New Media Poised to Change the Future National Security Debate

Dave Dilegge of the Small Wars Journal sent out the following “RFI” to a number of bloggers:

Andrew Exum’s post / review of Tom Ricks’ The Gamble several weeks ago at Abu Muqawama got me thinking (once again) about the impact of the “new media” on issues concerning national security, military doctrine and concept development, as well as lessons learned. As one part of this new media I’m not sure I fully grasp our influence - though I am often told we are, quote - “making a difference”. Here is the excerpt from the AM post that got me thinking about this.

“The New Media: Ricks cited a discussion on Small Wars Journal once and also cited some things on PlatoonLeader.org but never considered the way in which the new media has revolutionized the lessons learned process in the U.S. military. (Forget Abu Muqawama, though, because this lowly blog started around the same time as the surge.) Instead of just feeding information to the Center for Army Lessons Learned and waiting for lessons to be disseminated, junior officers are now debating what works and what doesn't on closed internet fora -- such as PlatoonLeader and CompanyCommand -- and open fora, such as the discussion threads on Small Wars Journal. The effect of the new media on the junior officers fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was left curiously unexplored by Ricks, now a famous blogger himself.”

I’d like to get your thoughts on this - nothing elaborate - maybe a paragraph or two on the core issues concerning the new media and it impact on the military. I’d then like to post the responses I get as one post on SWJ.

Appreciate the consideration.

The "RFI" went out to Spencer Ackerman, Tom Barnett, Janine Davidson, Andrew Exum, Grim, Judah Grunstein, Dave Kilcullen, Raymond Pritchett, Mark Safranski, Herschel Smith, Starbuck, Michael Tanji, and Michael Yon. The responses suggest new media did have some sort of impact on the surge, but it is unclear what exactly the role of new media was. I particularly think the responses of Janine Davidson and Dr. David Kilcullen were very interesting.

I would encourage people to read the responses and leave comments regarding that discussion at the Small Wars Journal or Abu Muqawama rather than here, because that discussion is only partially what has grabbed my attention on this subject.

I'm fairly disconnected from the surge discussion. I began blogging only in June of 2007, and in large part I didn't understand the debate regarding the surge at the time the debate occurred. For my own part, I was largely against the idea of a surge, because I thought it was simply about more troops in Iraq. There were very few readers on this blog at the time, but some might recall that was when I started linking other blogs related to the discussion, in particular the Small Wars Journal and Abu Muqawama, primarily to educate myself on the additional strategic logic that was being applied in association with a simple troop increase. Without those two 'new media' resources in particular, I'd have probably never understood what the Army did in Iraq to bring about the condition set today. If my experience in that regard is similar to others, then there is the answer to the question regarding the influence of new media.

As a professional in the internet communications space, I believe metrics exist for understanding the value of new media content. However, unless I had access to the raw data I don't believe I can apply metrics for that conversation from the armchair observer position I reside in. What I can do though is reflect how those types of events have influenced the future, and the way I see it, there are few better public examples of a new media evolution in motion than this specific discussion.

Consider for a moment what we are observing. We have a member of new media, Andrew Exum, noting a missing topic in published content from another member of new media, Thomas Ricks, generating a discussion regarding lessons learned from the surge on another new media platform, The Small Wars Journal. The discussion itself brings in enormously popular blogs like FireDogLake, Abu Muqawama, and Foreign Policy. That means at least 50,000 people could potentially be aware and participate in this discussion if they choose just because the opinion of those bloggers were solicited for the debate. With influence that comes with the broad exposure of ideas, one might imagine someone in the information business will find serious value in this type of horizontal connectivity towards ideas.

Actually, when you take a closer look at the people involved, someone already has.

I am very impressed with the way the Center for New American Security has reloaded after becoming one of the major manpower resource centers of the Obama administration. Andrew Exum is a brilliant pickup, and will allow CNAS to become the first think tank to truly leverage new media as a network to influence the national security debate.

Look, I know others try it, but by definition that isn't a blog. Heritage's National Security Blog isn't an example of horizontal connectivity to move ideas, because it is most often utilized as a business promotion website that by design sits as a single node without a network, and the content is primarily in press release format.

By leveraging the powerful combination of strategic communications and the research that can be generated inside any think tank, ideas can and will be published with horizontal connectivity across the internet on a daily basis. CNAS is essentially reloading in a way to insure relevance in the future despite recent losses to the administration. The additions of Dr. David Kilcullen, Thomas E. Ricks, and now Andrew Exum gives CNAS unprecedented broad access to new media for a daily propagation of ideas regarding the land services, and the results will allow CNAS to simply drown out competitive ideas sourced from other think tanks when it comes to the debate that shapes the future of the Army.

Indeed what is going to be very interesting is when someone outside CNAS produces professional research with a conclusion that counters the analysis produced by CNAS. If by chance CNAS ends up engaging an online discussion in disagreement on a point by point basis, it is going to be more than mildly entertaining watching those ideas get beat up while the research producer struggles to even engage the discussion. Give me a break, an editorial rebuttal in the Washington Times the following week is not going to be a very effective response if the challenges by the CNAS bloggers get rapidly propagated across the internet for several days first. This is a concept I've actually produced a PPT on believe it or not.

The essential idea that CNAS is poised to exploit is that their national security research environment can saturate the public new media space with the authority of CNAS, which will have an added effect of being broadly propagated by others who engage in the discussion of these ideas. After all, that is how new media works. The combination of broad connectivity through new media and with the authority of being a think tank, CNAS positions themselves perfectly to be the first think tank to completely bypass the tradition information model that influences the services at the operational level, which btw, is the specific topic the Small Wars Journal is discussing when asking the question how new media had influence on the surge.

CNAS is poised to insure their ideas will become the consensus view of a broad American public audience outside the military while also injecting their ideas through informal networks directly to the military at the operational level. In general most think tanks produce well researched and articulated opinions, but very few think tanks create a public consensus with their ideas, nor do they have any capability to indirectly propagate their ideas to the operational level without going through the formal process or depending upon popular bloggers to discuss their content. No one but CNAS has anything close to the connectivity on a daily basis nor any mediums by which to lend their authority to generate a similar effect on the national security discussion. The ramifications of what CNAS is doing will not only seriously challenge their competitors in the national security research space from creating any public support to counter ideas, but with this model CNAS will also challenge the formal system the DoD has long enjoyed regarding the ability of think tank recommendations to propagate beyond Washington DC to the operational level.

Think it won't happen? PlatoonLeader and CompanyCommand of yesterday is Small Wars Journal and Abu Muqawama today. It is already happening.

Which think tank report produced during the transition of the Obama administration had the most impact on the national security debate? Well, a better question is, which reports can you even name off the top of your head? The likely answer to the second question is: any think tank report you saw noted or discussed on a blog, and if ideas from those reports were discussed in depth on a blog; that became a report that matters. There were dozens of reports produced by the various think tanks, do you think the services took the time to read and study every one of them?

I don't, indeed when I have asked important people which ones they read, they named one or two, if any! The reports that were broadly read were primarily read because they were recommended, and those recommendations come from new media. Apparently, most think tanks don't care that a dependency relationship for their work already exists today, because if they realized this, CNAS wouldn't be the first think tank gobbling up the popular bloggers in the future Army debate that match their stated position in the debate.

Think Tank 2.0 is evolving, and if think tank 1.0 doesn't see the ramifications of what CNAS is doing, those organizations probably have no business giving national security strategy advice anyway. Do these organizations really produce reports so a certain handful of people inside the Pentagon will read them, or are they looking to build a broad consensus that reinforces the value of their ideas?

While the military services may not understand the importance of what Samuel Huntington was talking about regarding the necessary to develop the support of the American people by promoting "a strategic concept which clearly formulates its relationship to national security," clearly Dr. John Nagl gets it. A few months ago, I would have suggested Dr. Andrew Krepinevich was the only entrepreneur in DC that would understand the simple bridge yet to be crossed by the think tanks. Clearly another entrepreneur has arrived in DC.

My PPT just became obsolete because the working model already exists. I think now the way to present it will be to demonstrate the next instance where CNAS completely sinks a competitor in debate through new media. Welcome to the future of new media and the national security debate. CNAS has decided they will lead the evolution, and it will be interesting to observe as it unfolds.