Strategic Communication as a Counterterrorism Tool Nic Labuschagne

Strategic Communication as a Counterterrorism Tool Nic Labuschagne 17 th February 2011

What is…? Strategic communication is a planned series of sustained and coherent activities that develop and promote ideas and opinions with the objective of changing or sustaining particular types of behaviour Terrorism is the calculated use, or threat of use, of violence for political purposes against civilians Strategic communication is NOT simple media interaction, Information Operations, advertising, marketing, propaganda or spin Counterterrorism is the collective term for measures intended to combat or reduce terrorism, and is primarily preemptive in nature 2

How can Strategic Communication contribute to Counterterrorism? Intervention Radicalisation Violence 3

Key Questions How do we measure any changes? Do we understand the behaviour? Can we model the behaviour? ? Can we design interventions that can change this behaviour? What influences this behaviour? Where are the trigger points and barriers? How does communication support these interventions? 4

The Belief. Behaviour Gap Adapted from: Leuprecht et al, 52010

Intervention Process 6 Adapted from: A. Darnton, 2008

Western Use of Strategic Communication Failure to counter terrorist narrative Kinetic action takes precedence over communication Used Western political and mass consumer communication tactics Failure to conduct thorough audience analysis Failure to understand that all messages are global 7

Intercultural Intelligence Gap It’s not ha see why rd to th Wes t ha e d s com ifficulty mun icat ing Source: S. A. Tatham, Dec 2008 8

Terrorist Use of Strategic Communication Applied the principles of asymmetric warfare to the communications space Clearly defined communication objectives Communications take priority over action Clearly defined audiences Multi-layered narrative that resonates with each target audience 9

Audience Segmentation Outsiders Troublemakers, Apostates, Jews, Unbelievers Insiders Existing Backers and Supporters Muslims who could support 10

“How-to” Guide for web-Jihadists 1 • Whenever the US claims a success, flood the media with discussions about how it will be rolled back 2 • Make clear whose side God is on 3 • Spread videos of US soldiers dying 4 • Publish statistics of how many Muslim civilians have been killed by the US 5 • Calibrate your message according to the level of support for AQ 6 • Any time the US does something wrong, emphasise it 7 • Emphasise non-controversial Jihadi actions 8 • Exploit diplomatic rifts between the enemies of AQ 9 • Publish and comment on US counterterrorism research reports 10 • Embrace online tools Source: J. Brachman, 2010 11

Global Jihadi Meta Narrative Islam is under attack by Western Crusaders led by the United States Jihadis - whom the West refer to as terrorists - are defending against this attack The actions they take in defense of Islam are proportional, just and religiously sanctified It is therefore the duty of good Muslims to support these actions 12

Objectives of the Global Jihadi Narrative Legitimating : Islamists see themselves as "outsiders" and they use violence to achieve their goals. Social legitimisation means having the communities in which they operate know their story and support their efforts Intimidating: putting the enemy on notice that there can be no room for compromise Propagating: Jihadi ideologues have focused on crafting and implementing an aggressive, historically informed and universally applicable strategy to take over the world 13

Counter-narratives or Countering Narratives? Counter-narratives Countering Narratives • Impossible to centralise development and control of the narrative in a democracy • Western governments have very little credibility with the target audiences • The “say-do” gap needs to be closed considerably • High potential for blowback • Terrorist narrative can be pulled apart layer by layer • Terrorist communication tactics can be turned against them • Can be used to address the “free rider” problem • Raise awareness of the cost of active involvement in terrorism 14

Conclusion • Strategic communication can be utilised to counter terrorist narratives and to support interventions aimed at preventing or reducing the incidence of violent radicalisation • A far more sophisticated understanding of the complex systems nature of the communication space is required • Western governments’ credibility is too compromised and their ability to control the delivery of a common counternarrative is too fragmented to consider investment in such an initiative at this stage 15