This book presents the current history of United States military strategy in Afghanistan as an example of dysfunctional policy discourse among the nation's elites. The legitimacy of a country's military strategy can become a subject of intense public debate and doubt, especially in prolonged conflicts. Arguments typically hinge on disagreements about the values at stake, the consequences of action or inaction, and the authority of those responsible for the plan. As the US entered its second decade at war in Afghanistan, political and military leaders struggled to explain the ends and means of their strategy through internal policy debates, the promotion of counterinsurgency doctrine, and day-to-day accounts of the war's progress. Military Strategy as Public Discourse considers recent US strategy in Afghanistan as a form of valid and equitable public discussion among those with the ability to affect outcomes. The work examines the dominant forms of discourse used by the various groups of elites who make and execute strategy, and considers how representations of these forms of discourse in news media shapes elite understanding of the purpose of US efforts in wars of choice. The book proposes how policy-makers should address the problems of public discourse on war, which tends to exclude or marginalize relevant elites and focus on narrow questions of validity. This book will be of much interest to students of strategic studies, US foreign policy, and security studies in general.

This study explores how the United States Air Force negotiates the problem of publicly communicating on behalf of its own interests while subordinating its communication to national objectives during military operations. The author proposes a theory of military public communication that links the act of persuasion to a military service's core function, the application or threat of coercive force. The theory predicts that, as the level of coercive airpower exerted or implied in a conflict increases, the character of Air Force communication becomes more domestically focused, more reliant on needs-based appeals, and more concerned with ensuring information security and controlling information flows through censorship or propaganda. When national priorities clearly align with the coercive force that airpower provides, service communication generally coheres with stated policy. As lower levels of violence become the intent of policy, airpower may seem contradictory. This disparity encourages higher authorities to control Air Force communication in the interest of policy coherence. Nevertheless, national or Air Force preferences for information control will be frustrated by the need for organizational advocacy within the policy process as well as trends favoring public transparency in cyberspace.