By Franz-Stefan Gady
A new report outlines the U.S. Department of Defense’s military public diplomacy efforts.
Today, the American Security Project, a Washington-based think tank, released (PDF) a new report outlining how the Pentagon is trying to influence public opinion in foreign countries. The report is framed around the question of how military public diplomacy can help achieve U.S. military objectives abroad without the need for what the white paper refers to in true newspeak-infused euphemistic language as “kinetic actions”; in plain English — killing and wounding people overseas.
The U.S. Army calls such actions “Inform and Influence Activities” (IIA) and defines (PDF) it as, “the integration of designated information-related capabilities in order to synchronize themes, messages, and actions with operations to inform United States and global audiences, influence foreign audiences, and affect adversary and enemy decisionmaking.” However, the report notes that the U.S. Department of Defense is not supposed to engage in public diplomacy (by law this is the Department of State’s job) and the Pentagon itself – again in a true Orwellian double-think twist – has repeatedly denied that it is engaged in such activities, although it plainly is.
The report notes (PDF): “The reality is, the military conducts operations and activities that are both directly and indirectly intended to influence the attitudes and actions of foreign publics and military audiences to support foreign policy objectives.” Consequently, the author of the white paper, Matthew Wallin, defines military public diplomacy as: “Military communication and relationship building with foreign publics and military audiences for the purpose of achieving a foreign policy objective.”
Read the full story at The Diplomat