Comments on: Strange Annual Cycle in PD/SC Definition Debates?

By: Craig Hayden

Craig Hayden — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:09:02 +0000

Steve,

This post is very amusing. And I do think it’s odd that this community is still drawn back with centripetal force to the definitional question. Something tells me this isn’t the result of some academic impulse toward more analytic distinction and rigor.

Instead, the definitional debates are less about definitional clarity, and more about staking claims on authority and responsibility – which ultimately leads to communication strategy (and perhaps, ethics -e.g. international broadcasting).

I do think that the definitional debate is more important within the DoD, for reasons others have already articulated. But I also think the reason we always seem to come back to this debate in the larger discussion about public diplomacy is the lack of leadership on public diplomacy. The interagency process reveals how this is getting resolved without a clear compass, but until it’s spelled out in ways that make it less novel and more integral to the process of foreign policy – we’re going to keep debating what “it” is.

By: editor

editor — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:01:35 +0000

Dennis, agreed. I didn’t mean to make light of the importance of the issue, just kind of surprised by the apparent regularity in the cycles of debate (in which I myself participate). As I said in the response to John, I really do wonder what’s behind it. There might be some value in figuring it out.

By: Dennis Murphy

Dennis Murphy — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:43:05 +0000

Steve, it’s really a very important issue in military circles. Military culture is locked into doctrine and definitions (very different than other in USG). The problem is not within the SC, IO, PA community (or at least not a serious problem), it’s outside. The importance is that we need to coopt those that give us resources: sr. military leaders, congress, etc. If they don’t get it we don’t get to continue to push the rock up the hill.

By: Gregory Garland

Gregory Garland — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:09:04 +0000

Thanks, Steve, for your way-out-of-the-Beltway perspective, including the levity. To play upon an old adage, scholarly angels can fly because they take themselves so lightly.

I also appreciate Mark’s comment. We might actually be more effective if we focused more on the “stuff” rather than definitions and structure. Stuff like narrative, as the COMOPS team has tried to do. Stuff is what we do in the field because it’s really all that matters at the end of day. Of course in saying this, I risk prompting a heated debate on the meaning of “stuff,” right down to the multiphasic Power Points.

By: Mark Laity

Mark Laity — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:26:44 +0000

As Chief Strategic Communications at SHAPE I only wish the definitional debate was only restricted to autumn.

Since being propelled into this job I have spent far too much of my time on the in-house baseball of PD v SC v InfoOps v PA.

I have previous suggested that a clever Info Ops ploy would be to try and get the Taleban and AQ to have some internal feuding over their information doctrine, and then while they’re distracted, arguing with each other, and not pushing stuff out, we could just get on and fill the space…

By: Steve Corman

Steve Corman — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:50:15 +0000

John, thanks for your comments. While the post is to some extent tongue-in-cheek, I honestly do find it kind of curious that this issue seems to crop-up with such regularity, and I wonder what’s behind it.

I will agree that “strategic communication” is not very poetic, but it is certainly prosaic…most if not all communication is strategic, including (especially) PD.

By: john brown

john brown — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:32:24 +0000

Steve:

Great piece. You have introduced key elements defining an often “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” debate: Astrological alignments; change of seasons: academic calendar…

My own recent effort at humor (yes, could it be, in the final analysis, all that we have left in these hard times?) can be found in a Huffington Post on a PD-related topic (“cultural diplomacy”) that may amuse you:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-brown/a-modest-proposal-make-th_b_336311.html

I would be intrigued to take part in the PD/SC debate … Warning: At a British Embassy luncheon pertaining to this topic not long ago I perhaps impolitely proclaimed that SC — the term, that is — was an “offense to the English language.”

I don’t want to blame my dear father for such comments: but he, a diplomat, was also a published poet.

He liked clear and simple words.

Best,

john