Losing the (Information) War on Terror

Abstract

Since 9/11, it has been frequently asserted that the West is losing the propaganda war against Islamic extremism. Of course, the Western democracies do not label what they do as ‘propaganda’; that pejorative label is reserved for ‘enemy information activities’ such as Al-Qaeda websites, bin Laden videotapes and — often unfairly1 — Al Jazeera news reports. Instead, the West prefers a variety of euphemisms to describe its own information campaigns, from Public Diplomacy in the diplomatic sphere to Information Operations on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq. More recently, the phrase ‘ strategic communications’ has emerged as the preferred overarching phrase for official democratic state ‘influence activities’ (replacing the dreadful ‘perception management’). In the United States, ‘Strategic Communications’ remains a very military term which also supported Public Diplomacy but, elsewhere in NATO, ‘Strategic Communications’ is the preferred umbrella term for all official influence activities, including Public Diplomacy, Information Operations and Public Affairs. But, whatever it is called, there is widespread agreement that both sides are engaged in an information war that needs to be defined in a much broader sense than that outlined in narrow military doctrines. Both Washington and London have relabelled ‘The Global War on Terror’ as ‘The Long War’ — which is what the terrorists have been fighting all along. They thought that President Bush was right, initially, to label it as a ‘Crusade’ because, for them, that is precisely what it is; for Al-Qaeda, Iraq and Afghanistan are merely the latest battles in a one-thousand year crusade being waged by the infidel against Islam.KeywordsInformation CampaignSoft PowerIslamic WorldGrand StrategyGlobal EngagementThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.