The president announced that we were “turning the page” on Operation Freedom; but what he failed to do was close the book.

by Jeffry R. Halverson In the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, Indian novelist and activist Arundhati Roy wrote an opinion piece in the British daily The Guardian, stating: [Bin Laden] has been sculpted from the spare rib of a world laid to waste by American foreign policy: its gunboat diplomacy, its nuclear arsenal, its [...]

by Chris Lundry While in Singapore for the ICA conference with colleagues from the CSC, interesting news kept coming in from Indonesia concerning its ongoing fight against terrorism. It was quite a contrast to what appeared to be the biggest story in Singapore: the conviction of a foreigner who spray-painted a train, a story that [...]

Having recently returned from a brief (four-day!) trip to Indonesia and Singapore, I’ve been reminded of the value of simply being in a location with eyes and ears open in order to gain insight into current events. While in Indonesia, some interesting communication- and terrorism-related news emerged. Facebook has been gaining ground in Indonesia, and [...]

by Bud Goodall In Thursday’s Nobel acceptance speech, President Obama delivered the powerful narrative I had hoped to hear in his previous West Point address on Afghanistan.  I was critical of the West Point address due to: “the absence of a compelling narrative that links who we are, as a people, to what we are trying [...]

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 [...]

by Bud Goodall, Angela Trethewey, & Steven R. Corman President Barack Obama’s historic speech in Cairo yeserday represents a welcome break from the former President George W. Bush administration’s approach to strategic communication.  Bush’s rhetorical strategy was to divide the world into opposing forces of Good and Evil, and then demand that Muslims choose sides. [...]

by Steven R. Corman Well it’s official.  Earlier last week AP reported comments from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that the government is no longer using the phrase “global war on terror” (GWOT): The administration has stopped using the phrase and I think that speaks for itself. Indeed.  It says that you can’t go to [...]