People, Culture and Ethics (Spotlight Brief 1/ 21)

Countering Violent Extremism in Indonesia: Using an Online Panel Survey to Assess a Social Media Counter-Messaging Campaign

Source: RAND Corporation – 2020

The increase in social media influence and penetration has brought significant opportunities and complications from a national security point of view. This report assesses the effects of countering violent extremism-themed social media content used in a campaign to promote tolerance, freedom of speech, and rejection of violence in Indonesia. With the continued high likelihood of extremist organisations operating within Australia and the Indo-Pacific region, having information warfare and cyber tools that aid in countering them is essential. This report suggests some opening steps toward developing and adopting such tools. Of interest in the case study provided is the tension between maintaining the secrecy of our capabilities and actions in the cyber/information worlds and the requirement to share with allies and partners, including non-military actors.

Further reading:

‘Women in preventing and countering violent extremism’, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 02 Feb 21

‘A global effort to counter extremism through education’, Brookings, 25 Jan 21

‘New Indonesian law empowers communities against extremism, but some fret about rights’, The Straits Times, 19 Jan 21

‘From COVID to the Caliphate: A Look at Violent Extremism Heading into 2021’, United States Institute of Peace, 15 Dec 20

‘Countering the use of the Internet for terrorist purposes’, Organization for Security and Co- operation in Europe, 2020

Detecting the need for change: How the British Army adapted to warfare on the Western Front and in the Southern Cameroons

Source: European Journal of International Security – November 2020

We often utilise overarching theories describing why some militaries are successful at innovation and others are not. The authors propose taking a single step from business and economics literatures on organisational change, the art of detecting failure, as a heuristic to explore the introduction and optimisation of innovation. This can be challenging for those in the fight or immediately afterwards; here Michael Hunzeker and Kristen Harkness highlight the essentialness of institutionalised feedback loops and how they should be constructed. Historical cases of conventional and counter-insurgency efforts by the British Army are used to inform comparisons of results.

Further reading:

‘Application of Innovation, Risk Tolerance, Opportunism and Leading through and beyond failure within the Australian Army’, Centre for Australian Army Leadership, 19 Feb 21

‘How 'Small C' Change Can Beat Large-Scale Rebuilding’, Harvard Business School, 13 Jan 21

‘Why Do 75% of Change Management Programs Fail?’, locomote, Jan 21

‘Bringing the Army to innovation’, War on the Rocks, 24 Dec 20

‘America’s military needs an innovation overhaul’, Fast Company, 08 Dec 20

Captains of War: History in Professional Military Education

Source: The RUSI Journal – Dec 20

The Australian Army has made recent strides in improving its understanding, delivery, and support of professional military education (PME). Louis Halewood and David Morgan-Owen examine the role of history in PME in light of the recent US Joint Chiefs of Staff’s guidance on achieving ‘intellectual overmatch’. Halewood and Morgan-Owen argue a narrow approach to the past, underpinned by preconceived notions of ‘relevance’, undermines what ability history has to serve the aims of military education. History need not be ‘applied’ to make it valuable. Its study can provide a broader understanding of warfare – what Sir Michael Howard referred to as the important contexts of war which careful study of military history provides. With our increasing emphasis on the so-called ‘STEM’ side of PME, it is useful to remember that while STEM may suggest the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ , it is history that helps contextualise the ‘why’ of war.