(This article originally appeared in the Winter 2008 issue of "IO Sphere" and is reprinted here with the permission of the editor.)Recently the U.S. Southern Command's Admiral James Stavridis paraphrased World War II's great naval commander and strategist Ernest King: "I don't know what the hell this [strategic communication] is that Marshall is always talking about, but I want some of it." 1 This past summer over 200 strategic communication practitioners and academics met at the National War College for the first annual Worldwide Strategic Communication Seminar. Senior government officials urged attendees to get on with the business of strategic communication, noting that "we will be flying the plane while we're building it."2 Both of these previous statements point to the urgency of integrating effective strategic communication into military operations while recognizing that we don't quite understand how to do it…or even understand what it is. So, if the intent is to fly the plane while building it, the pilot check-list becomes of paramount importance to ensure the aircraft not only gets off the ground but also avoids crashing and burning once it takes flight. In other words, we must educate leaders, particularly warfighters, about what strategic communication is…and what it isn't. The difficulty, of course, is that there is no military doctrine for strategic communication, leaving both its definition and the process associated with it open to interpretation.
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