Political Science Department, International Relations, Linguistics and Communication, History of International Relations MILITARY SPEECHES: How to understand the strategic role of semantic elements in Military Speeches through the case study of US conflicts from 2001 to 2018. SUPERVISORS CANDIDATE Prof. Valeria Sh. Kurmakaeva Andrea Lambertucci Prof. Michele Sorice Stud. N° 629822 Prof. Andrea Ungari Accademic Year 2017/2018 Ai miei genitori, Valter e Patrizia, per tutti i sacrifici che hanno affrontato affinché io potessi inseguire i miei sogni. Ai miei nonni, Valentino e Giuseppe, che ho sempre sentito vicini, ma soprattutto alle mie nonne, Annunziata e Marianna, che mi hanno sempre amato per il bambino che ero e per l’uomo che sono oggi. A Claudia, che mi ha supportato, incoraggiato e spronato e che ha reso la mia vita meravigliosamente piena di uno splendido amore. Alla mia famiglia. E, infine, a tutti coloro che, leggendo, saranno mossi dalla mia stessa speranza per un domani migliore. 2 INDEX Introduction. Chapter 1. What we mean with “Military Speech”. 1.1. The Strategic Speech. 1.1.1. Communicative value: lexical and semantic choices in the strategic speech. 1.2. The non-verbal communication. 1.2.1. Communicative value: how can we understand the non-verbal signs? 1.2.2. Analysis of the strategic-psychological factor of the strategic speeches. 1.3. Key Military Speeches and their analysis. 1.3.1. How to analyse Military Speeches. 1.3.2. Categorizing Military Speeches 1.3.3. The approach on the semantic elements. 1.3.4. The approach on the non-verbal elements. 1.4. Efficiency and effects of Military Speeches. 1.5. Research Questions. Chapter 2. The Case Study. 2.1. Worldwide most relevant conflicts during the period 2001-2018. 2.2. The “Omnipower”. 2.3. Presidents of the United States of America. 2.3.1. George W. Bush. 2.3.2. Barack Obama. 2.3.3. Donald Trump. 2.4. “War to Terror” in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and other states: George W. Bush. 2.4.1. The speech of 9/11. 3 2.4.2. “War on Terror”. 2.4.3. Axis of Evil. 2.4.4. Ultimatum to Saddam Hussein. 2.4.5. Declaration of War. 2.4.6. Farewell Speech. 2.5. From Nobel Peace Prize to ISIS: Barack Obama. 2.5.1. Nobel Prize for Peace lecture. 2.5.2. Syrian Civil War. 2.5.3. Against ISIS. 2.5.4. Farewell Speech to Media Reporters. 2.6. The new trends for USA’s foreign policies: Donald Trump. 2.6.1. Inaugural Speech, “Make America Great Again”. 2.6.2. New Strategy in Afghanistan. 2.6.3. Address to the Congress (State of the Union). 2.6.4. Leader against Leader: Trump vs Kim Jong-Un. 2.7. The impact on the Public Sphere. 2.7.1. The role of the new media. Conclusions. Bibliography and Linkography. Appendixes & Annexes. Special Thanks. Summary. 4 Introduction. The Military Speech (part of the widest family of strategic speeches), albeit very poorly elaborated, is a subject of utmost interest in semiotic analysis, since it allows to apply to the speeches of political leaders the same structures that can be applied, in semiotic, to the study of the texts. Our thesis proposes to qualitatively analyse Military Speeches between 2001 and 2017 performed by the three different Presidents of the United States of America. To do this, therefore, we had to try to translate1 faithfully the speeches of the leaders of the country that played the role of major protagonist in the last two decades, then to study and understand them, analysing the main sentences by emphasis and meaning. Whenever possible, it is advisable to accompany the reading with the reference videos of the aforementioned speeches, which are available in the Appendixes and in the footnotes: a wide analysis like our, in fact, cannot be careful without the direct observation of the effects that some sentences, or even some words, have had on the feedback2 of the recipients of those speeches and on the Speaker itself. This topic has its own relevance nowadays, because different scholars throughout different countries are trying to elaborate systems of analysis of leaders’ speeches, since it is very important to understand the underlying meanings of those speeches, in particular when those speeches are contextualized inside the military context. Trying to be very clear, we did not find many sources from Russian scholars, but even in Russia many scholars and/or journalists usually try to understand those “non-spoken elements” of the speeches of foreign leaders. This subject, a very specific part of the wider family of the sociology of communication, has been developed in recent years and still it is not recognized as strictly scientific, mainly for two reasons: first, some countries are so powerful in terms of hard power that they do not need to apply a 1 Our mother tongue is Italian, and the translation is useful to not make major mistakes. The readers will never find traces of this translation in our work. 2 Audience, using the term expressed by the main scholar of this subject: Paul Ekman. 5 systematic analysis to foreign leaders’ Military Speeches; second, trying to understand the underlying meanings of leaders’ speeches is a practice, as aforementioned, that some people already exercise, even if not voluntarily or consciously. For these reasons, we chose to bring this subject, also known as “Qualitative analysis of leader’s speeches”, to the attention of the scientific experts who will read our master thesis, trying to give a well-structured system of analysis, a sort of lingua franca that could function as common minimal unit of study for these speeches. And that, also because we personally had crucial experiences, working for three months inside the Business Office of the Italian Embassy in the Russian Federation and as a journalist of the sportive daily newspaper “Il Romanista”3. The relevance of this subject is really obvious, if we think about an hypothetical meeting between two diplomatic delegates; being able to understand the others beyond the words they tell us (or the words they write) is crucial. As easily understandable, if we do not develop this kind of system today, in the period of social networks, the next era of the communication will bring us new aspects and new issues that we will not be able to manage. This is the time, this is the place, this is the “last call” for the development of a unique common system of qualitative analysis of the leaders’ Military Speeches. First of all, however, the concept of text must be introduced, in order to understand whether Military Speeches can be referred to as “texts” and if they can be analysed through semiotic elements and, above all, through the common tools of analysis of the sociology of communication. ‹‹The general vocation of semiotics has induced him to expand the concept of text to make it almost all-encompassing››4; so, texts are all those “portions of reality” that are endowed with meaning for someone, with limits that permit to distinguish what is part 3 I have been working in that newsroom since March 2018. 4 Cosenza, G., (2014) Introduzione alla Semiotica dei Nuovi Media. Lecce: Laterza. 6 of the text and what is not, and which can be divided into discrete units according to hierarchical levels of analysis and separable according to objective criteria5. According to the definition given by Cosenza (2014), a text is a portion of reality that does not uniquely correspond to the common definition that it entrusts to the term. The text is, in fact, a plot (texture) consisting of different elements (threads), capable of representing different levels of communication (concrete-abstract, manifest-hidden, formal-informal). The metaphor of “text as a weave” is useful to understand the complexity of the texts themselves and the different ways in which the same elements could be united or fragmented to create texts of a different nature but with the same (or similar) contents6. De facto, taking up Cosenza's thesis (2014), it is possible to define as texts, in semiotic perspectives, myths and folklore stories, written texts, visual texts, audio texts, mixed (audio-visual) texts, multimedia texts and, finally, codifications in interpersonal relationships in institutional settings, in formal environments and in non-formal environments. Ergo, where there is communication there is a text. Where there is communication, however, there are several elements to be taken into consideration. The first attempt to exemplify communication through a mathematical model must be attributed to Claude Elwood Shannon and Warren Weaver, who in 1949 formulated a first known mathematical-informational model: SOURCE OF INFORMATION – MESSAGE → TRANSMITTER - SIGNAL → RECEIVED SIGNAL (NOISE SOURCE) → RECEIVER - MESSAGE → RECEIVER7. 5 Ivi: reformulated. 6 For this metaphor I am grateful to Paolo Peverini, professor of the course “Linguaggi dei Nuovi Media” at LUISS University. 7 Sorice, M., (2009) Sociologia dei Mass Media. Roma: Carocci. 7 In our discussion we try to analyse in depth the purposes pursued by the broadcasters through their message and how this message was perceived and received by their receivers. Since this is an almost unpublished subject for social science studies, as there is a somewhat residual bibliography on conflict-related speeches, in our thesis we have chosen to incorporate a careful and accurate Linkography, in support of the unsupported amount of sources, to easily find the references and guidelines on which the discussion is based. We believe that it is now necessary to accept the online resources, that are indispensable for scientific analysis, especially in the context of social sciences, as they are sources available to everyone, free of charge, and therefore easily accessible.