by Steven R. Corman A new “strategic framework” for U.S. Public Diplomacy has at long last been released. Oddly, it is a slide show rather than a paper, but perhaps that’s because it is to be the basis for a briefing today. My colleague Phil Seib has already expressed disappointment in the new proposal: It is [...]

by Steven R. Corman Hi there.  Long time, no blog.  That’s in part because I was attending a conference entitled Strategic Communication for Combating Terrorism sponsored by the NATO Center of Excellence for Defense Against Terrorism in Ankara, Turkey.  The workshop featured 15 experts on strategic communication, including fellow blogger Matt Armstrong of MountainRunner. Considering [...]

by Steven R. Corman The Advanced Research and Assessment Group of the Defense Academy of the United Kingdom has just released a new primer on Strategic Communication.  The executive summary says: This paper attempts to address a perceived gap in UK defence thinking which currently has little documentation, on the emerging and cross governmental art [...]

by Steven R. Corman Matt Armstrong of the MountainRunner blog probably knows more about the Smith-Mundt Act than any other living human, and he’s not even a lawyer. He has just published an “interim version” (?) of an essay on Smith-Mundt over at Small Wars Journal.  It begins with the (very good) question “how can [...]

by Steven R. Corman Today the CSC has released a new white paper that is a companion piece to our Pragmatic Complexity paper from last year. This paper applies another idea from complexity theory, Kauffman’s Rugged Landscape Model, to the problem of finding the right message. The link and executive summary are below. Strategic Communication [...]

The new U.S. strategic communication plan needs to better recognize and adjust for the limitations imposed by our degraded credibility and be more realistic about the complex environment in which we communicate.

Attempts to restrict broadcasts to only those that support U.S. policies is inevitably counter-productive. Ambiguity in public diplomacy, not uniform and linear message strategy, must inform future efforts to understand and deploy resources.

Recent efforts to introduce strategic communication into the training of officers and enlisted personnel is a laudable goal but, tragically, turning the design over to Madison Avenue will likely only make the training ineffectual—or worse.