@ISIS Is #Winning

Why is a barbaric medieval caliphate

so much better at social media than
Washington?

BY KORI SCHAKE-JULY 9, 2014

The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham is running a brilliantly

effective social media campaign. With the group rebranded as the Islamic
State (IS), its grisly messaging gets attention and discourages resistance to
its military operations, both where it is fighting and among countries that
might be inclined to intervene against it. After it took Mosul, IS streamed
video of its men executing dozens of captured Iraqi soldiers -- which very
likely helped encourage the choice of Iraqi security forces to quietly desert

their posts. IS live-tweeted its military advance through Iraq, showcasing

the bravery of its fighters and what little resistance Iraqi security forces
offered. It threatened decapitations in London's Trafalgar Square. And as
the United States was busy playing its World Cup round-of-sixteen game,
IS tweeted a picture of a decapitated head with the caption that it was the
Islamic State's ball.
The Islamic State is not making the same mistake that its al Qaeda
predecessor did: choosing the "far enemy" instead of the "near enemy" of
Middle Eastern governments. The radical Islamists now rampaging through
Iraq are fighting on both fronts, taunting us for our indecision and
unwillingness to fight them while gaining ground where conditions favor
them in Syria and Iraq. They surely overestimate their strength should we
choose to engage the battle, but their shrewd use of modern
communications is helping prevent that from happening. The Islamist
radical group's ability to craft sensational messages that support the
objectives of its military campaign is superb: The Islamists' barbarity
discourages enemies from being willing to fight them and reinforces the
hesitance of Western publics to get involved in another Middle Eastern war.
Sun Tzu would give them a standing ovation.
By contrast, the U.S. government's efforts at hashtag diplomacy are
pathetic. Just take first lady Michelle Obama's maudlin-looking pictureof her
holding a handwritten sign reading "#BringBackOurGirls" -- a public appeal
for someone, anyone, to do something to effect the release of the Nigerian
students kidnapped by Boko Haram. As if she didn't sleep at night with the
person who has the greatest ability of anyone in the world to free these
captive girls. But once the picture fluttered out into the world, the first lady
returned to other pursuits.

Offerings by State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki have been

particularly cringe-inducing, the worst being a smiling picture of her giving
a thumbs-up with a sign reading, "#UnitedForUkraine," part of
atweet encouraging Russia to "live by the promise of hashtag." The effort
was widely ridiculed, both by the Russian government and by Americans,
and surely was dispiriting to the Ukrainians whom U.S. diplomacy is
supposed to be supporting.
The Duffel Blog satirized the Obama administration's ineffectualness with
an article highlighting "7 Hashtags The White House Used To Solve Major
World Problems." It concludes with a picture of Secretary of State John Kerry
looking forlorn with the hashtag #BringBackOurForeignPolicy (which
includes a funny, gratuitous slap atForeign Policy's paywall).
That the American government is seemingly incapable of using modern
communications to real advantage is embarrassing. How is it that a society
that has Madison Avenue salesmanship, Hollywood celebrity self-promotion,
blockbuster movie special effects, Silicon Valley tech innovation, and a
permanent political campaign is so abysmal at the fine art of visual
telegraphic summation in support of its objectives?

I think the answer is twofold. First, the form itself advantages

offense. Second, U.S. efforts are not supporting a broader strategy.
Hashtag diplomacy as a medium favors both the quick hit and the use of
ridicule. Sensational pictures and statements are what gets noticed. Status
quo institutions, like the U.S. government, are at a disadvantage competing
against the producers of spectacle. Even using the Islamic State's
depredations against them (such as showing evidence of the group's
violence against civilians) reinforces IS's message not to mess with them.

The benefits of law and order, the satisfaction of representative

government, and the blessings of liberty make for boring footage by
comparison -- as any TV news outlet could attest.
I don't have a Twitter account myself [Ed. -- we're working on that], but
even I know that it's an art form best suited to asymmetrical warfare. Just
as insurgency and terrorist attacks are means by which the weak can dent
the strong, social media is a means by which the powerless can dent the
powerful. And nowhere is this more effective than in highlighting hypocrisy
of public figures and government policies.
But messaging campaigns generally get traction when they reinforce an
existing, even if unformed, belief. Take U.S. Men's National Team goalie Tim
Howard's amazing performance in the World Cup loss to Belgium, which
inspired #ThingsTimHowardCouldSave -- a spoof on the many calamities he
might have prevented (like the meteor that killed the dinosaurs). Likewise,
some 22 years before, the viral picture of President George H.W.
Bush looking incredulous at a checkout scanner reinforced the sense of his
elitism, even if his White House spokesman later assured the assembled
press that the president had indeed been to a grocery store before.
The Islamic State's messaging reinforces the existing belief of the group's
murderous ruthlessness, but it is also linked to a broader strategy: keeping
the United States from intervening. The group's messaging reminds
Americans of the complexity and violence of regional, state, and religious
relationships in the Middle East and reinforces the sentiment of not wanting
to get involved. That's why it's effective.

But Washington's political messaging is a substitute for strategy, not a line

of operations within one. The first lady appealing for attention to Boko

Haram's kidnappings actually helps Nigeria's Islamist radicals, giving the

group notoriety -- while reinforcing America's powerlessness to do anything
about it. Moreover, it's adding insult to injury for the suffering people
who've been terrorized by Boko Haram, conveying spectacularly that we are
only pretending to do something, not actually doing anything.
America's diplomatic messaging is much better than the politicians'
adolescent solipsism. The State Department's Think AgainTurn Away
campaign responds with specific rebuttals of terrorist tweets. Think Again
has identified the weaknesses of the Islamic State's ideology -- its
indiscriminate slaughter of innocents -- and patiently turns those back on
IS's supporters. It is the latest iteration of the State Department's effort to
win the war of ideas, and it's a reasonably good one; but it'll never be as
interesting as the message it's designed to counter. America's argument is
strong in the long run, but social media is optimized to the short term.
The U.S. government will never be good at social media campaigns unless it
thinks about messaging as an integral part of a larger strategy. So first of
all, we need a strategy. And then we need people who can clarify and
condense its purposes and creatively take opportunities to reinforce them
with social media. Those are not signature strengths of the American
government. As a political culture, America seems incapable of strategic
messaging. All the wistful longing of government officials for everyone to
get on board their program is never going to succeed in a society as diverse
and communicative as America's. It's just not who we are -- so it's a terrible
basis on which to build a strategy.
Instead of trying to control the message, the government should stop
struggling against who we are as a political culture and embrace it. The
nature of soft power is that it is diffuse and difficult to direct. It will be hard

to accept, but perhaps the best messenger for our message is not our
government. Washington would be more successful in social media by
removing itself from the center of it -- shifting the focus to the cacophony of
voices from across America's vibrant civil society rather than trying to
control the space itself. The CIA is unlikely to be competitive in this arena,
and is that really what the agency responsible for collection and
assessment of vital intelligence should be spending its effort on? Simply
put, the U.S. government affords too much import to social media presence.

The government may one day become brilliant at hashtag diplomacy,

capable of beating IS to the punch. But that would seem unlikely given the
structural advantages the medium gives to sensationalism and attack on
established positions. The strategic clarity demonstrated by IS will likely be
elusive for a society and a government that take time to unite and have
many different policy debates occurring simultaneously. Our best bet is to
rely less on government messaging and instead bombard our adversaries
with the spectrum of American activism, letting organizations like Mercy
Corps or Spirit of America that are forces for good in the world be the
emissaries of our policies. After all, it was alert citizens who noticed and
publicized the Islamic State "caliph" Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi wearing an
expensive watch.

If only Tim Howard could save Washington from itself.