On Military Blogging

Building Peace is my third attempt at a blog. In each instance, I've created a blog because I have a strong desire to write and feel that I have insights worth communicating. In each case I've eventually stopped writing. Why? Largely because the military is so hostile to blogging and so concerned with protecting sensitive information. A military officer is also obligated to obey the policies of his military and civilian leaders. Officers and scholars debate the extent to which a good officer should express his or her opinions, but according to one school of thought, officers simply should not express their opinions in public. As a result, the military generally views blogging as a threat.

That may be changing.

Mark Grimsley wrote an excellent post called Strategic Blogging about the Army's developing interest in blogging as a tool of strategic communication. Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, Commanding General of the U.S. Combined Arms Center and Commandant of the US Army Command and General Staff College, is pushing officer blogs hard. His initiatives have sparked a lot of discussion.

Blogging has already emerged as an important communication tool in the military. Small Wars Journal, for example, is one of the most important think tanks in the military and draws some of the top thinkers from all four services. It is one of the chief intellectual battlegrounds in the debate about balancing the military for conventional and counterinsurgency operations.

By endorsing blogging, the military will gain two things:

First, the world today is so dynamic, complex, and fast-changing that traditional top-down hierarchies can no longer compete successfully. This is just as true of the military as it is of the business world, which is rapidly transforming to embrace principles like "wikinomics" and "crowdsourcing." By its nature the military will always require a strong hierarchy and clear lines of top-down authority, but it needs to simultaneously embrace the collaborative power and ideas of its mid-level officers. The transformation of our strategy in Iraq is a credit to this kind of organizational model. Senior Army and Marine leadership created a genuine "learning organization", drawing on the combined expertise of military officers, lawyers, human rights activists, anthropologists, and many others to develop a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy. General Petraeus is now undertaking a similar process to review CENTCOM from top-to-bottom. He surrounds himself with "designated thinkers" like Rhodes scholars and counterinsurgency specialists. One of Petraeus' greatest accomplishments is pushing an organizational model that draws on the best talent at his disposal.

In this kind of dynamic learning environment, blogs are powerful tools to exchange and review ideas. In the past few years, mid-level officers like Lt. Col. Paul Yingling and Lt. Col. Gian Gentile have emerged as prominent voices in the military's internal debates. The US military needs to encourage this kind of vigorous intellectual exchange among its officers. At the end of the day commanders will issue their orders and subordinates will follow them, but these commanders will need to harness the innovation and talent of their best officers. That is the only way the military will adapt to a changing world as quickly as our enemies.

Second, blogging can be an important too for strategic communication. The US is failing to communicate a convincing vision to the rest of the world. Expensive government-operated information campaigns have failed to take off; they are viewed as propaganda by much of the world (including within America) and are, frankly, seldom interesting. In such a world, what better way to communicate an American vision than giving voice to the hundreds of thousands of men and women who wear the uniform? There is no putting the genie back in the bottle; a vast number of young servicemembers are already on Facebook and MySpace, despite the official objections of their services. Why not legitimize this innovative technology, and encourage soldiers, sailors and airmen to really show their friends and family what being an American warrior is all about? Opening up this technology is frightening for senior leaders, but the gains far outweigh the risks. Military leaders will need to craft policies that balance legitimate OPSEC needs with openness, but this can be done.

With all that said, I'm hoping to begin blogging more regularly.