A study for the US military, written in 2006, suggests that – in order to win the propaganda war – the military should consider “clandestinely recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers.” This in order to combat enemy propaganda and, of course, to spread its own “message” (read: propaganda).

The report, titled “Blogs and Military Information Strategy,” is a 2006 report for the Joint Special Operations University. It’s written by James Kinniburgh and Dororthy Denning.

So what’s the report all about?

Traditionally there were two views on blogs in the US military: one group saw them as security risks and unreliable, the other group (with prominent members like Gen. David Petraeus) “considers blogs to be a valuable source of information, and a way for ordinary troops to shape opinions, both at home and abroad.”

But the report “offers a third approach — co-opting bloggers, or even putting them on the payroll.” Kinnigburgh and Denning write:

Information strategists can consider clandestinely recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers or other persons of prominence… to pass the U.S. message. In this way, the U.S. can overleap the entrenched inequalities and make use of preexisting intellectual and social capital. Sometimes numbers can be effective; hiring a block of bloggers to verbally attack a specific person or promote a specific message may be worth considering. On the other hand, such operations can have a blowback effect, as witnessed by the public reaction following revelations that the U.S. military had paid journalists to publish stories in the Iraqi press under their own names. People do not like to be deceived, and the price of being exposed is lost credibility and trust.

An alternative strategy is to “make” a blog and blogger. The process of boosting the blog to a position of influence could take some time, however, and depending on the person running the blog, may impose a significant educational burden, in terms of cultural and linguistic training before the blog could be put online to any useful effect. Still, there are people in the military today who like to blog. In some cases, their talents might be redirected toward operating blogs as part of an information campaign. If a military blog offers valuable information that is not available from other sources, it could rise in rank fairly rapidly.

The second option, therefore, is a reliable one, but it takes a whole lot of time to make a blog prominent. Having said that, blogs that are useful and add something to the overall debate will rise quickly. I’ve participated in the blogosphere for a couple of years now and that I know: add something, be different, and you’ll be reasonably big in a reasonably short amount of time.

Back to the report: according to the US military the study was purely an “academic exercise.” That’s possible of course. But it’s also possible that the military did act on the report. But if they did, they’re not going to tell us, the operation being clandestine and all.

The Liberal Journal adds some interesting information about the (il)legality of such a program:

 Internationally, there is no prohibition on psychological operations during military operations. This is because PSYOPs can be effective in getting the enemy to lay down their arms, and hence save lives–at least theoretically. The only limitations appear to be threatening a civilian population or inducing war crimes.

However, it is illegal under the Smith-Mundt Act for the U.S. government to disseminate propaganda domestically. Which raises the issue, today, of the Internet and its global reach. Producing a false news report abroad and domestically has almost the same effect nowadays, and the Smith-Mundt Act hasn’t been amended to deal with the new information paradigm. So, if a private news agency, or American blogs pick up and spread a blog or news story which is planted by the U.S. abroad, it’s most likely not illegal because they’re not targetting a domestic audience. But it’s not hard to imagine a scenario where the government can be coy about not intending that result.

If you put something on the Internet, it can be read everywhere and if it’s important it will be read everywhere.