Center for a New American Security

Okay, first things first: Happy Memorial Day, everyone. Please take some time today to say a prayer for the fallen and for peace.

I woke up this morning to the news that Israel has managed to kill at least 10 people participating in some peace flotilla to Gaza. As you all know, I try to avoid commenting on matters related to Israel and the Palestinians, but this is a pretty good teaching opportunity relating to issues that concern this blog's readership.

One could, from the start, think a number of different things about those participating in the peace flotilla to Gaza. (Naive? Righteous? Courageous? Anti-Semitic?) But for the sake of argument, and putting ourselves in the shoes of an Israeli naval commander, let's assume the most malevolent of motivations for the people participating in the peace flotilla. If I am in charge of doing that for the Israeli Navy, I am going to assume these people are smart and are deliberately trying to provoke a crazy response from my sailors and soldiers that will produce ready-for-television images that both isolate Israel within the international community and further raise the ire of the Arabic-speaking and Islamic worlds. I mean, that is my base assumption for what this group is trying to do. So naturally, the last thing I would want my forces to do would be to overreact, right? It's like when your convoy gets fired on inside a crowded market: the last thing you want to do is return fire with 7.62mm, killing a bunch of civilians and giving the enemy exactly the effect he was looking for.

If something does go wrong, meanwhile, I am going to have a response ready. I am going to have my very best spokespersons on international and Israeli television. I am most certainly not going to let people like Danny Ayalon provide my government's response, right? Because a live wire like Ayalon -- who the Turks already hate, with an understandable passion -- will just say something incredibly crazy like how the people in the aid flotilla were terrorists with ties to al-Qaeda. (Even if you can prove this is somehow true, everyone you need to be speaking to right now -- the international community, the Turkish people, the Arabic-speaking world -- is just going to think you are nuts for saying it or will roll their eyes and say, "Oh, of course he's saying that.")

In reality, what happened today is the Israelis got their butts handed to them. The Israeli response to this aid flotilla was a fabulous gift to Hamas and Iran. (Try to imagine, if you will, the Israelis trying to go before the U.N. Security Council to gather support for sanctions on the Iranian regime right now. They would be more likely to leave New York with sanctions on their own regime!)

Again, I really have little interest in Israel and Palestine given the way in which people on both sides tend to fling accusations of anti-Semitism, war crimes, terrorist-sympathizing, fascism, etc. But as a student of low-intensity conflict and information operations, one really does have to marvel at the incredible own goal the Israelis have just scored. The fact that Hamas and its allies didn't even have to do a thing to earn it is what I find to be most remarkable. Not that they care what I think, but the Israelis should not be talking about the people on the aid flotilla right now. They should be examining themselves and their response and asking how they hell they fumbled this so badly.

A few of you inquired as to the title of that new anthology on counterinsurgency for which Dave Kilcullen contributed an excellent chapter on intelligence. It has not been published yet, but you can pre-order it here. I myself have a chapter in the anthology on information operations, and I'll confess to wishing I had read Joanna Nathan's useful chapter on the Taliban's information operations before writing my own (which does not focus on Afghanistan and instead looks at Lebanon and Hizballah). Her chapter can be found in Antonio Giustozzi's latest edited volume, from which I read on the train yesterday and have been really enjoying.

My colleague Kristin Lord has been asking around, trying to find out who is in charge of our communications efforts in Afghanistan. The answer, apparently, is you. Abu Muqawama readers are hereby invited to participate in the "Why Afghanistan Matters" video contest. The snarkiest entries will be posted here.

Londonstani is off doing his undercover journalism thing and can't blog at the moment but sent this story along, saying it was one of the more insightful articles he had read in some time on Pakistan.

For a long time the Taliban presented themselves as the lost link to a pure past, a conduit to a simple life and eternal salvation.

 

Only four weeks ago most Urdu television channels were acting as cheerleaders for the Taliban.

 

Most Urdu columnists in newspapers were presenting the Pakistani Taliban as the reincarnation of early Muslim warriors.

 

Now in a rare consensus they are all clamouring for an all-out war against them.

 

Even the people who were sitting on the fence - or considered the Taliban a localised problem - have suddenly realised that actually the Taliban are out to destroy their way of life.

 

Every single opinion poll carried out in Pakistan has concluded that the country is a hotbed of anti-Americanism.

 

But now, faced with a war against the Taliban, the nation seems to have united behind the most American of slogans: they are threatening our way of life.

 

How did we change our minds so quickly?

 

More than the government or the media, it is the Pakistani Taliban who are responsible.

 

Read the rest here.

On the other hand, readers of this blog will not fail to note that the country which perfected advertising still somehow can't craft an effective message -- or media capable of delivering a message -- in Iraq.

Those of you who do not live in the DC area or could not attend yesterday's event can listen to Thomas Rid and me discuss his important new book here. (Pardon the scratchy audio.)

I just finished moderating a great conversation with Thomas Rid about his new book, War 2.0: Irregular Warfare in the Information Age.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Those of you in the below post on Afghanistan had some good questions about information operations and how to measure their effectiveness. More than any other book or article I have read, Thomas and his co-author (Marc Hecker, the French scholar) explain the importance of information operations in contemporary insurgent conflicts and how some military organizations perform with skill while others fail. I have added this book to the counterinsurgency reading list we maintain and, again, would encourage you all to buy it (despite the prohibitive Praeger price).

The book, after carefully examining information operations of counterinsurgents and insurgents alike, puts forth several provocative theses, among them the idea that al Qaeda, because of the way their message only appeals to a small elite, will never grow to be a popular movement -- a true insurgency -- but that the governments of the West will never be able to eradicate the terror threat. The "long tail" idea at the end -- and how al Qaeda will always be a "terror" group appealing to a niche audience and never a true popular insurgency -- is really interesting.

For those of you who were unable to attend today's event -- and many of the blog's readers were there and were kind enough to say hello afterward -- we might get a sound recording of the event to post on the blog. Irony of ironies, we had a technological malfunction while discussing information technology, but hopefully the recording is still audible.

When: Monday, June 1, 2009Time: 12:30 pm – 2.00 pm
Where: Kenney Auditorium, 1740 Massachusetts Ave N.W., Washington, DC

RSVP to Gretchen Losee at transatlanticRSVP@jhu.edu (Please put *June 1, War 2.0* in the subject line) or call 202-663-5880 for questions.

Check out the media embed information from CJTF 101. Download the "RC East Questionnaire." It's pretty standard stuff -- "Are you allergic to any medications?" -- until the end, where you fill out a "brief but detailed purpose of why you are requesting to embed, your story angle and the intent of your coverage ... THIS IS YOUR STORY PITCH TO THE REQUESTED UNIT."

What makes me upset here is that journalists should not be pitching themselves to units. Units should be pitching themselves to journalists. I fear we are not taking information operations seriously when we see journalists as burdens and not as force multipliers.

The Sun is the most effective instrument of what passes for allied information operations. That's really sad. (Thanks, Mitch.)

Marc Lynch -- in his wheelhouse -- has the full run-down on Obama's appearance on al-Arabiyya. He also makes a great point at the end of his post, which is that this should be the final nail in al-Hurra's coffin. After 500 million dollars and years of investment, we have to consider America's Arabic-language television channel to be a dismal failure when the incoming president chooses another outlet to make his first address to the Arabic-speaking world. Enough already. Pull the plug.