Small Wars Journal

Mountain Runner on SC/PD, NSS, and NowMedia

Mon, 06/07/2010 - 7:35am

Take a look at some recent posts over at

MountainRunner.  Matt Armstrong observes the tangled web of inadequate

terminology in

The

need for a national strategy on Communication and Engagement, and notes that

the recent National Security

Strategy punts on strategic communication and public diplomacy. 

Perhaps the White House is "in charge" in the Gulf now, by whatever

sophomoric understanding of in charge fits the sound bit media but does not

really apply to such a massive federated (not federal) approach to a response. 

But the federated approach for cohesive SC/PD is awfully optimistic, and as Matt

observes,

If the authors of the National Security Strategy intended to provide "overall

guidance and direction" while deferring to individual agencies, they failed.

What "guidance and direction" appears in the strategy is inadequate to serve as

a forcing mechanism to drive subsequent nested strategies, some of which have

already been written.

Matt, et al, offers a one day training event on

Now Media: engagement

based on information not platforms, coming up in DC on July 6.  I've

caught the old media / new media => Now Media convergence part of his story

before, and it is well done.  I hope to catch the rest soon.