Mini-Me: NATO Admiral Says the Future of Global Security is Strategic Communication — Robert Steele Corrects + META-RECAP

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NATO Admiral Says the Future of Global Security is Strategic Communication

Written by ruston on August 3, 2012 · Leave a Comment

by Scott W. Ruston

The title of this post is my interpretation of what ADM James Stavridis, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) and Commander of United States European Command (USEUCOM), says in a new TED Talk. To be fair, what he actually says is that strategic communication should be the means by which the partnerships of an open source security strategy will be knitted together.

I’ve been admirer of ADM Stavridis for a long time, especially his embrace of social media and public diplomacy (In the interest of full disclosure: In addition to my role as a scholar of strategic communication, narrative and social media at the CSC, I am also US Navy Reserve officer assigned to NATO ACT; my remarks here reflect my own opinions and not those of the US Navy nor NATO). The admiral’s TED talk unites his own personal advocacy for transparency and connectedness in his leadership roles with NATO and US DOD (he has a substantial presence on Facebook and Twitter) with a broader vision of sustainable security efforts globally.

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Below the line: Related Article, 2 Comments by Steele, and See Also.

ROBERT STEELE: Glad you noticed his comment but your interpretation is completely off. I am one of the oficial IO/SC minds, and I lost the argument in the 1990's and early 2000's on the need to actually be firmly rooted in the truth so as to have legitimacy. Strategic Communication only works when you are telling the truth. What the Admiral really means–and I certainly hope he expands on this–is that there are not enough guns on the planet to repress the 5 billion poor (Howard Zinn, RIP, also said this) and that the only way to achieve security is by providing the dignity and minimal necessary access to water, food, employment, etcetera. The USA is coming off 50 years of unilateral militarism driven by the congressional-industrial complex, of virtual colonialism with foreign policy driven by ideology instead of intelligence, and of predatory capitalism and financial terrorism led by Goldman Sachs, among others. The USA is now irrelevant to the future in the face of the demographic reality represented by Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela, among others. Goverments are now being routed around by three quarters of the global economy, and also are the least informed of the eight information tribes (academia, civil society, commerce, government, law enforcement, media, military, and non-government/non-profit. So yes, he said we need to go open on security, no he did not mean lies at great cost, but rather doing ground truth thiings that actually stabilize and reconstruct.

Open Source Security in the 21st Century (Repeat)

ROBERT STEELE: Senior uniformed officers are under enormous pressure to avoid speaking the plain stuff. He did as well as he could under the circumstances in suggesting that in the future, armed force is not just irrelevant, it is counter-productive. By sheer coincidence, I just read a review of Buckminste Fuller's Critical Path, and his concept of ephemeralization, meaning the substitution of knowledge (information/intelligence) for materials including money and military might. I also just wrote the Foreword to the first book by NATO on public intelligence for public health. The military continues to be the only arm of government that can actually move, shoot, communicate AND FEED to order–where we are going is toward hybrid alliances centered on the military as a hub but integrating diplomats, NGOs, academics (e.g. cultural liason), priests for religious liaison, businessmen for legitimate business assistance, and so on. I called this the “Core Force” when I conceptualized it for the George Marshall Center in early 1990's. The US Government–dominated by the corrupt two-party tyranny that treats government as its personal piggy bank–has ignored all the good ideas since the Marshall Plan, and instead managed the government on behalf of the special interests instead of the public. The Admiral's gentle commentary is–along with Admiral Mullen's earlier efforts along the same lines–the first break between the US military and a very corrupt political arm (all three branches) of the US Government. IMHO.

2011 Thinking About Revolution in the USA and Elsewhere (Full Text Online for Google Translate)

2010 M4IS2 Briefing for South America — 2010 M4IS2 Presentacion por Sur America (ANEPE Chile)

Chuck Spinney: Arab Spring Core Value is LEGITIMACY

David Isenberg: NATO Connects with Open Source Everything Meme

Graphic: Core Force for Multinational and Whole of Government Operations

Journal: Exercise Africa Endeavor–Military as Peace Force that Communicates, Computes, & Connects

Journal: Multinational Transformation

M4IS2 [Multinational Multiagency Multidisciplinary Multidomain Information-Sharing and Sense-Making]

Max Manwaring, Edwin Corr, Robin Dorff (eds.), The Search for Security: A U.S. Grand Strategy for the 21st Century (Praeger, 2003) and Review by Robert Steele: 5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, Coherent, Holistic, and Above All, Sane, July 4, 2003

Newt Gingrich, Vice-President for Global Engagement–Waging Peace

Rami G. Khouri, “A Massive Moral Black Hole,” Washington Post, 26 February 2009

Reference: Frog 6 Guidance 2010-2020