<html><body>Winning Hearts and Minds: Information Warfare in the Global War on Terror December 8, 2004 Unedited transcript prepared from a tape recording <TABLE width="100%" border=0> <TBODY> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%">11:45 a.m.</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="75%" colSpan=2> Registration</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="50%"> </TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%">Noon</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%">Discussants:</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="50%">Brigadier General Vincent Brooks, U.S. Army</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="50%">Robert D. Kaplan, The Atlantic Monthly</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%">Moderator:</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="50%">Thomas Donnelly, AEI</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="50%"> </TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%">1:30 p.m.</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="75%" colSpan=2> Adjournment</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE> Proceedings: MR. DONNELLY:  To information warfare, to use a horrible term of ours.  But what we're going to be talking about today to me really goes to the most fundamental question about the nature of warfare itself. So, this is not going to be a simply a role or a discussion of the role of the press in war time or in Iraq specifically, although I'm sure we will touch on those issues.  But in preparing for this session, I was naturally, as I probably too often am, was driven back to Clausewitz, who is always a refuge for the academic out of ideas.  And his fundamental definition of war was, of course, as an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will.  And the striking thing about that to me is that the measure of victory is always, to use the term of Clausewitz, which we would have used, a moral measure.  That is, it--or perhaps psychological is a more modern translation of that term.  In other words, it's a human contest between two animate contestants, and the contest is never over until your enemy accepts, if you will, your version of reality. So, again, when we're talking about the war that we're embarked upon today, again the probably unhappy accepted term is the Global War on Terrorism, it, just like every other war, is a contest of wills, and if there were any doubt about that, I would think that recent headlines are a pretty strong testament to that and certainly recent statements of American generals and American supreme commanders ought to reflect that. We're going to be talking about the Global War on Terrorism today.  What is the Global War on Terrorism is a pretty good question.  And what is our will, so to speak, or what is our goal in the Global War on Terrorism? The President has defined it I think quite accurately and quite percipiently as an effort to transform the political culture of the greater Middle East, and that's a short phrase that could stand a huge amount of textual deconstruction and analysis, but I think it's the right one. And again, I would emphasize that this is fundamentally or first an ideological struggle, perhaps between three parties: the status quo, the sort of autocratic collection of governments in the region; between one other revolutionary party, the Osama Revolutionary Party, if you will, the Islamic Revolutionary Party, seeking to establish quite a different political order in the region; and, of course, ourselves.  We are also a revolutionary party by the standards of the region, by the political measures of the region.  But we're obviously trying to impose or to enact quite a different revolution from Osama bin Laden.  We're trying to bring a liberal democracy or a set of liberal democracies to the region. Once again, it's clear that in this struggle, the moral dimension is paramount. One of two other questions of a real fundamental nature: we ought to discuss today what is information warfare?  It's a term of art that's bandied about or has been bandied about military and strategy communities for the last 10 years without what I would regard as a very precise or useful definition.  I was just reading the conclusions of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Strategic Communication, which is another sort of euphemism for essentially the same idea. And when you read these government documents, it sounds like literary analysis done by government agency.  It seems pretty arid and hardly very insightful at capturing what's really going on or what really ought to be going on. The DSB report speaks to my mind too much about how to improve our poll numbers abroad, and speaks of public diplomacy in crisis as though all we really needed to do is to make people like us a little bit more, and everything would be hunky dory.  This is, again, entirely without reference to our fundamentally revolutionary purposes in the region, and perhaps the measure of success in the near term is simply to make our purpose clearer rather than to make it immediately popular.  It ought to be no surprise that trying to bring about a fundamental political change in a pretty fair sized part of the planet is not immediately popular, either with the entrenched powers in the region or our friends and interlocutors elsewhere who have gotten used to the status quo. Finally, I think we ought to take a step back and reevaluate what is strategic communication, and how really this can be a tool or can it really be a tool of the United States Government or any government? So much of our strategic communication, thought of broadly, emanates from American culture or things that are not really part of the government and are very difficult for the government to control.  And when the government tries to control them, they usually screw it up and do a bad job of it. And you could argue that in the Middle East that it was the unintended consequences of our past strategic communications, of our promulgation of a set of political principles and a popular culture and a high culture that reflected the love of freedom in the American people that got us into trouble in the first place, if you go back, say, to the Iranian Revolution, and the image of America as the Great Satan.  It's both the image in that culture of an oppressor or a potential oppressor and a great seducer. So, when we think about how to win the hearts and minds of people in the Arab Middle East, in the Islamic world more broadly, clearly we ought to first of all think about our own purposes, our own culture and our own selves and what we want to accomplish there, and then also obviously undertake a more intensive and, you know, holistic and perhaps even literary kind of an analysis of the culture--or the set of cultures with which we're dealing. And so, with that very broad and pompous introduction, I want now to turn the microphone to our guests.  We have two really distinguished, and we'll have time for questions later.  Let me just go through the program of events.  Each one of our presenters is going to have about 15 or 20 minutes to say what they would like to say, and then there will be some discussion between the two of them before we go to the question and answer session.  And we'll be done in about an hour and 15 minutes. Speaking first will be Brigadier General Vincent Brooks, whom everybody knows I suppose the face and the voice of Operation Iraqi Freedom, or at least the initial phase of it.  His bio is in your packet, and so I won't recite his military curriculum vitae, but he's here for a purpose, and he genuinely needs no introduction.  He's been a very well known face and personality in American culture for some time. I'm also very pleased to have Robert Kaplan with us.  I myself am a recovering journalist, and I really wish that I had his job and I could go back to being the kind of journalist that he is, except that I'm rather older and I'm less interested in traveling to the really ugly parts of the planet and sleeping on a cot and sleeping anywhere but my own bed these days. Again, he's a very prolific writer.  His range of subjects over the past 10 or 15 years is really quite astounding, and the thing that I envy most about him or admire most about him is his willingness as a journalist to tackle not simply faraway places and strange cultures, but big ideas.  Again, from my own past, I don't like to allow academics to have sole proprietary ownership of big ideas.  And I think what Bob has done, not simply through his sort of travel writing, if you will, but through his willingness to challenge the status quo, the intellectual status quo over the past 15 years is something that I certainly respect. And finally, lately, he's taken to hanging out with soldiers and people in the military, which is what I used to do as a journalist, and something that more journalists ought to do. So, with those glowing introductions and with gestures of great respect to both our panelists, General Brooks, the microphone is yours to say, to give us a presentation that you care to. GENERAL BROOKS:  Thanks, Tom.  I'm really delighted to be able to spend some time with you today and share some thoughts from the perspective of a military practitioner here. And the thoughts that I'll share with you really are--they're my views.  These are things that are gained from my own personal experiences in a variety of positions, and you've seen the bio. Most recently, I would tell you I've changed positions into being the Army's Chief of Public Affairs, just this week.  And that is a little bit different than my--most of my experience in the past, which has been in operational assignments or as a planner and those types of things. Prior to that, I was in the Joint Staff and served as the Deputy Director of Strategic Plans and Policy for the War on Terrorism, and we can certainly give some insights.  That's fresh on my mind in terms of these challenges we face in the war on terrorism and what it is or is not, and how we're approaching it. And then before that, then you may have seen me in my work with General Franks at Central Command. I want to spend just a few minutes here.  I probably won't take the full allotted time, but just to share some thoughts with you up front on the challenges of fighting wars in the information age. Now, it's a little bit different, as I characterize it, than the title of this forum.  And I think it's important to make that distinction, because that's really what we're talking about.  We are in a different kind of an age now.  It's different than what Clausewitz spoke of.  Much of what he says certainly endures, but it's a different environment altogether. And what I want you to know today is that you have military professionals who are thinking about this complex environment and this changed environment that we're living in a thoughtful way, trying to wrestle with these difficulties.  The answers are not easy to come by.  There are no panaceas.  There are no simple solutions really, either, because what we're fundamentally talking about is the essence of human behavior; and when you're looking at how you cause humans to behave, one way or another, or what people consider to guide their actions, it's a complex environment to say the least. I am of the opinion that the information age presents us a domain within which we must conduct our operations.  We use the term in the military battle space, and the thought behind that is that's the physical and other methods--the area that surrounds your work, to keep it as simple as possible. We're well acquainted with the traditional battle spaces of air, land, sea, space, and, to be truthful, we've achieved a high degree of effectiveness, if not dominance, in those battle spaces. But the information battle space is a little bit different.  It's much more difficult to gain a dominance in that area as it regards your adversaries, because it is open also to those who are not your adversaries.  It's open to the public.  It's open to foreign audiences with whom we have no grievance.  It's open to interested parties.  It takes different forms.  It flows in different ways.  It's ubiquitous. And because of that, it causes us to have to think differently about every one of our actions and how they might resonate in each one of those different what I call conduits of communication.  And, for example, if we were to think that all we have a responsibility to do is to inform our own population, then we might miss the fact that there are others who are interested and who are watching the networks that inform our population.  We might miss the fact that the Internet, while it may pass through the United States, doesn't terminate in the United States.  It doesn't originate in the United States; and, therefore, anything we say or anything that's posted on the Internet might be out there. Our adversaries know this and are quite skillful at it.  Many have talked about the term asymmetric warfare, and I'll just give you a short thought on some practical applications of asymmetry. In the simplest way, I would define that as taking actions that have an effect in an indirect way against something that cannot respond in kind.  A simple definition of it, and you may or may not accept that, but that's how I characterize it. And, so, you might seize an aircraft and use it as a missile, which is essentially a military act, but you do it for the purpose of an economic and a social impact; where the traditional response is that military action cannot be responded to directly in a military way.  Certainly, not in the immediate sense.  Where attacks might occur to generate a crisis in governance that causes people to have feelings of insecurity, and I hope as we get into this a bit later, we can talk about the difference between insecurity and security, because they're not the same, and they're not opposites either. So, nevertheless, we have adversaries who understand this; who understand that an action can be taken that would have consequence, but it can be magnified many times over and achieve a completely different set of outcomes and effects by introducing that action into the information domain. Direct competition exists between us and our adversaries in that battle space.  And if we don't recognize it as such, then we will yield that battle space to adversaries who seek to do us harm, who might seek to have us come to an end.  And that's just not an acceptable solution for us. And, so, what we face now is how do we condition ourselves to fight in this new battle space in a way that has the necessary effect on our adversaries while not having an unnecessary or undesirable effect on our colleagues, our friends, those who are interested in our own public?  Considerable challenge.  Information goes where it goes.  And I found this first hand while I was in Qatar as General Franks' Deputy for Operations and spokesperson.  If we have not thought our way through a simple comment about a Coalition member, and how that might resonate inside of that Coalition member's capital, where there are any number of political issues, social issues that may hinge on a perception of the quality of the Coalition.  If we haven't thought about that, then we're not fighting in the information age.  We're not sensitive to the realities that we face right now.  And, so, we have that kind of an experience that goes through all of what we do. The reality also is that some of the communications conduits are regulated and some are not.  I use the Internet example again because it's proliferating so rapidly, and because it does penetrate so many different parts of the world.  Even lesser developed parts of the world have access to Internet and cell phone technology.  Just completely bypassed the wired age, if you will. And so, information can flow that is not regulated and may not be truthful, and may, in fact, be operationally oriented against us.  As a public affairs professional now, I know that our obligation and our essential task in public affairs is to operate from a foundation of truth.  We have to because truth and credibility are linked together, and our communications cannot be effective without the combination of the two.  But our adversaries don't have those rules. And so, deliberate disinformation.  Deliberate psychological operations information, directed towards us, will be evident, is evident on the Internet.  I take the example of Zarqawi's practice of beheading people in the Middle East.  It's one thing to take someone hostage.  That will have an effect.  It's yet another thing to behead that hostage.  That has an effect also.  It's different.  It has a different shock effect.  It has a different terror value, if you will.  It's yet another thing to film that and make the film available.  And the selection of the conduits of communication are very important.  We have a great example to study here.  By putting it on the Internet as opposed to television where there are editors, producers, broadcasters who have discretion--you put it on the Internet, where there's less regulation.  And frankly, the outcome is every hit is another beheading.  Every hit for that search is another query.  Every person who has an interest in knowing that there is a fighter out there somewhere standing up to the United States may be inspired by that.  Or others may be put in shock by that.  The terror effect is multiplied well beyond the specific target set of just Coalition forces, because it's in the information domain.  The same occurs with what we say.  And so, we just have to think our way through that and be very careful. We do have some strategies out there that help us; that recognize this new age and the new environment that we're in.  I'll give you the example of the national strategy for combating terrorism.  It came out several years ago, shortly after 9/11; produced by the National Security Council staff.  It's not a classified document.  And it highlights the importance in combating terrorism of bringing together all instruments of national power.  Now, those vary from one country to another.  Every country has its own different set of instruments that are effective in their use. We in the military profession have been studying for some time this idea of other instruments of power, more than the military instrument, because the military instrument, especially in war, is generally not enough.  And this war is no exception.  The military instrument is not enough to achieve the final outcomes, to go back to the Clausewitzian view. But our traditional view has been that there were four--diplomatic power, intelligence power, military power, and economic power--in the hands of the United States.  That strategy adds three additional ones that I think are very instructive.  And they highlight that there is something different about this kind of war that we ought to consider.  And that we have instruments available to us.  If we harness those instruments and use them in a coordinated way, they can have a positive effect. And those additional three are financial power--different from economic power--information power, which should be the subject of what we talk about today, and law enforcement as an instrument of power, certainly as it relates to an international community and the importance of imposing the rule of law in places where we encounter someone who's absolutely lawless.  And so, these instruments are a recognition that there is, in fact, power in information. So, then, how do we organize ourselves for that?  And that's part of the debate that I think is ongoing right now.  How do you organize yourself as a specific entity within the government or as a government or as even a different institution?  How does AEI organize itself to harness the information age to achieve what AEI seeks to achieve?  And you could apply this to any organization, any institution--financial, business, industry--any number of organizations. When it's all said and done, what we find is in the information age, the outcome often is a matter of--it's all about what's on your mind.  Your mind and the mind of anyone else that might receive information.  It's all about what's on your mind. And while we're not in a battle for your mind, we are in a competition with an adversary who seeks to introduce things into your mind, into your consciousness in a way that would cause you to make decisions, undermine your will, cause you to be afraid, have terror, feel insecurity.  And that must be combated, and we cannot avoid you being a witness to that. There's probably some historians in the room that would take us back to the first battle of Bull Run, with observers on the battlefield.  And I wonder if we--if it's really been that long since we had direct observers to our warfare on a continuous and regular basis.  Maybe there's something instructive about that, and the consequences and the shock and the horror that came with that experience--it really wasn't a picnic.  It wasn't something even pleasant to watch--is reminiscent now.  Warfare is not pleasant.  It's the worst of all human activities.  And, in some cases, it's unavoidable, as it is right now. Let me move on to a couple other thoughts here, and then I'll stop. Just a few thoughts about how we use information.  And this certainly comes from the perspective of a public affairs officer, but also as an operator that has to fight in the information domain. Our first intent is to inform.  There's no question.  We must inform dialogue, discourse, and publics, principally our own United States public.  But, as I said earlier, the information goes where it goes.  Part of what we seek to do and forgive me for popping my P's here.  Part of what we seek to do is to bring the reality of what goes on within the institution out into the public so that there is not a difference of viewing the same reality.  Some say that perception is reality.  I don't know I think that there is only a single reality.  But there are different perceptions of reality that can be influenced by any number of things.  You and I are witnessing a moment right now just by being in the same room together, but you're seeing it differently than I am.  That's just the way it is for humans. So, what we seek to do is try to inform, but also to bring the reality of what we are, and what happens inside an institution into the public so that there's a clearer understanding, a clarity, a context to all other things relative to the institution when they occur.  And that's hard work.  Sometime it works.  Sometimes it doesn't.  We want to get as close as we can so there's no discrepancy on what reality is and no lack of clarity.  But the fact of the matter is we will always see things a little bit differently, and that's okay. We want to also be able to impart things like feelings of confidence.  That was very important as General Franks gave me my charter.  We need to show confidence in what we're doing or no one else is going to be confident in what we're doing.  It's not a false confidence.  It is the confidence inside of the formation.  Bring that out and show people that you, in fact, are confident that we're going to be successful; that the work is ongoing.  It's being done by professionals who are the best in the world.  And while there will be many uncertainties, we got many professionals out there who do remarkable things.  That's confidence.  That's not cockiness, and it must be articulated or you will never know that it's there.  We have that obligation. A freedom from fear or at least certain fears.  We're never completely free from fear, but certain fears--fear of failure, fear of uncertainty--is classic examples of that. Feelings of objectivity.  What is we see?  Put yourself inside of walking into a surgical ward and observing total hip replacement.  The surgeon might say, hey, this is really going well.  That was a good cut.  Hey, good job on that.  Bring them up just a little bit.  And things are happening in there that you're going what on earth is this?  This is just brutal.  We got saws and hammers and screws and drills.  How can anyone ever possibly get away from this?  It's not the same view of reality.  A different perspective. And so, we try to bring that objectivity out. Feelings of our determination that we're not going to be deterred.  That's just the nature of who we are.  You can tell us to stop, and we will.  But until then, we have a mission to perform, and we're going to do that mission.  And we're determined to get it done as well as we can under all circumstances that we face. Periodically, it's important also to show that there is a contrast.  We might show frustration in some things, but you'll also see that we have a view of solution, because frustration is not enough for someone that's action oriented.  Sometimes we'll show that there are contrasts in the reality that is faced, and the nature what our soldiers and Marines especially, but all of our service members face when they're out there, where you might have extraordinary violence on one street and compassion on the next.  And if we don't bring that out and expose it to you, you might not know it's there.  And we have a responsibility to do that.  That's anyone else's responsibility to bring the realities into the understanding of the public domain. Everyone knows that skillful communicators have always considered their audience, and my thought to you is what audience.  When we're communicating as a government, there's interest.  There's always interest in what the United States is doing.  We can't avoid that.  That's okay.  We ought to be proud of the fact that we have a respected position of leadership.  Not everyone agrees with us.  That's okay. We adapt and change over time.  We always have.  We stand on the principles for which we stand.  We emerge from errors in our past and come out differently.  I certainly know that.  I'm an African American.  Do you think I don't know that?  I'm part of the United States Army.  There were issues with the Army and African Americans.  There aren't now.  Look at me.  We adapt.  Our nation is the same way as this example. But we also know that because information goes where it goes, methods of control have to be reconsidered.  Your control ends in the information domain when you introduce information into that domain.  And so, you must think in advance about what it is that is introduced.  That's where control ends.  And it's okay to have control.  Be careful about what you say is the message there.  If you're careless in your communications at home, then there will be consequences you need to think about.  If you're careless in your communications as a government, the same occurs.  It's just human nature. I think I'll probably stop right here.  I'll tell you--let me just close with the thought that my views of public affairs and the role of public affairs officers.  It's a very important role, and it is an emerging role that's more important now than ever, because the information age is with us, and it's here to stay.  So, public affairs officers have to be masters of bringing the conduits of communication to the actions that we're engaged in, whether that means introducing our action into the Internet or introducing our action into the public directly by engagements like this, talking in our communities, talking to family members, talking to those who are interested, testimony on the Hill--all these things are direct communications.  We've got to be part of the conduits of communication. We're also the coordinators of that public access.  We're the ones who bring it together and make it possible for the public to have that experience that I talked about before.  What happens inside the institution is felt outside of the institution in a clearer way. There's no question that we're advisers to the communicators.  And we're also communicators ourselves.  We have to be.  We ought to be thinking about what it is we're doing. But we deal in the world of truth.  We must deal in the world of truth.  Truth is very powerful.  I've discovered that and had it reinforced over and over again.  Truth is far more powerful than lies.  And the United States and certainly the public affairs parts of the United States and the United States military believe very strongly in that. But truth is also not enough.  I learned that lesson, too.  It's not enough to simply be truthful when you face an adversary who is not.  You must also have developed some degree of trust and confidence or the truth will not survive the onslaught of lies.  That's a difficult one for us to try on, because to gain that confidence, we must engage.  We must sometimes find ourselves wrong.  We must make corrections when we have unintentionally done something we didn't intend to do.  We have to make adjustments when our actions don't match our words, either by design, by bad planning, or by mistake; or the confidence won't be there.  And so, the combination of truth and confidence makes it possible for us to fight against our adversaries. Last thought:  truth without confidence is the genesis of doubt.  If you begin to doubt, then the power of truth begins to go away. I hope that's enough to at least stimulate you, and I look forward to the questions and answers period, and I'll turn it over to Bob.  Thanks very much. MR. KAPLAN:  Thank you very much.  It's truly an honor for me to be here today at AEI, which is really always been bubbling with ideas, never more so than now. And it's a particular honor to be here with General Brooks.  He's too--probably too modest to say so, but he is a war fighter by another name as a PAO, because, you know, fighting the information war is every bit as important as taking things street by street in some cities in Iraq. A hundred years ago, there was a great naval strategist, Alfred Thayer Mahan, who said that the seas were the common, the great common of warfare, and he who controls the seas controls the battle space. As you see, General Brooks kind of stole my introduction that I was going to use.  But I would put it this way:  that now, cyberspace, information is the new commons that the U.S. military has to adapt to and kind of be able to mold and manipulate in this new age of warfare. In fact, in an age of mass media, the media has to be considered a gray area threat, simply 'cause it's so influential.  We have always known that you can win on the battlefield, and lost it politically.  But in today's age, losing it politically means losing it in the media.  So, the media is a gray area threat, and it's a terrain of battle, every bit as much as the seas or the dry land space. And, therefore, because of lessons learned that are accumulated in dealing with the media, the military needs almost a doctrine, a battle-- [Break in recording.] The military has a whole series of manuals--the fleet marine force manuals for Marines, the Ranger Handbook for Army infantry--all about lessons learned.  How to do ambushes better, et cetera.  Little by little, the same thing will have to accumulate with dealing with the media.  And one big challenge of the media is that very few people own up to is that there still is an American military, but there is less and less an American media.  What there is is more and more a global cosmopolitan media that has an American contingent that is dissolving into that global cosmopolitan media.  That is nothing good or bad.  It's just a reflection of social and economic and cultural and other trends in an increasingly interconnected world, where journalists feel more and more socially comfortable, and with more and more kind of a sense of alliance and rapport with fellow journalists from other countries than they do--than their fellow Americans, who are officers, and particularly NCOs from a different social class and region of the country from themselves. And, therefore, one of the challenges the military faces is how to break down that barrier. Now, let me move back a bit in talking a bit about doctrine.  First of all, I--all my statements today come from my own experience--General Brooks is seeing things from the top.  I've been embedded with non-commissioned officers for the most the last nine or 10 months of the previous 18 months in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Colombia, Kenya.  I spent the summer in West Africa with a platoon of Marines, and so a lot of my ideas will come from that. But one of the most--two of the most interesting experiences that I've had media wise have been with the Marines in Fallujah last spring and with Army Special Forces in the southern Philippines a year and a half ago, where there was a big media component to what ultimately transpired. In Fallujah, the first battalion of the Fifth Marines coming in from the south and the second battalion of the First Marines coming in from the north were, in my estimation, 'cause I was in the center of Fallujah with a platoon, in my estimation were about two or three days from taking down the city.  And, at that point, a third fully rested whole battalion of Marines, the third battalion of the Fourth Marines came in from western Iraq.  And everything was in place--excuse me, I'm recovering from a cold--everything was in place to box in the insurgents in the first week of April of this year. Well, what happened was a cease fire was called, and though you may accuse the Bush Administration of incoherence of sending in the Marines only to pull them out, a big factor was that the media coverage became so negative that it put a lot of pressure on the newly emerging Iraqi authorities so that this was a factor in calling the cease fire. Now, the Marines had planned out every small step tactically of how they were going to take every section of the city.  But being with them and watching the Pentagon on television, I sensed absolutely no commensurate planning on the part of the Pentagon in planning out an information war for what was very, very predictable.  What was very interesting about Fallujah last spring was that nothing unpredictable happened.  The Marines invested a city.  There was a very small minimal number of civilian casualties.  The international media, particularly the Arab media concentrated almost exclusively on those civilian casualties.  That put the requisite political pressure on newly emerging Iraqi authorities, and all this was, you know, Information 101.  It was all very predictable. But the Administration seemed to have no strategy for how to deal with it.  There were pictures of mosques with holes in them, which seemed to indicate that the U.S. bombing was indiscriminate.  In fact, the holes in the mosques indicated how discriminate it was, because every mosque was filled with explosives.  It was a command and control center, and the U.S. Marines, with the Army and Air Force, had gone to extremes to only damage the small parts of those mosques where they knew that there were insurgents operating.  None of this was explained adequately to the public. And this is where an information strategy really kicks in.  We know that there was one voice, one face, a fireside chat manner to the world in the American public during Operation Iraqi Freedom.  That was General Brooks.  We saw the same thing in Kosovo with Jamie Shay, who is the British NATO spokesman.  But when the unconventional side of this fighting started, there was no central spokesman.  There was no war room; no place to centrally organize a message getting out. Now, that's one bad story.  Let me give you a good story.  In the summer of 2002, Army Special Forces invested the island of Basilan in the southern Philippines, the first time the American forces were south of Luzon since World War II.  They set up clinics--dental clinics, medical clinics, veterinary clinics.  They trained Filipino commandos.  They ejected the Abu Sayyaf and Jama'a Islamia guerillas from the island.  It was a great success. But the real big success was that the first--was that the first Army First Special Forces Group, forward based in Okinawa and out of Fort Lewis Washington, played the Filipino media.  They embedded the Filipino media in with American troops.  They took them around constantly on tours.  They told them everything that they were doing.  They had a narrative, a story, so that by the end of the summer, the United States military was getting positive press in the Filipino media for the first time since the Americans were ejected from Clark and Subig Bay exactly 10 summers before. And that was an example of a successful media strategy, where it was realized that the media was the center of the battle space. One of the things I've learned with the Marines--I mean, everyone gets--other services get angry with the Marines because the Marines are always getting such great coverage.  And it's interesting.  Having spent the spring, the winter, the spring, and the summer with the Marines, Marines are probably among the most conservative people in the Armed Forces in terms of their political views.  The media is probably among the most liberal groups in society at large.  Yet, this very conservative element has managed to get very positive media coverage.  So, why is that happening?  Why is that true? Well, one of the things Marines do is they know to keep a crowd mentality developing among the press.  They break the press up.  If you have five journalists, you put them in five different battalions.  You go as out of your way as you can to make sure they never see each other.  That way, you don't get a herd mentality developing. You know, it's just one little thing.  If there is such a thing as a hostile global cosmopolitan media, if there is such a thing as the media being a different economic, social, regional, somewhat hostile group to the military, you make it less of a group by breaking it apart and giving each member an individual experience. That's what the Army did with the Filipino media.  That's what the Marines have done, you know, and others have done. Let me say this:  the minute a war becomes unconventional, I've noticed, the minute it's not, you know, a conventional mass infantry invasion, assault, where it's a small battle space with large numbers of troops within, and it changes to a wide, vast battle space with small clusters of troops hunting down small clusters of combatants, suddenly the victor becomes the person or the team that masters the story or the narrative.  The one who presents the most compelling narrative story is the one who's going to be seen as the political victor in the conflict. And if you saw last spring and this summer, in my opinion, there was no compelling narrative coming out of the Administration as to what was happening inside Iraq.  I--you know, one of the things I learned in Lebanon is that when the media stops covering something, it usually means that something has become a success.  The media stopped covering Lebanon in 1991.  By 1993, everybody realized that the war ended in 1991, because there was less and less fighting; less and less car bombing, so the media got deployed elsewhere, but nobody wrote the story that the war is over.  Well, there hasn't been much date coverage from Kurdistan lately, in the last year.  From the end of this June, when the Army did wonderful work in Najaf and Karballah, really rewriting tactics in terms of converting fast from a battle rhythm of urban fighting to urban reconstruction and humanitarian development, suddenly Karballah and Najaf got less and less in the headlines.  And we stopped reading about the Shiite south, and everything became focused on the Sunni Triangle. The minute I saw that, I said, well, the Administration can make a plausible argument that we've got two-thirds of the country going in the right direction.  It's just a matter of persistence to take down the other areas. I never heard that--I never heard that articulate in a concise fireside chat manner by the Administration, by the Pentagon, by anybody.  And, again, he who weaves the most compelling narrative will win the information war when the fighting is unconventional, because the public cannot be expected to kind of follow all the little movements of all these little battles that are taking place.  That's why the Pacific War was harder to follow than the European theater, because the island configurations in the Pacific were so random. You have to help the public out on this things.  Remember Samarra last--two months ago.  To me, Samarra was a turning point.  It was the first time that Iraqi forces, taking the lead, took down a city with minimal civilian casualties.  It was a great success for the U.S. military.  But I was in Spain at the time, overhearing American tourists talking about Samarra, and they were saying, well, now, there's violence in Samarra.  It's another disaster, because nobody had helped them out.  Nobody had put the pieces together for them. Another phenomenon that I've noticed is that many troops have--many individual soldiers, Marine, airmen, and sailors have their own laptops.  Many, much of the time, have access to cybercaf�s on bases.  They write home letters and notes to their girlfriends, to their friends.  Sometimes they even write unsolicited narratives to web sites, to news web sites, because they've become so frustrated at what they're reading in the news of what the media is reporting, which is so different from their reality, when they were there. I think we're going to seen explosion of this kind of thing in the future.  I think in the future you could see American troops reporting the American perspective of the battle on their own, and the media will provide the transnational, global cosmopolitan perspective, because all the parts are in place for it.  It's just a matter of two or three people having an enterprising web site that all the troops will send their narratives to the same place that everyone will look at.  Now, that will not--an American perspective, the troop perspective, will not whitewash problems.  It will not make things look better than they are.  But it will--it will, as I put it in an article I've just published, submerge the cult of victim hood and promote warrior virtues. The troops don't want to be seen as victims.  They don't want to be seen as victims of a bad reserve system, of a failed policy.  That's not how they seem themselves.  They get increasingly upset when they read about this. Again, in an information age, when you're dealing with a global media with a herd instinct, the minute the media clusters together to cover one battle in an unconventional setting, you will often lose, because you will never be able to fight cleanly enough for all the elements of the media, no matter how pro--I mean, I have seen Marines.  I am not exaggerating here.  I have seen Marines in Fallujah take bullets to save Iraqi civilians.  But if you saw the world media coverage last spring in early April, you would not necessarily get a sense of that.  So-- [END OF TAPE 1 SIDE A, BEGIN SIDE B.] The goal.  The goal is to deal with problems before they get on page one, to keep them on page five, before they are ratcheted upward.  The more quiet, low key and off the radar screen the American military can operate, the more will it be able to win the battle in the information age. The American military has been accomplishing some wonderful things in the Philippines, Colombia, of the coast of Kenya, in West Africa--many other places I could name and go into details.  And one of the missing elements in all those parts is there is no cluster of media.  There is one or two journalists only.  And that's it.  And they are dealing with problems and snuffing them out or at least keeping them on a low burner, so they're not ratcheted up to the level of Afghanistan or Iraq. One or two other points and then I'll close up.  In an age of emerging democracies, the rules of engagement will become more and more restrictive, because emerging democracies means emerging local medias.  And emerging local medias in former dictatorial societies will be, by very definition, inexperienced, somewhat unprofessional, sometimes overly aggressive, getting things wrong, occasionally believing in conspiracy theories, and like everyone else in this newly emerging democracy, they're testing it out.  They're moving forward by trial and error. So, the idea that they will be suddenly the solution, a local media simply isn't right.  And one of the things a new feisty local media does in emerging democracies, like Georgia, Colombia, the Philippines, country's in West Africa, like Mali and Niger, where American soldiers and Marines have been deployed over the last year, is that they will--they will simply will not countenance American troops running around killing even the worst guys on their soil without raising a fuss. So, increasingly, as rules of engagement become more restrictive, we're going to be back to the original method of unconventional warfare, which is embracing our indigenous brothers, training indigenous troops to be very professional, fight their own wars, and we will help them with P3 surveillance planes and other things.  So, we'll be the Filipino army, the Colombian military increasingly who will hunt down and kills the bad guys, and that gets less world media attention; and that's another way that you win. Finally, let me just say that the American military now has the toughest job I think of any military in the history of mankind.  It's to provide the security armature for an emerging global civilization and institutions, and the more that those global institutions emerge and regional institutions emerge, the less thankful they will be to the institution that helped create them in the first place, the American military.  And that is the kind of thankless task that the American military has to face up to.  Thank you very much.  It's been my pleasure. [Applause.] MR. DONNELLY:  I would like to add my thanks to both of you for great presentations.  And I would like to indulge the audience to ask a few questions that occurred to me, and to begin, sort of work backwards, with some of Bob's points.  First of all, I'd like to invite both of you to a comparative analysis of Fallujah in April and Fallujah now.  Bob, I would say a lot of what you would--agree with much of what you said about the situation in April, but--and obviously, the Fallujah campaign in the kind of the larger sense is hardly complete.  But clearly, there's some very distinct differences between then and now, not simply that the military operation has been more decisive.  And to use your framework for analysis, I'm not sure that there's been a central war room or even a central message that's come out.  It's been kind of dispersed, but it's been much more effective I would say.  We've survived-- MR. KAPLAN:  Yeah. MR. DONNELLY:  Shooting the wounded event.  The Marines were very good A, about, again, we had much--many more embedded reporters, so that may-- MR. KAPLAN:  Yeah. MR. DONNELLY:  Set the conditions for success, but A, and also the Marines sort of immediately when the event happened put spokesmen on television, including one young captain who had just been wounded and still had stitches in his face from an IED in Fallujah.  So, you know, I don't fully understand, you know, we don't know the full picture of what exactly happened, but, you know, without having a General Brooks like central, you know, fireside chat fatherly figure or figure exuding confidence, to use your term, you shouldn't have used the surgery thing.  I'm about to go under the knife next week.  It's not really very helpful. So, again, without having that central sort of authority figure-- MR. KAPLAN:  Yeah. MR. DONNELLY:  The message A, that the combat would be tough, and that this guy maybe made a, you know, snap decision, and he got the benefit of the doubt at least in the American media, including even CNN. MR. KAPLAN:  Okay. MR. DONNELLY:  Which is a pretty remarkable thing.  So, I would invite both of you first to sort of do a comparative analysis of Fallujah in the spring and, you know, the Sunni campaign now, and see if you see any differences. MR. KAPLAN:  Sure.  Well, first of all, it wasn't just the Marines.  That was one thing I left out.  The Army played a major role even last spring.  Fifth Special Forces Group was with the Marines, and it was really theater-level urban combat. I think the key thing that's been missed that you alluded to was last spring and last summer there were very few embeds.  Most of the reporting was out of Baghdad.  And there were just--weren't that many big media like experiencing what the troops experienced.  I noticed that changed pretty dramatically after the election, the American election, when it's--maybe because it stopped being seen as Bush is losing the war; the election was past us, so all the politics were out of it and they went back to the bread and butter of just covering the military kind of.  I don't know, but that may have been a context. But one thing I am aware of, press coverage was far more sympathetic this time than last time, and there were a lot more embeds this time than last time.  And I think there's got to be some kind of a correlation there. Also, the Marines, like everyone, learned from last spring.  You know, you know, everyone keeps improving their information strategy.  That's one thing. Also, this time the U.S. military went in with a lot of fire power, much  more than the last time, and the final thing is remember when General Conway, when Lieutenant General Conway, the--you know, the one MEP [ph] commander at the behest of superiors negotiated that truce that put in there--you know, Iraqi forces.  When he did that, nobody knew if would fail, because you can't predict the future.  So, because it was tried with a good faith effort, it seemed fairly reasonable, and it failed ultimately.  So, having it fail, I think the media and the public was more accepting of the fact that we tried everything possible, and this is truly the last resort. So, I think that also made a difference. GENERAL BROOKS:  First, I appreciate the point of the jointness of the operation.  That certainly is a lesson that was applied before it happened in the first Fallujah, and it happened in the second Fallujah as well.  And I had the privilege of going up and receiving remains from soldiers and Marines who were killed in Fallujah as they arrived at Dover Air Force Base.  And there were nine that day.  And the next day there were 25.  And so, the reality comes in a very different way, but there I stood with a Marine contingent and an Army contingent who formed the cordon at the ramp of the aircraft, and seven of the nine were Marines in that case.  And two of the nine were Army soldiers.  It didn't matter.  They traded off carrying off their comrades off the aircraft.  The Marines would go grab one.  The Army would grab the next.  And each time, we remained at a position of honor as they passed us.  In one case, it was a soldier who accompanied his brother.  They're in the same unit. But what was instructive about that was not just the jointness of that moment and what it reflected from the fight, but there were two of them who we weren't even quite sure we had the units right, because it said this company of this reconnaissance regiment of this division, which was an Army division--the first two parts were Marine; the second was Army--the third one was Army; the fourth one was Marine; the fifth one was Army.  And, so, if you ran the lineage of the unit, it looked like there was some confusion.  Were we sure this was a Marine or was it a soldier or what was it?  And what it really talked about was the task organization. So, we had Marine small units inside of Army battalions inside of Marine brigades inside of Army divisions inside of a Marine force.  And, so, I've talked to that point a bit longer than probably I needed to, but the reality of the jointness is certainly there, and that is a lesson. The tactics that were used.  You talked about the importance of doctrine.  I certainly agree with that, and doctrine can take us further.  It never is full enough to account for everything that might occur, and so doctrine always becomes a base upon which we make our decisions when we get into action. But there are some very good techniques and procedures that have emerged from Samarra, Najaf, now Fallujah as well in terms of how do you do precision engagement with a significant amount of force in a fortified city that still has noncombatants inside of it with lots of fire power, facing lots of fire power, some of which is unconventional or indirect.  Improvised explosive devices, grenades, booby traps, all these things that are well known to be in Fallujah. From the information perspective, though, let me talk about that.  And I would certainly agree with the point that the first battle of Fallujah was impacted by the activities that happened in the information domain, and they had a political consequence to them.  Well, that's certainly nothing new in war, but it's something absolutely common and should be expected in every fight in the information age. The consolidation aspect of an operation, when we talk about this term consolidation, at the end of an attack, we try to make sure that the gains that have been achieved aren't lost; that ammunition is redistributed; that supplies are taken care of; that the wounded are moved off; that information is gathered from adversaries who are on that--every small unit knows how to do that.  There's an information aspect about it as well that happens from the lowest level and then goes to the highest levels also.  So, how do you consolidate the gains that occurred in the physical battle space in the information battle space?  And chances are there's a time delay between the two, because the physical effects don't have their resonance until people recognize the consequences of what just happened. Now, we saw some of that in the second battle of Fallujah here within the last few months, where tremendous success by the Coalition force, by the multinational force on the ground, including a very important role by Iraqi forces, a reinforcement of the lesson from the first Fallujah, that followed a few days later, when it was evident that there was physical success, there was suddenly a counter pressure in the information domain:  the accusations of killing innocent civilians, television broadcasts of people on the street in some cases who were viewing a very different reality than correspondents were.  I recall looking at a translated news report where a man on the street in Fallujah was saying we just shot down one helicopter.  We've hit two more.  There's at least one jet we've knocked down.  We're fighting left and right, and he was quite serious.  He was also quite wrong.  And so you see this counter pressure to try to change the perception of what's really happening inside of there. Now, how do you take that way from your adversary, knowing that it's going to come?  By introducing more and more information of what is really occurring into the public domain.  And here's our challenge.  If we're showing the successes, and I certainly witnessed this firsthand, then we in the military are often accused of engaging in propaganda.  This is where I go back to the point of trust is not enough.  I'm sorry.  Truth is not enough.  There has to be confidence as well, or there is still doubt.  We have to take the heat on that anyway and still introduce information into the information stream that is truthful; that reflects the reality that is in there, and to try to put it in context as well. Some of that occurred very well in the second Fallujah.  But you now know that there were 350 caches inside of there--in mosques.  So not only did we have the precision engagement that Bob talked about in the first time relative to mosques, but we also gave you the count of that great number of mosques, the city of mosques, 350 of them were certainly outside of what would be--considered a protected site, and we also had the rest of the stories of the atrocities, the places where murders were obviously being committed, where blood was all over the place.  All these things were out there, and you have to introduce that into the public domain.  It's not propaganda.  It's the truth, and it has to be brought out or it will not be believed. And the last point I'll make is the power of the image is more significant than power of the word.  It's been said that a picture is worth a thousand words.  I think that's a gross underestimation.  A picture is worth a whole lot more than a thousand words.  A picture locks in a different snapshot of reality, and while you may perceive it differently, you're not creating the image in your mind, which is already well away from the reality. And so, more and more, we've got to consider the use of images, our adversaries do, and sometimes we do it by accident.  Abu Ghraib is an example of that.  There are imagers that are out there.  And the images go, and they have power that is well beyond the power of the word; and they can completely change an environment if we're not careful.  Thanks. MR. DONNELLY:  I have one more question.  I beg the indulgence by the audience because there is I think an important theme that was in both presentations.  And that was the accelerating demassification of the media.  The thing that has been really amazing to me has been the number and the easy access that even somebody like me has to soldier blogs and soldier e-mail.  If you're talking about, you know, something that exudes con--or has credibility and genuineness about it, and is also, you know, filled with ground truth, that is clearly a new dimension in the information domain, if you will, and, if you're talking about the cosmopolitan, you know, satellite TV media, even that seems like a dinosaur whose time is going to be relatively ephemeral when you have stuff like this going on.  Again, I would invite both of you to elaborate and to discuss how, you know, just the direct availability of--I mean, it's almost like being embedded with units to, you know, some degree.  And if there's anybody--you know, direct and especially credible form of communication from the front to the home front.  Those seem to be the really genuine article to me. MR. KAPLAN:  Well, let me just give you a visual example of that.  As I said, I spent last spring with the First Battalion of the Fifth Marines.  We were at a forward operating base just outside Fallujah for several weeks. And there was a cybercafe on the base, and the caf� was open 24 hours a day, and it was always filled with Marines, sending messages, reports home.  The only time it closed was when somebody was killed or wounded, or there was an operation being planned because they wanted them to tell the parents first before they got it second or thirdhand.  So, whenever that would happen, the caf�, you know, the e-mail connection would be shut down. Also, you know, being with Army Special Forces in South America, in the Far East, this was also prevalent.  You know, it's kind of--it's very hard to control.  And there's always--what I found interesting is in a Marine platoon or a Special Forces A Team, you'll always find one or two people who just have the natural gift of writing.  They're just able to tell a story.  You know, they're just--you know, it's like some people have language skills, and they're just very effective communicators of what they've actually experienced on the ground.  So, I think this is something really worth watching, and it doesn't necessarily provide a total benefit for the U.S. military, 'cause scandals can come out this way as well. You know, as I said, it's not going to whitewash things to make things better than they are, but it will pro--you know, it is providing the troops' own perspective. GENERAL BROOKS:  The--one of the great beauties of embedding was that journalists were able to witness for themselves the things that we had long since been talking about but couldn't create the image of, for example, the type of esprit that forms inside of units that are tested together; the common bonds that are inside of that are hard to put your hands on until you see or have been a part of it; and also the hardships that are there.  That was good.  It was very helpful.  And I think there are many journalists now who have a very different perspective and can report with a higher degree of precision and accuracy and clarity because of the experience. But there was a challenge for us, and that is when you have the world viewing an experience of an individual soldier, what you have is that individual soldier's view magnified many times over.  And that individual view is out of the context of even what's happening to the platoon to the left or the right.  Now, we as military leaders have always dealt with that, with a few adages like the first report is always wrong.  And it's generally true.  You're going to get a report.  Somebody's been shot.  Got to get down to the range quickly.  It was his own weapon.  And away you go calmly knowing that this--someone's been shot, but the essence of the rest of the story, you got to peel the onion back a bit to find out what the reality is. Well, that goes straight from real time into global broadcast now.  That's what embedding did.  Can you chase all of that?  Absolutely not.  Is it worth chasing?  No.  It isn't, because the rest of the fight is different than that.  There's a completely different layer of activity, and many layers of activity that are beyond the individual experience.  Is it real?  Absolutely right it is.  It's the ultimate reality TV show.  But that has to be put in the larger context. So, when a third of Seventh Calvary is in contact, and is firing over the sides of their vehicles at close range, but the rest of the Third Infantry Division is not in contact, is moving at a high rate of speed to their west, it's not a problem.  It's not a problem. Now, if you're in the fight, it's a big problem.  And if you're looking at the fight, it's a very big problem, and you might project it or extrapolate it to be that's the rest of what everyone else is facing.  A hundred and thirty thousand troops.  They're all in fights over their shoulders.  Not so.  So, this is a challenge. Now, the blogs are an example of the world from the soldier, Marine, sailor, airman's eye.  And there will be realities in those blogs.  We want them to communicate.  Every soldier has got a story.  And the more we provide access, the more that story comes out, and the fullness of the experience can come out.  But there are some who recognize the nature of the environment that they're dealing in.  Some recognize that it's possible to gain political leverage on your chain of command by putting it into a public domain.  Say it isn't so. [Laughter.] And frankly, we have to also recognize that individual experience can be used in other ways.  Let me give you an example.  I just happen to have it sitting in front of me here.  Glad you asked the question. I mentioned already that I read daily transcripts of Arabic language media.  It's important.  I want to know what's being thought, what's being said, and whether or not we're being effective in our communications, and, you know, is there something we ought to address, just we do with all other media. And so, I look at that. One particular one I saw yesterday, Al-Aham, which is an Arabic language, out of Iran, has this, and I'll just read it to you, if you'll bear with me. The anchor says: eight U.S. soldiers have filed a lawsuit against the Pentagon, which they accuse of having forcibly extended their contracts in Iraq, although they have technically ended.  One U.S. soldier went to Canada, and has demanded political asylum after he deserted the U.S. Army because he refused to serve in Iraq.  Correspondent: U.S. occupation soldiers--and the word choice is important here--U.S. occupation soldiers in Iraq are worried about their situation.  Some of them have deserted the Army, and others have filed a lawsuit against the Pentagon.  One U.S. soldier went to Canada, and has asked for political asylum because he refused to perform his military service in Iraq.  He considers the war in Iraq to be illegitimate and illegal.  The lawyer for eight soldiers who filed a lawsuit against the Pentagon stated that seven of them preferred not to reveal their names because they feared retribution.  He added that six of them were in Iraq and that two others were in Kuwait.  They protested against the U.S. policy that prohibits the resignation of soldiers and their transfer to other units. That didn't play very much back here.  I mean, it did play.  Those individuals are American soldiers.  We certainly have concerns for them.  We're going to deal with their circumstances as they requested.  There is, in fact, a lawsuit, so there's truth in side of here.  But that truth is being used in other ways, and so we've got to come to grips with what it means when people can communicate directly into the information domain while not over controlling it.  That simply is not going to match our soldiers.  It's not going to match the reality of the people who have grown up in the information age.  Something has to be done.  We got to sort our way through that, and we haven't quite figured it out yet.  And that's okay. MR. DONNELLY:  Okay.  I'm going to remind everybody of the rules of the AEI road.  One, wait for the microphone.  Two, for the benefit of the transcript, please tell us who you are.  And three, ask a real question.  Chris, are you the microphone guy?  All right I'm going to start with the back left and work my way forward and to the right.  So, just the gentleman to your--actually, let's start with the woman in the far, far back--last row. MS. PLUMMER:  Hi, my name is Anne Plummer.  I'm a reporter with Inside the Army.  I'm interested in, General Brooks, how you'll see this play out after the war is long over--the relationship between the media and the military.  Something that I think is interesting is that a lot of the general officers in the Army know that they can remain quiet and not speak with reporters and go about their business and be promoted and so forth, and they don't really feel a need to engage the military.  And I think a lot of that came from Vietnam.  I'm wondering if you see that changing after Iraq? GENERAL BROOKS:  I think it's already changing.  First, part of this is generational.  You mentioned Vietnam.  Most of our Vietnam veterans have departed, but certainly the behaviors that followed within the military culture have not completely departed, and they lag behind the individuals who had the firsthand experience of Vietnam.  Now, having said, there's another generation that's coming up behind us; the ones who are blogging; the ones who are very comfortable going on and sitting with Sam Donaldson or anyone else--a Ted Koppel, Oprah Winfrey.  We've had some very interesting programs here of late, some of which we didn't know were coming.  The individuals made contact themselves, and, in most cases, did a terrific job of highlighting things that if we had told them what to say, they would have said that.  Or at least we would like for them to have said it.  I don't know if they would have if we told them.  But they certainly said the kinds of things we thought were important. The point to be made there is this: there is a higher comfort in our junior ranks with communicating, and so that will cause a pressure on old foggies like me to adjust the situation and adjust to the situation in such a way that we can communicate in a way that's natural, and yet, take care of the responsibilities that we have of being careful about how the information is used. As for the seniors, I think that there is an emerging understanding that there is a need for a culture of engagement; that we have to be more open; we have to tell our own story.  We have an obligation to do that, and we frankly should be dependent on any industry to do that, not even the commercial communications industry.  We have a responsibility to communicate for ourselves. And so, we spend a lot time training our generals to do that; conditioning them to do that, and time will change our approaches as well.  That's my thought on it. MR. DONNELLY:  Bob, did you want to add anything?  Okay.  Okay.  And now, the gentleman that I almost got before. MR. KARAICHO:  My name is Neveen Karaicho [ph].  I'm on Hora TV.  The 9/11 Commission Report stated clearly that in order to win the war on terrorism, we need to get on the table of very strong coalitional states in which the Arabs are influential and progressive partners.  I mean, how could we do this in light of the fact that we don't share the same definitions regarding terrorism, innocent people, civilians.  I mean, you could refer to Fallujah as a very good example on that.  For Al Jazeera TV, thousands of civilians have been killed at the end of the Fallujah operation, while for the Pentagon 1,600 militants have been eliminated.  I agree with your, Mr. Brooks, that truth is very strong.  But guess what?  It's diverse. GENERAL BROOKS:  Well, it's a great observation, and the perspective is different of the same reality, and what we do is have as much open access as possible so that the other views are considered in what we say and what we do; and that there, in fact, is a real discourse that occurs, not a false one, not one that's manipulative or adaptive to try to take it--make it something that it is not. Now, there's more to it certainly than just the distinction between what one considers to be a terrorist and what one does not.  I'm certain that the citizens of Fallujah can make some distinctions in there, no matter how they make the definition.  And while there may be some definitional differences, that's not the essence of where that story seems to diverge.  It's not just 1,600 citizens that were killed.  You know that.  And so do the people of Fallujah.  It wasn't just 1,600 citizens.  Any damages that were done to noncombatants.  There are any number of things that could cause that.  It's not just Coalition and multinational force action.  The citizens know that.  The public has to know that.  And so, we have to engage in the discourse together to address things that are really, truly concerns to people in that country.  Absolutely.  And try to do that from every conduit of communication we have to make it happen.  But when people receive different views of the same reality, remember what I said: doubt is what lingers.  And when doubt occurs, the power of the compelling argument is what wins the day. MR. KAPLAN:  Yeah. I would just like to say that you're always going to have differences on like grand existential questions, like what constitutes terrorism and all of that.  But that doesn't mean you can't make progress on nuts and bolts kind of issues that come up one after the other.  For instance, you see implicitly that several Arab government in the Middle East are backing the elections by encouraging their Sunni elements of Iraq to take part.  You know, and that is an implicit kind of agreement of American policy. Also, when you go through the Middle East, you find it's not monolithic.  For instance, many travelers who have just been coming back from Libya say they have been extremely welcomed, particularly because they're Americans, because the Libyans associate the American ouster and the years with no American as time of total repression, of poverty, of stagnation, and they associate, you know, the better relations with the United States with a sense of openness, tourist economy, stability.  If you talk to people in Tunisia, in many other places, you'll find a whole gamut of different opinions below the service.  I think there's a lot of stirring going on in the Middle East in that regard. MR. DONNELLY:  Yeah.  I would--just to piggyback on Bob's comment that I just think that the political dialogue in the Arab world and in the region is a lot richer than we really understand.  And how many of the images that are projected play out in that debate I think is, you know, worth a second and third look The original Osama bin Laden critique was that America was a weak horse and would leave.  That's a lot harder argument to make these days, even in the most--the images that we regard as most violent and most, you know, disturbing play out in a very different way in a different context. So, I'm very, you know, I would say that our own government has not done a good job of thinking these things through or coming up with a really useful framework for analysis, and there's just a lot that we really don't know or don't understand. Please try to be patient.  Let me--Chris, go with this gentleman over here.  We are running short on time.  I'll try to get as many as we can, and so I ask everybody to keep their questions brief. I wish.  I wish.  We'll get around to that.  Everybody would--the gentleman with the microphone. MR. COHEN:  Ariel Cohen, the Heritage Foundation.  A question to General Brooks in particular but also to Bob Kaplan.  We were talking about the globalized environment.  We're talking by implication about the English speaking media or western media.  How do you see this battle field of media, battle field of ideas being addressed, engaged, and eventually won in the Muslim world and in the Arab world, in the Arab street, when you have still the predominance of Al Jazeera.  You have people like Sheikh Qaradawi.  You have the mosques, and you have the unreformed education system.  Thank you. GENERAL BROOKS:  Well, first it's a marketplace.  We have the--the powers of competition are in effect.  The desire to gain market share for our communications industry happening within the Middle East; the proliferation of stations and broadcasting entities is remarkable.  Some are relatively controlled by other entities.  Some are relatively free.  But all of them are competing for the same interests. There is perhaps a dominance of one or two networks, but that's not an exclusive--it's not exclusive.  It really depends on where you are.  So, if you happen to be in Lebanon, you might be more interested in watching Al Manar.  If you happen to be in Iran or if you're in southern Iraq perhaps, you might be more interested in watching Al Alam.  So there are others that are out there as well. The question is does that then balance the view.  And what then must we do to engage that?  First, I think we have to recognize that it is a conduit of communication we cannot ignore.  Again, I go back to the fact that there's interest out there, and the example of the eight soldiers is certainly illustrative of that; and that when we communicate we ought to always think about this may resonate differently in the Middle East than it does in mid-America.  And be careful about what we say and how we say it.  And have thought applied to that in advance. We ought to also seek the opportunities to engage as much as possible.  I certainly encourage military leaders to go over to the foreign press center, for example.  When we rolled out our findings from General Kearn, General Jones, and General Faye for the investigations into the detainee abuse, we went to the foreign press center and had a second briefing after the Pentagon briefing.  And we've had subsequent interviews directly with Al Jazeera, recognizing that it's important to articulate what it is we're doing, why we're doing it, and what we have done to correct a problem that embarrasses us and that needs fixing. So, these are some of the things that's being done. There's also a recognition that there are ideological underpinnings that regenerate terrorist threats; and that there has to be a concerted and deliberate approach toward addressing the ideological underpinnings of that.  And that's more than just information.  That's also a reconciliation, if you will, between words and actions over time, and a conscious analysis of that frankly is the essence of what strategic communications is all about. MR. KAPLAN:  Yeah.  Let me just add a little bit of context to that question.  The Arab world, the Greater Middle East, has only in the last 10 years become a mass society.  A mass society means mass media, which has only come around in about the last 10 years or so.  The Arab Middle East has seen great social and economic change over the last 50 years.  Fifty years ago, most of the Middle East was rural.  Now, about 60 percent is urban.  Mass consumer societies, et cetera.  Yet, in many places you still have emergency military law ruling.  So, you have not seen the concomitant political evolution as you have with social and economic evolution, and I think that the next generation of Arab rulers or the coming one, no matter what American foreign policy is, are simply not going to have the luxury to rule quite as autocratically as the past generation. And as you have gradual liberalizing trends anyway in the greater Middle East, you're going to see each of those societies focus more and more on their internal problems, because that's what tends to happen. It's true that anti-Americanism is the bumper sticker that you unites kind of all factions.  But also keep in mind that it may cut less and less deeper as the years and decades go along, as it gets refracted through a lot of domestic upheavals and all.  For instance, the U.S. military took down Fallujah in a particularly brutal manner; yet, I did not see massive demonstrations anywhere in the Middle East.  It's kind of like when they take these surveys, do you like the U.N.?  And 90 percent of Americans say yes.  Therefore, the U.N. is popular.  Not it doesn't mean that at all.  Where does the U.N. rate on that priority list?  Maybe number 35, and the person wouldn't even have mentioned it if he wasn't asked the question. So, you know, it becomes how deeply this is felt, and what's really struck me about the Middle East in the past six months is how little political demonstration there has been to sometimes very rough tactics, necessary but rough tactics on the part of the Americans. MR. DONNELLY:  I'm sorry.  We'll never get to anybody.  Chris, if we could just swing to this side of the room, then this young lady right here.  And then we'll take one more after that. MS. AIRMART:  Hi, Leah Airmart, ORC Macro.  This question is primarily for Mr. Kaplan. Actually, your story about the positive press for the Army in the Philippines prompted this question.  What difference does it make or should or shouldn't it make to information war planners in the United States that most of the population in a lot of the areas that you've discussed perhaps not Iraq, but certainly Afghanistan, almost all of West Africa and East Africa, their only plug into the public space is through one or two radio stations or word of mouth. MR. KAPLAN:  Well, actually, again, in, you know, in emerging democracies, which is much of the world, you're seeing emerging diversified local medias.  Whether you go--I mean, even in poor West African countries, to say nothing of the 84 million people who live in the Philippines or the 50 million or so in Colombia--you go to a newsstand in the morning, you see stacks of different papers with different points of view increasingly, not to mention local blogs and web sites.  And one thing I would like to add--one thing that the U.S. Army discovered in the Philippines or rather Special Operations Command Pacific, and also that the U.S. Army Civil Affairs Team discovered in East Africa is that it always helps to show the military in a non-fighting way, in some kind of civil affairs, humanitarian role whenever it's possible to do so, because it breaks the stereotype so to speak. And that's actually possible to do with complete honesty in most, if not all, places. MR. DONNELLY:  We have time for just one more.  I'm going to try this gentleman in the second--yes.  Yes, you, sir.  And I apologize to everybody else, and we'll end with a promise that we'll take the issue up again in the future. MR. BAYUMI:  My name is Arat Bayumi.  I'm with the Council on American Islamic Relations.  But first I want to thank you for this excellent panel.  Second, the Defense Science Board report, recent report, on public diplomacy raises some very interesting points, like, first, it talks about a problem or lack of some kind of leadership and in terms of public diplomacy.  The reports says there isn't resources, there isn't enough reorganization of the public diplomacy and institutions. So, I want to ask Mr., General Brooks and Mr. Kaplan, is the Army or is the Pentagon--Defense--Department of Defense getting enough resources, enough reorganization, new ideas to fight the old ideas. Second, the report also raises a very important, which is about the definition, the specific definition of the word of terrorism.  It says high U.S. officials don't have clear and shared understanding of the meaning--all of the word or terrorism.  And at first I want to ask, like, are you mainly focused on fighting certain small groups in Iraq or maybe in Afghanistan --what is the main goal?  Like where is this after fighting or defeating some groups in Iraq, where is this leading the U.S.?  Like, what's the main goal?  Thank you. MR. DONNELLY:  Go. GENERAL BROOKS:  I promise to try to keep it short.  First, the question about enough resources to fight the war of ideas and enough reorganization.  First, it's excellent that there is healthy discourse and debate on the need, and that will lead us; that will lead us to exactly where we need to go, and it will be an evolutionary process, not one that changes over night to be sure.  And, yes, we are participating in it.  The military does have a voice in some of those considerations and what ought to be there. I'll just hold there, and let Bob go through the rest of it. MR. KAPLAN:  First of all, I think, to take the second part first.  I think terrorism will be with us for a long time, because it's the contemporary manifestation of conflict. You know, there was always--has been military conflict throughout history.  There will always will, and the technology, the time we live now, makes a particular kind of asymmetric fighting, you know, using civilians, et cetera.  You know, so I think that that's what terrorism is. In terms of, you know, the resources, diplomatic, et cetera, keep one thing in mind; that the classic boundaries between military activity and diplomacy are fast breaking down; that in many parts of history there was no clear distinction between if you were a general or a diplomat.  You often did both or all in the same day.  And it's only in--you know, with the Napoleonic--you know, professionalization of militaries.  In the 19th and 20th centuries that you saw the military as the military and the diplomats as the diplomat. This is all breaking down now, because both--I mean, increasingly you need ambassadors who know how to operate almost as generals, like in Colombia, the Philippines and Pakistan, et cetera.  And you need generals who are increasingly diplomatically savvy as well. You know, so this--you know, I've always said that the biggest enemy Washington faces in the war on terrorism is the rigidity of its own bureaucratic boundaries.  You know, we need more and more cross fertilization between the departments. GENERAL BROOKS:  And I'll come back to the last part of your question.  It is a particular manifestation of extremism as we see it.  The extremism, wherever it spreads, is something we must combat.  What we ultimately seek is a world where it's simply not an option, and it's not tolerated by anyone in whatever definition you have that applies to you at a given time.  And there should be some common views of what is or is not acceptable behavior where one's effort is to specifically terrorize someone that cannot be acceptable. MR. DONNELLY:  Thank you both very much.  Thanks to the audience for sticking around.  Please join me with a round of applause for our guests today. [Applause.]</body></html>