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Public Relations Review 38 (2012) 188– 194

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Public Relations Review

hallenges facing U.S. government and Department of Defense effortsn strategic communication

hristopher Paul ∗

AND, 4570 Fifth Ave., Suite 600, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, United States

r t i c l e i n f o

eywords:trategic communicationublic diplomacynformation operationsnternational communication

ilitary information support operationsnfluence

a b s t r a c t

Without entering the debate about exactly what strategic communication is or should be,this article enumerates challenges facing efforts to inform, influence, and persuade in pur-suit of national policy objectives first for the U.S. government in general, and then specificto the Department of Defense. With the problem space thus defined, the article then offers ahandful of solutions and suggestions, including requiring desired information endstates aspart of commander’s intent and separating efforts to manipulate and deceive from truthfulefforts to inform, influence, and persuade.

© 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

. Introduction

What, exactly, strategic communication is, what it includes, and what is excluded is hotly contested (Paul, 2011). Whats clear is that perceptions and understandings of images, policies, and actions matter, that the success of many policies isontingent on the support they receive from various populations (both foreign and domestic), and that effectively informing,nfluencing, and persuading in support of foreign policy is hard. Without stepping into the debate over what strategicommunication is or should be, this article presents challenges and difficulties in this area, asking: “what makes this soard?” This article both expands upon and refines the list of challenges developed in earlier work (Helmus, Paul, & Glenn,007).

Strategic communication is hard because influencing people is hard, but U.S. government efforts in this area face chal-enges that go well beyond psychological or cognition related difficulties. By listing and elaborating some of these challenges,

hope to encourage solutions, or, where solutions are impossible, their recognition as constraints. The article contains threeajor sections. The first lays out general challenges to U.S. government efforts to inform, influence, and persuade. The second

arrows the focus and discusses challenges specifically facing the U.S. military. The third offers suggestions for resolvingome of these challenges.

. General challenges facing U.S. government strategic communication

Popular resentment and distrust abroad pose immediate communication hurdles to expeditionary U.S. forces. The associa-

ion of messages and messengers with the United States poses at least three specific challenges to effective messaging. First,.S. involvement “taints” messages. Some messages have better chances of being listened to if broadcast by someone else.any existing U.S. influence efforts try to combat this by distancing the United States at least one step from the message. For

xample, the United States does not actively disclose United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funding

∗ Tel.: +1 412 683 2300x4609.E-mail address: cpaul@rand.org

363-8111/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.oi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2011.12.005

C. Paul / Public Relations Review 38 (2012) 188– 194 189

for dozens of Afghan radio stations. USAID (O’Ban, 2005, p. 1) explains, “We want to maintain the perception (if not thereality) that these radio stations are in fact fully independent.” Second, past and present actions damage U.S. credibility. U.S.credibility suffers when the United States fails to do what it says it will do and when actions contradict stated intentions. Forexample, in 2005 Pentagon news releases (Kucera, 2005a) asserted that U.S. forces were “conducting operations side by sidewith our Iraqi brethren.” This was not the case in all areas of operation (AOs) and Iraqis aware of this discrepancy likely lostsome trust for subsequent pronouncements. Third, contradictory messages increase confusion. When two different speakersgive different accounts or explanations of the same thing or when the same speaker explains something differently to twodifferent audiences, credibility suffers. After the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Department of State (DOS) talking points highlighteddifferent rationales for the invasion. To a U.S. audience, they would assert (Stockman, 2005), “We’re fighting them thereso we do not have to fight them here,” with the secondary implication that the United States intends to make the worlda safer place. This emphasis was reversed for foreign audiences. Unfortunately, globalized media made separate messagesimpossible.

Public opinion polls suggest that much of the anti-Americanism observed in the Muslim world today is attributableto U.S. policies rather than to American culture, values, or people (Wang, 2007). U.S. policies can prove unattractive tointernational audiences for a variety of reasons. Some policies are relics of the Cold War and use paradigms that fall flat inthe contemporary operating environment. Other policies encourage social or political reforms, such as universal suffrage,representative government, and freedom of religion. Although such “social engineering” may correspond with deeply heldAmerican values, it may not hold the same appeal to populations in certain areas, making for unattractive and unpersuasivethemes and messages. If existing U.S. policies are hated, new U.S. policies are likely to be met with suspicion and may alreadyhave at least two strikes against them; this includes U.S. military intervention overseas.

Strongly related to Anti-American sentiment abroad is the low baseline credibility the United States government and herrepresentatives enjoy worldwide. Corman, Hess, and Justus (2006, p. 2) have suggested that, “The perceived credibility ofthe United States government on the global stage has never been lower.” Goldman (2007) points out that the U.S. enjoyedvery high credibility relative to the Soviet Union during the Cold War, where we were “liberators” and the Soviets were“oppressors”; now, however, in the Middle East at least, the U.S. is the oppressor and the occupier.

Measuring the effectiveness of influence efforts is particularly challenging. Connecting a series of messages or signals withsome measurable quantity or quality that is not confounded by other possible causes is very difficult. For example, many Iraqisoldiers surrendered at the outset of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). Was this due to the psychological operations (PSYOP)leaflets dropped instructing them to do so? Was it instead due to the impact and presence of the coalition’s massive militarymight? Were there other causes? What was the most likely combination of causes that resulted in the desirable end? Inthis case, the possible causes are highly conflated, even though the objective being measured – surrender – is an observablebehavior. It would be even more difficult to assess the multiple possible causes underlying other objectives, such as creatingpositive public attitudes toward the coalition.

Even where measurement is possible, difficulties remain. Existing techniques from the social sciences and from indus-try are often difficult to get right and can be expensive to implement. Additionally, many are subject to various forms ofbias—including response bias (when the respondent tells you what you want to hear), selection bias (when the sample is notchosen in a representative fashion), and self-selection bias (when only people who want to participate in a poll do so, and theresponses of these individuals differ substantially from the hypothetical responses of those who did not participate). Finally,what you can measure may not be what you want to measure. It might be possible to get an approximation of changes inbeliefs with longitudinal public opinion polls, but those may not connect to propensity to act as cleanly as one might hope.

U.S. adversaries compete in the information environment, and with fewer constraints. Many terrorist organizations rec-ognize influence as a primary operational objective, and they integrate operations with related media requirements as amatter of course. Hezbollah, for example, has subjected “virtually all its military action to its propaganda and mass mediarequirements.” (Schleifer, 2006, p. 5) Not only do these adversaries emphasize influence as an objective, they operate almostcompletely free of constraint in the information environment (Chiarelli & Smith, 2007).

In order to adhere to values, societal norms, and laws (and to maximize long-term effectiveness) the United Stateschooses to constrain messaging and signaling activities, preserving integrity, but potentially ceding ground to adversarieswho eschew many of these constraints. As in information operations officer told me in 2009, “I can’t compete with a head on astick.” Adversaries employ a wide range of general approaches in their influence efforts, including intimidation or coercion,intimidating journalists and selectively controlling their access (Schleifer, 2006), engaging in disinformation, suborningyouth and child education (Losman, 2006), and making contextually specific (cultural, religious, or national) appeals.

Strategic communication is a seam issue and lacks a supporting constituency. Since the demise of the United States Infor-mation Agency, there has been no U.S. government entity whose sole mission is something like strategic communication.There are quite a few agencies and departments who have some responsibility for strategic communication or could play arole in it through their actions or messages, but all of them have some other primary mission, leaving strategic communi-cation second or third (or worse) and shared with other stakeholding organizations (for whom it is also second or third orworse). This makes strategic communication a “seam issue.” Since managing the strategic communication seams is no one’s

top priority, integration and coordination suffer (CSIS, 2007). Further, in part because it is no single organization’s raisond’être, strategic communication and public diplomacy lack a constituency (Johnson, Dale, & Cronin, 2005, p. 2). There is noorganization that is pushing hard for further responsibilities and resources in this area, and there is no large public block orsignificant congressional delegation pushing to ensure improvement.

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90 C. Paul / Public Relations Review 38 (2012) 188– 194

One of the most frequently noted complaints in the various reports and proposals for the improvement or remediationf strategic communication or public diplomacy is the lack of resources (Paul, 2009). Shortfalls include personnel, trainingnd preparation, translators, and funds for programs.

Many lament that U.S. strategic communication suffers from a lack of strategy and unspecified objectives. Critics contendhat U.S. strategy in general is adrift and meandering (Elkus & Safanski, 2009) and that this is even worse with regard toublic diplomacy and strategic communication (Nakamura & Weed, 2009; Perkins & Scott, 2006; Stovicek, undated; Wang,007). The title of a 2005 Government Accountability Office report sums up the concern: U.S. Public Diplomacy: Interagencyoordination Efforts Hampered by the Lack of National Communication Strategy. If strategic communication includes connectednd nesting messages and signals from top to bottom, there needs to be an overarching strategy at the top for everythingubordinate to connect to. “The USG [United States government] has no [strategic communication] strategy to serve ashe foundation for integration of all USG efforts to effectively communicate its policies to the world” (Stovicek, undated).vailable guidance is considered too vague. Even classified strategy documents from the National Security Council areeported as too ambiguous to be truly useful (Castelli, 2009).

There are numerous emerging trends that color today’s news and complicate U.S. strategic communication efforts when theynvolve or rely on the news media, including the emergence of the 24-h news cycle, the importance of framing (Paletz, 2002),ias and distortion (Paul & Kim, 2004), decreasing numbers of reporters, adversary control of journalists’ access, and theropensity for errors and weak retractions.

The old aphorism holds: “if it bleeds, it leads.” While actions speak louder than words, certain actions speak louder thanthers. As Corn (2009, p. 16) quips, “If good deeds spoke for themselves, we could send the Peace Corps and disband thearine Corps.” Modern news is predominantly detached and negative, and favors the sensational and the violent. “It should

ome as no great shock, then, that ‘good news’ stories about military operations do not appear with regularity in mainstreamrint and broadcast journalism” (Murphy, 2008, p. 8).

Efforts to inform, influence, and persuade all occur in the context of global media, the local information environment, andulture. These contextual issues influence the execution and success of such efforts; related complexity and nuance makeuch efforts harder.

With globalized media, every message has the potential to be seen anywhere. Even locally targeted messages – a singleyer or poster stuck to a wall – can be transposed to another medium (e.g., a camera phone) and retransmitted anywhere.

t is consequently impossible to qualify a message’s audience with the word “only” (for example, “only Americans” or “onlyaghdad residents”). Thus, messages designed for one audience may be received by entirely unintended audiences, and it is

mpossible to prevent information spread abroad from returning for domestic consumption.The local information environment is another relevant part of the context. By information environment I simply mean

he scheme of media and modes of information exchange within a region or area. What media are in use in an area? How arehey used? Which population groups use predominantly which media? Information environments vary; there is variationt the regional level (“tabloids” appear in Europe, but not so much in Africa), at the national level (Americans watch CNN orox News; Saudis watch Al Jazeera), and within different parts of a country (Los Angeles has 20 FM radio stations; Pittsburghas 15).

The information environment in an area is a crucial part of the context for messages and signals to be put into thatnvironment. Effective messaging to a desired audience occurs only through media actually used by that target audience.nderstanding a given information environment and casting messages in forms that are appropriate to that environmentose significant challenges.

Culture constitutes another piece of the context in which influence efforts take place. Messages and signals across lin-uistic and cultural divides face the challenges of translation and cultural understanding of certain concepts. Themes andessages need to be contextually sensitive, and culture can be a minefield. Reports from Marines operating in Afghanistan

onfirm this concern (Pacheco, 2010, p. 19):

As Marines wage war against an entrenched insurgency in one of the world’s most difficult physical environments,they have found that their greatest challenge may be learning to operate among a vastly different human terrain,among people with deeply seated traditions and a set of values much different from their own.

Making it even harder to match culture to context and message in appropriate media is the fact that the global medianvironment and many local media environments are particularly fluid in the contemporary era. The reason for this fluidity?echnological change and the adoption of new technology, as well as the fad-technology lifecycle. In many environments,raditional media are giving way to so-called “new” media. Of course, since what was new media is not new anymore, theetter term might be “now media” (Armstrong, 2010).

While very little about the development, adoption and spread of now media is predictable, it is almost all digital andlmost all incredibly rapid. Keeping up with these changes and adapting traditional messaging organizations to new realitiess rough. As professor Gregory (2009, p. 3) notes: “We know that exponential growth in mobile phone, social media, and viralommunication is changing diplomacy and armed conflict. But we are struggling with what this means for our institutionsnd smart power instruments.”

Now media have several implications for government communication. First, information is now collected and shared athe lowest possible levels, so state monopolies over information and the power associated with its control are gone foreverMurphy, 2008). Second, predicting what information will go “global” and/or “viral” and find massive audiences (and through

C. Paul / Public Relations Review 38 (2012) 188– 194 191

what medium or media it will do so) becomes increasingly impossible. Third, “catching up” with incorrect or misleadinginformation is increasingly difficult. Corrections and retractions receive minimal attention, and once information is “outthere” it is increasingly difficult to refute it or even explain it (Murphy, 2008).

3. Challenges specific to the Department of Defense

While the Department of Defense also labors under all of the strategic communication challenges faced by the governmentmore broadly, it also faces its own challenges. I elaborate several of these here.

U.S. forces might win every combat engagement but still fail to garner the support of the population in the area of conflict.The fact that the military is traditionally focused on kinetic operations (involving maneuver and/or the firing of weapons) tothe exclusion of efforts to inform, influence, and persuade increases the likelihood of this kind of outcome. U.S. militarydoctrine and training has traditionally emphasized actions against an adversary and force projection (MacKay & Tatham,2009). “Senior and mid-level military leaders have evolved in a culture that emphasizes kinetic warfighting skills, both inplanning and execution” (Murphy, 2009a, p. 107). Operations in which the operational focus is on noncombatants and withmethods of engagement that do not involve “putting steel on a target” are a step – often, a lengthy step – away from tradition.

Even when commanders realize that influence is essential to mission success and try to do a better job at it, they often donot have the training necessary to do so. Some commanders have a great intuitive understanding of the essence of effectivecommunication; others, sadly, do not. The fact that actions communicate only compounds this challenge. If a picture can beworth a thousand words, then a bomb can be worth ten thousand.

One of the unfortunate consequences of the traditional military emphasis on kinetics is that strategic communication isoften an afterthought. When that happens, the result is what Pratkanis (2009, p. 114) calls “the sprinkles approach,” wherethe contributions of the communication professionals are added at the last minute, usually with little effect. Commandersor operations officers will direct IO staffs to “sprinkle some of that IO stuff” on an already completed military plan (Murphy,2009b, p. 2).

According to Army Field Manual 3-13 (2003, p. I-5), “Information fratricide is the result of employing information oper-ations elements in a way that causes effects in the information environment that impede the conduct of friendly operationsor adversely affect friendly forces.” All too often, “information fratricide” results in credibility loss, contrary messaging, orother limitations to effective strategic communication. Helmus et al. (2007) report failure to avoid information fratricide atall levels. Anecdotes indicated failure to effectively deconflict messages and signals between the Department of Defenseand other U.S. government agencies, failure to coordinate and synchronize with coalition partners, and integration failuresbetween military communicators, notably between public affairs personnel and military information support operations(MISO; formerly psychological operations, PSYOP) personnel.

Strategic communication is much less challenging when everything goes as planned. Unfortunately, sometimes U.S.personnel make mistakes or judgment errors, or ordnance goes astray and hits an unintended target. Mistakes and errors cansend signals in direct contradiction of other signals and messages, and adversely impact influence efforts.

In such situations, DoD’s responses have habitually been poor. Ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have includedseveral instances in which U.S. forces or coalition partners have made some kind of substantial error with potentially neg-ative influence consequences. Dealing with these and similar unfortunate actions remains a challenge to effective strategiccommunication.

Expedient choices often have negative influence consequences. Sometimes, these are obvious: Using threat of force to dispersea crowd will not make members of that crowd any more well disposed toward U.S. forces. More subtly, failure to dispersethe crowd may embolden it to further action, thereby leaving an impression of U.S. inability to control the situation.

Sometimes, the consequences of expedient choices are less obvious: Choosing to work with a specific tribe may appearas inappropriate favoritism in the tangled web of political, religious, and tribal disputes in an area (Kucera, 2005b). Similarly,while existing indigenous militias might be attractive partners in the short term, their favored status may grant themundue legitimacy in the eyes of locals and – depending on the motivations of the militia leaders – later inhibit politicalreform.

Like all military assets, control over the drafting and dissemination of messages is a command responsibility. Unfortu-nately, there are some commanders – or staff officers acting on behalf of their commanders – who do not fully appreciatethe subtleties involved in developing and distributing such materials. Public affairs, PSYOP, and IO personnel interviewedin 2006 research lamented the missteps made when individuals untrained in the nuances of creating messages took thatresponsibility upon themselves (Helmus et al., 2007). Part of the problem is the default assumption that developing suchcommunications is easy. Officers who are good public speakers assume that they have a good gut feeling for influencecommunications, independent of any evidence to the contrary.

Beyond commanders trying to do it themselves based on imagined and non-existent personal expertise, there are broaderproblems with commanders not taking full advantage of communication assets. Most of these problems tie back to the traditional

kinetic focus of military operations and training. A commander knows how to use artillery or other fires, and can relate toor more or less completely understand how they work. After employing artillery, the commander can visit the attack site orlook at aerial photography and clearly and immediately discern the consequences of the fires. None of these things is truefor messaging assets.

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. Getting better at strategic communication

There is more to listing these challenges than just to complain, or to point out what a rough row the U.S. government or theepartment of Defense has to hoe. Being explicit in describing challenges is the first step in moving toward solutions. Somef these challenges recommend solutions simply by stating the challenge. Others are genuinely hard, but stating them clearlynvites investment in their resolution. Taken together, there is no “silver bullet” solution to all of these problems. However,lear articulation invites partial solutions, incremental solutions, and progress. In this section I offer some suggestions forolving some of these problems and getting better at strategic communication.

First, remember that Rome was not built in a day. There are many gaps between what the U.S. government currentlyoes well and all the things it would like to do well in pursuit of a fully mature vision of strategic communication. It followshat there should be a logical progression toward closing gaps and building capabilities related to this area. To propose such

progression, I borrow from an often used military training metaphor: the crawl, walk, run progression. Before you canalk, crawl; before you can run, walk. When considering all of things that could go into strategic communication, rather

han getting into an argument about which ones are most important, ask instead: Which ones are easiest and which onesre foundational for, or logically prior to, the others? In short, which do we need to develop to progress to the crawl level oftrategic communication, and which should be considered part of the higher walk level, or the highest run level?

Systematically prioritizing desired developments in this area should help move toward consensus and provide someeasures of progress. Beyond this, the single best piece of strategic communication advice I’ve encountered is Professorennis Murphy’s (2008) suggestion to require the specification of an information endstate in commander’s intent. The

nclusion of an information endstate would guide subordinate plans such that they comply with the commander’s statedntent, and provide just a little bit more guidance and context for subordinates in their autonomous decision-making inupport of the mission. If commanders think about and are explicit about communication and information endstates, theirubordinates will have no choice but to do so as well. Under this construction, while the commander accepts responsibilityor conceiving the information endstate, his subordinates naturally accept more responsibility for achieving it than theyould be forced to if it were left unstated. Problems stemming from gaps in strategy and the highest level can be partiallyitigated by clear strategic communication goals (and their integrated pursuit) at lower levels.Of course, on the DoD side, it all comes back to commanders. The extent to which commanders embrace and prioritize

nform, influence, and persuade efforts determines the extent to which their subordinates commit to and conduct themffectively. As Larson et al. (2009, p. xv) have noted:Commanders who insist that their subordinates develop a coordinatedrogram of IO and influence operations activities and who follow up to ensure these activities take place appear far more

ikely to succeed in integrating influence operations into the campaign than commanders who take a more passive view ofnfluence operations. Commanders also need to reemphasize the importance of influence operations on a regular basis.

Adding a requirement for an information endstate as part of commander’s intent is one step forward for strategic com-unication. To take a further step, we need “to move influence from the periphery of the command’s thinking to its very

picenter” (MacKay & Tatham, 2009, p. 9). Achieving this will require increased emphasis on communication and influencen the professional military education and training of officers who will become commanders. The current crop of juniorfficers is ripe for such education. Those who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan understand the danger of winning everyattle but losing the war, and have seen firsthand the importance of being able to influence the local population on theutcomes of operations.

To be really good at strategic communication, everyone, including commanders/decision-makers and their subordinates,eeds to have a communication mindset. By communication mindset I mean an inclination to consider what executing aiven plan will communicate or signal to others, and a willingness to include such considerations in planning. At baseline,ost people are willing to do that, but in practice they either just forget or are not very imaginative in their thinking about

ossible signals.To their credit, the Marine Corps (2010, p. 3) already formally recognizes this as a goal, even as they admit that it will be a

hallenge to accomplish: “the Marine Corps, largely through training and education, must expand the planning culture of theAGTF [Marine Air Ground Task Force] so that non-kinetic tools and the cognitive domain are consistently and completely

ddressed in every planning problem and throughout each phase of execution.”Adding communication and influence to professional military education and training will go a long way toward helping

stablish a communication mindset. Years of demonstrated success at strategic communication will institutionalize it. Inhe meantime, there is a requirement for communication specialists peppered throughout government agencies to act asdvisors and advocates for and about communication and signaling. Such advocates can ask “what does that communicate?”hen still acculturating planners and leaders forget to do so, and they can also bring communication training and experience

o bear to help answer that question, and help identify a set of planned actions that sends the desired messages and signals.Strategic communication becoming ingrained in planning routines and decision-making processes makes progress

oward resolving several of the challenges mentioned earlier in this article, but not all of them. Additional steps will beecessary in many areas, including the creation and preservation of credibility. Falsehood, deception, and manipulation cost

redibility when uncovered. In the contemporary global information environment, the prospects for keeping such acts underraps indefinitely is increasingly low. Further, the fact that some communicators (notably PSYOP/MISO) have falsehood in

heir toolbox is a barrier to collaboration with other communicators, such as public affairs, and has contributed to failureso deconflict inform, influence, and persuade capabilities.

C. Paul / Public Relations Review 38 (2012) 188– 194 193

If capabilities to deceive, manipulate, or otherwise generate falsehoods must be retained (and I accept that there arecompelling arguments for doing so), they should be carved off and sequestered from other sources of messages and signals.The same organizations and personnel should not be conducting both truth-based and false messaging. Some kind of conduitor connection between those who deceive and manipulate and the rest of the inform, influence, and persuade communityshould be retained for deconfliction and coordination purposes, but such “black” information capabilities should be keptsmall and away from the light. Freeing routine communication conduits from the suspicion of falsehood both internally andexternally will increase credibility and make coordination and integration easier. Instead of trying to separate those whoinform from those who influence (a meaningless distinction), we should seek to separate those who influence from those whomanipulate as we organize for strategic communication.

4.1. A vision for strategic communication

I have a vision of what successful strategic communication would look like. In this vision, the United States has clearlystated national objectives, which contain nested subordinate objectives, which contain nested intermediate or supportingobjectives, nesting all the way down to the operational and tactical level. These clear statements make it easy to see whichobjectives can be realized through influence or persuasion, and which can be supported through such efforts. In pursuit ofthese objectives, appropriate priority is given to influence. Not that influence is always the primary means for pursuing policy,but that it is always considered for possible primacy in a policy or operation, and is the top priority when it is appropriatefor it to be.

In this vision commanders and decision-makers have a “communication mindedness” and consider the messages andsignals their action, utterances, or planned policies send. Failing that (or as that is developing) these same leaders have accessto (and respect for) communication advocates/proponents/advisors who sit at their right hands and bring communicationimplications to their attention.

In this vision everyone in government speaks not with one voice like some kind of automaton, but with their messagesaligned in the same direction, because everyone understands the nested objectives and how their own efforts support thoseobjectives, and because they have (or have access to) requisite communication training and cultural knowledge. In this visionappropriate themes and plans of action are developed in consultation with both those who are expert in communicationand influence, and those who have the relevant cultural and contextual knowledge. Communication is not just one-waybroadcast, but is true two-way communication, engagement, or dialogue. In my vision this leads to policies shaped with U.S.national interests as well as the interests and preferences of others in mind, policies which are supported with integratedplans of action and communication.

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