The Foreign Service Journal, February 2009

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 9 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 9 of foreign policy typically focus on the Defense Department’s greatly in- creased role in nationbuilding and re- lated foreign assistance efforts during the Bush administration. Recent news items suggest that the Pentagon’s mo- nopolization of information operations —or public diplomacy, broadly speak- ing —may be just as striking. In a talk at theWashington Institute for Near East Policy in late October on “Building the Global Counterterrorism Network,” Michael Vickers, assistant secretary of defense for special opera- tions, low-intensity conflict and inter- dependent capabilities, discussed the Special Forces’ information role in the fight against Islamist terror- ists ( www.washingtoninstitute.org ). “The themes you emphasize, how well they resonate, the distribution mechanisms, who’s giving the mes- sage” are all important factors, he said, and a notice posted by the Special Operations Command shortly there- after indicated that the Pentagon is fielding its own version of the now-de- funct U.S. Information Agency to get the job done. As Walter Pincus reports in the Dec. 1 Washington Post , the notice for contractors updates a proposal to de- velop and operate “influence Web sites” that would support combat com- manders in the war on terrorism. The Web sites, in local languages, would “shape the global media landscape” using Internet technologies, including “slideshows, video content syndication or podcasts, blogs, streaming video/ audio and advanced search.” Pincus quotes from the notice to the effect that a minimum of two and no more than 12 Web sites will be needed, and that their languages might include Arabic, French, Portuguese, Armenian, Azeri, Farsi, Georgian, Hin- di, Punjabi, Tagalog, Urdu, Russian and Chinese, in addition to English and Spanish. The purpose of the sites is to pres- ent “news, sports, entertainment, eco- nomics, politics, cultural reports, business and similar items of interest to targeted readers” following “guid- ance provided by the appropriate com- bat commander,” according to the proposal. Under its Trans-Regional Web Initiative, the Pentagon has such sites in North Africa and Iraq already, says Pincus. The Special Operations programs are just one part of the Pentagon’s global information operations, the pol- icy for which was updated in August 2006 by Defense Department Direc- tive O3600.01 with the objective of making them a core military compe- tency ( http://www.fas.org/irp/dod dir/dod/info_ops.pdf ). The Special Operations and Combatant Com- manders’ programs are separate from but coherent with the Defense De- partment’s Public Affairs operations, the Civil-Military Operations’ informa- tion activities and, last and perhaps least, the Defense Support to (State- led) Public Diplomacy program. Crisis Erupts in Office of the Historian The Office of the Historian was plunged into controversy in mid-De- cember, when Professor WilliamRoger Louis, chairman of the Historical Ad- visory Committee overseeing the office for the past five years, warned publicly that the future of the Foreign Relations of the United States series, the official record of U.S. foreign policy mandated by Congress and produced by the Of- fice of the Historian, is in jeopardy due to mismanagement of the office by the incumbent Historian, Dr. Marc Susser. Underscoring his concerns, Louis an- nounced his resignation from the com- mittee. Louis’ views, presented in a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, were echoed by Prof. Thomas Schwartz, another prominent historian and a for- mer member of the Advisory Commit- tee. Schwartz, a professor at Vanderbilt University, pointed to the “forced re- tirement” this past summer of Dr. Ed- ward Keefer, the series’ editor, stating it was “only the latest example of a management style that insisted on ab- ject and subservient loyalty to Dr. Susser at the expense of competence and performance in the achievement of the goals of the office.” Schwartz’s membership on the Advisory Committee had not been renewed, in defiance of tradition, after he spelled out criticisms in the committee’s last annual report. An- other committee member, Prof. Ed- ward Rhodes of Princeton University, also tendered his resignation in a Dec. 2 letter to Secretary Rice. At a Dec. 10 meeting to address the problem, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs SeanMcCormack de- nounced the criticism. Accusing com- mittee members of engaging in innuen- do and ad hominem attacks, he walked out of the meeting. At issue, among other things, is the departure of a number of qualified staff from the office — 20 percent of the FRUS staff (and 30 percent of its staff experience in terms of years of employment), according to Louis. The need to hire a competent new general editor for the series and catch up with the mandated publication schedule is also at issue. Prof. Louis urged Sec. Rice to man- date an independent review of the C Y B E R N O T E S