by Mark Woodward and Mariani Yahya*
Thai-Buddhist colonialism? That is a strange concept, but it is reality as far as the Malay-Muslims of the “Deep South” of Thailand are concerned.
Edward Said noted that the representation of political- and military-subject people as less than fully human is among the basic elements of the culture and ideology of [...]

by Bud Goodall
One of the important challenges of President Obama’s administration is to sell the continuation of our “overseas contingency operation” (or perhaps FATAVE) in Afghanistan to an increasingly disenchanted audience at home and abroad. But there is a worrisome absence of a good narrative–a coherent collection of stories–about why we are there and what [...]

by Jeffry Halverson*
In the run-up to today’s Afghan elections, the Taliban have been asserting that participation is un-Islamic.  But this infidel thinks these students (Talib translates as “student”) deserve an F.
A recent New York Times Op-Ed by Mirwais Ahmadzai, a program manager with the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, reports the appearance of ominous “night letters” [...]

by Steven R. Corman
At last, the AP is reporting, someone is finally going to review our moronic “terror alert system” (TAS).
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is expected to appoint a panel to reevaluate the system and determine whether it should be changed, or possibly eliminated.
Good for her.  The existing system, put in place shortly after [...]

by Steven R. Corman
Last week, while I was recovering from a long stretch of foreign travel, GAO released its latest report on public diplomacy.  Matt thinks it is “interesting and worth reading,”  while Kim says not so much. My own view is that the report is interesting (in a disturbing way) because it clings to [...]

by Steven R. Corman
I just ran across this “Washington whisper” item in USNWR:
President Obama has nominated longtime national security expert Philip J. “P. J.” Crowley as assistant secretary of state for public affairs, a move that suggests that the department’s public diplomacy with foreign nations will be stepped up. Crowley, currently a senior fellow and [...]

by Steven R. Corman
Matt’s latest post reminded me that we are still awaiting the appointment of a new Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. Perhaps the problem is that the task of filling the PD post has simply fallen off the radar screen.  I mean, we all know how things can [...]

by Steven R. Corman
Yesterday I participated in a bloggers’ roundtable on the just-released White Oak Recommendations on Public Diplomacy.  They were formulated by a large group described as “principal stakeholders” from government, academia, business, the arts, and media.  They spent three days at the Gilman Foundation’s White Oak conference center
to arrive at a cross-disciplinary consensus [...]

by Steven R. Corman
Earlier this week John Brown posted a blog questioning those of us who have expressed concern about slow movement on filling the position of Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs at the State Department. Maybe this go-slow approach is not such a bad thing, he says.
I have great [...]

by Steven R. Corman
The new strategic communication leadership at the State Department is still a work in progress.  Nonetheless DoD is making plans for better corrdination with it.  So says the Quadrennial Roles and Missions Review (QRM) released last week.
This emphasis is an outgrowth of DoD’s evolving doctrine on Irregular Warfare (IW).  The QRM notes [...]