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ISSN 2500-9478 Volume 1 | Number 1 | Winter 2015 DEFENCE STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS The official journal of the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence Russia’s 21st century information war. Moving past the ‘Funnel’ Model of Counterterrorism Communication. Assessing a century of British military Information Operations. Memetic warfare. The constitutive narratives of Daesh. Method for minimizing the negative consequences of nth order effects in StratCom. The Narrative and Social Media. Public Diplomacy and NATO. 2 ISSN 2500-9478 Defence Strategic Communications Editor-in-Chief Dr. Steve Tatham Editor Anna Reynolds Production and Copy Editor Linda Curika Editorial Board Matt Armstrong, MA Dr. Emma Louise Briant Dr. Nerijus Maliukevicius Thomas Elkjer Nissen, MA Dr. Žaneta Ozolina Dr. Agu Uudelepp Dr. J. Michael Waller Dr. Natascha Zowislo-Grünewald “Defence Strategic Communications” is an international peer-reviewed journal. The journal is a project of the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence (NATO StratCom COE). It is produced for NATO, NATO member countries, NATO partners, related private and public institutions, and related individuals. It does not represent the opinions or policies of NATO or NATO StratCom COE. The views presented in the following articles are those of the authors alone. © All rights reserved by the NATO StratCom COE. Articles may not be copied, reproduced, distributed or publicly displayed without reference to the NATO StratCom COE and the academic journal. NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence Riga, Kalnciema iela 11b, Latvia LV1048 www.stratcomcoe.org Ph.: 0037167335463 [email protected] 3 INTRODUCTION I am delighted to welcome you to the first edition of ‘Defence Strategic Communications’ Journal. This is a peer reviewed journal published by the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence in Riga, Latvia. The Centre was established in 2014 by seven partner nations: Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Germany, Poland, the United Kingdom and Italy. Our role is to bring academic rigor to the study of Defence Strategic Communications and assist NATO in its various missions in this important area. The aim of establishing this journal was to bring together military, academic, business and governmental knowledge. The journal’s publication is the culmination of a busy first year for the Centre. Our team have already undertaken significant studies in Russian Information Warfare; Daesh propaganda, the growing use and importance of Social Media, a review of ISAF Strategic Communication in Afghanistan, and an audit of NATO member nation’s Strategic Communication preparedness. We have delivered capacity building training in Moldova, Ukraine, and Georgia and assisted our respective sponsor governments in their own awareness of the complex communication issues that now confront us all. During the summer the COE trained 20 students from 11 different NATO nations in the Behavioural Dynamics Institute Advanced Target Audience Analysis methodology. Next year we have a similarly busy programme with various projects such as: developing the Riga manual which will show how NATO can protect itself from subversive leverage, researching the early signals of a hybrid warfare scenario in order to develop early-warning-measures, continuing our research on Russian information campaigns against the Euro-athlantic values, further analysis DAESH information activities and further trends in social media. Most of our publications are available free of charge, on our website (www. stratcomcoe.org) and notifications of future events are published on our Twitter feed (@stratcomcoe) and Facebook. I offer the thanks of the COE to all the authors whose work appears in this edition and to the review board and editorial team. I encourage readers to join in the conversation by submitting articles for the next edition. Janis Sarts Director, NATO StratCom COE 4 FOREWORD Welcome to the inaugural edition of the journal “Defence Strategic Communications”, a new initiative form the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence in Latvia. As the UK’s longest serving Defence Strategic Communicator it is a privilege to be Chairman of the Editorial Board and I would like to thank my board colleagues for their support, hard work, advice, and help in preparing this issue. As the COE Director, Janis Sarts, says in his introduction the NATO StratCom COE has come at a critical time; our Strategic Communication (StratCom) efforts in Afghanistan were mixed, we face a new generation hybrid warfare from the east, and in the Middle East Daesh/ISIL use propaganda and communication to deadly effect. No one in NATO can afford to ignore the importance and latent power of communication. Unfortunately StratCom is still misunderstood. Some see it as a euphemism for ‘Public Relations on Steroids’, others simply see it as the more efficient organization of cross-government or cross-alliance public affairs activities. Whilst the latter is important, to believe either of these in their totality is to not understand what StratCom really is. I have also often been at the receiving end of senior officials asking me to sprinkle ‘StratCom Fairy Dust’ on specific problems. I don’t subscribe to the idea that good StratCom can make poor policy look good nor do I believe that good policy automatically generates good StratCom. I do believe, however, that poor StratCom can be ruinous to good policy. So what is StratCom? To answer this I ask you to focus not on the word ‘communication’ but on the word ‘strategic’. This does not mean that it is simply communication of strategy nor should it imply that it is communication that takes place only at strategic levels. What it means is that communication must be part of strategy – indeed in today’s information environment I argue that understanding audiences and their [likely] behaviours (which for me is the core of good StratCom) and knowing when and how to use all means of communication – from the softest, soft power to the hardest, kinetic power – is the key to solving future complex problems. StratCom is all that we do and all that we don’t. StratCom is the presence of words, deeds, images and it is their absence and knowing when each is appropriate and to which audiences. In 2013 the UK deployed substantial resources to the far side of the world to assist the Philippines in recovering from Typhon Hayan. The messages that the UK government sent was that it has interests in the Asia-Pacific region; it may be a small nation in Europe but it can and will exert influence globally. Regional hegemon, China, meanwhile, donated less money to the international effort than the Ikea furniture company. Given China’s size, 5 geographic position, and its interests in disputed waters in the region the response was lamentable. Typhon Hayan was a victory for UK Strategic Communication and an abject failure for Chinese public diplomacy. Good StratCom, underpinned by empirical understanding of audiences and problems, leads to evidence based policy making. That is why a deep understanding of StratCom is vital to senior leaders and policy makers and the absence of that knowledge in, for example, Afghanistan has been so problematic to the coalition operations. This inaugural edition of the journal has cast its net deliberately wide. We cover academic theory, social media, Russian information warfare, Daesh/ISIL propaganda, NATO public diplomacy and narratives. All have relevance to the subject and help us collectively build our knowledge and understanding of the complexity of StratCom and its need. I offer my thanks to the many authors who contributed articles, my apologies to those who were not accepted on this occasion, my congratulations to those who passed a rigorous peer review process, and my encouragement to all readers to send us your thoughts, comments. and future articles for publication. Dr. Steve Tatham Chairman of the Editorial Board [email protected] 6 EDITORIAL BOARD Editor in Chief, Dr. Steve Tatham was the UK’s militaries longest serving Defence Communicator, variously working at Strategic and Operational levels in Media, Information and Psychological Operations. He is the co-author of ‘Behavioural Conflict’ and hold’s a Ph.D. in the use of behaviourally led Target Audience Analysis and Strategic Communication to mitigate future conflicts. He is Director of Operations at IOTA-Gobal, the specialist military division of Strategic Communications Laboratories Limited. Mr. Matt Armstrong, MA, is an author, advisor, and lecturer on public diplomacy and international media. Mr. Armstrong serves as the Board Secretary of the Public Diplomacy Council. The Public Diplomacy Council is a nonprofit organization committed to the importance of the academic study, professional practice, and responsible advocacy of public diplomacy. He is also a member of the board for the Lodestone Trust, a land conservation trust providing an enduring venue for the research and development of programs in outdoor group therapy for military service-related post-traumatic stress disorder patients under professional supervision; identifying, mentoring, and enabling outstanding entrepreneurs; and, restoring or preserving wilderness and wildlife habitat. Mr. Armstrong earned a B.A. in International Relations and a Master of Public Diplomacy from the University of Southern California. He also studied European security and the Middle East at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. Dr. Emma Louise Briant is a Lecturer in Journalism Studies at University of Sheffield. She completed her PhD at the University of Glasgow in 2011 looking at Anglo-American relations and counter-terrorism propaganda strategies after 9/11 before undertaking post-doctoral work examing UK media reporting of refugees. Emma’s research interests are in the areas of propaganda, influence and censorship in the US and UK, migration, counter-terrorism, and governmental adaptation to a changing media environment. Emma is author of ‘Propaganda and Counter- terrorism: Strategies for Global Change’, co-author of ‘Bad News for Refugees’ and has authored a number of academic articles and reports - see www.emma- briant.co.uk - for more information.

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