Military brass joins wired troops

On Monday, for example, Allen blogged about Martin Luther King Day and Inauguration Day, saying the two days were having an “electrifying effect” on Washington.

But it’s more than just a barrage of his thoughts in daily bytes and pieces. Some senior officers like Allen want to see the military harness social media like blogs and Facebook to help shape the public debate about national security policy by providing more information to those with a vested interest in a given topic.

In this way, the military could take a page from Wikipedia, the user-based, online encyclopedia that has redefined the way the public thinks about reference sources. Wikipedia allows anyone to contribute or modify entries on any of its millions of subjects, and those lacking factual grounding are flagged by other users.

Members of the military operating within a closed network or the public operating in a more open online setting could help shape national security policy in much the same way, creating a product that results from a far more transparent process than exists now.

“I think we need ‘wiki’ security,” says Admiral Stavridis, head of US Southern Command, who’s an avid blogger with 249 friends on his Facebook page. Last week, he noted on Facebook that he would be traveling to Washington for a conference on deterrence. That posting alone could lead any one of his Facebook friends to post a thought on national security or provide other feedback that could help influence his thinking as a senior leader. “In so many areas, I think you can be transparent,” he says.

General Ward’s staff hopes to create a Facebook page soon, and they’ve experimented with their own page on YouTube. The US military typically blocks access of its own computer networks to networks such as Facebook, forcing defense officials to use work-arounds on their personal computers.

As social media expands and its value becomes more apparent, those kinds of policies may be reassessed, defense officials say. Meanwhile, sites like Small Wars Journal (SWJ), a respected online forum, offer warrior academics a chance to vet ideas and build consensus.

“It connects the top thinkers on the direction the military should go as it adapts to the wars in the 21st century,” says John Nagl, a former Army officer and author who is a regular part of the debate on SWJ. “It allows instantaneous feedback and ideas to be debated in real time, and it accelerates the debate.”

Mr. Nagl says such discourse throws military conventions on their head and challenges the traditions of chain of command that assume the smartest people able to make the best decisions are at the top. Yet all agree that social networks like Facebook and media such as Small Wars Journal will play a large role in the future.

“Innovative, forward-looking officers are clearly all over it,” says Nagl.

Previous

1 | 2