Military Moronocy
OK, here’s a novel thought. Institute some guidelines, regulations on what can and cannot appear in blogs, emails. Enforce them. When soldiers violate the rules, throw the book at them. Not this. It’s just stupid.
UPDATE: Army seeks to clarify. See below.*
Thunder Run: “The (Information) War is Lost.”
Bill’s Bites roundup includes Russ Vaughan’s letter to Congress. Hey, all you have to do is put your name at the bottom and you could send in the same thing:
Dear Senator/Congressman,
I have just become aware of the military’s new restrictive policy on soldier weblogs (milblogs) with the reason for this policy being given that it is in the interest of operational security. While I am all for the highest degree of vigilance in matters of OPSEC, I feel that the new policy is heavy-handed and counterproductive for the following reasons:
1) Every website created by any service person is readily available for routine scrutiny by military monitoring agencies. At the first sign of misuse, the military has the capability to block the offending site and deal appropriately with its owner.
2) Milblogs are the 21st Century’s letters home from the war, a means of communicating from the combat zone with family and friends that far exceeds the capabilities, in both time and content, of previous wars. They are a definite morale-builder, both with serving troops and the folks back home keeping tabs on their loved ones.
3) Milblogs are tools for training and orientation from those who are there now to those who will be. Such exchanges can be highly beneficial for those deploying to combat for the first time. Such “pearls’ from the trigger-pullers to those yet untested can make the transition much easier and perhaps safer for the new warriors.
4) Under such prohibition, only the dutiful soldiers will be affected. The disgruntled and disobedient will evade this restriction and find ways to use such internet podiums to spew their harsh criticisms. Only one view, that most favorable to the military, will be stifled.
5) Last but not least, those affected by this restriction on freedom of speech are precisely those who are placing their lives on the line to preserve that very freedom. To deny them that right unnecessarily as is now being done with this new policy sends a very wrong message to the world about our true commitment to our Bill of Rights.
If a soldier wants to have a weblog, fine, let him or her do so after first signing a DoD agreement, making him keenly aware of the consequences of OPSEC violations and the and the penalties that attach to them. By signing that agreement he automatically registers with a central registry, maintained by a DoD agency with the responsibility to routinely monitor content of all milblogs owned by active duty personnel.
I’m not asking for official action here, simply a heads-up call from your office to your connections in the Pentagon to suggest they not throw out the baby with the bath water.
Sincerely,
Russ Vaughn
101st Airborne Division, Vietnam 65-66
Registered Voter in Your State/District
Only I think I would ask for official action. Official action to stop being moronic.
* Source forwards this:
Fact Sheet
Army Operations Security: Soldier Blogging UnchangedSummary:
o America’s Army respects every Soldier’s First Amendment rights
while also adhering to Operations Security (OPSEC) considerations to
ensure their safety on the battlefield.
o Soldiers and Army family members agree that safety of our
Soldiers are of utmost importance.
o Soldiers, Civilians, contractors and Family Members all play an
integral role in maintaining Operations Security, just as in previous
wars.Details:
* In no way will every blog post/update a Soldier makes on his or
her blog need to be monitored or first approved by an immediate
supervisor and Operations Security (OPSEC) officer. After receiving
guidance and awareness training from the appointed OPSEC officer, that
Soldier blogger is entrusted to practice OPSEC when posting in a public
forum.* Army Regulation 350-1, “Operations Security,” was updated April
17, 2007 - but the wording and policies on blogging remain the same from
the July 2005 guidance first put out by the U.S. Army in Iraq for
battlefield blogging. Since not every post/update in a public forum can
be monitored, this regulation places trust in the Soldier, Civilian
Employee, Family Member and contractor that they will use proper
judgment to ensure OPSEC.
o Much of the information contained in the 2007 version of AR
530-1 already was included in the 2005 version of AR 530-1. For
example, Soldiers have been required since 2005 to report to their
immediate supervisor and OPSEC officer about their wishes to publish
military-related content in public forums.
o Army Regulation 530-1 simply lays out measures to help ensure
operations security issues are not published in public forums (i.e.,
blogs) by Army personnel.* Soldiers do not have to seek permission from a supervisor to
send personal E-mails. Personal E-mails are considered private
communication. However, AR 530-1 does mention if someone later posts an
E-mail in a public forum containing information sensitive to OPSEC
considerations, an issue may then arise.* Soldiers may also have a blog without needing to consult with
their immediate supervisor and OPSEC officer if the following conditions
are met:
1. The blog’s topic is not military-related (i.e., Sgt. Doe
publishes a blog about his favorite basketball team).
2. The Soldier doesn’t represent or act on behalf of the Army in
any way.
3. The Soldier doesn’t use government equipment when on his or her
personal blog.* Army Family Members are not mandated by commanders to practice OPSEC. Commanders cannot order military Family Members to adhere to OPSEC. AR 530-1 simply says Family Members need to be aware of OPSEC to help safeguard potentially critical and sensitive information. This helps to ensure Soldiers’ safety, technologies and present and future
operations will not be compromised.* Just as in 2005 and 2006, a Soldier should inform his or her
OPSEC officer and immediate supervisor when establishing a blog for two
primary reasons:
1. To provide the command situational awareness.
2. To allow the OPSEC officer an opportunity to explain to the
Soldier matters to be aware of when posting military-related content in
a public, global forum.* A Soldier who already has a military-related blog that has not
yet consulted with his or her immediate supervisor and OPSEC officer
should do so.* Commands have the authority to enact local regulations in
addition to what AR 530-1 stipulates on this topic.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:39 am on Thursday, May 3, 2007
7 Responses to “Military Moronocy”
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May 3rd, 2007 at 11:28 am
Frankly, I think that the peacetime Army is like any other bureaucracy: driven by routine and repetition, resistant to change or innovation and manned by time servers who are paying more attention to their pensions than to war fighting or strategy.
Then wartime comes, and it is not routine and the bureaucratic Army cannot deal with the new atmosphere, or at least has trouble adapting the way that they’ve always done business to the new atmosphere. Look at the two biggest wars our nation has fought-World War II and the Civil War, in both of those conflicts the people who were running things at the start were all pretty much gone by the end and those who were running things (Marshall and Ike or Grant and Sherman) had been at least relatively low ranking at the outbreak.
I’ve had my own experiences with the Army bureaucracy-just for example when I tried to volunteer to remain in theater I was turned down because I apparently wasn’t needed, but when I decided to transfer to another state in order to go back with a unit I was needed in my transfer request was delayed because I might be needed by the state I was trying to transfer out of(I had to get Sen. Dole’s office to cut through that mess).
Anyway, I guess what I am trying to say is that this seems very typical of the bureaucratic Army which often seems to be little more than an impediment to the warfighting Army (at least down at the troop level). This decision was obviously made at a high level and is a good example of the term “echelons above reality”.
May 3rd, 2007 at 1:15 pm
My father was in the Royal Canadian Navy and made several trips from Vancouver to the Aleutions before Midway. Anyway, he told me this story: when the Aleutians were attacked by the Japanese, the American soldiers wanted to shoot back. However, the fella in charge of the bullet supplies wouldn’t let the soldiers have them until they filled out the correct paper work.
May 3rd, 2007 at 2:23 pm
One of my biggest gripes with this government since the start of the war has been that they don’t seem to think they need to fight the enemies’ propaganda (and I include that spew that comes out of our own academies, media, and alas, our Congress). This is just another boneheaded misstep that will cost us in the long run.
May 3rd, 2007 at 4:40 pm
The military’s biggest problem (IMHO) is that of “empire building”, where senior managers draw a line in the sand , and say, “If you cross this, it’s on my terms”.
Note that I said “managers“, not leaders. The problem is centered on functional areas, as opposed to the chain of command. For tactical and command reasons, drawing boundaries is a sound concept.
But when you hit the staff arena, hoo doggie, watch out! Boundaries are gray, and conflicts are eternal.
In a well run outfit, the staff follows the will of the commander. In most units (say, brigade and lower), this works fairly well, if the commander is clear in his/her communications, and the staff officers are well trained and follow the will of the commander.
Please note that there are a lot of “if”s in that statement. I spent more than a little time whenever assigned as a staff weenie unscrewing problems caused by other staff sections. Sometimes those sections had to gently guide me to the right path. And sometimes not so gently.
But at higher levels (which CavMedic rightly refers to as “echelons above reality”), it’s a different story altogether. This can be a problem at division, although not frequently; at the level of the major command up to DA/DoD, it is constantly a problem. My experiences in this matter did not relate to information warfare, but have more than a few eerie parallels to this story.
The “empire building” becomes a problem because the head hancho sometimes becomes more interested in his/her empire, instead of focusing on the mission. At that level, also IMHO, their mission should be “Give the troops what they need to fight the war.”
The problem is complicated by the real need to provide basic and consistent guidance for the field commanders on how to solve problems, or acknowledgement that problems exist. That’s a major reason for having a centralized bureaucracy.
The end result of this situation is that senior staffers, out of touch with what’s happening on the ground, offer solutions to problems that are either non-existent, or already have solutions in place. From my experience, the standard approach is to punish everyone for the mistakes of a few. That’s what happened here, anywho.
The good news is that a lot of unit commanders will shrug their shoulders, brief their troops yet again on OPSEC, and ignore most of this shinola in favor of getting the work done. Most of the soldiers actually understand OPSEC, and most blogs I’ve read follow it well.
Now, the military counterintelligence and OPSEC types reads those same blogs. If an overzealous section leader decides that a given blog violates these standards, they can and will take action themselves…which no doubt has happened. So the bad news is that most soldiers will begin to self-censor to avoid conflicts……and any number of good news stories will be killed anyway, just to avoid problems.
If the public affairs and OPSEC types worked with the soldier’s to get quality information that meets OPSEC needs on these blogs, that would be a “combat multiplier”. But it’s hard to assign credit to your empire under those circumstances…..and successes are what build empires.
I just hope the system flushes out the bureaucrats in uniform, and we start seeing real soldiers take charge. Just like the Civil War and WWII.
May 3rd, 2007 at 4:42 pm
The military should spend their time, fighting the enemy before them, not their troops. (and when I say troops, it is intended for all, with no malice against any).
To me, the U.S. (not the Russians you cretin, alphie) is fighting a “nice” war. A political war, once again, against an enemy far more vicious and cunning then any before them.
This enemy can be defeated and humiliated, we just are not doing it. We aren’t vicious enough. Where ever this enemy resides, needs to be rubble…damn who lives there…rubble.
May 3rd, 2007 at 10:48 pm
Glad to see you posted Russ’ letter; just realized you had. That update (I saw it earlier at Captain’s Quarters; not sure which of you posted it first) almost makes me think someone read it and reacted.
May 3rd, 2007 at 10:51 pm
That, and a number of field commanders sent a “WTF?!?!?!?!? Are you idiots?” message up the chain of command, bdfaith.