By Greg Hazley
The Pentagon is folding its “strategic communications” operations, the discipline aimed to streamline PR efforts which instead blurred operations traditional associated with public affairs.
Press Secretary George Little wrote in a memo to the military’s combatant commanders obtained by Foreign Policy and USA Today that over the last six years officials learned that instead of synchronizing communications SC actually added a layer of staffing and planning that “blurred the roles and functions of traditional staff elements and resulted in confusion and inefficiencies.”
Little said in the memo that strategic communications plans have been folded into public affairs and the SC term is being dropped in favor of “communication synchronization” in future publications.
The military has spent millions on PR contractors over the last decade to support “strategic communications” operations in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, often working alongside military PA officers.
USA Today reported that Army strategic communications posts increased from seven in 2006 to 38 in 2011.
"We avoid using the term SC to avoid causing confusion,” wrote Little. |