Week 5 Application--Tihanna McCleese

After studying this week’s readings about strategic ambiguity, I was reminded of the strategy used by our most two recent Presidents concerning the Iraq/Afghanistan War.  In 2009, President Obama sent 17,000 combat troops to Afghanistan (Baker, 2009). While this allowed the President to live up to his campaign promise to refocus America's fight against terrorism, it failed to answer a basic question: What needed to be accomplished in Afghanistan?  This was a question I often pondered while listening to the many speeches and interviews President Obama gave on the issue during this time.

Anti-war critics were quick to jump on the lack of clarity. "The president is committing these troops before he's determined what the mission is," according to Tom Andrews director of WinWithoutWar.org.  It's a poignant accusation considering that on the surface, at least, President Obama appeared to have not outlined a strategy for success or a vision for what victory would look like. But I kept thinking: what if this is actually part of the strategy?

Recent history suggests that this might be the case.   George W. Bush did not set himself up for failure abroad by mere incompetence.  He simply vastly overpromised what we were able to accomplish.

President Bush often spoke as though overthrowing the Taliban and Saddam Hussein would naturally lead to the flowering of democracy in the Middle East.  Just as the Cold War domino theory, as defined by u-s-history.com, predicted that allowing one country to fall to communism would automatically lead to others following suit, the Bush administration seemingly assumed that the advent of democracy in one country would lead to democracies in all countries.  He was wrong. President Obama didn’t articulate a clear strategy either, but that might be a deliberate choice based on a complicated reality, rather than an omission of intellectual laziness and naïveté. (Goodall, Trethewey, McDonald, 2006, p.10).  Unlike Bush, the Obama administration never promised that Afghanistan would become a Western-style democracy any time soon.  

This is a wise move according to the implementation of strategy say Argenti, Howell, & Beck (2005).   

It may well be the Obama administration had something else in mind; it's hard to tell from the outside. But our readings this week suggest that President Obama adopted a policy of strategic ambiguity in selling his war strategy at that time

References:

Goodall, B., Trethewey, A., and McDonald, K. (2006). Strategic Ambiguity, Communication and Public Diplomacy in an Uncertain World: Principles and Practices, Consortium for Strategic Communication.

Argenti, P.A., Howell, R.A., Beck, K.A. (2005). The Strategic Communication Imperative, MIT Sloan Management Review.

Baker, P. (Feb. 27, 2009).  “With Pledges To Troops and Iraqis, Obama Details Pullout”.  New York Times.  Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/washington/28troops.html?_r=0