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Strategic Communications and Public Diplomacy "Seen on the Web" (#58)
Donald Bishop
Tue, Mar 14, 2017 at 10:33 AM
Strategic Communications and Public Diplomacy “Seen on the Web” (#58)
March 12, 2017
Seen on the Web, 1461-1520
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Professional Topics
1. PUBLIC DIPLOMACY
2. SOFT POWER
3. BROADCASTING
4. WHOLE OF GOVERNMENT
5. SOCIAL MEDIA ▪ INTERNET
6. PROPAGANDA
7. DISINFORMATION ▪ FAKE NEWS
8. FACT CHECKING
9. INFORMATION WARFARE
10. CYBER
11. PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATIONS
12. PERSUASION
13. WAR OF IDEAS
14. NARRATIVE
15. HISTORICAL NARRATIVES
16. IDEAS, CONCEPTS, DOCTRINE
Countries and Regions
17. RUSSIA
18. UKRAINE
19. THE BALTICS
20. CANADA-RUSSIA
21. ISLAMIC STATE
22. ISLAMISM
23. IRAN-LATIN AMERICA
24. AFGHANISTAN
25. CHINA
26. NORTH KOREA
27. BURUNDI
Toolkit
28. CULTURAL DIPLOMACY
29. EDUCATION AND EXCHANGES
30. INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS
31. CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE DIPLOMACY OFFICIAL’S SOUL
Precepts
- - - - - - - - -
Professional Topics
1. PUBLIC DIPLOMACY
● If America can be said to have a public diplomacy — that is, government-directed outreach to international publics — then someone needs to throw it a lifeline.
Public Diplomacy Dies In Darkness
Mark Dillen, USC Center on Public Diplomacy, March 3, 2017
● . . . enduring challenges remain for PD professionals. . . . Confronting the gap between ideals and reality within the United States with foreign citizens . . . Working within a stymied bureaucratic structure. * * * recommendations for PD going forward: Focus on initiatives that work instead of creating new ones . . . . Empower public diplomacy professionals in the field . . . Invest in our public diplomacy professionals . . . . Continue to take audience research and impact evaluation seriously . . . . Change the conversation with Congress . . . . Seek partnerships with private and civil society organizations …
Building Alliances, Fighting Extremism, and Dispelling Disinformation
Katherine A. Brown, Shannon N. Green, and Jian “Jay” Wang, Center for Strategic and International Studies, January 2017
● I developed my philosophy during a more than thirty-year career in diplomacy. MOST of the people we work with overseas disagree with us on most issues. The main job of a successful diplomat is not to talk through differences but rather to look for points of potential agreement and common goals and then expand on them. Of course, this outlook is not limited to diplomats.
Anybody who has been in any sort of long term relations knows how that avoidance and denial of differences is often a valid strategy on the way to sustainable agreements.
Bright lines between personal and political
John Matel, Linkedin, February 26, 2017
2. SOFT POWER
● . . . in a world where borders are becoming more porous, letting in everything from drugs to infectious diseases to terrorism, nations must use soft power to develop networks and build institutions to address shared threats and challenges.
Will the Liberal Order Survive?
Joseph S. Nye, Jr. Foreign Affairs, January/February 2017
3. BROADCASTING
● To encourage surrenders, counter violent radical messages, improve communication by the authorities and allow local people to express their concerns, community radios should be supported and expanded. . . . Such radios . . . should broadcast in a . . . range of local and national languages, and should include messages of peace, calls for surrender directed at Boko Haram members and information on other issues of lakewide interest such as cattle prices.
Fighting Boko Haram in Chad: Beyond Military Measures
World Affairs, March 8, 2017
● RFE/RL produces broadcast and digital news content for 23 countries in 26 languages: Albanian, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bashkir, Belarusian, Bosnian, Chechen, Crimean Tatar, Croatian, Dari, English, Georgian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Montenegrin, Pashto, Persian, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Tajik, Tatar, Turkmen, Ukrainian, Uzbek.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Fast Facts
RFE/RL, December 2016
4. WHOLE OF GOVERNMENT
● During my time at the Pentagon, I sat through numerous meetings where military personnel presented their plans to respond to potential military contingencies. Almost every one of these plans included elements that would be filled out by the Pentagon’s interagency partners—usually the State Department and USAID. These parts of the plan were usually underdeveloped, if they existed at all, because the State Department did not have the resources or expertise to devote to such planning.
The State Department Is Already Running on Fumes
Ilan Goldenberg, Politico, February 28, 2017
● In the overseas missions we visited, with rare exception, USAID’s American personnel formed very few meaningful local relationships and tended to be uninformed or misinformed about local organizations and trends. Outside key government ministries and well known capital city–based organizations, they had limited knowledge of who was who, or what was going on in the rural areas—not to mention an understanding of the nuances of culture and social structure, and the ways in which these affect the country’s political economy.
Why USAID’s New Approach to Development Assistance Is Stalled
Thomas Dichter, American Foreign Service Association, December 2016
5. SOCIAL MEDIA • INTERNET
● Twitter Inc on Wednesday launched a wider effort to use algorithms to identify accounts as potentially engaging in abusive behavior, a departure from its practice of relying on users to report accounts that should be reviewed for possible violation of its rules.
Twitter turns to algorithms to clamp down on abusive content
Dustin Volz, Reuters, March 1, 2017
● Experts said it can be difficult to figure out which Facebook posts are real and which are fake, but there are a few things you can look for that fake posts have in common. • The post claims someone has cancer or other serious disease and needs money for surgery. • It claims Facebook “has decided to help,” by donating a certain amount of money for “likes,” “comments,” or “shares.” • It typically asks a Facebook user to comment, “Amen,” at the end of the post. So the next time you see a photo that catches your eye, look for those signs before responding.
Emotional Facebook Posts May Be Scams, Experts Warn
CBS, February 28, 2017
● . . . Marines . . . were writing about “chaos in the littorals” and thinking about urban irregular warfare two decades ago. What’s new is the massive explosion in electronic connectivity that has taken place in the developing world (especially in urban environments) since about the year 2000, with cellphone systems, the Internet, social media, and satellite communications connecting populations like never before and creating both new threats and immense new opportunities.
Marine Corps Civil Affairs
David Kilcullen and Colonel Curtis Lee, Marine Corps Gazette, January 2017
● The internet has long been celebrated for its power to bring people together. Yet as it turns out, this same technology is easily weaponized. . . . expanding the causes and possibly the incidence of war, and extending its reach. Social-media platforms reinforce “us versus them” narratives, expose vulnerable people to virulent ideologies, and inflame even long-dormant hatreds. They create massive groundswells of popular opinion that are nearly impossible to predict or control. Social media has already revolutionized everything from dating to business to politics. Now it is reshaping war itself.
War Goes Viral: How social media is being weaponized across the world
Emerson T. Brooking and P.W. Singer, The Atlantic, November 2016
● . . . the medium itself is not the enemy. If used properly, social media can be an asset much like radio communications or public affairs offices: Its use will prove that the benefits outweigh the costs. * * * we must intelligently implement the use of social media through case studies of best practices * * * the use of social media in professional development must be personal and democratized. * * * Officers (and more important, the press) must learn that “following, [retweets], and links [do not equal] endorsement.”
@AdmNelson
Lieutenant Commander Jared M. Wilhelm, U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, April 2016
6. PROPAGANDA
● . . Lenin launched his “Plan for Monumental Propaganda”: painting, sculpture, photography, posters, textiles, and ceramics were all to proclaim the glory of the Bolshevik state. Above all, as the first room of this show makes clear, the vast Soviet nation was expected to salute the Leader.
When Art Meets Power
Jenny Uglow, The New York Review of Books, March 8, 2017
7. DISINFORMATION ▪ FAKE NEWS
● . . . the European Union views the threat of disinformation as a serious challenge. In January, EU politicians pledged to give more funding for an 11-person task force set up in 2015 called East Stratcom, which aims to address Russian disinformation and highlight its distortions.
The EU Is Fighting A Lopsided Battle Against Russian Disinformation
Nick Robins-Early, Huffington Post, March 3, 2017
● On the eve of getting visa-free travel to Europe, Georgia has updated its legislation on sexual assault, removing “sodomy, lesbianism” and “other perverted sexual contact” from its definition but Sputnik presented the updated laws against sexual and domestic violence as encouragement of homosexuality coming from Europe. . . . the narrative of a “morally corrupted” West that promotes homosexuality and erodes families has been a common theme for pro-Kremlin news sites.
Disinformation in Action: Social Media Users Catch Sputnik International Accusing Georgia of Legalizing ‘Sodomy,’ ‘Lesbianism’
Katerina Patin, stopfake.org, March 2, 2017
● . . . ‘fake news’ becomes a problem only when the volume and efficient distribution supplant and substitute traditional sources. . . . related, is the gradual and progressively deteriorating erosion of trust in the mainstream media channels. This trend severely undermines Western society’s ability to both be socialized around a core set of norms and cognitive constructs depicting a ‘Western reality’ and, at the same time, withstand strategic influence operations . . .
Better Media Bureau: Fight Fake News with Credibility
Alicia Wanless, LinkedIn, January 1, 2017
● Now that an American president is routinely launching anti-media tirades, Beijing is taking advantage. Cribbing from President Trump, the People’s Daily, run by the Communist Party, tweeted last week that recent stories in foreign media accusing police of torturing a detained lawyer were “FAKE NEWS.”
Trump’s media-bashing is making it easier for foreign regimes to gag the press
Michael Schuman, The Washington Post, March 9, 2017
● “Fake news” was a term the Left invented to describe the ancient practice of propaganda (updated in the Internet age to drive Web traffic). They applied it to the supposed Russian habit of planting international news stories to affect Western elections, and in particular Donald Trump’s campaign for the presidency and his tendencies to exaggerate and massage the truth. But once the term caught on in our faddish age, who were the more appropriate media fakers? Fake news now serves as a sort of linguistic canary to remind the public that it is customarily saturated with a lethal gas of media disinformation.
The Ancient Laws of Unintended Consequences
Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, March 7, 2017
8. FACT CHECKING
● A group of 37 French and international media outlets, supported by Google, on Tuesday launched "CrossCheck", a joint fact-checking platform aimed at detecting fake information which could affect the French presidential election.
Battle begins to stop 'fake news' from impacting the French presidential election
The Local, February 28, 2017
● The underlying assumption of our public discourse today is that facts and values are radically distinct. “The plane crashed” is a statement of fact, and therefore “real.” Crash evidence is tangible. Nobody can argue with debris. On the other hand, “Don’t kill the disabled” is a statement of value. It’s an expression of opinion and sentiment—so the logic goes—and therefore not “real” or “true” in the same solid sense. For example, the importance of protecting disabled persons is an admirable and widely shared view; surely that’s obvious. But some people might disagree.
“Fact” and “values” and darkness at noon
Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, Catholic World Report, February 13, 2017
9. INFORMATION WARFARE
● . . . when you ask Marine Commandant Robert Neller about how best to grow the Corps, he’s . . . . focused on the new needs of the information age, particularly cyber and electronic warfare. . . . . if Gen. Neller instead could choose what to do with a few thousand more Marines, he’d rather add them to understaffed technical specialties than to rifle squads and tank crews.
It's information warfare not cyber warfare and that's an important distinction.
Brett Williams, LinkedIn, March 3, 2017
10. CYBER
● As soon as you connect a toaster to the internet, it will be atrtacked. Therefore, cyber defenders must capitalize on their greatest strength: Home-field advantage. Think security first. Design defensible systems. Educate. Red-team.
Szun Tzu in the Digital Age (no link)
Kenneth Geers, Defense News, January 23, 2017
11. PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATIONS
● …in the months leading up to the Mosul offensive, the Joint Staff hosted a highly unusual war game. The goal: train special operators to disruptISIS’s ability to command and control forces and “neutralize its ability to increase morale,” according to a Defense Department official.How Special Operators Trained for Psychological Warfare Before the Mosul Fight
Patrick Tucker, Defense One, November 14, 2016
● Several generalizations emerged from the simulation regarding . . . messaging between the USG, Da’esh, and population teams. In an environment devoid of trust, the population teams often rejected USG messaging as lacking a credible voice. . . . Instead, they preferred to hear counter-Da’esh messaging from local religious and cultural leaders. A surprising number of population segments were open to USG’s counter-Da’esh messaging in principle, but wanted to engage in a deeper conversation about how to effect change.
Counter-Da’esh Influence Operations: Cognitive Space Narrative Simulation Insights
Charles Moore et. al., NSI simulation whitepaper, May 2016
12. PERSUASION
● . . . new policies and institutions usually collapse under the weight of old habits. They succeed only when three things come together: a well-understood national interest; a persuasive moral rationale; and sustainable bipartisan support. That’s how NATO survives; that’s why the Iran deal will fail.
Clear, Clarify, Hold, Build
Bret Stephens, The Wall Street Journal, February 28, 2017
13. WAR OF IDEAS
● Among those who believe the U.S. is engaged in an ideological struggle, there is division on the question of which ideology represents the greatest threat to America: ISIS-style radical Islam or Russian-style autocracy.
America's Two-Front War of Ideas
Uri Friedman, The Atlantic, March 3, 2017
● [McMaster is] also not likely to be impressed by the retread “war of ideas” approach to jihadism promulgated by Bannon and his circle, who argue that the United States can defeat the movement by empowering moderate Muslims to intellectually discredit it. That approach was tried under the Bush administration and, under another guise, by the Obama administration, to little effect.
McMaster has the Islamophobes worried, and that’s a good thing
William McCants, Brookings, February 23, 2017
14. NARRATIVE
● The battle for the narrative has become increasingly important in an increasingly interconnected world. The public affairs savvy of the Islamic State and other adversaries testifies to the strategic power of a concerted information operations campaign. The gravity of the narrative will increase exponentially as communications and social media technologies become more capable, robust, and ubiquitous.
Drones, Hackers, Anthropologists, Marines
Capt. Brian Kerg, Marine Corps Gazette, November 2016
15. HISTORICAL NARRATIVES
● . . . 1917 is an awkward year in history for the Kremlin, especially President Vladimir Putin, who oozes nostalgia for the glory days of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union but would rather not remind his people of the power of dissent. The Russian government won't mark the 100th anniversary," said Sam Greene, Director of the Russia Institute at King's College London.
Russian Revolution: An awkward moment for Putin 100 years on
Angela Dewan and Darya Tarasova, CNN, March 8, 2017
● Militaristic ideas and gender stereotypes can dominate one’s early life in Russia — as public holidays in honour of the country’s military and women show.
In Russia, propaganda starts in preschool<span