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U.S. Governmental Information Operations and Strategic Communications: A Discredited Tool or User Failure? Implications for Future Conflict

Dr. Steve Tatham

Synopsis

Through the prism of operations in Afghanistan, the author examines how the U.S. Government’s Strategic Communication (SC) and, in particular, the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Information Operations (IO) and Military Information Support to Operations (MISO) programs, have contributed to U.S. strategic and foreign policy objectives. It assesses whether current practice, which is largely predicated on ideas of positively shaping audiences perceptions and attitudes towards the United States, is actually fit for purpose. Indeed, it finds that the United States has for many years now been encouraged by large contractors to approach communications objectives through techniques heavily influenced by civilian advertising and marketing, which attempt to change hostile attitudes to the United States and its foreign policy in the belief that this will subsequently reduce hostile behavior. While an attitudinal approach may work in convincing U.S. citizens to buy consumer products, it does not easily translate to the conflict- and crisis-riven societies to which it has been routinely applied since September 11, 2001.

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Updated 5 September 2015

1976 PREDICTING REVOLUTION

Conditions existing in USA today are in red.

1976 Thesis: Theory, Risk Assessment, and Internal War: A Framework for the Observation of Revolutionary Potential

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

Graphic: Pre-Conditions of Revolution

Graphic: Preconditions of Revolution in the USA Today

1979 CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE – THE THING ENTIRE

Graphic: Culture Simplified

Graphic: Culture Complex

1986-2013 ANALYTIC TOOLS FOR THE ANALYST

1988-2009 OSINT-M4IS2 TECHINT Chronology

Graphic: Analytic Tool-Kit in the Cloud (CATALYST II)

Worth a Look: 1989 All-Source Fusion Analytic Workstation–The Four Requirements Documents

Reference: 1989 USMC Work-Up for JNIDS VI All-Source Fusion Analytic Workstation

Graphic: 1989 USMC JNIDS VI Workup

NOTE: USMC submission won the JNIDS IV competition but that win was over-turned by an Admiral without integrity whose words were quoted (too late to go to CMC and CNO) “We are a Navy shop, we will do a Navy problem.” It is precisely this kind of amoral attention to duty, persistent across the flag ranks — and the staffs that let them get away with it — that undermines national security and national competitiveness.