Admiral Michael Mullen’s recent essay in Joint Forces Quarterly criticizing “strategic communication” lambastes the US government for its failures of strategic communication and the growth of a bloated bureaucracy fueling an agency-funded, contractor-filled cottage industry.  We have previously flagged Admiral Mullen as someone who “gets it,”  and it is welcome news that a US government official with his level of respect and stature continues to bring attention to the myopia that pervades US strategic communication.

We agree with the Admiral’s call for better listening. We should listen to not only what the locals say, but also to what extremists say, and how they say it in a manner the locals already understand. And, we should get back to the basics, understanding what narrative is and how our opponents craft their narratives. This knowledge will help build trust and relationships.

Admiral Mullen does not dismiss strategic communication as a process, technique or as a tool for decision makers and operators. But he does critique the bloated bureaucracy that has become strategic communication within the U.S. government, with its numerous, uncoordinated efforts that are disconnected from actions on the ground (both meritorious and unfortunate).

Presumably within the field of fire of Mullen’s critique is the recent announcement of new counter-propaganda efforts by the Obama Administration in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This new initiative funds (possibly up to $150 million) new communication infrastructure investment, new programming, training and “pamphlets, posters and CDs denigrating militants”.  Admiral Mullen suggests that relationships and trust are the key, not new programs:

We need to get back to basics, and we can start by not beating ourselves up. The problem isn’t that we are bad at communicating or being outdone by men in caves. Most of them aren’t even in caves. The Taliban and al Qaeda live largely among the people. They intimidate and control and communicate from within, not from the sidelines.

Mullen advises that we refocus efforts on operating within the communities and build relationships and trust, rather than lobbing “information bombs” over the walls of a metaphorical (and literal) Green Zone. Here he is fighting an outdated view of the communication process, that is unfortunately still deeply entrenched in government and the military.

But when Admiral Mullen says the Bad Guys are operating from  “within,” it is important to recognize that this does not solely mean physically or socially within the community. It also means culturally within, another area where we need to spend time, energy and resources for listening and understanding. Admiral Mullen notes:

Only through a shared appreciation of the people’s culture, needs, and hopes for the future can we hope ourselves to supplant the extremist narrative.

Admiral Mullen’s desire to supplant the extremist narrative echoes the consternation circulating throughout the DoD, Dept. of State, and strategic communication profession, that somehow the US message machine has been outflanked by unsophisticated operators.  Mullen identifies a fundamental component largely missing from US rhetoric: Cultural understanding.

Why is the extremist narrative more successful than the American narrative?  Because our strategic communication has so far failed to listen, failed to understand that the issue is not our story but their story.  To correct this problem, significant attention needs to be paid to not only “extremist narratives”, but also the deep cultural narratives that circulate in communities and sub-cultures within which the extremist message (in narrative form) is deeply intertwined.  More on that in a moment.

Strategic communication professionals, diplomats, and warfighters need to get back to the basics and understand what a “narrative” is.  Part of the reason the extremist narratives are more successful than American narratives is that the American messages are often not narratives at all. “The Taliban have archaic values” (to paraphrase Ashley Bommer, advisor to Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke) is not a narrative. It is an opinion, forged within a particular worldview, a worldview itself shaped by certain narratives that valorize equality, a free market regulated by law rather than pecuniary circumvention, the role of women as leaders in society, etc.

What then, is this slippery term “narrative”?  A narrative is a system of stories that hang together and provide a coherent view of the world.  People use narratives to understand how their world works.  Narratives contain patterns that fit the data of everyday life (events, people, actions, sequences of actions, messages, and so on), explaining how events unfold over time and how one thing causes another.  For instance, President Obama’s speech in Cairo wove together these patterns by discussing his own biography along with a notion of mutual progress between the Western and Muslim worlds.

Narratives consist of two components, the data (the stories, what is told) and the pattern (how they are told and what is not told).  The process of matching data to patterns happens repeatedly and continuously. People acquire the patterns through upbringing, culture, education and experience. A pattern might specify that a story includes opposing forces, that these forces cooperate (or fight), that what happens earlier always influences what happens later (or not), and so on.

As people hear stories, they acquire the data and distribute it into roles and relationships according to the narrative patterns they already know and understand.  If the story doesn’t fit the pattern, they try an an alternate pattern (or perhaps a different ordering of the pieces of data) until they can understand what is happening.  This process occurs not just in individuals, but in groups and societies too.

A quick example is 9/11, and your reaction to it.  If you are like most people, images and reports of airplanes flying into buildings made no sense to you. This probably caused much confusion and disbelief at first. But then a narrative pattern was applied (probably coming from news reports): Terrorists (antagonists) hijacked airplanes full of innocent people (victims) to use as flying bombs (tools) to attack (conflict action) U.S. society (protagonist). Suddenly it all made sense.

It made sense (to most Americans) because it tapped a narrative in which an organization and an ideology are at war with the United States–not unlike the Cold War narrative of conflict between the USSR and the US. The similar narratives of the Cold War and the Conflict Formerly Known as the Global War on Terror (now Overseas Contingency Operation, or perhaps FATAVE) explains why we have such a hard time seeing the differences between them–we are blinded by the similarities we have constructed by our method of making sense of these actions.

The critical point here is that narratives shape our understanding of the world, and recurrent patterns help make new situations familiar (despite, perhaps, some significant differences). This is why extremists routinely refer to US forces as Crusaders or liken former President Bush to the Pharaoh (not a Pharaoh, but the Pharaoh). These terms reference deep seated cultural narratives that are familiar to individuals and sub-cultures across the Muslim world.

Taliban communication also integrates deep-rooted cultural narratives to aid their audience both in understanding their message and subconsciously constructing affinity. It is widely reported that their shabnamah, or “night letters”,  contain threats warning against cooperation with US and Afghani government forces.  But what is often overlooked is their eloquence and careful crafting of a narrative that unites citizen and Taliban together.

Dr. Thomas Johnson at the Naval Postgraduate School offers an insightful analysis of the night letters.  In one of his examples, the night letter invokes hero narratives from Afghan history.  It draws on particular Ghilzai-tribe heroes thwarting incursions dating from the dawn of the second millennium all the way through the anti-Soviet jihad.  By using this narrative, the Taliban imply they are the inheritors of this Ghilzai heroism, blurring distinctions between ideological or theological affinities and tribal loyalty. Thus, in communicating to a Ghilzai (or Ghilzai-friendly) audience, the Taliban position themselves as allies of the audience. Together, they oppose Crusaders, invaders, and their tribal enemy the Durrani–who just happen to be a significant part of the base of Hamid Karzai’s government.

The tribal, cultural and political situation is far more complex than this forum can accommodate. But the point is that narrative has a common function wherever it is applied.  In the West, recasting the conflict between the US and terrorist groups as a war of Western versus hostile ideology makes the situation familiar and understandable (i.e., like the Cold War). Likewise in Afghanistan, playing on existing narratives of tribal loyalty, heroism and national origin simplifies the Taliban’s message and makes it familiar.

What to do? The strategic communication landscape, of course, cannot be abandoned, nor put on the back burner.  Rather, it needs to be foregrounded and integrated into Strategic, Tactical and Operational levels of planning and decision-making. But as Admiral Mullen said, we don’t need a branding or marketing campaign, based on a 20th Century hypodermic model of message injection. Instead strategic communication needs to focus on getting a handle on the culture of the region. It must understand the narrative patterns by which actions, messages and images will be organized and understood, and figure out which part of the extremists’ actions contradict the prevailing patterns.

No amount of new radio stations, cell phone systems or mobile trivia games will sway the Afghan populace to supporting the Karzai government and US interests until the government and US presence becomes integrated into the narratives that govern the individual, tribal, regional and national world views.

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Yesterday, the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith McHale gave her first major speech outlining priorities in her new job.  My reaction to her remarks is mixed.  On the one hand there were some confusing definitions a key missing element.  On the other hand it contained some very promising themes, which on balance leave me optimistic about her tenure.

One thing that really puzzled me was a definitional exercise near the beginning of the address.  McHale said public diplomacy operates on two levels:

First, communication.  This is the air game, the radio and TV broadcasts, the websites and media outreach that seek to explain and provide context for U.S. policies and actions; and

Second, engagement, the ground game of direct people-to-people exchanges, speakers, and embassy-sponsored culture events that build personal relationships. (emphasis original)

This is an odd distinction for two reasons.  First, person-to-person engagement is just as much communication as is the “air game.”  In fact it is even more so, if we adopt a modern view that communication is not just the transmission of messages but a process of dialogue.

Second, it implies that person-to-person relationships cannot be developed through electronic media.  That may be true for mass media like radio and television, though what is said through those channels does impact the ability to establish personal relationships.  But it is surely not true for web-based interactive media like mobile messaging, web-based fora, and mobile messaging.  These can be used for engagement too, as examples later in the speech show.

I would not make so much of this were it not for the fact that it was emphasized so much in the speech.  It was flagged as a main organizing principle, with the two elements set off in boldface in the transcript (the only things that got such treatment).  This signals that it is a major conceptual distinction in the speech, that McHale sees these two aspects of public diplomacy as having different functions and calling for different strategies. On the contrary New Media are breaking down these kinds of distinctions.  And indeed in the remainder of the speech McHale seems to abandon the distinction, using communication and engagement interchangeably.

Another conceptual head-scratcher was McHale’s statement that

The national security implications of engagement have not been lost on our colleagues at the Department of Defense, which has become heavily involved in what we call public diplomacy and they call strategic communications. (emphasis mine)

That’s not exactly right.  What the DoD calls strategic communication is not just public diplomacy.  It also includes public affairs and (most importantly) information operations.  It is important to recognize this because information operations can involve deception operations–so called black propaganda.  If discovered these operations can have negative impacts on person-to-person relationship building, as can normal overt actions of military operations.  They can also cause domestic public affairs problems, as they did in the Lincoln Group scandal of  a few years back.  Speaking of public affairs, McHale did not take this opportunity to unpack apparent recent changes in that function at State.

The missing element in the speech was the emphasis that McHale’s predecessor Jim Glassman placed on communicating about the Bad Guys.  Glassman declared that–in contrast to previous Under Secretaries–he was going to make public diplomacy less about selling brand America and more about de-branding our extremist opponents.  If anything McHale’s speech moves back in the other direction, placing emphasis on winning friends and influencing people.  This is undoubtedly important, but so is capitalizing on the growing ill sentiment toward extremists in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan.  It would have been nice to have this affirmed.

All that said, there were a lot of things to like in McHale’s speech, and for me they outweigh the shortcomings just discussed.  She echoed a large number of themes we here at CSC have been advocating in recent years.  Among them:

• “We need to listen more and lecture less.  We have to learn how people listen to us, how are words and deeds are actually heard and seen.”  Hooray!  Our Under Secretary thinks of communication as dialogue, not transmission.
• “We need to explain our position and policies upfront and not after the fact when opinions have already been formed.”  This is further evidence of a move away from spin-meistering and toward dialogue.
• Throughout the speech McHale emphasized the importance of communicating in the languages of our PD audiences.  As anyone who has traveled abroad knows, speaking someone else’s language can open doors,  even it’s just a few words pronounced improperly.  Moving to fluent foreign language engagement in PD will have important benefits.
• She repeatedly emphasized the importance of New Media in public diplomacy efforts.  Though just using different channels will not change things, using them properly and in combination with the dialogic approach McHale is advocating is critical.
• She also discussed the importance of creating a culture of risk-taking and innovation.  This is of the utmost importance because public diplomacy operates on a rugged landscape.

Finally, for my money the most important thing McHale said in her speech is this:

At the top of my list is integrating public diplomacy into the policy process at every level, from formulation and implementation.  Our policy decisions must be informed upfront by sound research and perspectives on possible impacts.

Amen!  What a great thing to have on the top of the list.  If McHale can really accomplish this goal, it alone will be enough to secure her legacy (in my humble opinion).  She will have solved the number one problem of U.S. public diplomacy in this decade, that it has been treated as an after-the-fact effort to put lipstick on pigs.  Given institutional inertia that will work against this change, she has her work cut out for her.

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As reported yesterday by Sharon Weinberger at Danger Room, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has resurfaced on the lecture circuit, calling for the (re-?) creation of (something kinda-sorta like) the old USIA (but not really):

We need someone in the United States government, some entity, not like the old USIA . . . I think this agency, a new agency has to be something that would take advantage of the wonderful opportunities that exist today. There are multiple channels for information . . . The Internet is there, pods blogs are there, talk radio is there, e-mails are there. There are all kinds of opportunities.

she quotes Rumsfeld as saying.

As her update notes, the post set off a small flurry of commentary in the public-diplomasphere. Most posters joined Weinberger in lamenting the return of the former SecDef (whose name translates as “kaboom field,” a source of unending hilarity for my friends in Germany) to the Public Conversation. Spencer Ackerman is circumspect:

Rumsfeld manage[d] to be the first secretary of defense in history not just to botch two wars, but to botch two wars simultaneously. For that, no one should ever listen to this man ever again. Whatever he says is discredited by the sheer fact that he’s the one saying it. He should be legally obligated to end of all his sentences with, “…but, on the other hand, I’m a total jackass.”

Matt Armstrong over at Mountainrunner was the contrarian. He criticized Weinberger for equating the idea with its messenger. While his by-now heavily redacted post has backtracked on the critical tone toward Weinberger, he is sticking to his guns:

[Rumsfeld] says it wrong and has credibility issues, which is Sharon’s keypoint. My keypoint is don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater just because he touched it.

At the risk of occupying the wishy-washy middle, I’d say there is something to agree with on both sides of this debate.

Ad hominems against Rumsfeld aside, Weinberger and the others are right to be suspicious of his concept. He decries the dismantling of the USIA, saying that we “lost a valued tool to help tell the story of a nation that was carved from the wilderness and conceived in freedom.” What we lack today, says Rumsfeld, is a “personnel organization” that can “deploy” people who can competently message for America.

But the problem is not that we are failing to insert our talking points into the Internet tubes and “pods” often enough. The problem is our meta-message: “Do as we say, not as we do.” We have people in our existing strategic communication establishment who have figured this out. For instance Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy Michael Doran defines strategic communication as “syncing our messaging with our actions, so our actions reinforce our words.” Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mullen says this too, and adds that we need to talk less and listen more. Three cheers for them!

Rumsfeld offers us a bureaucratic fix for what is really a conceptual problem. Creating the Homeland Security Department (a plan he presumably helped hatch) has mostly compounded the management gridlock it was supposed to solve. In the same way, creating a War-of-Ideas Department without a fundamental change in communication strategy will only amplify our shortcomings, helping us say the same wrong things, only louder.

Rumsfeld is also off the mark in his assessment of what we lost with the USIA. We didn’t lose a “tool,” we lost an approach. I have talked to many refugees from the USIA, and their common lament is the demise of a field driven approach to strategic communication. In the good ol’ days, USIA diplomats on the ground–who had knowledge of and contact with local people and circumstances–decided how strategic messages would be delivered. After the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998, these functions were absorbed into the State Department. Local finesse was supplanted with centrally devised and tightly controlled talking points delivered via an Echo Chamber.

This is where I think Matt Armstrong is right to say “not so fast.” A new organization could present an opportunity to go back to the future, especially if it could be done while there are people still around who remember how things used to be done. Such an effort would of course have to be updated to account for the new communication realities of this millenium. But if we were to combine the old-fashioned field-driven approach with a new commitment to listening and alignment of words with actions, then practice this using the old and new media, we might once again have reason to be optimistic about our prospects in the “war of ideas.”

UPDATE (1/25):   Today I received a private communication from Sharon Weinberger noting a correction she made on her original post on this subject.  She had quoted Rumsfeld as referring to “pods” as part of what is available on the Internet.  She said “someone with a high-quality recording sent me an excerpt, noting word he used was actually ‘blogs.’”  I have, in turn, made the appropriate corrections in this post.

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• You can’t be “strategic” in the classical sense of the term because the lines between strategic, operational, and tactical have become blurred.
• The message-push mode of strategic communication (what we have called the message influence model) is outdated a no longer effective.
• Credibility is more important than particular messages.
• What we do, not what we say, is the most important factor in determining our credibility.
• We spend too much time trying to push our stories and messages.
• We don’t spend enough time listening.

Three cheers for Adm. Mullen! I would only add that what he is saying goes not just for the military but for the entire U.S. government. With leadership like this maybe things will finally start to turn around.

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I ran across this astonishing post by William Triplett at Variety analyzing American’s problem with Public Diplomacy. After citing recent research about our decline in world public opinion, Triplett concludes:

the U.S. government continues to make the same mistake when it comes to reaching disgruntled populations abroad: It’s talking without listening.

He extensively quotes Jeffrey Sonnenfeld from the Yale School of Management, who knows why our public diplomacy is so bad: Charlotte Beers ran dumb commercials.

Beers launched the “Shared Values” campaign, TV ads aired throughout the Mideast showing the happy and fulfilling lives of American Muslims. …The spots were “mind-numbing and stupid,” adds Sonnenfeld, who also reviewed the ads. “It was the equivalent of speaking slower while shouting louder.”

Karen Hughes was no better, says Triplett, as her “much-hyped trip to the Middle East in 2005 was a bust of epic proportions.”

The solution is to let Hollywood handle this stuff. Specifically

“Mark Burnett should have produced those TV ads,” Sonnenfeld says, referring to the reality TV heavyweight.

Let me get this straight: The problem is not enough listening, and the solution is playing better commercials. Let’s review, shall we? Listening involves receiving messages and taking in the information they contain. Commercials involve putting messages out, so they are not listening. They are more like the opposite of listening.

This might seem like pretty elementary stuff, but apparently it is not well understood. Karen Hughes’s “Listening Tour” back in 2005 mainly involved her going around the Middle East making speeches. Making speeches is not listening, either.

Another flaw in the Tripleet/Sonnenfeld analysis is that it doesn’t matter how good your ads are if you don’t have credibility. The credibility of the U.S. may never have been lower than it is now. R.S. Zaharma of American University sums it up this way:

What U.S. officials don’t seem to register is that no amount of information pumped out by U.S. public diplomacy will be enough to improve the U.S. image. The problem, ultimately, is not lack of information but lack of credibility.

On The Apprentice, Mark Burnett had The Donald to work with, who has at least enough credibility to convincingly fire sycophantic interns. In the case of U.S. public diplomacy there is no comparable spokesman. And when you behave as if you can persuade people when you obviously have no credibility it makes you look clueless, which further undermines your credibility.

Finally, it doesn’t matter what you say or how much you listen if you behave in ways in ways that contradict the image you’re trying to project. The root cause of U.S. public diplomacy problems is a huge disconnect between what is said and what is done. I am hardly the first person to point this out, and the examples are legion. We can’t extol democracy and then support undemocratic regimes because it is expedient, or discount the results of elections that don’t come out to our liking. We can’t champion freedom, fairness, and human rights, then torture people and run prisons that operate outside the law. Actions speak louder than words, and this is another elementary fact that seems not to be very well understood in official circles.

With due respect to Mr. Triplett and Dr. Sonnenfeld, the solution to U.S. public diplomacy is not putting Hollywood in charge. It is, first, understanding the difference between speaking and listening, second, recognizing that we have very little credibility at present and thus little ability to push any message, and third, realizing that we need to align our actions with our words.

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