Posted by: Cannoneer No. 4 | Wednesday, 9 January 2008

Strategic communications is the center of gravity in irregular warfare.

Success in Irregular Warfare

The current aggressive Islamic revivalist movement has simply changed the battlefield — the result of changes in transportation and communication. Formerly waged within a specific group or in the territory of a single state, we must now face worldwide irregular warfare. Strategic communications is intangible, conceptually unfamiliar; and its results are difficult to quantify. The message of this movement is accepted, respected, and supported by many peaceful and naïve Muslims. Gates referred to this task when he said: “Success will be less a matter of imposing one’s will and more a function of shaping behavior — of friends, adversaries, and most importantly, the people in between.” Our own people must also be included. Success in irregular warfare requires communication superiority, but to date our enemies have been more successful. Our conflict with the Third Jihad will be won or lost in this battlefield.

Our own people are my TA.

H/T:  SWJ

Posted in PSYOP Auxiliaries

« Why did a president who repeatedly talked about the ideology animating our enemies in this “War on Terror” do so little to wage an effective “War of Ideas” against it?
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Responses

That’s a great article isn’t it? I emphasized a different part in my extract, but it really makes ya think.

By: Wolf Pangloss on Thursday, 10 January 2008
at 10:12 am

I disagree with a Department of Stability. Stability means working to keep the tyrants in charge. That keeps us propping up dictators, until they get too uppity like Saddam.

By: cannoneerno4 on Friday, 11 January 2008
at 10:08 am

I didn’t get that out of the department of stability and read it instead as a guarantor of stability on the homefront… i.e. to prevent irregular infiltration. Letters of Marque against piracy were invented to deputize such people. Maybe the Frontier Scouts are the best model of what I’m thinking of. A few went native. There was no guarantee they wouldn’t. They were private citizens. But they were free to roam.

After cogitating on it for a few minutes, perhaps the trio is close to something we already have: Defense; State; and Intel. The problem is that Intel and State are not carrying their weight, especially Intel.

By: Wolf Pangloss on Friday, 11 January 2008
at 9:50 pm

I had never heard of William Mathewson. Thanks.

I went back and reread Holliday and I still don’t think he is talking about irregular war on the American homefront. He seems to want to create yet another Department to solve the bureaucratic lethargy we have now. Defense is at war. All the other Departments are on their ass. InterAgency is AWOL. DoD carries on without them as best they can, helped enormously by Reservists and Guardsman with the skills InterAgency SHOULD be bringing to the field.

Compare Holliday’s Stability Department to Barnett’s Department of Everything Else

By: cannoneerno4 on Saturday, 12 January 2008
at 3:18 am

[...] http://cannoneerno4.wordpress.com/2008/01/09/strategic-communications-is-the-center-of-gravity-in-ir... Success will be less a matter of imposing one’s will and more a function of shaping behavior — of fiends, adversaries, and most importantly, the people in between.” Our own people must also be included. Success in irregular warfare requires communication superiority, but to date our enemies have been more successful. Our conflict with the Third Jihad will be won or lost in this battlefield. [...]

By: Links - Political Warfare / StratCom / Psyops / Related « PurpleSlog on Saturday, 26 April 2008
at 1:41 pm

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