of the rugged peaks of the Owen Stanley Mountains in southeastern New Guinea, United States transport planes keep open an aerial supply line to Australian and American troops now taking the offensive against the Japanese. Native Papuan villagers stand in awe of the giant friendly transports that swoop in dropping food and supplies from the sky. Supplies that take six days to come by land, 20 minutes by air, air pictures of war as it's fought in the jungle, loyal natives, intrepid airmen, battling and overcoming the wilderness as well as the Japs. Rifle may mean life or death in the jungle. And these are the Australians that defeated the Japs at Kokoda. Now, over trails never traveled by whites, they follow up the attack. Soldiers skilled in all the tricks of jungle warfare. With field mortars and Tommy guns, they blast away at the slightest sound. Americans return from the front for a short and well-earned rest at an advance outpost. The devotion of New Guinea natives to the Allied cause has been a tremendous advantage. Carriers bring back the wounded over a terrain no motor car could ever penetrate. Vividly, dramatically, these scenes bring home a picture of the incredible odds against which United Nations forces are fighting and winning in the South Pacific. It'll care for minor casualties. Most ask only for a cigarette and a chance to return to the fight under the command of Australia's General Sir Thomas Blamey. Men under the leadership of America's great general Douglas MacArthur. These veterans are among the best fighters in the world. This soldier is thankful he was wearing his tin hat. Here, upon Australia's first line of defense, it rains almost constantly. Yet even in the heaviest downpour, they push on through ankle deep mud. 100 miles from the mainland, they're keeping the japs on the move. Strategic spearhead of the United Nations offensive in the South Pacific. Washington, D.C. The Joint Allied War Council in session. Marshall, U.S. Army Chief of Staff. Arnold, Chief of the Air Forces. Admiral Leahy, second only to President Roosevelt. King directing the Navy. With British and other United Nations warheads, these men lifted the curtain on America's dramatic invasion of North Africa. Opening gun in the offensive to drive Hitler from the continent of Europe. The new theater of war. From Suez to Gibraltar. Down the Atlantic to Casablanca. Africa's entire Mediterranean coast. Morocco, Tunisia, Libya. From Egypt, British and American planes launched the first phase of a broad and well-timed attack. Relentlessly, bombers blasted supply lines of the Nazi Rommel's veteran Africa Corps. Seasoned British Imperials and Colonials. Their ranks augmented with French American reinforcements and American tanks blazed across the desert in pursuit. Rommel was in retreat. Axis prisoners on the road back. For miles, columns of Rommel's shattered army streamed to the rear. Entire divisions of Italians abandoned by the Nazis as they fled. Timing the blow with the route of the main Axis African force, America's General Eisenhower moved to take over French North Africa for United States raids on Tokyo. From the White House, President Roosevelt made history with a momentous announcement. Assuring Frenchmen that America is fighting their enemy. His message in French was broadcast by shortwave. Nous arrivons parmi vous. S'il vous plait creuser et pour en ayantir vos ennemis. Croyez-nous bien. Nous ne voulons vous faire au coeur mal. Vous pouvez, mes amis. Et nous voulons... America's shiploads of mercy. To the children of France, the United States has always been their friend. For even while France was being bled white by her German conquerors, the children of Vichy were fed free food and milk from their friends in the United States. This, France will never forget. From Gibraltar, United Nations rendez-vous, came news of America's first great liberating stroke. Nazi Germany noted with grave concern the concentration of a powerful allied striking force. Across the water came a convoy of ships such as the world has never seen. Transports and warcraft comprising the greatest amphibious operation in all history. Endings followed a formula Americans have well perfected. Like the Marines in their latest invasion drill, assault bolts lead the way.  Mediterranean key to French North Africa was showered from the air with leaflets calling on the people to aid the Americans in the fight against the common foe. After a token defense, armed resistance ceased. Oran was encircled, Casablanca fell. Cracked units of French Colonials, Arabs, Berbers, Senegalese, pledged allegiance to France's great-general Ole Giro when he landed in Africa after his escape from the Nazis. Under brave General Giro, France's African legions have within their power the greatest opportunity of the war to strike a decisive blow for the freedom of France. With General Charles de Gaulle, French Patriots are fighting at sea, on land and in the air. He summons his countrymen. Rise, every one of you, help our allies. The great hour of liberation has come.


Welcome back. It's still the breakfast and plus TV Africa the travails of Nigeria's aviation sector over the years Especially in recent time a world documented not just about the aviation sector in Nigeria But as it affects other Aviation sectors around the world and airlines from other countries of outside Nigeria all these make up the vision sector in the country Well, one of these challenges is access to to funds the funds of foreign airlines And also aviation experts are advising the central bank of Nigeria to allow them access their fund This has been a hot topic in recent weeks on the federal government of Nigeria a Few days ago bowed to pressure from foreign airlines after a number of them raised the alarm over the federal government's inability to allow them Access their revenues in the country. This was said to be put at about $450 million which is a lot of money now central bank of Nigeria on Friday on behalf of the federal government of Nigeria released 265 million dollars to foreign airlines operating in the country for the remittance of A part of their revenues trapped in the country. That's part of that 450 a million era now last week it was reported that one of the world's biggest airlines emirates Announced it will suspend its flights to Nigeria from September 1 2022 over its stock Remittance, this is a Mounting to 95 million dollars and of course when you talk about Emirates airline, you know that this will affect Business in Nigeria That's a lot of Nigerians rely on them to move in and out of the country even expert rates also rely on Such airline to move in and out of the country Well, what's going on joining us to analyze and discuss this issue is not other than aviation Analyst and assistant secretary general of the aviation safety roundtable initiative in Lagos Lumide O'Honayo Mr. Lumide O'Honayo, thank you very much for your time This morning Thank you. Good morning. All right. And so please help us understand what what's going on What could be the reason for the federal government to not allow These foreign airlines take the monies that they have made legitimately out of the country You find that Airlines Like I said, it's not the fourth time it happened 2016 and later they paid and sometimes in the 90s too But we started about that. We don't we shouldn't be on the list of countries who in foreign airlines, they are requisites and reforms and we have Zimbabwe Venezuela Lebanon Zimbabwe Iran On this list is this where we want to be so I think What happened was it was was in the good one. They came in the Ayatollah team was here in march to see the vice president Uh, actually, let's see the president At that time it was about 293 million dollars And by June it had jumped up to over over 400 And as of today it's over 600 if you if you if you add non-ayatollah airlines and other related Amidst all companies who have to the media funds It's okay for experts to actually say that The crisis in the aviation You know sector should be blamed on the cbn. We understand that Remittances not remittances of accumulated revenue The delay of all of that is a problem But would it be okay because we'll also have if you look at internally Is setting all this operating carrier had suspended our operation And yes other issues that sub-persons have mentioned. So do you think that it's fair to say that? The aviation crisis that we're experiencing in Nigeria should be blamed solely on the central bank of Nigeria I totally disagree with that position. Um, I don't think There's anywhere the world about if the airlines come together with Policies to shun push their policy with the government even if they did the central bank with the Buckles the area I can put on the federal bank with the on the central bank. Sorry Is there one the monetary policy? I can present me As we have now by the nearest pre-force every day that you cannot The vision is not immune from the economy. So Other factors we affected a vision because most of them most of the operational costs are internal So I I have issues to the progressive policy whereby the official rate and the market is a wide margin which has allowed Sleeping with one another Very scarce that has affected not only cost of operation Does that say the cost of important fuel and increase the price of fuel? I I I I I put that blame on CBS squarely because yes, yeah, that's that's the primary Uh, responsibility to manage our monastic policy and that'll be my business. That I agree Again on the remittance of forms I also put it on the central bank because what the agreement the better agreement says that Every after every this sale and all charges all domestic charges Expansion paid by the foreign airlines the remainder The remainder revenue should be limited at the official rate Not at the black market rate because the L those tickets were sold at the iota of Official rate which was about 444 It went between 440 and 430 to 444 and it depends and before iota 50 that rate They always rise with with the central bank before they took that way so But so after all period of my current charges damage to the airline agencies Service providers the taxes Reckless attack to the federal government and all that I prevent even to even bank charges The remainder of those forms have to be remitted on daily basis Again, if you look at the cost of of remittance every Maybe the the the airlines have come I there was an agreement Let's make it monthly Maybe quarterly and you know It's an agreement and goes on with each airline and central bank on that but that to to hold down For the amount because of about about 600 million We now became the the highest debtor in the whole world because the total debtor supporting airlines What they want to buy is it is 1.6 billion There are billion dollars sorry 1.6 billion billion dollars Second we can all go And there was was was was going 600 million so we're the highest and not on them That is where I use the only That is going about two billion dollars and Airlines have stopped operating to into Venezuela and this I think this this was what those airlines saw and you know what I Make the same mistake again by allowing them to approach their community hence they made noise They tried as much as possible Let's let's get this far. They try as much as possible before they went into the option of stopping flight The first Government to Ayata Ayata was about several times The airlines emerald in particular came to Nigeria made me the cpn and the cpn promised To remit that it happens. They have sometime in june They wrote a letter taking that they agree to reduce their frequencies around because they are missed a status into Nigeria because of the inviting Uh, uh, lack of funds from the from the officers into Nigeria and even they even Wanted to pay for ambition for that we are using wanted to pay in mera the oil market attention and they have refused to accept That's why they're there mera. I said they must be paid in dollar So the center of the operation in Nigeria they would have to bring the line into the country They could not get the line in Nigeria, but that's oppression They could not get access to their money in dollars so they have to bring from their company from the head office It's quite unfortunate and uh I understand what you're saying to me and that um For every day that these airlines have their money strapped within the country Because Nigerians are paying in naira and not in us dollars as the naira is going down the value Of that money that they have trapped in this country is also diminishing So if we paid maybe uh, $500,000 $250,000 for a one-way ticket, for instance The dollar value of that 250k would have reduced by the time the money gets on your hand if it is trapped In the country and this is really scary You mean for an airline a global airline like embrace to say they're halting their flights to Nigeria is a scary situation And then for you to put Nigeria to remind us when you form as a nigeria style in the category of the likes of venezuela Um, I mean is economy not not in in in the junk status of car is not taken Um federal government being broke because this seems like a federal government trying to grasp at any money They can hold on to to to allow government function And and it's obviously therefore means that economy is is almost um A junk economy I want you to talk about the state of the economy the signs The signals that such an action of being the highest data to international airlines in the world Like you said, what does it mean? What does it pretend for Nigeria's economy as far as foreign investors are concerned as far as Nigeria's attractiveness Is concerned because when we talk about foreign investment We want them to bring their money into the country to multiply it and take it out So I want you to speak to that but also the the In in this on the same day that this information is coming out the Nigerian civil aviation authority is Hitting the head knocking the head of local domestic airlines Who are owing aviation agencies in the country about 46 billion Naira and they're saying that they will seize the licenses of these domestic A.m. Airlines or owing the the aviation agencies that money if they don't pay that money Within 30 days beginning from august 30 There's the same government that is not giving the foreign airlines their own money Is knocking local airlines for not giving them their money. So what do you say to this? Yeah, you're purple, of course, so there Let me try the For me, um When you do not meet with international trade agreement and It's not so commitment To uh, to to your national responsibility in international community because National service is an international agreement. You tend to rubbish the country. We've got a black eye Make no mistake about it even even Even in the civil aviation part of the month we've got a black eye by that action and there are consequences There are consequences. Um This international teams economic investors the myths in this course It's it's a poor bad village now So when you think you can Mr. A I want to be whose days are gone If you owe me to be it was going to pick it from businessmen, but you can't do Mr. A That's that's the the economy the economic systems are wired All over now look at what has happened now is that we we have shown that we're at credit rating was affected by that My indebtedness and I expect like you have to say You know a party Of investors coming in because who wants to come and who wants to come and put money in Nigeria and cannot take his money back When we start the public ability who wants to take that risk? And that's why even at all almost all the projects Under development of the phenomena of aviation Today is eight years now. There are about five months away But oh, sorry, there are about seven seven eight eight or nine months to the end of their training We are still not able to achieve one One of our programs not one I don't don't say where is he the airport concession? Is it in the new Niger? Korea, is it a economic company Is it the airport or that's imagine as madam repair and overall This is um complex that was supposed to build all these are not in Nigeria, but she did invest us to do that and those investors and those who were coming Sorry, oh come from outside the country Again coming coming to directly how this will affect Nigerian airlines When you go to release aircraft outside the country, this is what has happened the least risk Illustrious will be higher Conditions will be a bit serious Because nobody wants nobody wants to lose your aircraft. I'm not I'll not be sure you will get me that money And I'm waiting for the national career that's good. I want to release but this to be aircraft They will make this this position doesn't happen consider this This national car is not being pushed by government. They will make this condition. I'm talking about even to to ensure your aircraft It's in the premium You put them to the condition commission of them when we come out Or to decide if I'm coming to them We're in a situation where they think globally personnel is trained. Nobody wants this money tied down anywhere. Everybody wants this money And that's why you can see they're following from the foreign L.A I didn't mean that this letter was depleted. If Jolla was getting scoffed they didn't really allow let us have our money Let's have our money, but it could be In terms of the source behind the convention Jolla was being thrown all over the place Yes, we cannot meet him without financial responsibility We're paying you for sending money to the jerry public. We cannot pay our responsibility to those who are Who are Some people have to pay that responding to so that so some of this is affected really Like you analyzed and I said Look at the effect on airlines themselves when they come to listen when it comes to buying buying stairs abroad When it when it when it comes to show them this the conditionality The rate the rate would increase and we must to get because of the current ratings Now come into the discourse yesterday with the with the nca The nca was hard on the on the domestic airline. I am sure the government tried to use that to We're not the only one Uh, they're also wearing us I was wondering why the time need to be the period where people are I'm not putting the government for the main thing for an airline. Again, these are Nigerian airlines Before the the money the money required are in Naira Where is that in Naira this bank this airlines have accounts in Naira in Nigerian bank you can't Foreign countries like that you can't so why are we in here? Why are you allowing them to owe up to that amount when you have a bank account that you can you can garnish Then you can have an agreement to deduct from source Stop when the agencies are ready when they are ready to leave the apron Of government money bodies to commercial entity. They will get their money well, um, let's also look at you know the uh Aviation sector, I mean looking looking at the airlines locally right here Uh, there were some indications that unless the federal government at some point Take decisive step to curb the insecurity and address the crisis in the sector Economic activities across the country may worsen And you know the downtown or you know the downtown Would continue to be on the other side now one of the issues that the local airlines are face weight And if you go to uh the airports now you probably find a lot of persons I mean it's quite scanty because some persons are not you know patronizing The airlines because of the hike in price and that's due to you know the aviation feel I like you to show your thoughts on that we have airlines who have actually been You know in business for a very long time. Some of them have reduced, you know Yeah, they are transaction air flights who would probably you say you have flights like 10 reducing to seven six And what have you it's crippling on a daily basis The minute factor for the reduction in uh passenger uh passengers flying at the moment In the high again Both local and international Usually capitalized on this uh, which which is coming to an end probably by today In the travel industry, you know And during the summer most people So, uh, you don't find them and that's why you say that I just announced that that I was going to stop the Lagos, New York They will retain the Lagos Atlanta. So anybody that wants to fly to New York via Delta now would have to go through Atlanta of Here now, so I'm thinking there's just a relationship that The airlines always have a reason to cause frequency. If it is not demand boost It would have to do with Well security And people Or even The airlines are in the best position on the look up good content the engine and carriers Began to reduce not only For only infrequency. You were also reducing to a point of Destinations that we were going to due to the four crashes Without the first of the 2019 data in january. So by nine hundred nine That's what that's That's crazy Hit Carriers because we import fuel Because we import fuel From the NERA has also added more fuel added more burning fuel to to the crisis because it We would never the cost of getting The cost of operation before The price to gallop The More things to like to trust in the job because the vision program is very related That has affected the airlines and I'm talking those options of cutting their flights on some roads reducing capacity Instead of using the big icon About the smaller Money before I would With the revenue. Yeah, revenue. I have no more passengers. I can carry So To ensure the losses are reduced. I remember look at my word losses not profit Okay A little bit. We have a bit of a a connection issue with you, but can you hear me say? All right. Yeah, we have a bit of a connection issue with you But um, you can hear me. I only ask you to speak about the the way this Repatriation or remittance of funds works. Um, uh, there's something called the BASA the BASSA, which is some sort of, um, Arrangement which in which Nigeria is legally bound to allow these airlines remit their their funds in us dollars and them Just to try and understand this, you know properly because you're the expert to help us Is it the government of Nigeria who is meant to look for the u.s. Dollars to pay These these airlines or when they receive the funds Since the money goes to them directly if it does they now have to source for the dollars themselves Please just help us understand that Mr. Who know I owe you there, please Okay, so so just to understand how this works Are the airlines the ones supposed to when when they get paid and after they pay the charges and everything they need to do To the aviation agencies the government of Nigeria Um, are they the ones supposed to who are who look for the the u.s. Dollars and then they attempt to repatriate the funds Or is it a federal government of Nigeria who has to give them their money in dollars? All right. All right But it's it's a very very immersive very um Uh technical area and which I guess is attempted to help us understand, you know, because um What some experts are saying is that um They they have to take the money out in us dollars Now if they have to take it out in us dollars and then the government of Nigeria is one Meant to deeply hands into the occurrence of countries foreign exchange, you know reserve to give to them We're facing a foreign exchange crunch or scarcity, you know in the Posity of of forex in the country. So that becomes a problem. Yeah, that's not even and then and then you you wouldn't want to you Won't want to um blame the the The federal government The day you look at hard hard economic decisions that need to be taken by the government of Nigeria The agreements the country gets into which are binding But which may not necessarily be in the interests of the country at a certain point in time That's I wanted him to be able to unpack Because that's his the airspot, but it's very obvious that, you know FX is a big issue, you know for us right now foreign exchange is a major issue But if you look at the law, we understand that, you know countries would always act in your interests That's expected and so when countries of different nations come together They would always respect your own interests and so they would act take decisions that would favor, you know National and local policies that's what it is not to favor, you know international policy as it is been brought that You know prosperity global prosperity is the case because if global prosperity is the case the law states that for every other time at the end of transaction Uh finances, I mean funds should be remitted to every airline, you know, we're talking about sales right here because Uh when you know, this payment is being made there will be deduction of taxes and what is left to actually be refunded But that's not the case. So the law it's been breached here Law is not respected but if Nigeria is going to make an excuse that A, you know, it's difficult Yeah, Nigerian Spain now, I mean if you want to That's what we're saying that it's a problem So it might just be that we're acting in our own interests, but really we're breaking the law at the end of the end It's effective We hope to have maybe at some point in the future Lumide Ohonayo back But he's um an aviation analyst assistant secretary general of the aviation Safety round table initiative of journalists from Nigeria So we'll be right back at the top some more idea and plus if you have to have a guest With us in the studio on the breakfast still with us


Well, hello, everyone and everyone out in zoom land. I'm Scott Smith. I've got the pleasure of welcoming Casey Schmidt to talk about how to how to wield influence in the information environment. Casey is he's worked in a variety of intelligence and diplomatic assignments for the government, including Cape Town, South South Africa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Langley. He's a 2020 distinguished graduate of the war college and he also completed the ethics and emerging technology, military technology certificate program. Following graduation, he became the CEO of Voxcraft analytics firm specializing in automated media and public sentiment analysis. To entities, including the State Department, USA ID and various intelligence agencies. I should also note that Casey just presented to our three star course last week and was very widely received and popular we see so welcome again Casey and thanks for doing this. Great. Thank you very much, everyone. It's absolute pleasure to be here. It's actually remarking the last time I was here I was in SNP seminar, digging in the closet vets, and it was March of 2020. And we ended the seminar saying, Oh, we actually may need to go virtual. And that was the last time I set foot at the naval war college. But, you know, truly honored to be here. My time at the naval war college was one of the best years of my career. And certainly prepared me in this next venture of being a CEO of an open source intelligence company, trying to tackle some, some pretty tough issues. Now, today I'm going to talk about strategic communications in the context of great power competition. I'm going to argue that the United States does not do strategic strategic communications very well. It does not communicate with foreign audiences very well. And that comes at the expense of our influence in the information environment, and are influencing contested environments writ large. I'm also going to argue that to somewhat turn the tide. What is needed is a shift in thinking of how we do strategic communications into highly tailored hyper local strategic communications that reach audiences again at these hyper local levels. And the way people consume information, the way people receive information, and the way people communicate is changing very rapidly. And I'm going to walk through a number of strategic principles and concepts to help us think of how we better reach target audiences and places that matter. So now everything that I'm speaking of today is going to be through the lens and the experience from from Voxcroft from this private company and the work that we are doing in this space. My hope is that this complements a lot of the academic research that is done here and of course the very practical experience that information operators have have in the field. But as a company, we have developed what we call population centric intelligence, this new intelligence trade craft to get at these questions of public sentiment media sentiment, how people feel and why people feel the way they do environments that that matter. Next slide. Well, good. Again just real quickly so we're work. We're a company that's a little different than a lot of open source intelligence companies out there that are purely technology based. We're a hybrid solution, so to speak, where. Yes, we build AI solutions to do disinformation detection sentiment analytics. However, we tether these technologies to a global network of experts and linguists that are physically in these contested information environments. That enables us to imbue into our algorithms and our machines that kind of highly contextual contextual nuances in these information environments that are just super important to getting highly accurate information. All right, just real quick on the roadmap so going to basically five stages to this. First and foremost, we're just going to provide a little context of people matter. The information environment increasingly matters. So we're going to talk about soft power cognitive influence and strategic competition. We're going to break into connecting with foreign audiences is just really difficult. That's really difficult, especially from the context of. US official communications and how you reach foreign audiences. We're going to talk about this idea of United States hyper local hubris. There's a three level game of how you communicate with foreign audiences and how we reach the masses is just becoming exceedingly difficult will dig into that. We'll briefly talk about how adversaries are essentially filling this void at hyper local levels. A lot of this information that you receive on on on this point won't necessarily be new but I think it will be interesting in the context of looking at US strategic communications weaknesses. Lastly, we'll dig into some solutions, some communication principles and technologies that kind of boost our media profile and resonance in particular environments. Next slide. All right, so people matter. People especially matter in highly contested environments, whether it's South Africa, Central African Republic, the Philippines, Vanuatu. The battle for public influence and cognitive influence increasingly matters to the United States and clearly a number of our adversaries are investing heavily to try to gain superiority and influencing public opinion and applying those psychological pressure campaigns to ultimately impact decision making and power structures at hyper local levels. Next slide please. Now so for everyone who's in an SDM right now or TSTM, the whole concept of soft power. The United States has long enjoyed soft power advantages around the world. And we're going to get into kind of why that's degrading grading a little bit but I think the key point here is that there are a number of new protagonists that see soft power as important to their, their strategic competition and in certain environments. Clearly China is investing a lot more in trying to boost its cultural influence, soft power influence in a number of areas. And even when you look outside kind of the main protagonist. So Bollywood in India, nollywood in Nigeria. As these emerging centers of gravity of cultural and media influence are gaining more promise. So to our their influence with with global audiences and it's essentially competing with the United States, and it's all norms. It's media sports entertainment influence that his long kind of carried us democratic principles and influence for quite some time, and it's changing. Next slide. All right. Let's shift to looking at why is it so hard to communicate with with foreign audiences. So, I believe this is actually your quote, Scott said, hey, we can deliver missiles through windows with minimal collateral damage, but we struggle. We really struggle to deliver resounding strategic communications to the right foreign audiences at the right time. Next slide. So, when we think about strategic communications and how it is normally done or how it has been done for many years from the US government perspective. I like to think, think about it as a three level game. So, essentially, there's three buckets of audiences. And our messages go out and we're trying to target number one, an international audience. So elites around the world diplomats around the world. We have some desired strategic effects in terms of our influence with with these, these players that that we seek to gain from from those messages. And most of our messages that we put out are targeted at this level. Those diplomats, those elites, and it matters. Right. Of course, it matters if you're going to do a fauna, what elites in other countries, other political leaders think about that fauna. But there's also two other layers of communications that increasingly matter. So, the next layer is this national level, and I call this kind of the host government officials, the elites in a particular society. Our communications, especially when it comes from, let's say, our US embassies around the world do a fairly good job at targeting those audiences and delivering messages that are that are influential. However, where we really struggle is this communicating to the masses. And those local audiences, those target audiences that in many places contribute to networks that influence the power structures, the economic, the political and the security power structures in a given country. And this is where US communications fall short. Why. All right. So there is, of course, the message and the messenger will get into in a moment, but what is happening in the information environment at these hyper local levels. So on this screen, these are essentially communication platforms, ways for people to share information, communicate highly disaggregated, highly diffuse. Each one of those, those platforms is a communication ecosystem in and of itself, different ideological bets, different interest. And this is what information environments are starting to look like. And so reaching broad swaths of the public. And this is happening when target audiences are increasingly dispersed on all these different different mediums. Again, it's just naturally very difficult to decide and select which ones do we need to be targeting to reach a specific audience. Next slide. Great. Before I get into this one, you know, just talking about the last slide, I was actually listening to it was a lecture on international marketing. And because of that landscape, there's this whole concept that mass marketing is dead. It is impossible to have a one size fits all message that is going to reach large swaths of the public and resonates and create economic value. The main is to be said about us official communications. Right. In one size fits all communications approach, where we're delivering one message that is been dispersed to just a number of different social media platforms is no longer sufficient in terms of the main arts and lines. All right. So, I want to get, let's get a little practical and look at a couple case studies or or vignettes. So, as a company, what we wanted to do is take a look at certain policy initiatives or events and see to what extent are they resonating and, and particularly important environments. And we took a look at the Filipino information environment back in November and December and post one of the big freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea, a fun up, right. Huge political decision to do a fun up in the South China Sea at that, at that time, it is a big US strategic decision. But we wanted to do okay. To what extent was that fun up having any type of strategic effect or resonance on on the public in the Filipino information environment. What we found, and I know it's really tough to read on these graphs. But essentially, the fun up and US security system writ large was only involved in about 2.5% of all security related discourse on this social media platform at that time 2.5%. And by security related discourse I mean, essentially all Twitter X users talking about foreign policy issues in the Philippines for two months. To what extent is the United States involved in that conversation, partly at all. Alright, why. Next slide please. Alright, I went through this exercise with with the three stars last week and we actually took a poll, which is hard to do within this virtual environment but I asked them how many of you have heard of PEPFAR. There was about 30 people in the audience and two people raise their hands. I said okay, PEPFAR US President's emergency plan for AIDS relief. It is 95% of us foreign assistance that goes to South Africa, South Africa, anchor state in Southern Africa, hugely influential information environment, a place where strategically, not doing so well. 95% of US assistance. We did the same exercise this time we took 10 years of HIV AIDS related discourse in the whole South African information environment. And we wanted to find out. Okay what fraction of that discourse. Are they talking about PEPFAR. Now mind you, PEPFAR is probably one of the biggest public health success stories. The amount of lives that was saved, you know 20 million lives saved since the mid the mid 2000s. What it is done to bolster health infrastructure across Southern Africa. The tangible benefits to people are incredible. I mean talk about a soft power advantage of actually delivering results that matter to people. Incredible. However, when you look at how the information environment there and how people actually feel about PEPFAR. 10 years of HIV AIDS related discourse, huge impact, but yet only 3% of HIV related discourse contained any mention of the United States for PEPFAR. Next slide, and it gets even worse. So even even with just 3% we took a look okay. So what is general South African media public sentiment toward PEPFAR. It's been neutral and pretty darn negative. One third of those mentions have negative negative public attitudes or negative media attitudes toward the benefit of PEPFAR at only 15%. So when you break that down 95% of bilateral assistance, billions of dollars provided to South Africa. All those tangible benefits to people on the ground, yet what public goodwill, what influence are we getting with this public with this program. Very, very little slide please. Alright, kind of the last case study on the on the US side, Ethiopia. Similar to the PEPFAR case study, you know, Ethiopia, anchor state East Africa, long a US counterterrorism partner in the region. And I don't have the exact figures on this but generally a billion dollars of humanitarian development assistance that has gone to Ethiopia every year. How do Ethiopians feel about that. Same deal took large swaths of media data and very, very negative and You can read just kind of this this quote or this little snippet there, but you can see the narratives that are in kind of general discourse about USAID and US foreign assistance, this whole notion of colonizer. And this whole notion that you're just using humanitarian humanitarian aid as a front for to compete against China or just dissuade us from from working with with China. And that they're just in general isn't a public understanding of what the actual intent of humanitarian aid policy is in Ethiopia that's pretty, pretty remarkable. Then I found this quote over the weekend and in foreign affairs article back in August of 2022.  There's a huge effort on Ethiopia being a critical Belt and Road Initiative country for China, and there's lots of advertising. But how the Ethiopians talk about it with these very tangible benefits that the Chinese are providing. I don't have the exact figures on it but general Ethiopian sentiment toward China is very high. What was remarkable to me in this is what's highlighted in orange. And where are their Americans. Right so I served in Ethiopia. I mean the Americans are everywhere. And US assistance is everywhere with very tangible benefits to the public all across the country. Yet, again, just not resonating there's not that connection between what you the intent of US policy and building that goodwill on the ground. Next slide. Alright, so shifting to, you know, looking at adversaries and their strategic communications. And just kind of highlighting some of the, the things that it does well to increase its profile and resonate in particular information environments. So I think first and foremost, what China does pretty well from our perspective is it has very strong practical narratives about the benefits of Chinese cooperation. It doesn't matter if we're talking about Ethiopia, Vanuatu, Bolivia. It's the same narratives everywhere about it being an economic powerhouse and an economic alternative to to the United States and Western Western economy. My favorite one here this peaceful alternative to to the West. It is pretty remarkable how whatever is happening in the world. China will comment comment on it and link it to kind of US being the United States being this this war monger, while China is the peaceful protector of global global order. And this other narrative of being very poor and development focused. When you look at a lot of their communications, it is very populous centric, it is very again protector of the poor, and you just see these tight narratives everywhere. And again I put pragmatic and quotes because when you look at kind of official Chinese communications they want to be this very pragmatic. They want to have this pragmatic messaging style or these pragmatic narratives that counterbalance us narratives which tend to be very ideological. Next slide please. And so, offensively, what we also see, again I talked about this war monger narrative. China also does a good job of taking issues and framing them in a way that essentially make the United States look bad in particular information environments. So, again, you could just look at hashtag war monger on on on Twitter X, you'll see it pretty much every single Belt and Road information environment and their conversations. This is especially true in Africa, the whole colonialist narrative and protectors being very anti colonialist. You just, you see these narratives everywhere. Next slide. All right. And what we also see China doing pretty well is it's soft power promotion. You can use very localized media vectors. And here is the front page of a very prominent South African newspaper, Cape Town front page. And again, it's, it's print media in South Africa is actually very widely read in particular. And it seems that this particular vector was chosen very deliberately to target a very specific audience at a very specific time with different political events happening. And again, it was just it was a really strong vector for getting a very certain message out and they do this quite well. And just wanted to just kind of comparing apples to apples. We just did a big US Chinese trade and investment project in in Kenya and looking at media resonance there and the sheer profile. Even though, again, in Kenya, the United States has a big bilateral push to increase US trade investment in Kenya, lots of humanitarian assistance Kenya has long been a strong partner for the United States. And Kenya is also a key BRI pillar for for the PRC. But when you look at the information environment, who has a bigger profile and who is resonating more strongly. Clearly China 18% of trade and investment discourse compared to us five 5% speaks for itself. Alright, and now getting into all backup and say, everything that I've talked about before, at least from our perspective we don't put that in like the malign influence category. This is just straight public diplomacy strategic communications. And how are they trying to wheel influence with certain populations and contested environments. And again, I don't think we need to deliver this too much there is a malign influence element to what adversaries do in particular particular environments. This one. We looked at the Philippines. And we looked at public sentiment toward the big initiative there, US military trying to open up new military bases and strengthen bilateral military cooperation with Filipinos. So, we looked at the information viral and we noticed like, huh, on one particular. This, this was Twitter X, one particular platform. Very, very negative toward toward the United States, we're able to geotag where a lot of these weeks forthcoming from we found a lot of that negativity is pulling around exactly with target audiences and the towns and villages near those proposed sites. We also have algorithms that do disinformation and authentic account detection and found, okay. Large, large number of those accounts were in fact inauthentic and it was very clear that there was an artificial campaign targeting those specific audiences with anti US anti US military anti American content. Again to try to influence that public perception and the power structures in those hyper hyper local areas. It's a pretty, pretty strong case study. So, right. So, let's shift to some solutions. Certainly not an admiring the problem. Exercise. So, definitely don't want everyone to kind of read this. This fancy graphic up here, we can go to go to the next slide, but I did want to leave it on there so if you're going to take these slides afterwards you can have that that graphic graphic to look through. So I want to talk about some strategic communication principles and also some technology concepts that can kind of help the United States think, at least certainly on the strategic level of how, how to reach target audiences in a more meaningful way. So, first principle, the right medium for the right audience. Right. We go back to that last slide. China was very, very deliberate in choosing Twitter X in the Philippines, because it knew. Okay, there's wide number of US military. Personnel that are on Twitter on Twitter in in the Philippines. There was a very specific reason for targeting using that platform and putting it that certain, certain message out at the right time. Now, we, we talked about how information environments are with the explosion of data and the explosion of platforms. It's, it's very difficult to choose. But certainly public affairs officers me so teams around around the world, it needs to become an eight and all operations that understanding the various mediums, the vectors, who's on them what their ideological events are. And where they most use in kind of geographic profile, psychographic profile demographic profile, understanding those dynamics of certain platforms is going to help give you some good clues of when a certain you want to put a certain message out where is the right target audience. So I'll give you a concrete example. Again, this from from the Philippines. Again, looking at media and public sentiment toward US military cooperation with with the Filipinos. We actually found, and this, this makes sense for a lot of folks that have done a lot of work in in kind of in developing countries that broadcast is often the primary information vector for large swaths of the public. And we found that broadcast had this and more, I would say a normal favorable coverage of, of such, such cooperation, and it goes back years. I can't tell you why or how how this happened, but it is a sure fact that if the United States generally wants positive coverage of its cooperation to reach mostly rural audiences. And it goes on like you're, we want those messages going out through these particular broadcast vectors that are highlighted there. But other social media platforms, very different type of content, very different type of messages that that needed that need to be promoted here. Facebook, which is the most widely used social media platform in the Philippines. I don't talk about military issues at all on that platform. I would say this is just like this is the soft power vector. They talk about music, they talk about entertainment. Again, those kind of trying to build understanding of cultural values and music entertainment. That is where you're kind of promoting that American pop culture, so to speak. And which of course is very influential over time. But Facebook it is that is your medium for general soft power and public diplomacy. Tick tock. I know there might be a number of questions on well can't use tick tock, but nonetheless, tick tock we found lots of users on there. It's very rationalistic toward the Philippines and pretty anti China and very positive on again having strong relationships with with the United States. Again, so if you're looking for a vector to put out messages and reach target audiences talking about the importance of US Filipino military partnership, tick tock is a phenomenal event vector to do that. Facebook. Next slide. All right. Next principle contextualize the message of seizing upon popular narratives. So if I go back to the Navy phonops and looking to why didn't the phone up in the South China Sea in November, resonate. Just a short proximity you think, but what was happening in the world in November, right the explosion of Gaza. And, and the start of the war. And when you looked at all that media discourse about international affairs and foreign policy and military issues. It's just Gaza, Gaza, Gaza, Gaza. And then others. There's no linkage between what the United States officially put out about the fawn up and stuff happening in the Middle East. So if you can contextualize the message, if there was one mention of how freedom of navigation in the South China Sea relates to freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, or the Western Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean, or anything related to the Gaza crisis. The profile of that font now reaches millions of people instead of a few thousands on Twitter. So that seizing upon what are contemporary narratives, what are people talking about today, and linking that foreign policy action to what is happening today goes a long way of infiltrating much wider networks of public discourse and media coverage. Next slide. Let's contextualize the message, connect policy to local interest. Right. This one is clearly intuitive. However, it's, it's hard to do, but where all politics is local. Just quickly talk about a study that we did. We had a task to look at, okay, to what extent is African media talking about climate change or climate policy. All mentions of climate change and climate policy in Africa. And just those terms. We deliver bad news and basically said, you know what, nobody's talking about climate change. In terms of the way that Western jargon and Western elites frame climate change and how they talk about climate climate change is all up here. In the first study, we said, well, what if we start talking about crop degradation, locust, flooding, drought disease, all the effects of climate change. All of a sudden, everyone's talking about climate change.  You know, talking about climate change to this gentleman and his crops in, in Southern Mali, like just there's no, there's no connective tissue between that message and what matters to this person. But if you're starting to talk about US initiatives to deal with land degradation in Southern Mali, and here's our policies that are doing X, Y, and Z, all of a sudden it matters and it matters with a lot of people. Slide. Right. Reframing unsavory narratives. China does this pretty well. So, this is a, this is a Kenya example. That's humanitarian assistance. If you take a look at the one on the right with the red 20% negative.  And then of course there's major amplification done by adversaries with bot networks and just these narratives like that narrative is just flooding through the discourse and reaching audiences that we want to have a positive effect on of delivering humanitarian assistance. However, we saw messages basically on like the same day talking about US development assistance picture was different, the way that it was that it was framed up being very empowering to local communities. No US officials involved had a massive, massive difference in terms of how people talked about it how they felt about it, and the extent that it started to circulate through the wider information environment. Alright, communication piece. So this one's very near and dear to my heart because we're building language technologies for low resource environments around the world, and very intuitive. So many US messages go out in English without nuance and localisms that people in other information environments can understand. With hyper local communications rule of thumb, it's got to be in those hyper local languages. If it's in Filipino Savoyno versus Tagalog, you put out a message in Tagalog and Savoyla. It's, it's that simple. And when that happens, the resonance in the profile of those messages and again you're starting to reach millions of people, not just on this. Alright, engaging key influencers. So, I was actually looking at a Boston subway, the team, the team app. Yesterday, my, you know, this is actually just like a social network map. When you think of when you think of a subway map, there's certain stations where lots of lines come in and lots of lines go out. And of course, those stations are the ones that generated the most economic value. Social network analysis is saying that the folks where that the bubbles are are the biggest have the most amount of users and the most lines coming into it and going out of it. Are the ones that are the most influential in terms of shaping narratives on a particular topic. Now it's kind of hard to see here, especially for you are in the audience, but on the right side, there is a smaller red, red cluster of users. That's for an official US embassy account and it's very disconnected from essentially everything else. And this is the one in blue. It is connected to everything. And so it's essentially three users that are driving the narratives and driving discourse on particular topics. Public affairs officers, me so teams when you're thinking about who to engage you run through these exercises to identify okay, these three users, I have to be engaged, have to be following you. And if they do, again, all of a sudden, you're immediately amplifying your messaging your narrative into places that previously weren't there. So I'm. All right. On the defense side, so refute damaging narratives in real time. All right.  There are times where disinformation is truly damaging to us narrative to us to us brand and to us objective in a particular country. And in that case, like, there just needs to be an immediate response from whomever is in charge on a certain platform. So I put this example up from on China side, I mean immediate response to a particular narrative that they felt that was on savory. I would certainly never recommend on the US side using China's language but the whole point was, it immediately responded and immediately tried to reshape the narrative, and it's just it's involved right. Like, dialectic it is discourse. It's not static, where it's just going to put out one message, and we're going to see what happens and see its response like it is just it is in it. It is active discourse with the public, and just shows like having that active discourse that that is the posture that you need to be able to defend against these these counter narratives to us interest slide. Alright, indirect messaging. So, if I go back to the last slide I said I wouldn't recommend such strong language is China and that's not because I'm a China apologist or anything. It's just the data suggests, it doesn't work. So when the United States goes on the offensive and deliberately tries to point out all the bad things that China is doing. It doesn't resonate too well, and insights pretty significant backlash in certain places. What does work, however, is when you look at what drives negative sentiment toward toward China. It gives you clues of the types of narratives that you can be driving over time, and that become very influential in the minds of the public. So, here in Fiji, you know we see, okay, media freedom corruption and military security and ocean. It's just generally highly negative public reaction to China's role in those things. And those are clues right. In fact, we're working with several US embassies right now, thinking about okay how do we build a communications campaign around corruption in Africa. This is just constantly an issue that people.  It's a campaign to say, okay, look at how the United States does business. They just launched this trade and investment deal look how business was done with transparency, openness, you know, essentially no corruption here and so you're offsetting, you're basically building on that negative sentiment by showing that you are this, you know this counternails this counterbalance to the solution to corruption concerns in those societies. All right, probably my favorite, and you know certainly a good message for everyone here at the war college. When you're thinking about strategic communications public messaging, especially at the campaign level, something you're going to do over time doesn't always need to be the United States. I think that partners in different information environments have have advantages that that we don't. This particular instance. Some security issue in the South China Sea, and I believe it came from Solomon Islands. The general public sentiment which were what the Australians were doing and what the Japanese were doing had a much higher profile and resonating very strongly and again we're the same values, same military objectives, same form policy objectives, as those partners. So in many cases it's coordinating with these of trying to put official communications out through them versus doing it doing it by yourself. All right, so yeah, you have kind of three key takeaways in the United States struggles at reaching those hyper local audiences. Strategic communications are the connective tissue between policy action and generating and building public goodwill on the ground and information environments that that matter. And it is just that those hyper local communications that hyper local engagement that is really going to help be become that that that connective tissue. We talked, we definitely dug into kind of those modern communications communication concepts that can help help us better compete in these places. Get more, a higher profile, more resonance and ultimately increase our competitiveness in the information environment. We're approaching the end of our time so I think. Yeah, excellent. Thank you.


The big man in African politics. Curiously the first person who could be said to have fulfilled what we now regard the mantle of the big man. There was a white man, an explorer, Stanley, the man who rediscovered Livingston. He attracted a nickname from his native helpers, Bullah Moutari, the man who smashed the rocks. And this is because of Stanley's penchant for blowing up obstacles along the river path with dynamite. The whole idea that nothing could stop the big man and that he would plow on relentlessly despite anything put against him. This has entered a sort of African political mythology surrounding certain leaders. Now in fact the idea of the big man has applied to leaders of many states, including those outside Africa, has been applied to people like Shoshescu, the communist dictator of Romania for instance, has been applied to people like Suharto of Indonesia. But I think there is a critical difference in the sense that these other big men in other states had increased and larger powers of administration so that when they ran their states, when they were at the centerpiece of their states, those states were more complex in their institutional structure. Where it's applied to African states, it's applied to a condition of underdevelopment so that the rule of the big man who smashes his way forward is a very familial and intimate one. It's one to do with close connection. It's one almost to do with a very very extended family but with emphasis on the word family and the connections that come with that. We probably associated today in the 2000s with somebody like Robert Mugabe but Robert Mugabe is a very curious big man of Africa in the sense that he in many ways resembles an Englishman with his perfectly tailored suits, his love for English tradition, cricket etc. Today we want to have a look at big men who were a little bit different from the Mugabe image. But the whole idea of the big man commanding resource and distributing it even within a kind of extended family relationship that has attracted a very great deal of African commentary. People like Akil and Bembe for instance wrote about this the form of necropolitics. It was also Karl of Alask, something circus-like about it. But necropolitics in the sense that if the big man can command not only the distribution of resources in a neo-patrimonial way but also held the power of life and death over his citizens then this necro command enforced the idea of neo-patrimonialism which first and foremost benefited those closest to the big man himself. Probably no one fulfills that image better than someone like Mobutu. Mobutu was the leader of Zaire as he called it. He came to power in a coup. The coup did end the early years of immense turmoil, strife, division and bloodshed that accompanied the independence of the Congo and also saw of course the assassination of people like Patrice Lemumba. But Mobutu came to power in 1965. He lasted until 1997 and he instigated a campaign which he called authenticity. This is his contribution to African thought that somehow in the 20th century it was possible to be authentic. But what did he mean by that? He certainly postured as an authentic African ruler. He dressed in a certain way which he claimed was authentic although the glasses and the smartly tailored modern version of a Chairman Mausud were anything but African but the wearing of a leopard skin pool box hat, the waving around of totems in his hands, totems of rulership. All of these things suggested an attempt to create a certain imagery which he amplified by his choice of names. By the time he'd finished he had a long list of names and titles all of which spoke to a conquering of everything before him. A literal breaker of rocks in the modern era and when Congolese or Zairean television signed off every single evening there was this picture of Mobutu as an angel descending from God's clouds bringing benefaction to his people. Now in fact, benefaction to his people was one of the least things that he accomplished. Zaire remained deeply divided a huge state in which there were huge divisions of wealth. The key point here is that efforts at authenticity do not of themselves bring development and the whole idea of accumulating power within a very very small circle, the whole idea of a one party state, the whole idea of singular personified individual rule does not bring with it development. A contrasting example would be the person who came to rule in Malawi, a much smaller state, a state which was impoverished, it was not like Zaire which had many many riches to plunder. Malawi was literally dirt poor. Came to power Hastings Bander, an American and a Scottish trained medical doctor who when he went back to become the independence leader of Malawi actually spoke no native language. He was very very much an anglified person, an exile leader, went back and his idea of development was to try to recreate the splendors of British educational rule and public administration in Malawi. He set up a college for elite students where they studied classics meaning Latin and Greek. He tried to recreate Eaton in an African setting. To his country also he brought no development but he certainly like Mobutu adopted a great number of names to do with conquest, triumph and victory ruled over his state with an iron hand, persecuted people who got on the way and persecuted people who in fact posed no threat but who did not want publicly to subscribe to his rule. Parties such as Jehovah's Witnesses were wiped out during his time in office and like Mugabe he held on to the bitter end. By the time he ceased being president on the eve of his death he was a very very old, very frail, very sick man noted for going to international conferences and having to wear continents underwear underneath his tuxedos and basically giving a spectacle of the big man in decay. This I think is one of the key problems that besets African political thought these days not whether something is authentic or not but whether or not what is authentic is a form of necropolitics that is in fact decadent leading to actual physical decay of the person who claims to be the big man.


What's going on everyone? Sam here with late in sports cards and I am ripping one box of 2022 tops Star Wars chrome sapphire edition for Samuel P. So good luck Samuel. See what we got in here. Same name Mojo, hopefully Yeah, Luca, something like if you pull like a character numbered card these things are money out of here It's crazy what they're going for. I get it because the buy-ins pretty expensive So it makes like at least the prices are somewhat justified, but it's kind of wild honestly So let's pull like an onyx. That'd be awesome And we've got advance of the Tuscan raider to focus Uh lord vader return to princess Leia. We've got The imprisoned princess Leia to 75 nice hit there Congrats on that one Samuel. That is sweet Nice hit man It's a nice looking card right there. I think that's I'm assuming that's gonna be more of like a yellowish But it's like a yellow green almost I'll feel you have a checklist and then villainous Darth Vader behind that Got c3 pio and chewy and Han Solo Got uh Luke checks out his new droid and planning to escape Paradot my saying that right, uh cw They always like to put in the weird named parallels Uh the incredible c3 pio Got a mighty explosion Got r2 is imprisoned by the Jawas. Thank you And r2 d2 and c3 pio. Yeah, there's no autos in this checklist Massa work sketches are pretty sick though. Got an orange in this one got the visitors receive their reward Um Luke on the sand planet orange is gonna be nice the tuskin raider to 25 Nice hit there Samuel. That is so cool Nice numbered tuskin raider Let's go nice character hit there. Um r2 d2 is missing Yeah, it's been pretty solid. Let's say I'm cursed their star wars box So Victor I did pull you one out of ten. I pulled you the purple, right? I didn't curse your star wars boxes Uh chris, are you looking for more hits or are you looking for like Because it's hard to compare the two uh spectacular battle Got luke prepares to swing across the chasm uh luke skywalker and tatooine And the droids in the control room. That's not too bad.  I feel like it's a little bit better Uh stopping the death star Got may the force be with you uh c3 pio and princess leia And luke prepares for the battle Yeah, chrome black's always fun But then you you don't get any like patches or anything like that.  That's a cool one. That's that was such a good scene in the movie And the droids on tatooine I would synvict. I just don't have the money to do that right now, you know I've been trying to limit the amount of because I've joined a couple breaks here I've been trying to limit the amount of breaks I go into We've got droids rescue their masters Uh c3 pio diverts the guards Uh tuskin raider And we've got facing the deadly chasm That is gonna do it for your uh box of star wars sapphire congrats on all the hits samuel get those right out to you Thanks again, man