Unfocused Energy

Over the past decade, the U.S. government struggled consistently to establish a solid foothold in the global marketplace of ideas. In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks and through two persistent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan the U.S. expends significant national resource toward promoting, explaining, and defending its actions to audiences of particular strategic importance to U.S. national security like the Afghan people. The Obama administration made a redoubled commitment in late 2009 to successfully conclude the war in Afghanistan. With Afghanistan as a focus of the new administration's foreign policy, it also becomes a key front line for U.S. strategic communications efforts. The author focuses on strategic communications in Afghanistan with an eye toward understanding and improvement. Once an understanding of the U.S. strategic communications system is established, an analysis of the unique STRATCOM challenges in Afghanistan will be presented. Finally, once the two strategic communication environments are established, an analysis of current STRATCOM operations will be presented along with recommendations for improvement.