I loved Froggy's story but I was troubled by the occasion for his telling the tale. It was a Blackfive salvo against Eleanor Clift (not a personal favorite BTW). What Blackfive, and Froggy's commenters, found so objectionable, was the following quote from Clift:

The military doesn’t like to get involved in humanitarian missions, and needed prodding ... The administration disdains the soft, touchy-feely stuff of diplomacy and foreign aid.

I'm not going to waste my time on the tsunami response debate which is hopefully a dead horse or at least on its last legs. Simply in the interests of full disclosure, IMO it was an initially mishandled opportunity for public diplomacy that reflected poorly on the intuitions of some in the WH, But it looks like we've caught up.

Rather, I'm disturbed by the umbrage taken to an observation that, to my mind, is quite unobjectionable. Let's face it folks, the US military is at the very least cautious about the manner and extent to which it gets involved in humanitarian assistance. And understandably so.

Seems to me Froggy's story (and Joe's link to it) underlines that it's important there be a wider appreciation that the US military can be a incredible force for good in this world in ways beyond just beating the bad guys. And equally important, an appreciation that the way we build and maintain our military, the way we position it so it can be used as an asset, and how and when we use it, is not a simple either-or matter of charitable impluse or narrowly-defined national security interests. [BTW, that observation applies equally to the contributions of our panty-waisted diplomats in difficult third-world postings. And it's also true of our USAID personnel and the individuals who are hired by USAID to implement assistance projects around the world. What they do is both difficult and valuable. And the decisions about what sort of capacity we should build and maintain, and when, where and how we should use that capacity, are challenging.]

The first target of an education of what the US does constructively around the world should be the American people themselves. We should be proud of what we do, and I certainly am chagrined by the sort of knee-jerk anti-militarism of "military recruiters on campus redux". How tiresome and wrongheaded.

I also agree that the US military's assistance should be included in the "balance sheet" of how the US contributes to the well-being of the world, in addition to our (let's admit it folks, rather puny) foreign aid budget.

But you know, there's nothing at all inconsistent with the statement quoted from Eleanor Clift and Froggy's experience. They're addressing - albeit at different "levels" -- the dilemmas faced by the US military of how to handle humanitarian issues (and for that matter peacekeeping missions) within the broader strategy of the US military.

Certainly from the latter half of the 1980s onward, the US military has been profoundly uncomfortable with trying to figure out how to reconcile the growing demands for "operations other than war" and preparing for traditional combat against an enemy in the form of another country with an organized military. This tension has been notable in broad strategic terms of defining the military's role -- and therefore the force structure, weapons platforms and budgets they have to plan to build and maintain.

That is not, however, to say that the US military is totally allergic to using the considerable resources at its disposal for humanitarian purposes. There has been an increasing recognition by a great number of military thinkers and planners -- reflected in training and in choice of specific missions such as the SEALs in Kenya -- that the US military should be good at this stuff. And therefore there are signals, such as awards, that this is important activity to undertake.

But these responsees are, from the view of the US military seen broadly, ad hoc rather than strategic orientations of how missions are identified and organized and how resources are planned for, assembled and deployed. If you need a testimony to ad hocery, Froggy's delightful saga of getting to Kenya is Exhibit 1.

Ms Clift may be "anit-military" to the marrow. On the other hand, she may be "pro-military." You certainly can't tell from the quote, and I'm not going to spend my time getting into a p*sing match between Blackfive and the fisking of individual journalists.

Rather, the point is that Clift's statement is the same observation made by very pro-military folks who recognize the military faces a conundrum. The quote itself, on its face, is not anti-military at all.

That quote is a nice summation of one of Tom Barnett's major themes. Now Barnett is certainly viewed by large portions of the upper reaches of the US military as "pro" US military. A centerpiece of his diagnosis of current issues is that the US military is having a hard time getting its hands and brains around the fact that the sorts of activities described by Froggy are going to be more and more important in what the US military does -- part of the SystemAdministator function in Barnett-speak. And the military's strategy, forces structure, weapons systems, transports, budgets, etc etc need to be transformed to recognize that fact.

I find it just as tiresome for the "pro-military" types to take umbrage at any bit of plain speaking by the "liberal media" as for the "anti-military" folks to assume that anything the US military does must be bad.

There's a domestic "hearts and minds" campaign that needs to be waged so the American electorate -- both blue and red -- can understand the choices involved in the transformation of the US military that's at hand. The same should be said for promoting a better understanding the choices facing us in the critical areas of diplomacy and foreign aid.

I ask rhetorically here at Winds of Change -- one of if not the finest attempts in the blogosphere to deal with these sorts of issues seriously -- how can you contribute to a discourse that's actually the exchange of ideas and information that help frame the choices facing the US. How can you extend the conversation beyond the purely military discussion to look at the complex of resources the US could and should bring to bear in making the world a better place -- which is profoundly in the American national interest. How can you prepare for and engage in the debates we need to have about the choices facing us as the US engages in a needed transformation of its external presence, in all its facets. How can you keep athe conversation from becoming just excuses for one "side" demonizing and misunderstanding "the other side."

[BTW -- this isn't a backhanded slap at Joe's posting of Froggy's tale. Nor is it a criticsm of Winds of Change more broadly. Rather, Joe's post just got me brooding, because the link took me to a "pro-military conversation" that I found profoundly unhelpful and, in the long run, not in the best interest of the US military.]

Good questions and observations, and a worthy subject for discussion - even on a Saturday. Go to it, folks.

My take: the U.S. is cautious about getting involved in Somalia-type humanitarian situations, where it's in the middle of a civil war or an international war. Froggy makes the point - deservedly, I think - that the US military is NOT slow to do this at other times, and in fact does many things for which the Clifts of the world (ignorant as they are about military affairs) give them no recognition and no credit.

As for Clift's statements, let's take them beyond the excerpt and include the whole paragraph in her article Bush Needs to Lead on Tsunami

"Why was the Bush administration so slow to engage? Part of it is institutional inertia. The military doesn’t like to get involved in humanitarian missions, and needed prodding. It’s no small thing to divert an aircraft carrier. The administration disdains the soft, touchy-feely stuff of diplomacy and foreign aid. Bush made a point in his press conference of saying U.S. aid would be coordinated with three other countries—Australia, Japan and India—an obvious detour around the U.N. relief agency, and another slap at the world community."

Well, this clearly isn't just a general observation. There is little question that this is a hostile comment directed at the tsunami relief efforts of the U.S. military, who has led the world in the response on the ground. The rest of the article, which utterly ignores that effort to date, is even more hostile.

That those who have watched as the U.S. military saved lives on the ground while Clift's beloved U.N. worked to exploit the tragedy and do nothing (q.v. The Diplomad's excellent posts from the front lines ) should take umbrage at her ignorance and omissions... well, that is hardly surprising.

There's lots of room for people of good will to discuss these things, and the issues Praktike has raised (dude, if you take out the Clift stuff you have your first Winds post I think) are all good ones.

But the "good will" part matters, and Clift has neither good will nor real understanding - and people are right to react in the same spirit.

Joe's comment has me ruminating further. So here's installment 2 on "thinking and discourse in the blogosphere." It's not a question of "how to win friends," but it certainly is "how to influence people." Hey, it's Saturday. And this doesn't exactly undermine the "good news" spirit.

The "goodwill" exception Joe makes is one I think all of us understand. That's why I explicitly didn't go beyond the four corners of the Clift quote. In Froggy's shoes (hell, in my own shoes) I'd be royally p.o.'d by any cavalier or snide dismissal of US military support for humanitarian assistance. And I wasn't in anyway attacking Froggy's response to the Clift quote on a personal level.

I was trying to make the broader point that an issue has to be looked at at both the individual or episode level -- Froggy's description of a state of affairs that not enough people know about -- and the bigger structural level where the Clift quote got an important but partial bit of the story. I reject neither. But neither is complete. For purposes of this discussion, I'm setting to one side the issue of intent entirely.

What I'm suggesting -- and perhaps the Froggy example isn't the best, but then it was the one that got me trying to articulate the problem -- is to change a bit how we all think and react when we see a story or comment that gets only part of the story right (whether due to ignorance or bias -- distortions for the purpose of partisan hackery is a different matter and should be called out). It's not merely inadequate to say "you're all wrong" -- it's actively counterproductive. How can we instead say, "yeah, that's important but you're missing the rest of the story. And by failing to tell the rest of the story, you're misleading yourself and others by omission."

See, I believe that when the responder is dismissive and snide about the partially-correct statement (and btw Froggy was neither, he wasn't going there), the responder is equally guilty of misleading by omission. Doesn't matter whether the interlocuteurs are full of the milk of human kindness -- both sides are misleading themselves and others and certainly not moving torward possible better understanding of issues or choices. [BTW - it probably wouldn't hurt each of us if, when we're in responder-mode, we occasionally recognized that we all may be just a tad ignorant or just a smidgen biased, ourselves. I know from personal experience that's easier said than done. I've already demonstrated a total lack of human kindness once today on another site, though I must say I think it was completely merited.]

The Froggy post is simply an example of something that really bugs me. And it probably got my fingers moving on the keyboard precisely because it was a great post. I found his story a terrific illustration of an important part of a much bigger story. My gut reaction was, what a shame that his story can't be used help folks understand what's involved when we talk about how, when and where the US military does and should respond in the world. Again, in Barnett-speak, here's a great example of what the roles would be of a SystemAdmin. And what we could be doing all over the place -- but should we be doing it?

Joe's started down that road in his comment by starting to elaborate a useful distinction between the situations that involve peacemaking/peacekeeping, not just humanitarian assistance. I'm not going to go pursue that discussion further here -- I'd just say that the line is hard to draw, and there's been a lot of thought about it by, and internal debate among, US military strategists, planners and operations guys. Assuming there's a willingness to pursue a SystemAdmin role, do you buy Barnett's proposals for how to organize and manage that role in a separate group? Assuming you reject the SystemAdmin role, either because you think it's a bad idea or it's simply not realistic politically, then how do we triage the humanitarian needs, now much capacity does the US maintain for those purposes if any, what does the US expect from others in this field? All this needs to become a more explicit part of the political debate, and Froggy's story illustrates a number of the practical issues that would have to be thrashed out. But that's another discussion. [My less-than-enthusiastic reaction to the Diplomad's stream of condemnation of the UN is also for another day. My silence should not be taken as acquiescence.]

My broader concern here -- far beyond the issue of humanitarian assistance -- is how to keep pushing ourselves to overcome the structural imperatives of an ever-accelerating media cycle, the comment/response/counter-response structure of blogging, and the passions of a world in the midst of some profound transformations (or shifting Rule-Sets in Barnett-speak) that Winds of Change tries to document and understand. How to rise above the seemingly inevitable point-counterpoint of dismissing or condemning the "opponent" when the opponent is our fellow citizens. It's tough, and it's not all that evident how we can do it.

The turn of the 21st century hasn't suddenly seen the emergence of a new dilemma unknown in human history. It's just the same collection of issues common to human social interaction, communication, and influence -- but the form and dynamics are moving onto some new ground. So we sometimes have to reformulate or rethink some eternal verities.

Take the 20th century business world of capitalist "cut-throat competition." About 25 years ago somebody suddenly said, "you know, successful negotiators seem to be those who don't beat the other guy's brain in but are those who find "win, win" outcomes." Hah, epiphany! As if that hadn't been true of negotiations for all of human history. But sometimes we need a little refresher course.

I've developed a similar formula for describing how people influence collective decison-making. The observation isn't profound, but it's a handy shorthand for some important group dynamics. Those who try to influence others in a group tend to be either no, and... people or yes, but... people. Here's what I mean.

Take two people who are part of a larger group, and who share the same assessment about what the facts are and what should be done.

When the no, and... person -- I call "Dr NO" -- tries to communicate information and influence the group's collective opinion about what should be done, he starts by identifying where the other members of the group "just don't get it". He then adds some other areas which aren't as controversial or where there's already lots of agreement. Surprise, surprise, most of the group has already tuned out "Dr NO" by the time he gets to where there's potential common ground. And the odds that the group is going to accept Dr NO's proposals for action are small indeed. Dr NO's only recourse for getting his suggestions "accepted" is to bring in the guns of authority and impose it.

The yes, but... person -- my "YES-man" -- works the street from the opposite direction, finding the agreement areas (even if it takes a microscope to find them) and building from there. YES-man starts out by saying, "hey, you're right about that, but have you considered...." And miracles of miracles, the group is much more tuned in and receptive to the "but... " portion from YES-man. That's true even if YES-man's "but have you considered..." is actually a complete rejection of the opinions and decision preferences of the rest of the group.

Interesting thing about the YES-man. The YES-man often is more likely to modify his personal opinions or adjust his suggestions based on what the YES-man learns from others when the group has an open and non-threatening discussion. But Dr NO is more likely not to take on board new information from others in the group or adjust his original proposals.

Unfortunately, I'm finding even some of the best voices in blogosphere debates are becoming Dr NOs. [I'm not talking about partisan battles -- hey beating the other guy's brains in is a perfectly legitimate objective sometimes. "Win, win" is for negotiations, but when the votes are counted, sometimes one side's "win" is the other side's "lose" regardless of how it's packaged.]

But the bottom line (ah, she finally gets there) is that each of us is not doing our own causes any good when we fail to say -- "hey you're partially right but here's the rest of the story," or "while you're thinking about that, you might consider...".

The real challenge is not to "win" the argument -- nobody's keeping score and blogging awards aren't exactly the way to be set up financially for life, at least not yet. The challenge is to educate others about choices we deeply care about, to influence the way they view those choices, and hey, the great ambition of all of us, actually help get better choices made.

Though I recognize few of us thought our mission in life was to become "yes-men," in my terms, what we need are a lot more YES-men and a lot fewer Dr NOs.

You've got to find a way to package these 2 comments up as your first Winds post, praktike. Surefire winner.

Uh, Joe. This is nadezhda here, not praktike. I'd hope prak agrees with a bunch of this stuff. And I know we get everybody confused with our multiple separate and joint sites etc. But we're kinda different (like starting with gender and age and the fact that I produce infrequent voluminous posts and comments a few places and he is ubiquitous, peripatetic and a master of the three-line comment).

I'd be delighted to do a joint effort with praktike to massage this stream-of-consciousness outpouring of mine into a post for you. Is that what you had in mind?

Other option -- If prak doesn't want to devote time to that effort or doesn't fully agree with the position I'm suggesting here, I'd be happy to do a one-time post for you.

What do you think?

Oh BTW Joe -- many thanks for your kind remarks. Glad you appreciated my Saturday outpouring and hope it met the spirit if not the letter of "good news."

Heh, maybe this is a sign we ought to front-page a "Who Are We" section of author bio links on the CN site...

nadezdha -

That's seriously good.

If we can inject some of what you call the "yes-man" style into political dialog - even among the amateur blogs - we'll have accomplished a lot.

Sign me up.

A.L.

A.L. -- Thanks.

BTW, I'm not condemning an author for writing a post that lets forth a good blast when the author needs to vent on a topic. Venting is sometimes a very useful mode of expression, both for the vent-or to get something off his chest and, by making points vividly, to help people who share his general perspective understand why he feels his points are important. I'm talking more about how we engage with each other, in the broader blogosphere. I have to remind myself that venting isn't a very helpful way to change hearts & minds.

I'm going to abuse Joe's hospitality a bit more and expand further on communicating in the blogosphere. Call this Installment #3. Praktike will hopefully help me pull this stuff together.

You know it's easier said than done to force oneself to adopt a "Yes, but" approach due to the structural biases of the blogosphere. We have to fight not to tee off.

Nonetheless, the reason I'm so attracted to blogging when I never found UseNets and discussion forums attractive is that the author/commenter relation seems to produce some sense of respected space. One reason, of course, is that commenters on blogs are there at the suffrance of the author. In the last resort, the author can remove the commenting function from the site completely.

Prior to the use of the ultimate weapon, however, the author can influence the tone and shape of the blog's participants through lots of subtle signals that don't include authoritarian measures like banning. Many of those signals aren't employed consciously by the author, but rather are part of the author's sense of personal style and sense of what he wants the blog to be. The most successful blog communities are where the participants share with the author and each other a shared sensibility of where the amorphous boundaries are and use a "shaming" or, better yet, "shunning" tactic (don't feed the trolls!) It's much like a good bar where the denizens generally control the goings on, though the bartender sets the tone and every once in a while has to enforce house rules.

This more controlled or shaped space has produced a discipline on blogging that's been much more successful than UseNet groups who rely on a moderator to try to impose a modicum of civility. Civility isn't the same as conversation. The former merely means that you don't engage in overt insults and fighting words. Conversation is a difference in kind, not degree -- it implies some degree of respect, of the person if not of the person's ideas or opinions. So merely banning profanity, for example, doesn't produce conversation. We've all been in face-to-face groups that have members who have earthy, ribald and colorful ways of expressing themselves but whose styles don't foreclose conversation. They may be some of the most valued members of the group, especially if the style is accompanied by humor -- which is another key element of successful conversation. When we're discussing serious subjects about which we're passionate, we'd better be able to laugh at ourselves!

There are some neat think-pieces that are starting to be done about the social dynamics of blogging that are providing the first glimmers on what's different about this new type of virtual social space we're creating.

The blogosphere and its tools are evolving at an accelerating pace. But we still don't have all that many good formats for more leisurely and thoughtful exchanges. Winds of Change -- with its structural overlay of regular topics and authors -- is a useful innovation in that regard. Though any one thread can get off track, the community-memory, the archives, the regular authors and commenters -- all contribute to something beginning to approximate sustained conversation. As a general rule, in places where people feel comfortable that they can go for sustained conversation -- whether those places are physical or virtual -- Dr NOs don't last very long.

A blog environment dominated by Dr NOs either becomes a flame space a la UseNets, if the Dr NOs are on opposing sides, or an echo chamber if they're on the same side. I suppose there's a niche for everyone in the emerging Long Tail market, those just aren't the niches I'm interested in inhabiting. [For those who haven't discovered LongTail, I'm a meme vector and proselytize at every opportunity. Here's the LongTail site, and here's one of the things I've done recently on the LongTail, in this case with respect to science-blogging.]

The result of these various forces is that taking the YES-men pledge not only requires some self-discipline. We also have to good-humoredly remind each other when we stray too far from our pledge.

Nady -

I couldn;t find an email for you on your site (mine is on the masthead), and was going to email you this, but will post it here instead.

"Finally, if political education is to effective it must grow from a spirit of humility on the part of the teachers, and they must overcome the tendencies toward self-righteousness and self-pity which set the tone of youth and student politics in the 1960's. The teachers must acknowledge common origins and common burdens with the taught, stressing connection and membership, rather than distance and superiority. Only from these roots can trust and hopeful common action grow."

A.L. -- Thanks for both the quote and the link to your article where you originally posted it. Just remember, we all were snot-nosed kids once. I actually think Matthew manages his quasi-celebrity pretty well given both his age and his quite obvious talent, but he does deserve a bit of headbanging once in a while. He takes it on the whole with good humor.

As for the email address, I've been shifting a bunch of stuff around over the last week or so on the blog, and the contact info etc has somehow not survived. I'll get that straightened away, and thanks for noting it.

ah, just returned to this thread. nadezhda, you should do a post wrapping all of your ideas on blogging and permanence and long tails and taxonomy and whatnot, if Joe is willing. I think that Joe makes a deliberate effort to have good metadata, so he'd probably be interested in your thoughts.