by Scott W. Ruston The International Communication Association (ICA) holds its annual conference later this week here in Phoenix 24-28 May, and the CSC is sponsoring two events focused on strategic communication.  If you’re interested in strategic communication and in town for ICA, please consider these events. First, the CSC has put together a back-to-back [...]

by Steven R. Corman The House of Representatives has been working to amend the laws that govern the dissemination of “propaganda” materials in the U.S.  What seemed like a good idea to me and others–one long overdue–is being spun by some observers as a dark effort by the DoD and State Department who want authorization [...]

By Steven R. Corman & Jarret Brachman The release last week of documents captured from Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbotabad has generated a flurry of interest in the press and blogosphere.  Yet a question has arisen as to whether the release was wise, since the documents are intelligence assets that could give the enemy [...]

by Chris Lundry Indonesian extremists continue to portray Ambonese Christians as engaged in separatist rebellion against Indonesia, and a crusade against Muslims. This isn’t true, but raises the question: where on earth did they get this idea? The adage that if a lie gets repeated enough times it becomes true is, apparently, applicable in Indonesia’s [...]

by Steven R. Corman The CSC has an article in the current issue of Studies in Conflict and Terrorism on casualty inflation by the Taliban in the Afghanistan conflict.  The abstract follows, and the full text is available here (subscription). Cooking the Books: Strategic Inflation of Casualty Reports by Extremists in the Afghanistan Conflict Chris [...]

by Steven R. Corman Last month, James Appathurai, NATO’s Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs and Security Policy,  agreed to participate in an electronic Q&A sponsored by the Atlantic Community.  He answered 20 questions in four installments, on global partnerships and the Arab spring, partnerships in Asia, questions on Central Asia/Caucasus, and the NATO [...]

by Steven R. Corman In previous posts I have advocated amplifying al-Qaeda’s record of killing Muslims, and argued this practice was doing serious damage toAQ’s brand.  Captured documents from bin Laden’s compound indicate that he was worried about the same thing. Last week David Ignatius of the Washington Post wrote a story based on his [...]

CSC members H. L. Goodall, Jr, Pauline Hope Cheong, Kristin Fleischer and Steven R. Corman have just published a new article in Perspectives on Terrorism.  The abstract is below, and the article is available (free) here. Rhetorical Charms: The Promise and Pitfalls of Humor and Ridicule as Strategies to Counter Extremist Narratives In this article [...]

by Bruce Gregory* Morton Abramowitz and Mark Lowenthal, “Restocking the Toollkit,” The American Interest, Winter, January/February, 2012, 57-64.  Abramowitz (Century Foundation) and Lowenthal (Intelligence and Security Academy) lament two decades of US overreliance on military force and call for a stronger “array of diverse tools to influence events abroad.”   Critical weaknesses include lack of well [...]

by Steven R. Corman I pass on, for your viewing enjoyment, a segment from the PBS Newshour about a perky, Chinese speaking, twenty-something Voice of America employee named Jessica Beinecke.  She is becoming something of a sensation in China by teaching American slang to people there via internet video.  Her program, called OMG! Meiyu, uses [...]