This morning I attended a blogger’s roundtable with US Air Force Captain Trevor Hall. Capt. Hall was the pilot-in-command for the first US military humanitarian flight into Burma since the disaster. His C-130 transport aircraft carried food, water, and medical supplies into Rangoon International Airport. Since then, a number of further US Air Force and Marine flights have taken place.
Capt. Hall described the Burmese military personnel offloading the plane as “ecstatic” for US help, some even wanting to have their pictures taken with the crew and aircraft. Hearing this, I was reminded of Operation Little Vittles, when US pilots participating in the Berlin Airlift dropped candy from their aircraft while flying over the city. The actions of the pilots won the hearts and minds of a generation of Berliners, who dubbed the aircraft “Rosinenbombers” (Candy Bombers), and still remember the act today.
The operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have proven the power in winning a population’s hearts and minds. Modern humanitarian airlifts represent not only a chance to fulfill our responsibility to humanity, but also to create an entire generation with fond memories of American aircraft dropping American aid. In the long term, the resulting support might pay back hundreds of times over.
Update: Blackfive has a recording of the entire interview.
Matt Armstrong (AKA MountainRunner) has been publishing a blogging tour de force during the last few weeks and has established himself as the most prominent voice on public diplomacy in the blogosphere. If you are not reading his blog yet, here are four posts that will convince you otherwise:
AFRICOM: DOA or in Need of Better Marketing? No and Yes.
Like Mark Twain’s “death” in 1897 (he died in 1910), reports of AFRICOM’s demise may be exaggerated. Concerns that AFRICOM hasn’t been thought out or is unnecessary aren’t supported by the actions and statements of those charged with building this entity. However, based on the poor marketing of AFRICOM, these concerns are not surprising.
I attended USC’s AFRICOM conference earlier this month and between panel discussions and offline conversations, I came away with a new appreciation (and hope) for the newest, and very different, command. …
Measuring “Public Diplomacy”?
What “nine annual and long-term outcomes” would you use to measure America’s public diplomacy apparatus? State has apparently found them.
The American concept of “public diplomacy” is a strange one. As Americans, we seek a return on our investments. It’s in our blood. If there is no clear payback, then there’s no clear value and there’s no reason to continue. Public diplomacy is no different as we, unique to perhaps the rest of the world, view it as discrete cylinder of excellence that must be measured to prove its worth. Numerous reports as well as historic and recent prominent officials have noted, public diplomacy is presented as something that lacks a domestic constituency and thus support for its programs must be somehow explained. …
Not Afraid to Talk: our adversaries aren’t, why are we?
To begin with, we must accept that the romantic days of the United States Information Agency are gone. So many confuse the USIA and the other information services, such as Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, of recent decades with the USIA that was engaged in the active psychological struggle that largely ended with détente and the finalizing of the European partition. It was only after this aggressive period ended was “public diplomacy” coined, twelve years after USIA was created.
Unlike half a century ago, the U.S. military has a clear voice and is arguably our dominant public diplomat. Therefore, simply resurrecting “USIA” without reorganizing our national information capabilities across civilian and military lines would turn it into just another voice struggling to be heard over America’s military commanders, spokespersons, and warfighters. …
Synchronizing Information: The Importance of New Media in Conflict
The effectiveness of information campaigns today will more often dictate a victory than how well bullets and bombs are put on a target. Putting information on target is more important when dealing with an asymmetric adversary that cannot – and does not need to – match the military or economic power of the United States and her allies.
Insurgents and terrorists increasingly leverage New Media to shape perceptions around the globe to be attractive to some and intimidating to others. New Media collapses traditional concepts of time and space as information moves around the world in an instant. Unlike traditional media, search engines and the web in general, enable information, factual or not, to be quickly and easily accessed long after it was created.
The result is a shift in the purpose of physical engagement to increasingly incorporate the information effect of words and deeds. Thus, the purpose of improvised explosive devices, for example, is not to kill or maim Americans but to replay images of David sticking it to Goliath. …
As readers, publishers, and proponents of “new media”, we need to push blogging as a platform for intelligent, quality content and discussion relevant to professionals in our field. Not simply a place to post about our pets. I am glad to see the conflict/IR blogosphere making steady progress in that direction.
The United States has a problem. Despite overwhelming technological and military power, the US is rapidly losing the war of public perception. Matt Armstrong (aka MountainRunner) succinctly summarizes the situation in a 2007 Good Magazine article:
“Iraq has become a stage on which terrorists, insurgents, and Coalition forces compete for a global audience. YouTube, blogs, and all other forms of citizen media ensure that every GI Joe and Jihadi has at least a part in the theater of public opinion. The result is a new public diplomacy that insurgents understand, and the U.S. State Department doesn’t.”
Matt argues that the US is crippling its war for hearts and minds by building high security “Crusader castle” embassies in Baghdad and elsewhere. But just how can the United States fight an image war?
One idea is to copy Al-Qaeda’s PR strategy: use social networking sites, YouTube, and blogs. The problem with this strategy is that it plays to America’s weakness. Al-Qaeda’s decentralized, nimble network of members, supporters, followers, and fans is well suited to waging an information war on an online battlefield. The United States’ centralized structure, on the other hand,seems too slow and rigid to offer an effective PR battle. And, despite continuous cries for improvement, this situation does not appear to be changing any time soon. But what if there was a way to fight the war of public perception by exploiting US strengths.
Nobody can rival the United States in technological prowess and power projection capabilities. The ability of the United States to place military power anywhere in the globe separates it from all other states and certainly from Al-Qaeda. By applying these strengths, America moves the war of public perception to a new battlefield where it holds the high ground. The SkyFreighter (albeit theoretically) might be one way to do this.
The Sky Freighter, if the developer’s promises are to be believed (which is not that easy considering they misspell “freighter” on their homepage), offers a semi-rigid, amphibious, VTOL hybrid heavy lift aircraft capable of carrying 500 tons of cargo 6000 miles. In other words, it is a cross between a cargo ship and the Hindenburg.
Put into the right hands, these behemoth airship could fly American hospitals to the world’s medically underserved and through that mission, be American ambassadors. The US Navy already has a number of hospital ships used in humanitarian missions, however the ships are limited to working along coastlines or large port cites. SkyFreighter, however, has the ability to target specific communities regardless of their location. These craft allow the US to conduct public diplomacy campaigns almost anywhere, whether in the Somali bush or the Saudi desert. Poor, rural villagers will never be fully sheltered from Al-Qaeda’s PR. But, with a fleet of US hospital airships those same villagers would never forget that their free cleft-pallet surgery was conducted by an American Navy airship doctor. Al-Qaeda has little chance of competing against that.