A Military Blogging Fan We Should Listen To

My research on military blogging has uncovered some great articles. Props to Noah Shachtman at Wired: Danger Room for a number of great posts about the military blogging debate.

In mid-2007 the issue turned hot when the Army published stringent new regulations requiring soldiers to screen every public posting on the Internet through their chain of command. Danger Room posted an article about a soldier with the 82nd Airborne who nearly received an Article 15 for running a blog about his experiences in Iraq (although he also received encouragement from the 82nd's Public Affairs office to keep the blog running). The issue hit headlines again in early 2008, when the Air Force decided to firewall all blogs from its network. Farewell to half the foreign affairs reading I rely on as a military officer.

In the midst of all this, Danger Room posted an e-mail sent to the famous military blogger Blackfive from none other than General Petraeus. Maybe this is a guy worth listening to.

...I wanted to offer my thanks to you for what you've done and also to thank, via you, the bloggers who have worked to provide accurate descriptions of the situation on the ground here in Iraq and elsewhere. Milbloggers have become increasingly important, of course, given the enormous growth in individuals who get their news online in the virtual world instead of through newspapers and television. So please extend my appreciation to them for performing this task -- and, of course, for doing it in ways that does not violate legitimate operational security guidelines. Best from Baghdad

-- General Dave Petraeus

The last line is key. The solution for preserving OPSEC is not to ban blogging; such draconian measures are counterproductive, and besides, they're not enforceable. Rather, senior leaders should establish sound guidance on how soldiers can publicly communicate without violating OPSEC.