Military Social Media Intelligence [February 8 2008] [Permalink] [Trackback

I am a board member of the Tampa Bay chapter of the National Defense Industry Association (NDIA), and have had many contacts with the defense industry going back 13 years or so to my prior job. Lately, I’ve had many conversations around the topic of social media and the US Dept. of Defense. There’s not a lot published on the topic, but here’s how I categorize where the interest is:

  • Strategic PR. “From influencing public opinion through new media to designing ‘computer network attack’ weapons, the US military is learning to fight an electronic war. ‘Strategy should be based on the premise that the Department [of Defense] will ‘fight the net’ as it would an enemy weapons system.” (a quote from the 2003 USDOD Information Operations Roadmap).
    I’ve been told by some friends inside US Special Operations Command (USSOCCOM) that in the past, the U.S. has taken a beating in the public relations arena. The Pentagon had been traditionally slow to follow up with press releases after a strike or military action, giving our adversaries the opportunity to widely portray the action in the worst possible light and putting Pentagon PR teams on the defensive. However, the Pentagon has gotten a lot smarter, and now major actions are synchronized with public relations activity to help manage the “psychological front” of conflicts. Social media, it seems, is part of this new military PR strategy. Check out “Milblogs in the News: The Internal War Over Blogs” for a quick overview on the topic.
  • Managing PR Communications. Milblogging.com (an independent military blogging database / search site) reports over 1,600 military-related blogs (milblogs), and the USDOD maintains a list of notable military bloggers on their defenslink.mil website. Obviously, the surge in blogging and media sharing activity by soliders, in the field and at home, represents a challenge and an opportunity for the USDOD. An opportunity, to manage internal communications and put a human face on U.S. conflicts. A challenge, for the same reasons, and also for the constant threat of critical information leaks that could threaten ongoing operations (check out this Army News Service article about AWRAC activity searching blogs for OPSEC - operations security - violations).
  • Threat Surveillance. Just as the USDOD is conscious about having critical information leaked out through the blogs of US military personnel, it sees opportunity for finding clues to future threats and terrorist activities in social media, particularly those relating to particular geographic regions or communities.
  • Training. The U.S. military has a tremendous investment in Simulation, Training and Instrumentation (STRI), as a key strategy in providing lower-risk, lower-cost, faster and more effective training for troops. This might involve skill training (it’s risky to learn how to pilot a submarine using real $2B submarines), or just mission training (repeated “practice runs” of a mission using the best available terrain and enemy capability data). The Pentagon’s efforts in STRI are coordinated through their PEO-STRI joint operations based in Orlando, Florida.
    Games are a critical element of this strategy; the Pentagon has previously licensed entertainment titles like Tom Clancy’s “Rainbow Six” series and Sony’s SOCOM series for training purposes. Training simulations are increasingly game-, network-, and team-oriented; with the game industry investing billions of dollars into development, it’s a natural bet that the military will soon be exploring MMORPGs for mission and skill training as well. Check out this editorial piece at dissidentvoice.org for more examples of military-gaming industry overlap.
  • Recruitment. The online game “America’s Army” was developed by the USDOD as a PR and recruitment device, and is claimed as one of the ten most popular PC games played online.

For the best blog-on-milblogs from a PR perspective, visit Steve Field’s D-Ring. Steve’s a veteran of the public relations industry and has worked for the Pentagon.


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COMMENT by A new must read « The D-Ring [February 15 2008 ]

[...] company that specializes in technology development and research consulting. He has a great post on military and new media communication. I’d encourage that you read [...]


COMMENT by jlc [February 19 2008 ]

First of all, I’d like to compliment not only the content of this blog but also extend admiration of the scope and depth of the services Innovation Insight provides. I am a student at the University of Southern California and am in the process of composing a blog dedicated solely to the discussion of contemporary trends in military training. Your blog interests me because it touches on some major concerns that have resulted out of both the current war as well as the virtual (no pun intended) explosion of technology.

Under the ‘Training’ category listed in your post, you shift gears to the example of video-games. While I recognize the tremendous possibilities that integrated video-games represent for training, I do find it curious that the DOD has yet to cultivate the same interest in other forms of social media, such as blogging, wikis, and video sharing. The categorical summaries and the links you provide (particularly the ‘Milblogs in the news’ link) depict that the DOD’s outlook on blogging and/or wikis is merely from a public relations standpoint.

It is easy to understand why the DOD subscribes to the public relations’ point-of-view. The majority of ‘military’ blogs available by conducting a common websearch are highly subjective, emotional journal entries that relate personal experience through storytelling. These kinds of blogs are, as should be expected, high security risks because they are posted in public forums and often reveal critical information concerning troop movements, operations planning, and troop morale.

Were personnel introduced to the blogosphere in a formalized training setting and then given comprehensive intranet toolkits, I believe that these forms of social media would have far greater impact on mission outcome than video games, the later merely training prerequisite skills as opposed to the realtime and intelligence-based communications blogs and wikis supply. Blog communities would give commanders the opportunity to change training and combat procedures at critical moments.

With or without the DOD, I have found that soldiers and commanders do recognize the value of this information-sharing medium. One group of officers formed a grass-roots community at http://companycommand.army.mil/ to facilitate professional information sharing. Another, more formalized, information sharing program called CAVNET has had several recorded success stories in which information passed through the system prevented enemy endeavors.

There are also online communities in the works for use through Army Knowledge Online- the Army’s official personnel intranet service. So far though, the security measures for logging into ‘AKO’ (as it is called) are so rigid would-be users are deterred away. And that doesn’t even get into the interface, software, and load-time issues AKO is traditionally associated with.

So if these mediums have invaluable uses, why is there not more excitement within the military industry to use these outlets? Have there been any field studies into the use of such tools? Aside from operational security issues, what criticisms do DOD and high-ranking military personnel have of social media?


COMMENT by Guy Hagen [February 21 2008 ]

Thanks, JLC. I’m not familiar with any formal studies regarding the use of internet / social media / web 2.0 outlets for the purposes of strategic PR (or other applications). Primarily, I think the primary issue is a cultural one; as with the private sector, there will likely remain an embedded resistance to such tools until awareness of their importance reaches a critical threshold - or until a new generation of leaders comes to power that takes the value of such tools for granted.


COMMENT by MyMilitaryYears [October 22 2008 ]

Innovation is the yield of a perfect research. While thinking about communication especially in the area of military, surely there is a need of military social media intelligence. Great insight.

Military troops, contacting service members, soldier support, army, navy, marines, air force, national guard, coast guard, department of defense, US troops, military forum, military messages




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