Strategic Communication is defined by Strategic communication is an umbrella term to describe the activities of disciplines including public relations, management communication, and advertising. This term is used in business and governments around the world. When a company talks about adding strategic communication to their business it is seen as a good thing, but is it always a good thing?
The Pentagon created a department of Strategic Communication so the military could synchronize its messages with its actions. It was thought that this would help make communication simpler and easier in the military. After six years of using this department, it seems the Pentagon wants to go in a different direction.
The Pentagon is banishing the term “Strategic Communication”, which will end an initiative that was supposed to streamline the military’s messaging. This Strategic Communication ended up leading to bureaucratic chaos and confusion that made its original task unachievable.
Not only did this department cause chaos and confusion, but there was over $5 Million spent on contractors that were assigned to strategic communication. If that was not enough to send this initiative down the drain, then the memo that USA Today obtained was.
USA Today procured a memo about the banishing of the Strategic Communication in the Pentagon. In the memo, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs George Little wrote that over the past six years, strategic communication “actually added a layer of staffing and planning that blurred roles and functions of traditional staff elements and resulted in confusion and inefficiencies.” It continues to say that some of the military chiefs would make sure to avoid using the term strategic communication because it caused confusion amongst everyone.
If strategic communication is not working for the military, then what type of communication is needed?
Prior to the implement of strategic communication in the military, they would have a public affairs department that handled the military messages and actions. Once the ban is in affect the military will be going back to using just the public affairs department to link the messages and actions together.
Will this be more affective then before?
No one can be certain that this communication is the most efficient way of doing things in the military, but the flaws can and should be pointed out, so they can begin to be fixed. Unfortunately, the way this news was broken to the public was not very strategic at all. The military could have used some strategic communication when breaking this story to the public.
It is disheartening that our government does not believe in strategic communication can help our military and
cannot implement a more effective communication plan then they have in place currently.
This is a great example of when strategic communication would have helped break this story to the public, along with improving the communication amongst our military forces.
Will we see changes in the near future? We must wait and find out.