17.5 Foreign and National Security Policies in the Information Age

The Obama Administration

President Barack Obama faced situations left by his predecessor—notably the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the global economic crisis. Obama also inherited persistent problems, such as the proliferation of nuclear weapons, their possession by North Korea, and their development by Iran. These issues were further complicated by unexpected challenges, as in the explosion of popular outrage against some of the autocratic rulers of the Middle Eastern states—states replete with corruption, unemployment, and inequality—of Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen. (For a parody of how US policies differ toward each state, depending on US interests, see “John Oliver, America’s Freedom Package,” The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, March 21, 2011, http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-march-21-2011/america-s-freedom-packages.)

As with all his predecessors, the national interest was the essential criterion he would apply in deciding US foreign and national security policies. A state’s national interest does not necessarily change when a new president takes office. But what might that national interest be? How much flexibility would the president and his administration have (or display) to redefine it? To what extent would the Obama administration, especially the president and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, continue, change, or even repudiate some of the Bush policies?

In May 2010, the White House released a white paper detailing the Obama administration’s National Security Strategy. It endorsed engagement, cooperation, and coordination with other states. It rejected the unilateralism, the go it alone policy, of the Bush administration. It committed to exhausting other options before war whenever possible. It identified the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction as the gravest danger facing the country.

So the Obama administration’s foreign and national security policies are not identical with his predecessor’s. They are less bellicose and unilateral, more diplomatic and multilateral. Examples are the pursuit of the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, an arms control agreement with Russia resulting in a substantial reduction in the countries’ nuclear weapons, and reengagement with the United Nations. The president does not speak about “spreading democracy around the world” and has expressed a willingness to talk directly with Iran and other countries with which the United States has disagreements.

But in practice, the Obama administration’s changes have been more in tone and language, less so in substance (Baker, 2009).It has continued the war on terrorism against Al Qaeda and its allies (although without torture), expanding the use of drones against them in Pakistan’s tribal areas. (Arguably, these attacks are targeted assassinations). The administration has continued to give billions of dollars to Pakistan to combat terrorism despite questions about their effectiveness and effects (Wright, 2011).

President Obama did remove US combat brigades from Iraq by August 2010 and promised that all US troops would be out by the end of 2011; but personnel were likely to remain in the country after that time to help ensure its stability and favorable relations with the United States. He increased the number of US troops in Afghanistan by thirty thousand, doubling the overall American deployment (President Bush had begun a more modest buildup), but announced that the troops would start being withdrawn in July 2011. He sought to avoid getting the United States bogged down in a conflict quagmire as it had in Vietnam, thinking that he would otherwise lose a lot of support in his party (Woodward, 2010).

Nor did the Obama administration’s changes necessarily produce significant successes. Stalemates continued in the peace negotiations it brokered between Israel and the Palestinians and in relations with Iran and North Korea. Little progress was made on preventing, let alone reducing, the effects of climate change.

Libya

In March 2011, President Obama ventured into uncharted territory by intervening militarily in Libya. His announced purpose was humanitarian: to prevent the dictator Muammar Gaddafi from massacring the Libyans rebelling against his regime. The intervention, taken over by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), of which the United States is the most important power, involved missile strikes against Gaddafi’s forces, then the imposition of a no-fly zone.

Its ultimate intention, indicated by the bombing of Gaddafi’s compound and by the president’s later statements, was regime change—that is, to force Gaddafi to give up his rule. Given his superior firepower and the rebels’ disorganization and lack of weapons, it was not clear that Gaddafi would depart voluntarily without further pressure from the United States and its allies or what any successor regime might be.

Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, 9/11, and the other cases we have discussed show the ability of the executive branch to impose its preferred frames on international crises. Four factors are involved (Western, 2005).

First, the executive branch has an enormous advantage in the early collection and analysis of information, especially when crisis erupts on short notice. Second, when they are united and their campaign is coordinated, the president and his senior advisors can dominate the rhetoric and speeches about the crisis. The alternatives are leaks and breakdowns in message cohesion. Third, the administration can manipulate intelligence reports favoring its views and discount ones that contradict or weaken them. Fourth, if the crisis is brief, opponents lack the time and opportunity to mobilize public opinion. But if the crisis lingers, they can obtain their own information and undermine the administration’s initial framing.

As explained in Chapter 1 “Communication in the Information Age”, the news media usually index story frames to the range of viewpoints—the agreement and disagreement—among high-ranking US officials (Bennett, Lawrence, & Livingston, 2006; Entman, 2004). As time goes on, however, they may collect and disseminate information critical of the administration’s frame and expose any disconnect between official claims and the reality on the ground. This assumes they have access to the events, resources to cover, and the expertise to understand them.

Media Interactions

US foreign and national security policies are made and largely articulated in the United States. Policymakers and members of the media interact in Washington and in related places such as the United Nations in New York City.

Media Interactions with the Military

The Defense Department interacts with the media to produce highly positive depictions in two ways. One is through the Hollywood films that “depict and glorify the heroic exploits of US military power” (Boggs & Pollard, 2007).

The second way the Pentagon generates positive coverage of an administration’s national security policies is through the special briefings it provides to the retired officers who appear thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” (Barstow, 2008). Many of them have ideological agreements with and allegiance to the Pentagon. They also have financial ties, as lobbyists for, senior executive or board members of, or consultant to military contractors who benefit from the policies the “analysts” assess. It is in their interests to maintain their access to and stay on the Pentagon’s right side. Consequently, many of them repeat administration talking points on the air. The largest group was affiliated with Fox News, then NBC and CNN. The Pentagon paid a private contractor to search databases and track all the analysts’ comments.

Positive portrayals of the military by the media may be unusual. The view of Civil War Union General William Tecumseh Sherman may be more typical: upon hearing that the Confederate army had shot two reporters, he remarked, “Great. Now we’ll have the news from Hell by noon.”

This suggests the perennial conflict between the military and the media. From the military perspective, reporters should be “part of the team.” For most correspondents, their coverage can only be restrained if it would jeopardize an operation or the lives of troops. Traditionally, however, the military has denies them access, limits their reporting to official sources, engages in obfuscation and delay, and censors their stories.

So it may seem surprising that the military allowed some six hundred reporters to be embedded with the US troops during the war in Iraq. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Assistant Defense Secretary for Public Affairs Victoria Clarke pushed the decision through. It turned out to be very shrewd. Reporters were co-opted by the troops with whom they were embedded. They reported from the perspective of the US forces winning the war. And they were kept away from places the Pentagon did not want them to be.

Reporters who were not embedded had a tough time getting into and around Iraq and obtaining cooperation from the US military. Many of them were located at US Central Command forward headquarters in Doha, Qatar, where at press conferences generals summarized the success of military operations on a high-tech set designed by a show-business professional at an estimated cost of $250,000.

Reporting from war zones abroad is dangerous. Journalists live and work under constant threat of kidnapping and murder. Many have been killed, many more wounded. As one horrifying example, in April 2011, photojournalists Tim Hetherington (see Diary and Restrepo in Section 17.7 “Recommended Viewing”) and Chris Hondros were killed by a grenade in Libya.

Public Diplomacy

American policymakers wage the battle for public opinion abroad with public diplomacy aimed at policymakers and the public in foreign countries. Over the years, a bevy of organizations has existed. They include the International Broadcasting Bureau, the Voice of America (VOA), Worldnet television service, Radio and TV Marti, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Radio Free Asia.

During and after the Iraq War, the State Department’s Office of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs promoted what it called “Brand America” to the Islamic world, especially to young people who have reservations about US policy but also admire elements of American life and culture.

These efforts were unsuccessful. Voice of America broadcast Radio Sawa (Radio Together), which offered rock and pop and some news framed from the US perspective. People listened to the music but turned to regional media for the news. The US-sponsored Al Hurra (the Free One), a satellite television station that broadcast a mix of news and pop culture. It was derided in the Arab press as “Fox News in Arabic.” The public diplomacy campaign also featured testimonial advertisements from Muslims living in America describing it as a tolerant, multicultural society with religious freedom. But most major Arab networks refused or demanded too high a price to air them. Finally, American spokespersons and high-ranking officials such as Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice gave interviews to Arab media. But the channel showing Rice’s interview on October 2001 preceded it by repeatedly playing pro-Israel statements she had made so that she was discredited even before the interview was aired.

New Technology

A wealth of information about international affairs is available on the Internet from domestic and foreign media: television clips, radio interviews, and reports and stories in newspapers and magazines. People interested can obtain information about policymakers from around the world and the contents and effects of their foreign and national security policies.

Camcorders, cell phones, and satellite phones are used to gather and report the news. The first video and photos of the tsunami and its dire destruction of late 2004 came from the camcorders of tourists caught in the deluge. The destruction and horror of terrorists’ attacks on the London subway on July 7, 2005 (known commonly as 7/7), was reported first by people trapped underground (Hachten & Scotton, 2007).

Media Consequences

The media can undermine US foreign and national security policies. By depicting the Tet Offensive as successful, the media made it difficult for President Johnson to send more troops to Vietnam and encouraged the eventual withdrawal of US forces. The nightly stories about US embassy personnel captive in Iran, often under the heading “America Held Hostage,” probably provoked President Carter into allowing a risky rescue effort that turned into a debacle.

Media depictions of events abroad can encourage or compel US policymakers to take action by sending aid personnel, even troops. This is called the CNN Effect (Gilboa, 2005). It occurs under two conditions. The first condition is when policymakers have not decided or are uncertain about what to do or their policy preferences are contested by other policymakers. The second condition is when the media’s news frames and commentary are critical of the government’s actions or inaction, and the coverage empathizes with the victims. Thus policy uncertainty combined with negative news (e.g., coverage of slaughter and starvation) increase the likelihood of US intervention in humanitarian crises abroad (Robinson, 2002).

Media coverage, however, often comes after—not before—the government’s decision to take action. Thus news coverage of the humanitarian crises in Somalia was a response to the first President Bush’s decision to deploy ground troops. Then news stories supported the decision by framing the famine there as a desperate crisis in which the United States had an obligation to intervene. Later news coverage, however, did affect policy. Reports of the killing of eighteen US Army Rangers and the showing of the body of one of them being dragged through the country’s capital of Mogadishu, resulted in the Clinton administration’s decision to withdraw US troops.

Media coverage or lack of coverage of an event can allow and even encourage government inaction. In Rwanda in 1994, Hutu extremists slaughtered eight hundred thousand Tutsis and Hutu moderates, their countrymen, women, and children. The news media depicted this genocide, when they covered it at all, as part of an endless tribal struggle the United States could not much affect. Besides, it was only a few months since the media had reported the killing of American soldiers in Somalia. The United States never intervened in Rwanda. As National Security Advisor Anthony Lake said later, “We didn’t make any decision.” He did not ask his staff to consider options and make a policy recommendation to President Clinton (Darnton, 2004).

But generally, by what they cover and how they frame it, the US media support the president’s foreign and national security policies and priorities (Mermin, 1999). Their coverage of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 helped justify the war on terrorism against Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda and the attack on the Taliban in Afghanistan. By depicting war against Iraq as desirable, the media facilitated the Bush administration’s policies of preemption and regime change. When military operations began on March 19, 2003, nearly two-thirds of Americans polled favored the president’s policies toward Iraq and 71 percent supported the use of force (Morin & Deane, 2003).