I work for a strategic command. You’d think I only would care about pie in the sky, strategic stuff.
A Coalition vehicle broke down in Kabul the other day. The engine caught fire, the fire was extinguished and nothing else happened. Who cares right? It’s a squad leader problem. I care.
I care because tactical things often end up with strategic results. Our NCO [on her own initiative] called the local media outlets [because we have that relationship] just to let them know what happened and we watched the information environment closely.
We were ready for our adversaries to turn it into propaganda. We were ready for the locals to make an issue out of it because we disrupted the traffic. Since it was a Coalition vehicle, our public affairs rep for that country was ready for queries from his home country about the maintenance issues they’ve been having. Public affairs is layered across the tactical, operational and strategic.
Good and experienced public affairs officers:
- Know operations – They have a close eye on tactical operations. They know what’s going on in their organizations.
- Can see the future- Understand what events can impact the information environment and how.
- Act – If you understand what’s going on and can see the future, then you act. You sometimes take risk, you don’t always get permission, you act.
Bring together the tactical, operational and strategic together for your organization.
Now go and do likewise.
Photo by Sgt. Akeel Austin
