farmers have led grassroots revolts against official corruption and taxation without representation. Because they do not have access to digital media, they depend on VOA shortwave broadcasts to stay informed.

“China has appropriated $7 billion on international propaganda in the past two years,” an Obama administration official close to VOA tells Bill Gertz at the Washington Times. “In 2011, CCTV [PRC state television] North America in Washington, D.C., plans to increase its reporters from 12 to 20 people. Meanwhile, VOA Chinese staff will be cut over 50 percent.”

Meanwhile, promised reforms at VOA's scandal-plagued Persian broadcasting unit are slow in coming, as this blogger has heard firsthand from dozens of Iranian democracy activists.

Great blog on public diplomacy in Afghanistan

Just discovered through Facebook a magnificent blog called Public Diplomacy in Afghanistan. It's run by Mahtab Farid, a US State Department public diplomacy officer in Kabul.

Mahtab is a hugely capable diplomat and communicator, and it's really gratifying to see how the State Department public diplomacy shop is allowing its officers to make more use of unofficial online media.

"Public Diplomacy in Afghanistan" contains compelling, upbeat human interest stories about individual Afghans as well as about US and Coalition troops and their relations with Afghans.

The blogger shows a particular interest in Afghan children, both in their own development as people and in their interactions with the Coalition.

I find the blog refreshing because it contains the personal observations of a US diplomat, free of the sterile processing of traditional State Department messages. It's also pleasant to read something different from the hard-hitting, often miserable stuff that I normally cover on PoliticalWarfare.org. I've bookmarked this blog and put it on my Google homepage. It's a great reminder of the many positive aspects of the Good Fight in Afghanistan.

Exclusive: New 'Strategic Influence' book is finally available

After years of anticipation, my anthology, Strategic Influence: Public Diplomacy, Counterpropaganda and Political Warfare is now available to the public.

The book won't be available in bookstores or on Amazon until October, but you can get it online through this blog.

Strategic Influence is the work of 13 scholars and practitioners in the fields of public diplomacy, counterpropaganda and political warfare. The book surveys the subjects from the American Revolution, through the Cold War, to present-day wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We strove to make the book the best single volume on the subject. It's a combination of scholarly, personal narratives and the policy essays from some of the best minds in the business - some recognizable, some emerging. Here's the table of contents:

• The American Way of Propaganda: Lessons from the Founding Fathers. J. Michael Waller, Institute of World Politics;
• What 'Strategic' Public Diplomacy Is. Carnes Lord, Naval War College;
• Public Diplomacy and Soft Power. Carnes Lord;
• Cultural Diplomacy, Political Influence and Integrated Strategy. John Lenczowski, Institute of World Politics;
• Mediators of the Message: The Role of Religion and Civil Society in Public Diplomacy. Jennifer Marshall, Heritage Foundation;
• Conducting a War of Ideas with Public Diplomacy. Robert Reilly, former director, Voice of America;
• Counterpropaganda: We Can't Win Without It. Herbert Romerstein, former director, Office to Counter Soviet Active Measures, U.S. Information Agency;
• Recovering the Lost Art of Counterpropaganda. Andrew Garfield, Glevum Associates;
• The Interagency Active Measures Working Group: Successful Template for Strategic Influence. Herbert Romerstein;
• Political Warfare: Means for Achieving Political Ends. Angelo Codevilla, Boston University;
• Political War vs Political Terror: Case Study of an American Success Story. John J. Tierney, Institute of World Politics;
• The Importance of Words. J. Michael Waller;
• Hearts and Minds Online: Internetting the Messages in the Infosphere. Hampton Stephens, World Politics Review;
• Toward a Theory of Low-Intensity Propaganda. Stephen C. Baker, Institute of World Politics;
• Red-Teaming Strategic Communications and Political Warfare. David Spencer, National Defense University;
• A Comprehensive Approach to Information Operations. Andrew Garfield;
• Synchronizing Rhetoric, Policy and Action. Juliana Geran Pilon, Institute of World Politics;
• An Immediate-Term Wartime Message Strategy. J. Michael Waller;
• Getting Serious About Strategic Influence. J. Michael Waller.

Strategic Influence is published by the Institute of World Politics Press. The original edition was published for restricted circulation in 2007. This edition was revised in 2009 but was not available until today, and will not be generally available to the public until October 2010.

The book is only available at present - as a paperback and as an e-book - by clicking here.

How to stop terrorist TV from trumping military information ops

While the Israel Defense Forces released its video quickly about the armed jihadist mobs who attacked Israeli commandos aboard the blockade-breaking Hamas ship, its speed was good in bureaucratic terms but still too slow for the infosphere.

Allied militaries still must act faster, with the speed of commercial news organizations, and, like journalists, in anticipation of dramatic events as tense situations develop.

We can learn a good lesson from this tragedy. First, the flotilla was designed as a Hamas propaganda operation specifically to provoke an Israeli response and generate media coverage to turn the Hamas operatives and activists into martyrs. Al Jazeera assigned a three-person crew to cover the story since the vessels loaded up in Turkey. 

The Israelis monitor Al Jazeera of course, but doesn't seem to have a strategy for how to deal with it and other pro-terrorist propaganda outlets. One of my colleagues in an information operations discussion group suggests, "The office that monitors Al Jazeera for the IDF should have alerted the EW [electronic warfare] folks on the scene to jam" the pro-Hamas TV transmissions before Israeli commandos boarded the Turkish ship. This did not occur, and the last live dispatch shows a bloody stretcher, talk about a white flag not being honored, etc., and became 'must use' footage to any news channel looking for b-roll in order to tell the story."

News outlets around the world used the dramatic footage, including American television. The illustration at top is from an Agence France Presse report circulated globally via Yahoo, falsely reporting that "scores" of people were killed as a result of the Israeli action. (The actual number was 9, after the militants attacked the Israelis.)

The IDF video (shown in the post below), being black-and-white infrared with no sound, was useful in showing how the Israelis boarded without full combat gear and did not use force until attacked by pipe-wielding assailants, was not released for several hours.

In bureaucratic terms, several hours is hypersonic speed. However, in media terms, several hours allows the enemy to gain the propaganda initiative.

This experience shows how the IDF, like the US military, must configure itself with an information operations capability every bit as anticipatory, dramatic, and immediate as any news organization. No need to fabricate or twist facts - just present the military's side of the story straight, but immediately.

Israelis make quick use of imagery to explain Hamas flotilla incident

The Israel Defense Forces made quick use of imagery to state their case concerning their enforcement of a blockade against Hamas-controlled Gaza, and the incident involving flotilla of civilian vessels reinforcing the terrorist group. In boarding one of the ships by helicopter, IDF troops can be seen using amazing restraint as they are set upon by mobs wielding clubs and metal bars. Obviously the Israelis did not board the ship shooting, or with intent to wound or kill. They seemed unprepared for resistance. This clearly was not a counterterrorism operation. One of the IDF soldiers is shown being thrown overboard.

The video of the predawn operation appears to be shot from an infrared camera. The vessel, the Mavi Marmara, is Turkish-flagged.

IDF also released overhead video of riots on land, showing that the provocations came from the Hamas side and not Israeli forces.

These videos and other images, including still photography and well-prepared legal analysis and eyewitness reports released by the foreign ministry, show how the Israelis have become much more nimble in the information sphere and can get its side of the story to the public almost in real-time.

Now, if the US military could only do the same with such a fast turnaround, we'd be much better off. 

Having said that, the raid on the flotilla has backfired immensely against Israel, and appears to have handed a propaganda victory to Hamas and its international supporters. The lesson to be learned here is that while Israel has become effective tactically with the distribution of military information and images, Israel still suffers profoundly from an inability to use information and images strategically.

See you at the Heritage Foundation on Thursday

See you at the Heritage Foundation on Thursday, where I'm part of a panel on "Public Diplomacy in the Private Sector: The Power of Individual Initiative."

I'll be joining Marc Ginsburg of Layalina Productions, Inc., David Nassar of the Alliance for Youth Movements, and Helle Dale of the Heritage Foundation on this panel discussion, which takes place on Thursday, April 29, from 10:00 - 11:30 a.m. Eastern time at Heritage's Lehrman Auditorium.

To sign in to attend in person, or to watch live online, click on the link above.

More controversy over VOA's Iran service

A veteran Iran-watcher has highlighted continuing problems with the Voice of America's Persian-language broadcasting to Iran. Expanded US government programming into Iran has been diluted by personnel compromised by the Iranian regime and by clueless management, according to my friend Ken Timmerman.

The problem is so bad that when a prominent Iranian ayatollah died last year, providing an opportunity for extensive coverage to highlight opposition to the regime, VOA's Iran service broadcast a documentary about global warming.

Ken Timmerman, head of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran, writes in Newsmax,

"An internal struggle within the Voice of America (VOA) over its news coverage of Iran is spewing outside the agency as veteran staffers claim the channel tilts coverage in favor of the Tehran regime.

"The divisions erupted in late January when VOA chiefs removed a popular TV anchorman from the flagship U.S. broadcast into Iran, after he and about 30 Persian-speaking broadcasters had a confrontational meeting with VOA Director Danforth Austin, Newsmax has learned.

"The broadcasters, who work for VOA’s Persian service in Washington, D.C., challenged the editorial judgment of two senior managers because they banned stories about the violent crackdown on protesters in Tehran in recent months."

Timmerman has extraordinary Iranian contacts and has reported exclusives from within Iran for years. His most recent report details how VOA management sacked personnel who argued for open, aggressive coverage of anti-regime protests and how some members of the Persian-speaking team are compromised because of family still living in Iran and subject to persecution.

Last week, Scott Carpenter, a former senior State Department official, ripped the VOA management in testimony before Congress. Timmerman cites some of Carpenter's words:

“Poorly managed by people who do not know Iran or its politics, PNN's journalistic professionalism currently meets only minimal standards. Most of VOA's 200 employees lack any television experience beyond what they have gained at VOA, for example,” he told the Middle East Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

VOA managers trim coverage to eliminate anything that the regime might view as threatening, he said.

“To cite just one example, on the day after the death of Ayatollah Montazeri, when the BBC Persian Service was blanketing Iranian airwaves with coverage similar to that given in the United States to pop star Michael Jackson's passing last summer, PNN was airing documentaries on global warming. Indicative of its lack of impact is the fact that [Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei rails against the BBC Persian Service but rarely mentions VOA.”

PoliticalWarfare.org commented on this problem back in 2007.

Information Operations folks: A new blog is for you

A big welcome to the new Information Operations Institute (IOI) and its blog, IOblog.org, which debuted today.

IOI is run by my friend Joel Harding as a professional trade association for information operations, information warfare, strategic communications and public diplomacy. It's under the wing, so to speak, of the Association of Old Crows (AOC), otherwise known as the Electronic Warfare and Information Operations Association. 

Bookmark 'em all (and subscribe to their feeds, when they add the feature), especially IOblog.org.

White House surrenders Iranians to the regime

The White House has formally surrendered the political battlespace to Iran's mullahs and Revolutionary Guard. As the Iranian regime officially celebrated the 30th anniversary of the terrorist takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran, President Obama chose to recognize the "Islamic Republic," undermine the democratic opposition, and announce he would do nothing to undermine the regime internally.

Like the Bush Administration before it, the Obama Administration is inadvertently helping the Iranian regime by not assisting the broad-based democratic and cultural opposition movements in that country.

Even as the regime continues to kill American military personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq through its ongoing arming of terrorists and insurgents with improvised explosive devices (IEDs), explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) and follow-on weapons.

This is inexcusable. Historians of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will note the squandered strategic opportunities to fight back. This blog has suggested various methods of doing so, both violent and nonviolent. One of the easiest is simply to support the millions of Iranians who oppose the two-headed regime of the mullahs and Revolutionary Guard - but to do it seriously, as we would support any political movement that we wanted to win.

The Iranian opposition used the regime's sponsorship of vicious "death to America" rallies with "death to dictators" counter-demonstrations of their own.  As the regime crushed them with force, President Obama undermined them politically.

Obama chose not to embrace the Iranian opposition the way President Reagan embraced the nonviolent resisters of Soviet Communism. Instead Obama opted to reach out to the mullah and Revolutionary Guard. Observing the 30th anniversary of the embassy takeover, the President of the United States announced that his administration "seeks a relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran based upon mutual interest and mutual respect." As if to rub it in, he declared, "We do not interfere in Iran's internal affairs." 

The Iranian government was delighted. Its Press-TV propaganda outlet stated that Obama's comments "offered an explicit acceptance of the Islamic Revolution by twice mentioning 'the Islamic Republic of Iran.'"

However, Tehran objected to the administration's increase in Persian-language broadcasting to Iran.

In issuing statements to appease the Iranian regime and undermine the opposition on the 30th anniversary of the takeover of the American embassy, President Obama was horribly wrong. He showed moral weakness. The president is undermining a positive future for Iran. And by default, he is relieving pressure on the Iranian regime as it continues to sponsor the killings of American soldiers and Marines.

Fear of public opinion might prompt Obama to help Taliban survive

President Obama's adminstration is seriously considering a new Afghanistan policy that in effect would leave the Taliban to survive and fight another day.

From an insurgent's perspective, that means the Taliban will win.

That's not the intent of the policy option. But it would be the net result. A variety of factors is at play, including concerns about over-stretching the US military, troubles with Pakistan, the fact that we're stuck with crummy allies in Afghanistan, a philosophical unwillingness to commit the necessary force, and budget issues that would take dollars away from healthcare and other big-ticket spending programs.

The administration also appears paralyzed by a lack of self-confidence on military matters, and a fear about what people will think. "One phrase that always comes up in the administration's strategy sessions is 'public opinion,'" a US official tells McClatchy news service.

If that's the case - and my sources in the military, intelligence community, and administration agree with the McClatchy report - the administration is doing next to nothing to muster domestic support for a victory in Afghanistan. Nor is it doing much to support allies, win neutrals, or defeat opponents in the infosphere abroad.

The administration seems more concerned about implementing its social agenda at home than winning the war. McClatchy, in interviews with 15 mid- and senior-level military, intelligence, defense, diplomatic and administration officials, says that internal discussions are worried about "a lack of political and public support at home, which they fear could also undermine the president's domestic priorities." 

Shades of LBJ. For those of you lucky enough to be too young to remember, President Lyndon Baines Johnson didn't want the Vietnam War to detract from his marvelous Great Society domestic program. So he didn't escalate against Hanoi, didn't destroy the North Vietnamese military, and allowed the enemy to grind us down through protracted conflict and skillful propaganda warfare. And his Great Society program wasn't much more successful.

As of today, the administration has done NOTHING to try to enlist the support of pro-defense groups in Washington who might be critical of his domestic agenda, but who would enthusiastically support a sound strategy for victory in Afghanistan.

"Now the White House is downplaying the dangers of doing the only thing that they think Congress and the public will support - a limited war against the guys who hit us on 9/11," one source tells McClatchy. That jibes with what I'm hearing from talking to people in the administration. The president is considering a very dangerous move. A gamble based on wishful thinking and lack of confidence.

The Taliban must be thrilled. No doubt they will escalate the killing of our troops in order to put more psychological pressure on our indecisive, dithering commander-in-chief.