Kaplan Reports "The Real Story of Fallujah"

Subscription is required, but this read is worth getting one way or another. Robert D. Kaplan is a personal fave of mine and (IMHO)an authority on war and armed struggle, and here he praises the soldiers and knocks the Brass Hierarchy and the lousy Armed Forces PR machine for being out of date for an Internet war. What he is saying may explain the dissonance felt by people who read both blogs and the Liberal Media. This is just the start of his article, but it is worth a read.

"Because the battles in a counterinsurgency are small scale and often clandestine, the story line is rarely obvious. It becomes a matter of perceptions, and victory is awarded to those who weave the most compelling narrative. Truly, in the world of postmodern, 21st century conflict, civilian and military public-affairs officers must become war fighters by another name. They must control and anticipate a whole new storm system represented by a global media, which too often exposes embarrassing facts out of historical or philosophical context.

Without a communications strategy that gives the public the same sense of mission that a company captain imparts to his noncommissioned officers, victory in warfare nowadays is impossible. Looking beyond Iraq, the American military needs battlefield doctrine for influencing the public in the same way that the Army and the Marines already have doctrine for individual infantry tasks and squad-level operations (the Ranger Handbook, the Fleet Marine Force Manual, etc.)."

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