Angļu Welcome to the inaugural edition of the journal “Defence Strategic Communications”, a new initiative form the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence in Latvia. As the UK’s longest serving Defence Strategic Communicator it is a privilege to be Chairman of the Editorial Board and I would like to thank my board colleagues for their support, hard work, advice, and help in preparing this issue. As the COE Director, Janis Sarts, says in his introduction the NATO StratCom COE has come at a critical time; our Strategic Communication (StratCom) efforts in Afghanistan were mixed, we face a new generation hybrid warfare from the east, and in the Middle East Daesh/ISIL use propaganda and communication to deadly effect. No one in NATO can afford to ignore the importance and latent power of communication. Unfortunately StratCom is still misunderstood. Some see it as a euphemism for ‘Public Relations on Steroids’, others simply see it as the more efficient organization of cross-government or cross-alliance public affairs activities. Whilst the latter is important, to believe either of these in their totality is to not understand what StratCom really is. I have also often been at the receiving end of senior officials asking me to sprinkle ‘StratCom Fairy Dust’ on specific problems. I don’t subscribe to the idea that good StratCom can make poor policy look good nor do I believe that good policy automatically generates good StratCom. I do believe, however, that poor StratCom can be ruinous to good policy. |
