Army War College students must meet a number of requirements in order to graduate. Some are obvious: They must complete the core curriculum coursework satisfactorily and submit a Student Research Paper (SRP). Some are obvious once mentioned: they must pass their biannual Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT).
Some aren’t obvious at all: Every resident U.S. student (as opposed to distance education students and international fellows) is required to speak to an outside civilian organization about “our issues, challenges, and experiences as defenders of freedom” and in so doing, to refine their ability to communicate effectively in a non-military environment. That’s partly because in senior leadership assignments, talking to non-military actors and agencies is the norm rather than the exception; and partly because it gives them practice in “strategic communication.”
“Strategic communication?” you ask. That’s easy: Strategic communication is “focused United States Government efforts to understand and engage key audiences to create, strengthen, or preserve conditions favorable for the advancement of United States Government interests, policies, and objectives through the use of coordinated programs, plans, themes, messages, and products synchronized with the actions of all instruments of national power.” (Joint Publication 1-02, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms.)
Or more mercifully:
Strategic communication is a way of persuading other people to accept one’s ideas, policies, or courses of action. In that old saw, it means “letting you have my way.” Strategic communication means persuading allies and friends to stand with you. It means persuading neutrals to come over to your side or at least stay neutral. In the best of all worlds, it means persuading adversaries that you have the power and the will to prevail over them. Vitally important, strategic communication means persuading the nation’s citizens to support the policies of their leaders so that a national will is forged to accomplish national objectives. In this context, strategic communication is an essential element of national leadership. (Richard Halloran, “Strategic Communication,” Parameters, Autumn 2007. Emphasis supplied)
So essential that someday soon, war college students may be required to blog.
I heard that there was discussion of a blogging requirement soon after my arrival in July. But I’ve heard little since, and my impression is that around here the idea has yet to gain much traction among the high priests of the curriculum. But at Fort Leavenworth, a thousand miles to the west, it’s already part of the new dispensation, thanks largely to the clout of LTG William B. Caldwell IV, Commanding General of the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center and commandant of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College.
Caldwell posts occasionally at Small Wars Journal under the nom de blog Frontier 6. He recently addressed 2008 Milblogging Conference via video, in which he emphasized blogs as the most revolutionary feature of the new strategic communication environment. And under his leadership the CAC has created an archipelago of blogs (twenty as of this morning), that includes Reflections by Frontier Six and the CGSC History Department blog.
Re the latter, I asked my friend Ethan Rafuse, a professor in that department, to provide an introduction:
The Department of Military History at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College has just entered the blogging business. It is part of a larger initiative by the Combined Arms Center to foster greater engagement within the Army and between the Army and the general public.
In the first post, the Department of Military History’s director, Dr. James Willbanks, describes and lays out his vision for the blog:
“The Department of Military History at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College is a center of excellence in the field with over thirty accomplished teachers and scholars of military history. This blog provides a forum in which CGSC Students, the Army at large, academia,and the general public can engage with the DMH faculty in a dialogue that will help all involved develop a better understanding of military history. It will provide opportunities to discuss the use (and abuse) of military history and how it can help military professionals develop knowledge, critical thinking skills, and perspectives that will positively inform their professional judgment and foster intellectual excellence in the military profession in the United States.”
It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out. Blogging, I’ve discovered, is an infectious medium. But it doesn’t infect everyone, and in my experience, if it doesn’t get under your skin, you just won’t keep it up. It’s wise of Gen. Caldwell to insist that CGSC students get some hands on exposure to the dynamics of blogging. It’s more problematic to insist that every component of the CAC must stand up its own blog, because if faculty, students and staff don’t buy into it — don’t genuinely enjoy the adventure of putting stories, ideas and opinions out there — then you’ll just wind up with a lot of dull, infrequently updated online brochures, not blogs in any real sense, and certainly not conduits for strategic communication.
Which of course would say nothing at all about the value of blogs, and little about the creative limits of the American officer, but rather would just underscore the counterproductivity of forcing people to have fun, even the serious fun of blogging.
