On fighting the information war in the ether
Via the indispensable Castle Argghhh! comes this tidbit from a U.S. three-star that puts the CF's dark-ages blogging policy to shame:
Yes, yes, he's a bit of a maverick in this regard. And yes, I do understand that QR&O's are not the UCMJ, and that our constitutional foundations for free speech are markedly different.
Still, I have yet to see a Canadian Major-General or Rear-Admiral stand up and say that milblogging is a good thing for his soldiers, sailors, or airmen to do. From what I can tell, if a commander were to give blanket permission to blog to those in his chain of command, it might well comply with the requirements in the appropriate CANFORGEN.
Unfortunately, I think there are a couple of obstacles in the way: most general officers don't have any clue how powerful social media can be, and even if they did, I'm not sure how many of them would think this is a hill worth dying on.
They're wrong - horribly shortsighted and wrong. Every mission those generals take on at home or abroad depends ultimately upon the support of the Canadian people. And yet they won't let soldiers talk directly in electronic format to the public that pays them, equips them, and gives them their mandate...
Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, who heads the Combined Arms Center [CAC] and Ft. Leavenworth, told his soldiers in a recent memo that "faculty and students will begin blogging as part of their curriculum and writing requirements both within the .mil and public environments. In addition CAC subordinate organizations will begin to engage in the blogosphere in an effort to communicate the myriad of activities that CAC is accomplishing and help assist telling the Army’s story to a wide and diverse audience."
Lt. Gen. Caldwell, the former commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, is a blogger himself, contributing to Small Wars Journal. He made waves in January when he wrote that "we must encourage our Soldiers to... get onto blogs and to send their YouTube videos to their friends and family."
Yes, yes, he's a bit of a maverick in this regard. And yes, I do understand that QR&O's are not the UCMJ, and that our constitutional foundations for free speech are markedly different.
Still, I have yet to see a Canadian Major-General or Rear-Admiral stand up and say that milblogging is a good thing for his soldiers, sailors, or airmen to do. From what I can tell, if a commander were to give blanket permission to blog to those in his chain of command, it might well comply with the requirements in the appropriate CANFORGEN.
Unfortunately, I think there are a couple of obstacles in the way: most general officers don't have any clue how powerful social media can be, and even if they did, I'm not sure how many of them would think this is a hill worth dying on.
They're wrong - horribly shortsighted and wrong. Every mission those generals take on at home or abroad depends ultimately upon the support of the Canadian people. And yet they won't let soldiers talk directly in electronic format to the public that pays them, equips them, and gives them their mandate...
posted by Babbling Brooks at 5:08 p.m.
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