Jul
16

WTF Is Information Operations???

The facts are these:

Information Operations (or “IO”) refers to the United States’ military’s capabilities and plans to influence non-American populations in regions where U.S. forces are engaged. In military parlance, IO is often a supporting plan to strategic operations. For example, no IO plans exist outside of a named operation or mission where U.S. forces are concerned.

The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) defines IO as:

The integrated employment, during military operations, of information-related capabilities in concert with other lines of operation to influence, disrupt, corrupt, or usurp the decision-making of adversaries and potential adversaries while protecting our own.

In joint DOD doctrine, IO is composed of five pillars:

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In 2011, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates reassigned policy proponency – to include doctrinal recommendations and overall budget authority – for IO to the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, specifically the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations, Low Intensity Conflict and Interdependent Capabilities (also called ASD-SOLIC&IC or simply “SOLIC”). The pillars of IO, however, were assigned to individual subordinate entities within DOD: CNO belongs exclusively to U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM), MISO was transferred to U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and the Joint Staff assumed control of OPSEC, MILDEC, and EW. These subordinate commands are essentially responsible for organizing resources, plans and strategy for their pillars and submitting them to SOLIC for overall coordination and approval.

Each service of the U.S. military trains and organizes its own IO personnel and assigns them to geographic combatant commands where they are deployed as part of joint task forces to assist in the development of IO plans and strategies. Each service, however, takes a slightly different approach to their own IO doctrine, which can lead to varying levels of ability and training in IO personnel. The U.S. Army is widely recognized as the service with the most capability and professionalized education in IO due to its long history of developing information warfare doctrine. Ultimately, however, and by law, Joint doctrine for IO supersedes any service-specific policy, strategy, plan, or resource.

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Jul
13

WTF Is Public Diplomacy???

The facts are these:

Public diplomacy (PD) is a term that describes how the United States communicates officially with foreign audiences primarily to influence these audiences according to U.S. foreign policy objectives.

The term originated at the United States Information Agency (USIA) where PD program managers and planners wanted to distance the organization’s mission from the term “propaganda,” which took on a negative Cold War perception (“Propaganda is only what Nazis and Soviets do!”) USIA described in its mission statement the following definition of public diplomacy:

“To understand, inform, and influence foreign publics in promotion of the national interest and to broaden the dialogue between Americans and U.S. institutions and their counterparts abroad. To accomplish this, we

  • explain and advocate U.S. policies in terms that are credible and meaningful in foreign cultures;
  • provide information about the U.S., its people, values, and institutions;
  • build lasting relationships and mutual understanding through the exchange of people and ideas; and
  • advise U.S. decision-makers on foreign attitudes and their implications for U.S. policies.”
USIA was absorbed by the U.S. Department of State during the Clinton Administration. Elements of its programs ended up in a bureau called International Information Programs (IIP), which now falls under the responsibility of the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs (also called “R” in cryptic diplospeak). R also coordinates the activity of State’s Educational & Cultural Affairs Bureau (or ECA) and the Bureau for Public Affairs (PA).

 

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PD activities include any type of information dissemination and/or influence program aimed at foreign audiences. These also include activities labeled as cultural diplomacy, citizen diplomacy, and other descriptors for different types of non-traditional diplomacy. PD also entails international broadcasting activities governed by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (or BBG), which is a quasi-governmental organization only tangentially affiliated with the State Department. The BBG manages organizations like Radio Free Europe and Al-Hurra, which are out-facing broadcast news services aimed at foreign audiences. Said services once primarily operated only on radio but have modernized to disseminate their content via television, the internet, and other means.

Public diplomacy officers are stationed around the world at all U.S. embassies and within the geographic bureaus at Main State in Washington, DC.

For more definitional resources in This, Our National Communication Nightmare:
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