Strategic (mis)communications Lessons (not) learned from the

1
Strategic (mis)communicationsLessons (not)
learned from the war on Terrorism

• Prof. Philip M Taylor
• Institute of Communications Studies
• University of Leeds.

2
Declaring war on terror

• Understandable after 9/11 but war provides a
  misleading label who are the enemy? Where are
  they? How do you negotiate peace with them?
• A war for the US people, but not for Europe
  and now a jihad for their enemies
• Hurricane Katrina as Gods revenge against the
  city of homosexuals
• The long struggle re-branding

3
The media are a major battlefront

• Asymmetric weapon
• A democratic weakness
• or an asset but to whom?
• A new global info-sphere
• with new voices (internet,
• Al Jazeera etc)
• a battlespace

4
But there are other battlefronts as well.

• The Diplomatic Front i.e. coalition building
• The Intelligence Front the arrest and detention
  of terrorists and their supporters
• The Financial Front tracking and freezing money
  assets and laundering operations
• The Law Enforcement Front including
  counter-terrorist acts
• The Military Front first Afghanistan, then Iraq
• The Humanitarian Front post-conflict
  nation-building

5
The Propaganda War

• Plays out on all six fronts
• Usually conducted through global media
• On the military front, psychological operations
  (leaflets and radio) in support of military
  operations deployed.
• Information warfare includes strikes against
  Taliban radio and supplanting of internal
  communications messages by outside military media
  (including Commando Solo aircraft)

6
Beefing up the US propaganda machine

• Coalition Information Centres
• Office of Strategic Influence (failed)
• Office of Global Communications (closed)
• Freedom Promotion Act of 2002
• Radio Free Afghanistan
• Radio Farda, Radio Sawa, al-Hurrah TV, Hi
  magazine (suspended)
• Information Operations (incl. PSYOPS)

7
The First Battle - Afghanistan

• Largely a Special Operation special ops.
  dont take media with them
• Media nonetheless descended on Afghanistan and
  saw only slices of the war
• Many reporters killed
• Taliban only able to fight media war on
  strategic front of 24/7 global news services
• Coalition Information Centres to counter this

8
Al Qaeda Propaganda

• Al Qaedas central leadership structure has a
  dedicated media and communications committee
  tasked with issuing reports and statements in
  support of its operations, including a dedicated
  studio, known as the Al Sahab Institute for Media
  Productions.
• They have shown great skill in terms of timing
  but are helped greatly by the wests own goals.

9
Battle 2 - Iraq

• From Desert Storm why didnt we finish the job
  in 1991?
• From UN resolutions about WMD
• From 9/11, Enduring Freedom and the war against
  terrorism to a clash of civilisations
• Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive war and regime
  change
• The axis of evil and the dangers of appeasement

10
The Battle for Iraqi Hearts and Minds, 2003

• No mass surrenders on a scale similar to 1991
  why?
• No wide-scale uprisings against SH, unlike 1991
  why?
• Widely regarded in Arab world as invaders not
  liberators why?
• a serious failure of targeted communications
  at tactical and strategic levels (except in USA.
  But for how long?)

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The Media War

• Embedded journalists and the snowstorm of
  information
• Arab satellite channels as new players/alternative
  viewpoints (c.f. 1991 as the first CNN war)
• National media support/opposition reflected
  national governmental positions
• What about US/UK publics morale as casualties
  mount?

12
Bin Laden, 27 December 2004

• Bin Laden identified the insurgency in Iraq as a
  golden and unique opportunity for jihadists to
  engage and defeat the United States, and he
  characterized the insurgency in Iraq as the
  central battle in a Third World War, which the
  Crusader-Zionist coalition began against the
  Islamic nation.
• Describing Baghdad as the capital of the
  caliphate, Bin Laden asserted that jihad in
  Palestine and Iraq today is a duty for the people
  of the two countries and other Muslims.

13
Main world-wide themes of anti-USA propaganda

• US sponsorship of Israeli terrorism
• US hypocrisy of selective military
  interventions and selective targeting of
  terrorists (why not go after the Real IRA? Why
  not wage war against Basque terrorists? BUT
  mainly Israeli terrorism)
• Globalisation coca-colonialism
• Initial use of word crusade indicates reality
  of a Christian war against Islam (e.g. sanctions
  against Iraq, military bases in Saudi Arabia)

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Success?

• The Muslim world has not (yet) risen up in
  support of Al Qaedas strategic goals ..but
• Rising levels of anti-Americanism (and not just
  in the Arab and Muslim world) are helping them.
• Is this due to their success or the wests
  failure to win hearts and minds?

15
The wests propaganda own goals

• Crusade and Operation Infinite Justice
• Saddam and WMD, Iraq 9/11 undermines
  credibility of US voices
• especially as those voices in charge of US
  messages (Charlotte Beers, Condi Rice, Karen
  Hughes) are all female!
• Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay

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Conclusions

• The PSYOPS campaign had only short-term military
  benefits, but long-term unconventional warfare
  consequences
• The hearts and minds campaign had long-term
  roots of failure from 1991
• Publicised wartime stunts damaged credibility of
  liberation themes
• Policy and presentation must go hand in hand but
  the presentation wont sell the policy if the
  policy (product) is incredible