Admiral James G. Stavridis PhD will soon take up his new post as commander of U.S. European Command and NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe. In an interview with the Florida Times-Union Admiral Stavridis talks about strategic communications, COIN and compares Colombia and Afghanistan.
What will you take from your experiences at Southcom that will shape how you do your new job?
I think I will try to approach my job at NATO with three things in mind: international partnerships, interagency cooperation within the U.S. government and strategic communications. I think those three approaches will be the pillar of how I will try to do my job both at NATO and at U.S. European Command.
What do you mean by strategic communications in this sense?
I mean deciding what our message is and thinking about how to communicate it in new and innovative ways. I’ll give you examples: Facebook. Twitter. Linked-in. I’m on all those social networking mechanism…. I think that it’s extremely beneficial to use these new methods of moving information. Secondly, I think strategic communication has to be interactive. In other words, instead of simply trying to blast your message out there, you need to understand how to use feedback both from your partners and from those with whom you are competing and from those who are your enemies. You have to understand all of those feedback loops and then adjust your strategic communications. And then, thirdly, I think that an essential part of strategic communication is understanding the language and the culture of your partners, both of which are very important to me. I speak Spanish and French; I’m learning Portuguese.
How does being an admiral rather than a general shape your approach to the NATO job and what challenges will it bring not being a ground-force commander?
As far as my connection with ground force operations, I’m comfortable that the level of time and effort I’ve put in in study and in the joint world will make me effective. Let’s face it: The operations I’ve been most focused on in South America has been the insurgency in Colombia. My experience there will translate well to my role as the NATO commander in Afghanistan, which is, let’s face it, an insurgency, drug-fueled, obviously 100 percent different in many ways. But, my experiences in understanding and learning counter-insurgency I think are up to the task.
Interesting. I haven’t heard that comparison made between Colombia and Afghanistan before.
Both are insurgencies seeking to topple the government, both are drug fueled. In Colombia it’s a political insurgency. In Afghanistan, it is a deeper, more cultural, religious-based insurgency. But insurgency is something I’ve studied and learned about and I’m comfortable I can be a contributor.
Hmmm…
There’s something else I think is exciting about Admiral Stavridis’ posting this side of the pond – his concept of Humanitarian Service Groups (Pdf). The traditional carrier battle group model is not well suited to hearts and minds missions of today’s hybrid wars (Pdf). While Admiral Stavridis thinking was in the context of Southcom’s role in Latin America – I think there is great potential for translating his idea across to Europe. In a nutshell:
The idea is that instead of having a group of ships centered on an aircraft carrier, whose primary mission is to launch strikes on shore, we ought to have groups of ships that have as primary functions training, providing humanitarian disaster relief, and U.S. smart power in Latin America supporting humanitarian projects. What I am thinking about specifically is centering a group around a hospital ship and then including in that group several smaller ships that bring training capability with them.
Given previous ESDP missions I wonder if the first European Smart Power Initiative (ESPI) might be the assembly of a new multinational battle group centred around a hospital ship such as Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) Argus, currently undergoing a refit, and ready for action soon…
