Interesting stuff from the Defense Science Board at the Pentagon
http://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/2004-09-Strategic_Communication.pdf
Watch out, it's a 111-page pdf file. Not to sound like a total political-science geek (although the fact that I'm posting super-long chunks of the report should give that away anyway), but people should read it. I don't think it's suggestion for fixing the huge disconnect between America and everyone else is quite right, but it's analysis of the problems we face makes more sense than most things I've read.
Some parts that stuck out to me:
"To succeed, we must understand the United States is engaged in a generational and global struggle about ideas, not a war between the West and Islam. It is more than a war against the tactic of terrorism. We must think in terms of global networks, both government and non-government. If we continue to concentrate primarily on states (“getting it right” in Iraq, managing the next state conflict better), we will fail."
"But like the Cold War frame, the terrorism frame marginalizes other significant issues and problems: failing states, non-proliferation, HIV/AIDS pandemic, economic globalization, transnational threats other than terrorism, and global warming. Often the terrorism frame directs attention to tactics not strategy. The focus is more on capturing and killing terrorists than attitudinal, political, and economic forces that are the underlying source of threats and opportunities in national security."
"We call it a war on terrorism ― but Muslims in contrast see a history-shaking movement of Islamic restoration. This is not simply a religious revival, however, but also a renewal of the Muslim World itself. And it has taken form through many variant movements, both moderate and militant, with many millions of adherents ― of which radical fighters are only a small part. Moreover, these movements for restoration also represent, in their variant visions, the reality of multiple identities within Islam.
If there is one overarching goal they share, it is the overthrow of what Islamists call the “apostate” regimes: the tyrannies of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Jordan, and the Gulf states. They are the main target of the broader Islamist movement, as well as the actual fighter groups. The United States finds itself in the strategically awkward - and potentially dangerous - situation of being the longstanding prop and alliance partner of these authoritarian regimes. Without the U.S. these regimes could not survive. Thus the U.S. has strongly taken sides in a desperate struggle that is both broadly cast for all Muslims and country-specific.23"
"But if the strategic situation is wholly unlike the Cold War, our response nonetheless has tended to imitate the routines and bureaucratic responses and mindset that so characterized that era. In terms of strategic communication especially, the Cold War emphasized:
• Dissemination of information to “huddled masses yearning to be free.” Today we reflexively compare Muslim “masses” to those oppressed under Soviet rule. This is a strategic mistake. There is no yearning-to-be-liberated-by-the-U.S. groundswell among Muslim societies - except to be liberated perhaps from what they see as apostate tyrannies that the U.S. so determinedly promotes and defends."
"The information campaign - or as some still would have it, “the war of ideas,” or the struggle for “hearts and minds” - is important to every war effort. In this war it is an essential objective, because the larger goals of U.S. strategy depend on separating the vast majority of non-violent Muslims from the radical-militant Islamist-Jihadists. But American efforts have not only failed in this respect: they may also have achieved the opposite of what they intended.
American direct intervention in the Muslim World has paradoxically elevated the stature of and support for radical Islamists, while diminishing support for the United States to single-digits in some Arab societies.
• Muslims do not “hate our freedom,” but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the longstanding, even increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf states.
• Thus when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy. Moreover, saying that “freedom is the future of the Middle East” is seen as patronizing, suggesting that Arabs are like the enslaved peoples of the old Communist World - but Muslims do not feel this way: they feel oppressed, but not enslaved.
• Furthermore, in the eyes of Muslims, American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering. U.S. actions appear in contrast to be motivated by ulterior motives, and deliberately controlled in order to best serve American national interests at the expense of truly Muslim selfdetermination.
• Therefore, the dramatic narrative since 9/11 has essentially borne out the entire radical Islamist bill of particulars. American actions and the flow of events have elevated the authority of the Jihadi insurgents and tended to ratify their legitimacy among Muslims. Fighting groups portray themselves as the true defenders of an Ummah (the entire Muslim community) invaded and under attack - to broad public support.
• Finally, Muslims see Americans as strangely narcissistic - namely, that the war is all about us. As the Muslims see it, everything about the war is - for Americans - really no more than an extension of American domestic politics and its great game. This perception is of course necessarily heightened by election-year atmospherics, but nonetheless sustains their impression that when Americans talk to Muslims they are really just talking to themselves."
"But Americans believe that while the U.S. necessarily shapes foreign policies to support our national interests, those same interests are not necessarily in opposition to the interests of other nations and cultures. To the contrary, Americans are convinced that the U.S. is a benevolent “superpower” that elevates values emphasizing freedom and prosperity as at the core of its own national interest. Thus, for Americans, “U.S. values” are in reality “world values” - exemplified by the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights or the 1975 Helsinki Accords - so deep down we assume that everyone should naturally support our policies.
Yet the world of Islam - by overwhelming majorities at this time - sees things differently. Muslims see American policies as inimical to their values, American rhetoric about freedom and democracy as hypocritical, and American actions as deeply threatening."
"Therefore it is not enough for us to preach to Muslims, telling them that they need to show us that they believe in our values - such as tolerance and pluralism - and that they must reject the bad values of the violent Islamists. It is patently patronizing, for example, to keep bringing up Islam’s “Golden Age” as though we were scolding Muslims for some sort of civilizational backsliding. This is in fact a counter-productive approach; a non-starter. If we really want to see the Muslim World as a whole and the Arabic speaking World in particular, move more toward our understanding of “moderation” and “tolerance,” we must reassure Muslims that this does not mean that they must submit to the American Way. In other words, as we seek out Islamic voices that share essential beliefs with us, we must convey an important message of reassurance to them - before we can expect to usefully talk with them."
The problem is that the report is only about strategic communication, and basically calls for a huge interagency spin department to deal with this. While it's true that strategic communication is vital in a situation where you can only win by convincing people you aren't evil, spin isn't enough if all you're going to do with it is try to convince people that American policies are in fact for their own good. So far, the war on terror has been royally screwed up, and a new "strategic communication" focus to better articulate our policies to the world won't be able to make up for where the actual policy is failing.
Who do I think I am, a political blogger? I'll have to talk about my experiences in Israel some more later.
Watch out, it's a 111-page pdf file. Not to sound like a total political-science geek (although the fact that I'm posting super-long chunks of the report should give that away anyway), but people should read it. I don't think it's suggestion for fixing the huge disconnect between America and everyone else is quite right, but it's analysis of the problems we face makes more sense than most things I've read.
Some parts that stuck out to me:
"To succeed, we must understand the United States is engaged in a generational and global struggle about ideas, not a war between the West and Islam. It is more than a war against the tactic of terrorism. We must think in terms of global networks, both government and non-government. If we continue to concentrate primarily on states (“getting it right” in Iraq, managing the next state conflict better), we will fail."
"But like the Cold War frame, the terrorism frame marginalizes other significant issues and problems: failing states, non-proliferation, HIV/AIDS pandemic, economic globalization, transnational threats other than terrorism, and global warming. Often the terrorism frame directs attention to tactics not strategy. The focus is more on capturing and killing terrorists than attitudinal, political, and economic forces that are the underlying source of threats and opportunities in national security."
"We call it a war on terrorism ― but Muslims in contrast see a history-shaking movement of Islamic restoration. This is not simply a religious revival, however, but also a renewal of the Muslim World itself. And it has taken form through many variant movements, both moderate and militant, with many millions of adherents ― of which radical fighters are only a small part. Moreover, these movements for restoration also represent, in their variant visions, the reality of multiple identities within Islam.
If there is one overarching goal they share, it is the overthrow of what Islamists call the “apostate” regimes: the tyrannies of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Jordan, and the Gulf states. They are the main target of the broader Islamist movement, as well as the actual fighter groups. The United States finds itself in the strategically awkward - and potentially dangerous - situation of being the longstanding prop and alliance partner of these authoritarian regimes. Without the U.S. these regimes could not survive. Thus the U.S. has strongly taken sides in a desperate struggle that is both broadly cast for all Muslims and country-specific.23"
"But if the strategic situation is wholly unlike the Cold War, our response nonetheless has tended to imitate the routines and bureaucratic responses and mindset that so characterized that era. In terms of strategic communication especially, the Cold War emphasized:
• Dissemination of information to “huddled masses yearning to be free.” Today we reflexively compare Muslim “masses” to those oppressed under Soviet rule. This is a strategic mistake. There is no yearning-to-be-liberated-by-the-U.S. groundswell among Muslim societies - except to be liberated perhaps from what they see as apostate tyrannies that the U.S. so determinedly promotes and defends."
"The information campaign - or as some still would have it, “the war of ideas,” or the struggle for “hearts and minds” - is important to every war effort. In this war it is an essential objective, because the larger goals of U.S. strategy depend on separating the vast majority of non-violent Muslims from the radical-militant Islamist-Jihadists. But American efforts have not only failed in this respect: they may also have achieved the opposite of what they intended.
American direct intervention in the Muslim World has paradoxically elevated the stature of and support for radical Islamists, while diminishing support for the United States to single-digits in some Arab societies.
• Muslims do not “hate our freedom,” but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the longstanding, even increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf states.
• Thus when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy. Moreover, saying that “freedom is the future of the Middle East” is seen as patronizing, suggesting that Arabs are like the enslaved peoples of the old Communist World - but Muslims do not feel this way: they feel oppressed, but not enslaved.
• Furthermore, in the eyes of Muslims, American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering. U.S. actions appear in contrast to be motivated by ulterior motives, and deliberately controlled in order to best serve American national interests at the expense of truly Muslim selfdetermination.
• Therefore, the dramatic narrative since 9/11 has essentially borne out the entire radical Islamist bill of particulars. American actions and the flow of events have elevated the authority of the Jihadi insurgents and tended to ratify their legitimacy among Muslims. Fighting groups portray themselves as the true defenders of an Ummah (the entire Muslim community) invaded and under attack - to broad public support.
• Finally, Muslims see Americans as strangely narcissistic - namely, that the war is all about us. As the Muslims see it, everything about the war is - for Americans - really no more than an extension of American domestic politics and its great game. This perception is of course necessarily heightened by election-year atmospherics, but nonetheless sustains their impression that when Americans talk to Muslims they are really just talking to themselves."
"But Americans believe that while the U.S. necessarily shapes foreign policies to support our national interests, those same interests are not necessarily in opposition to the interests of other nations and cultures. To the contrary, Americans are convinced that the U.S. is a benevolent “superpower” that elevates values emphasizing freedom and prosperity as at the core of its own national interest. Thus, for Americans, “U.S. values” are in reality “world values” - exemplified by the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights or the 1975 Helsinki Accords - so deep down we assume that everyone should naturally support our policies.
Yet the world of Islam - by overwhelming majorities at this time - sees things differently. Muslims see American policies as inimical to their values, American rhetoric about freedom and democracy as hypocritical, and American actions as deeply threatening."
"Therefore it is not enough for us to preach to Muslims, telling them that they need to show us that they believe in our values - such as tolerance and pluralism - and that they must reject the bad values of the violent Islamists. It is patently patronizing, for example, to keep bringing up Islam’s “Golden Age” as though we were scolding Muslims for some sort of civilizational backsliding. This is in fact a counter-productive approach; a non-starter. If we really want to see the Muslim World as a whole and the Arabic speaking World in particular, move more toward our understanding of “moderation” and “tolerance,” we must reassure Muslims that this does not mean that they must submit to the American Way. In other words, as we seek out Islamic voices that share essential beliefs with us, we must convey an important message of reassurance to them - before we can expect to usefully talk with them."
The problem is that the report is only about strategic communication, and basically calls for a huge interagency spin department to deal with this. While it's true that strategic communication is vital in a situation where you can only win by convincing people you aren't evil, spin isn't enough if all you're going to do with it is try to convince people that American policies are in fact for their own good. So far, the war on terror has been royally screwed up, and a new "strategic communication" focus to better articulate our policies to the world won't be able to make up for where the actual policy is failing.
Who do I think I am, a political blogger? I'll have to talk about my experiences in Israel some more later.
2 Comments:
Interesting stuff. And fairly predictable too. Until we begin electing politicians who are, frankly, a lot smarter than we are, rather than wanting them to be just like us, there will be a dearth of forward thinking in any of the positions that effect foreign policy.
Of course, if those crazy Muslims would all just realize that what they need is to be born again politically and religiously, the world would be a safer place.
Well, whatever Bush's personal IQ may be, he's got people working for him who aren't dumb. The administration set out to be more unilateral, more pro-Israel, and to focus on certain enemy states, at the beginning. So it probably doesn't really surprise or alarm them that Muslims see the US that way. I don't think the first two are automatically bad either.
But it's all such a mess now. The government's only real focus seems to be catching terrorists and taking out rogue states, thinking that they're cutting off the head, but they're not. The head is the millions, even billions, of people who see American policies as dangerous to their religion and their lives, and who are getting even more radical. I have no idea how to fight that, or reverse it, but I think it's pretty clear that what we're doing now is not working.
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