Pentagon Primes Propaganda Plan

The Pentagon's new "strategic communications roadmap" will soon be approved, according to U.S. News and World Report. The plan seeks to "create a culture" that sees strategic communications as "not just public affairs, information operations or psychological operations, legislative affairs or public diplomacy, but ... the totality of that that you have to work to be effective," explained Lt. Gen. Gene Renuart of the Joint Staff. The Pentagon has already established a Strategic Communications secretariat, to "research important or contentious issues, such as the recent Dubai ports debate"; a Strategic Communications Integration Group "will decide how to handle those issues." In 2004, the U.S. Strategic Command established a Joint Information Operations Center in San Antonio, Texas, to send support teams "to the various combatant commands in the Middle East, Europe, Asia and Latin America." And the Special Operations Command in Tampa, Florida, sends psychological operations units around the world.