CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS IN GLOBAL POLITICS

Erasmus Mundus External Cooperation Window (EU) Pultusk Academy of Humanities (Poland)

Rivne Institute of Slavonic studies (Ukraine)

CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS IN GLOBAL POLITICS

RESEARCH PROJECT

by

Shynkaruk A.L.

Assistant Professor of

International relations faculty of

Rivne Institute of Slavonic studies (Ukraine)

- 2008 -

CONTENTS

PART I: NEW FOREIGN POLICY COMMUNICATIONS ..... 3

Media ........................................16 Methods ......................................21

PART II: GWOT. CRISIS MANAGEMENT IN MODERN BATTLE OF IDEAS .............................. 25

Messages .....................................31 Rapid response team .......................... 32 “New Way Forward” Case: September 2007........38

PART III: KOSOVO CASE. EU CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS IN INTEGRATION AND ENLARGEMENT PROCESSES ...... 51

EU civilian crisis management................. 52 Come to Europe! .............................. 57

PART IV: RUSSIAN FEDERATION. MODERN FOREIGN POLICY COMMUNICATIONS IN CRISES SITUATIONS .... 70

Russian-Georgian relations.................... 76

PART V: UKRAINE. FOREIGN POLICY MANAGEMENT. CRISIS COMMUNICATION APPROACH................. 95

Foreign policy management of Ukraine..........95 Bistro Plan: Yushchenko post-crisis campaign..98 Wild Energy: “gas war” of Ukraine and Russia.102 Echo of Dreams: Yanukovych and crisis of President foreign policy .................... 109 We’ll be the first: Tymoshenko...............113

Crisis communicatons in global politics 3

PART I:

NEW FOREIGN POLICY COMMUNICATIONS

Statistics of modern international relations shows some associate tendencies.

First of all, growth of globalization and technical revolution of ICT which have made

world politics more transparent and increased the effects of changes in any region of the

world. Secondly, change of the system of intergovernmental relationships from bipolar

on multipolar global system "peppered with fragile, failing, and failed states, and in

which large areas have been ravaged by years of violence, contestation, and uneven

development"1. The third and the most important element was new features of conflicts

and crises arising up between the states. Not looking on considerable reduction of the

armed (civil) conflicts as compared to the period of Cold war, social conflicts got new

qualities. Foremost it was the growth of conflicts and diplomatic crises in the

intergovernmental relations, related to the resources supplies, their transit and right of

ownership. According Ploughshares researcher Ken Epps "some kind of uneasy

balance" of small wars emerged. Researchers from HIICR also noted that non-violent

political conflicts have constant tendency of growth and they also indicated a change in

conflict conduct. While fewer conflicts were fought out with the systematic use of large-scale violence, more and

more disputes were waged with the sporadic use of violence, e.g. ambushes, guerilla attacks,

bombings and the like2.

Former director of Swedish SIPRI A.J. K. Bailes marked that a modern world

linked to “risks” and “threats” for human security and survival3. The main task of the

state and society is to take into account all spectrum of risks for correct definition of

priorities of conflict management. However such definition, according to A.Bailes, is a

difficult process, as it is necessary to take into account different factors: natural

catastrophes, social or economic instability, terrorist actions etc. for estimation,

probabilities, consequences (effect of domino) of risks and crises. Besides “technical” 1 Marshall M.G., Goldstone J. Global Report on Conflict, Governance and State Fragility 2007 Foreign

Policy Bulletin (2007), 17: 3-21 Cambridge University Press 2 CONFLICT BAROMETER 2007 // Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research

[http://www.hiik.de/en/konfliktbarometer/index.html] 3 Bailes A. A world of risk // SIPRI Yearbook 2007 Armaments, Disarmament and International Security

[http://yearbook2007.sipri.org/files/YB07Intro.pdf]

PartI: New Foreign Policy Communications

4

models of crises management should be expanded in order to cover the transnational,

often global, diffusion of many major risk factors today and to assess the vulnerabilities

or resilience of the world system as a whole.

Bailes also noted that "it is tempting to act to pre-empt, as well as limit and

eliminate, risk. In traditional warfare or power play, the costs of this and the ways to

reduce possible backlash are relatively well understood. The post-cold war environment

has facilitated many kinds of interventionist action (not just military) but has made the

consequences harder to assess and to master—especially when confronting non-state

actors. Views on targets and the legitimacy of various methods vary widely around the

world. Forceful approaches such as the USA’s military ‘pre-emption’ efforts can bring a

stronger backlash than anticipated from stubborn opponents, the domestic audience and

world opinion. Risk may also be ‘displaced’, so that the consequences affect innocent

parties or rebound on the initiator by another route. Fundamentally, it is futile to address

a risk without considering how one’s own behaviour may generate or aggravate it. Thus,

risk-based security analysis may actually be a useful brake on potential recklessness".

The risks, threats and “unexpected” events become thus defining feature of

modern international relations and change the structure of foreign relations

management. In particular, decision-making process becomes less hierarchical and

results in enlargement of functions of diplomacy from traditional representation,

reporting, and negotiation to additional facilitation and coordination. According to Net

Diplomacy authors “this situation reflects a shift away from clearly defined, more or

less hierarchical relationships toward a more fluid and dynamic, less hierarchical and

well-defined organization that must deal with crosscutting equities, continually

changing boundaries and jurisdictions, and formal and informal agencies and

interests”4. The subject of international relations also broadens: besides balance of

powers, weapons control and borders control, such issues as refugees, human rights,

transnational crime and terrorism, drugs, and the environment, as well as economics,

international trade, financial flows, trade, intellectual property and technology concerns,

labor standards, and negotiations over technical standards and protocols pass from area

of "low politics" into international relations.

4 Net Diplomacy I. Beyond Foreign Ministries. Diplomacy in the Information Age: Implications for

Content and Conduct [http://www.usip.org/virtualdiplomacy/publications/reports/14b.html]


These circumstances show that modern foreign policy is far beyond the relations

between elites and leaders. So, development of international economic relations results

in a necessity to strengthen efficiency in-depth interaction with broader audiences. The

active use of ICT (important source of changes) becomes one of the tools of this co-

operation, as “diplomats and MFAs have lost the monopoly on information about

foreign affairs. They are no longer the sole voice of the sovereign and representative of

the state, and they do not control the flow of information to and from their

governments”.

Nature of such system-functional changes does actual so-called crisis approach

for optimization of governance. However, in this case it is important to note opinion of

James L. Richardson5, who wrote in 1994, that diplomacy in wide sense as process of

formulation of purpose and policy, decision-making and co-operation with other states

can not fully use crisis-management principles, because it hides the problem of

international politics, when any side wants to lose in a conflict. At the same time CM is

aimed to decline conflict of divergences for different participants of international

relations. Author also marks that term “management” creates additional frames

requiring technical rationality and efficiency of foreign-policy decisions.

Strategies of foreign-policy crisis-management arose up during Cold war (so

called nuclear crisis management) and were related to the policy of retention between

USSR and the USA. On a modern stage CM in international politics is considered as

development of plan and actions related to the humanitarian, military, technical and

other types of threats to national interests of the state or citizens. However, states-

nations as traditional participants of international relations also have a system crisis: it is

necessary to modernize activity of basic participants of foreign policy and to revise

foreign priorities. Thus there is another task: internal transformation of foreign-policy

making of political leaders, MFAs and diplomatic representatives according to

emergence of new forms of foreign-policy management: unofficial, media, cultural,

cyber, digital, public and other forms of diplomacy. According Boin, Hart & Stern “In

times of crisis, communities and members of organizations expect their public leaders to

minimize the impact of the crisis at hand, while critics and bureaucratic competitors try

to seize the moment to blame incumbent rulers and their policies. In this extreme

5 Richardson J.L. Crisis Diplomacy. Cambridge University Press, 1994. 426 p.


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environment, policy makers must somehow establish a sense of normality, and foster

collective learning from the crisis experience… In the face of crisis, leaders must deal

with the strategic challenges they face, the political risks and opportunities they

encounter, the errors they make, the pitfalls they need to avoid, and the paths away from

crisis they may pursue. The necessity for management is even more significant with the

advent of a 24-hour news cycle and an increasingly internet-savvy audience with ever-

changing technology at its fingertips6.

In this situation governmental institutions can not pretend on leadership (it could

be ineffective for the management), but they are able to use experience of multinational

corporations, intergovernmental organizations and NGOs for reacting on new crises and

to revise style of the activity. Consequently, using terminology of strategic

management, it is possible to divide foreign-policy activity into proactive and reactive.

According to I. Ansoff during reactive strategy the reaction does not begin until all

possible operative variants will not be tested. Within the framework of every class of

reactions concrete measures will be tested consistently. The behavior in this case is the

process of tests and errors depending on past experience. At the same time, during

proactive management operative-strategic tasks are examined consistently; however for

specific measures it is used an analytical approach, namely alternative variants are

compared, and in the case of necessity the row of measures provided. For example, the

element of proactive diplomacy is projection of a ‘correct’ image of the country in

adverse situations—even if in reality its capacity to radically or immediately influence

its country’s image perception abroad may be limited7. So Japanese foreign policy consider “strategic information provision as the foundation for

proactive diplomacy”. White paper about Japanese foreign policy stated that in promoting

Japan’s “proactive diplomacy”—that is, diplomacy in which Japan’s goals and intentions are

clearly enunciated—it is critically important that Japan, as a democratic nation, gain the

understanding and support of its people with regard to its diplomatic policy and the role of the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In light of this, beyond (i) intensifying the provision of information

to newspapers, television shows, and other kinds of mass media that the Japanese people interact

with on a daily basis, in recent years, the Ministry has also proactively undertaken new efforts,

namely (ii) publicizing information through the Internet, and (iii) providing information to

6 The politics of crisis management: public leadership under pressure / Arjen Boin ... [et al.]. Cambridge,

UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 182 p. 7 Rana K.S. Bilateral Diplomacy DiploProjects: Diplo Foundation, 2002. 283 p.


eminent persons in various fields. In addition, the Ministry is making efforts to have two-way

communication with the Japanese people by (iv) public relations through dialogue with the

people and (v) gathering public comments and opinions.

However the state is the complex system with strong probability of delays,

therefore reactive strategy of saving and support of steady relations prevails in a foreign

policy before beginning of crisis: "a postponement of start of actions after the awareness

of threat to the moment of appearance of confidence in its existence" (Ansoff). For

example, Soviet strategy of crisis management during Cold War years considered crisis

as an objective situation, corresponding to a period of threat marked by actual

preparations for war. It allowed to USSR to use weak probability of war for the conduct

of foreign policy. Thus, as S.Shenfield noted, once "crisis"—the very antechamber of

war—has been reached, avoiding war takes overriding priority”.

With the origin of instability there are attempts to pass to proactive strategy with

the use of preventive diplomacy for the decline of tension. At further growth of tension

the choice of reactive (attempt of economy) or proactive (choice of optimum variants of

reaction) diplomacy depends on complication of conflict (ordinary crisis or military

collision), and also from quality of management and understanding of situation by

leaders. For this purpose crisis diplomacy and crisis management are used, based on

determination of aims of conflict—for changing of foreign-policy strategy (crisis

approach) and initiation of conflicts or for saving of foreign-policy course and

avoidance of conflicts (countercrisis approach).

However specific of management in international crises is that sides plan to

represent the point of view. As a result there is the row of limitations capable to

influence negatively on the conduct of participants of international crisis. Among them:

wrong communication with different interpretations of news by different sides and

media; psychological stress related to high intensity of international crises and causing

the wrong decisions; inadequate standards of return activity as a result of inflexibility

and inoperativeness of bureaucratic and military structures; casual events-triggers able

to result in escalation of critical statements and transition to the opened opposition8.

8 Stumpf M.S. "Preventing Inadvertent War: Problems and Prospects for Sino-American Crisis

Management." Cambridge, MA: Preventive Defense Project, July 2002. [http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/3118/preventing_inadvertent_war.html?breadcrumb=%2F]


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Professor D. Caldwell described the features of US style of crisis-management during Caribbean

crisis, which however can be typical for the foreign-policy behavior in any state, as related to the

psychological features of president or other key political leader. For example, confidence in that

it is possible to manage a crisis according to personal estimations; unexpected change in the

conduct after the beginning of crisis; to lean exceptionally on the limited number of advisers for

decision-making; persons who have unpopular ides are excluded from advisers of decision-

makers; president’s concentration of authority over power structures; overload of informative

channels during a crisis; use of threat of force (nuclear weapon) as facilities of notification about

seriousness of conflict9.

Post-crisis diplomacy is directed on reduction of conflict. It can be cease-fire

which enables to reduce tension and to transfer the relations in the plane of ordinary

crisis. On this stage it is made basement for proactive diplomacy according to the choice

of optimum form of relations, however if the decision of conflict was attained on the

basis of former experience, there is probability of return of reactive foreign policy.

The similar specific of dynamics of international crises determines the row of

requirements for a foreign-policy crisis management. The correct decision-making thus

needs reduction of time pressure on policymakers and commanders. “One result of the

compression of decision time in a crisis is that the likelihood of undetected attack and

falsely detected attack errors increases”. Important condition is also an offer the other a

safety valve or a face-saving exit from a predicament that has escalated beyond its

original expectations. The search for options should back neither crisis participant into a

corner from which there is no graceful retreat. At the same time each side maintains an

accurate perception of the other side's intentions and military capabilities. This

becomes difficult during a crisis because, in the heat of a partly competitive relationship

and a threat-intensive environment, intentions and capabilities can change. As S.

Cimbala noted further: Intentions can change during a crisis if policymakers become more optimistic about gains or

more pessimistic about potential losses during the crisis. Capabilities can change due to the

management of military alerts and the deployment or other movement of military forces.

Heightened states of military readiness on each side are intended to send a two-sided signal: of

readiness for the worst if the other side attacks, and of a nonthreatening steadiness of purpose in

the face of enemy passivity. This mixed message is hard to send under the best of crisis

management conditions, since each state's behaviors and communications, as observed by its

9 Caldwell D. The Cuban Missile Affair and the American Style of Crisis Management RAND, 1989

[http://www.rand.org/pubs/notes/N2943/]


opponent, may not seem consistent. Under the stress of time pressures and of military threats,

different parts of complex security organizations may be making decisions from the perspective

of their narrowly defined, bureaucratic interests. These bureaucratically chosen decisions and

actions may not coincide with the policymakers' intent, nor with the decisions and actions of

other parts of the government10.

But in most cases crises emerge as a result of lack of information and

communication, thus the choice of reactive or proactive foreign policy depends also on

the system of foreign-policy communications. Thus the key requirement of successful

crisis management is communications transparency based on clear signaling and

undistorted communications. Signaling refers to the requirement that each side must

send its estimate of the situation to the other. It is not necessary for the two sides to have

identical or even initially complementary interests. But a sufficient number of correctly

sent and received signals are prerequisite to effective transfer of enemy goals and

objectives from one side to the other. If signals are poorly sent or misunderstood, steps

taken by the sender or receiver may lead to unintended consequences, including

miscalculated escalation. Communications transparency also includes high fidelity

communication between adversaries.

According to E. Gilboa, “definition of diplomacy… refers to a communication

system through which state and non-state actors, including politicians, officials, and

professional diplomats, express and defend their interests, state their grievances, and

issue threats and ultimatums. Diplomacy is a channel of contact for clarifying positions,

probing for information, and convincing states and other actors to support one’s

position”11. Consequently crisis communications became elements of management in

international relations: issue, media, internet, rumour-management12. They could be

integrated in foreign-policy communications in different forms: traditional diplomatic

activity, preventive diplomacy, propaganda, psychological operations, public

diplomacy, cultural, cyber and media diplomacy.

As a whole crisis communications are estimated as “…dialog between the

organisation and its public prior to, during, and after the negative occurrence. The

10 Cimbala S.J. Nuclear Crisis Management and Information Warfare Parameters, Summer 1999, pp. 117-

28. [http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/parameters/99summer/cimbala.htm] 11 Gilboa, E. 2002. Real-Time Diplomacy: Myth and Reality. In E. Potter (Ed.), Cyber-Diplomacy.

Montreal: McGill-Queen University Press, 83-109. 12 Naveh Ch. The Role of the Media in Foreign Policy Decision-Making: A Theoretical Framework //

Conflict & communication online, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2002 [www.cco.regener-online.de]


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dialog details strategies and tactics are designed to minimize damage to the image of

the organisation…”13. K.Fearn-Banks marks also that effective CC can both eliminate

the crisis but also to influence positively on reputation of organization after a crisis.

Thus the special attention is paid to work with a target audience and public relations14.

However crises communications straightly depend on activity and purposefulness of

foreign-policy departments and diplomats, their ability to work with media and public.

Besides, not looking on the publicness, CC is often used on the stage of origin of

conflict, while by the purpose of CM in foreign policy rather to diminish possible

channels of loss of information or change of accents with the purpose to change public

attention (Wag the Dog Principle). In addition very often the functions of crisis

management and media planning in foreign affairs are passed to external organizations:

to advertising agencies, consulting companies etc., which develop action plan

depending on the features of country or geographical area of conflict.

Crisis communications include strategies according to stages of crises:

prevention, preparation, response and learning. These stages serve as a framework for crisis

communication in a foreign-policy management and for effective communications of

political leaders and missions abroad: Openness—information about an issue released immediately and based on internal and

external opportunities to tell own side of the story.

Agenda Setting—country’s values should be communicated first and only then

representatives should plan reaction of the media.

Relevance—leaders and diplomats should save communication of importance of the issue

in the first place.

Legal Limitations—all international reactions should be based on internal legal counsel

which should coincide with media reaction.

Legal Implications: Cultural—it is important to foresee cultural impact and the laws of

the hosting country-area of conflict.

Release Coordination—leaders and missions abroad should coordinate actions and not to

release conflicting information.

Public Think—main task for foreign affairs crisis management is public perception so

diplomats should address public internally and externally what they would

want to know from representatives during a crisis.

13 Fearn-Banks K. Crisis communications: a casebook approach 3rd ed. Mahwah, NJ:Lawrence Erlbaum,

2007. 384p. 14 Responding to Crisis: A Rhetorical Approach to Crisis Communication. Eds.: Dan P. Millar, Robert L.

Heath. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Mahwah, NJ. Publication, 2003.


Responsiveness—missions should act quickly and responding to any requests for

information, or requests about issues affecting crisis.

Message—diplomats should be especially active in sending appropriate message during the

initial phase of the crisis.

Cultural—international crises should include cultural, ethnic sensitivities and language

elements of communication.

Single Spokesperson—there should be single source of answer during international crisis

from each side.

Firefighter—firefighter diplomacy include person or group, who examine issues during a

crisis that can flare up and/or intensify the situation further.

Understanding of crisis communications in foreign affairs could be improved as

T.M.Woodyard noted that crisis communications and war principles have correlations.

The shared principles are: objective; offensive; economy of force; maneuver; unity of

command; security; surprise and simplicity15.

WAR CRISIS COMMUNICATION

Objective Define the problem and objective, concern

Offensive Concern, answer what happened, direct communication

Economy of force Centralize information flow, crisis team

Maneuver Crisis team, contain the problem

Unity of command Centralize information flow, crisis team, spokesperson

Security Centralize information flow, direct communications

Surprise Answer what happened, concern

Simplicity Centralize information flow, crisis team

However it determines as well specific of crises communications in the

international relations. In comparison with natural, humanitarian, technical catastrophes,

the political conflicts of international meaning have mainly hidden goals, that influences

at choice of strategy of conduct of sides: confrontation or collaboration. As a result, the

sides of international conflict follow foremost internal national interests for creation of

the crisis program of actions at diplomatic, political or power level. Some kind of

rivalry arises up between two and more programs of activity in a crisis situation, in

mainly political international conflicts the fight goes for positive perception by public of

events, not for the decision of conflict.

15 Woodyard T.M. Crisis communication: A commanders guide to effective crisis communication

[http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/acsc/98-307.pdf]


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Before crises communications were part of information work of diplomatic

missions and such activity was concentrated around informing of elites. Revolution in

information and communications technologies (ICT) has transformed the ways in which

diplomatic communications take place. Governments and other diplomatic actors have

new tools to communicate directly to publics without having to use traditional channels

of mediation. The emergence of these capabilities has had the effect of blurring the

boundaries between three once rather distinct forms of political communication:

propaganda, lobbying, and public diplomacy. Specialists define three vectors of

communication work used by militaries and diplomats: Public Affairs (PA),

Psychological Operations (PSYOPS), and Information Operations (IO). The latter type

of work does not look to influence decisions or “buying habits”, this is primarily a

technical field.

At the same time public affairs and community relations activities directed

toward both the external and internal publics. This is generally a reactive method of

communication designed to explain events after they occur, but not necessarily designed

to influence behavior. They tend to focus on the media as its distribution channel.

Public relations do not necessarily direct their message toward neutral or hostile

audiences. Thus, considering modern stage of public diplomacy we should note that it

united elements of traditional propaganda, crisis management and new technologies.

There are different approaches to definition of public relations in international

relations. According to Bruce Gregory16 public diplomacy, public affairs, non-military

international broadcasting are among core instruments of strategic communications in

conflict zones17. Traditionally term “public diplomacy” has been used in USA as

truthful propaganda. But critics, such as the editors of the National Security Archive at

George Washington University, have viewed it in more nefarious terms, as a form of

"covert propaganda", when "public diplomacy" turned out to mean public relations-

lobbying".

Crisis management potential of public diplomacy could be shortly described by

US Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World which noted

16 Gregory B. Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication: Cultures, Firewalls, and Imported Norms

[http://www8.georgetown.edu/cct/apsa/papers/gregory.pdf] 17 Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Strategic Communication, (Washington, D.C.:

Defense Science Board, 2004), pp. 12-13. [http://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/2004-09-Strategic_Communication.pdf]


that “public diplomacy [was] the promotion of the national interest by informing,

engaging, and influencing people around the world. Public diplomacy helped win the

Cold War, and it has the potential to help win the war on terror."18 Today public

diplomacy priorities concentrated on “the management of the complex issues and fast-

breaking situations”19. As Daryl Copeland argued public diplomacy nowadays aimed on

the resolution of asymmetrical conflict The intensity of interaction and the speed of events that typify counterinsurgency have created a

huge opportunity for public diplomacy. This association of public diplomacy with

[counterinsurgency] is not as much of a stretch as it might initially appear. Conflict situations in

many ways represent the leading edge of the craft, with useful insights to be gleaned for

application to mainstream public diplomacy practice. …Creative, empathetic public diplomats,

fully aware of the background and details of a given conflict, can use local knowledge to learn to

think like, and in certain respects identify with, the insurgents. The potential for intelligence

generation to inform policy, particularly in the critically important area of human intelligence, is

real and substantial.

As a result Daryl Copeland concluded that “public diplomacy [i]s an

indispensable tool in tackling global challenges, in particular the nexus of

underdevelopment and insecurity”.

Besides public diplomacy is seen under different angles from military and

diplomats. First one aimed to use public diplomacy elements as new tool for persuading

foreign audiences meanwhile diplomats mostly speaking about information,

engagement and only then influencing people in other countries. Political and

diplomatic meaning of public diplomacy is also discussed that caused by different

models of foreign policy communications. Brian Hocking noted that public diplomacy

“in the United States rests on state-centered models in which people are seen as targets

and instruments of foreign policy. The dominant question is how to target them more

effectively. The answer usually involves allocating more resources to public diplomacy

programs, adopting a better-coordinated or ‘holistic’ approach, and responding more

rapidly and more flexibly to crisis situations”.

18 "Changing Minds Winning Peace: A New Strategic Direction for U.S. Public Diplomacy in the Arab

& Muslim World," p. 13. (October 1, 2003) [http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/24882.pdf] 19 Copeland D. No Dangling Conversation: Portrait Of The Public Diplomat // ENGAGEMENT Public

Diplomacy in a Globalised World P.138-139 [http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/about-the-fco/publications/publications/pd-publication/dangling-conversation]


14

At the same time, there is another model—network model of public

diplomacy—that “rests on a fundamentally different picture of how diplomacy works…

It recognises the importance of policy networks in managing increasingly complex

policy environments through the promotion of communication, dialogue and trust”.

Besides in the “network [model], the focus is on the identification of policy objectives

in specific areas and of ‘stakeholders’ who possess interests and expertise related to

them20. These stakeholders are viewed less as targets or consumers of government-

generated messages than as possible partners and producers of diplomatic outcomes.

Hierarchical communication flows are replaced by multidirectional flows that are not

directly aimed at policy elites, although the ultimate goal will often be to influence elite

attitudes and policy choices”.

Example of new public diplomacy was proposed by Alex Evans and David

Steven21. In particular they mentioned terrorism as form of public diplomacy and

terrorist organisations that “adopt decentralised organisational structures and seek to

develop alternative sources of authority. And they are innovative communicators,

weaving together the propaganda of word and deed, and exploiting the potential of new

communication channels”. Al-Qaeda, according to Alex Evans and David Steven, has

“steadily degraded from a centralised organisation to an amorphous network, has set out

a simple strategy: entangle ‘the ponderous American elephant’ in conflict overseas, thus

radicalising potential recruits and creating a cycle of violence that aims to ‘make

America bleed to the point of bankruptcy’.

Additionally Alex Evans and David Steven defined strategies of new public

diplomacy: Engagement, Shaping, Disruptive, Destructive. Characteristics of these

strategies show similarity to crisis communications strategies. For example, engagement

strategies based on multiple ways to initiate, feed and broaden a conversation—and

sustain it until a tipping point is reached (accordingly public think and responsiveness).

The aim of shaping strategies is to inject new content, change the composition of key

20 Stakeholders refer to spokepersons in crisis communications. Though definitions of stakeholders vary,

but the most useful is: ‘any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the organisation’s objectives’ (R. Edward Freeman, Strategic management: a stakeholder approach, London: Financial Times/Prentice-Hall, 1983). [Bird C. Strategic Communication And Behaviour Change: Lessons From Domestic Policy // ENGAGEMENT Public Diplomacy in a Globalised World]

21 Evans A., Steven D. Towards a Theory of Influence for Twenty-First-Century Foreign Policy: Public Diplomacy In A Globalised World [http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/about-the-fco/publications/publications/pd-publication/21c-foreign-policy]


networks, or do both simultaneously—given that a new narrative is the best way to

bring new voices into a debate (accordingly release coordination or message). The aim

of disruptive strategies is to marginalise or co-opt opposing interests, or fundamentally

to shift the terms of a debate (accordingly agenda setting). And finally destructive

strategies in public diplomacy used to deny an opponent space. “This is public

diplomacy as propaganda or psy-ops. Deceptive tactics can be used to confuse and

undermine the adversary” (accordingly relevance).

Propaganda and psychological operations are used mainly on the stages of

tension and opened conflicts between the states. Consequently they also are the element

of foreign-policy crises communications and can be estimated according to the features

of strategic (persuasive) communications. It is thus necessary to indicate relationship of

strategic communications and public diplomacy. Depending on dynamics of conflict

and actor, which uses these technologies, character of information work changes.

PSYOPS is a proactive event. It is defined as planned operations to convey

selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions,

motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately influence the behavior of foreign

governments, organizations, groups, and individuals. The purpose of psychological

operations is to induce or reinforce foreign attitudes and behavior favorable to the

originator's objectives. Generally, PSYOPS are used in tactical or operational level

operations to sway the actions of enemy combatants and potential combatants and not

directed to the general populace. Depending on the immediate need PSYOPS may or

may not be truthful. As a result using PSYOPs anywhere other than the tactical

battlefield could hurt us more than help. If the message is perceived as (or is) lies then

we lose credibility.

Specialists from crisis management company Booz Allen Hamilton estimated

eight best commercial and social marketing practices for relevance to PSYOP22.

- Have a strategic communications planning process.

- Segment and re-segment audience.

- Become a customer-centric marketing organization.

- Become results-oriented; pre-test concepts and measure results.

22 Lamb Ch.J. Review of Psychological Operations Lessons Learned from Recent Operational Experience

National Defense University Press Washington, D.C. September 2005 [http://www.ndu.edu/inss/Occassional_Papers/Lamb_OP_092005_Psyops.pdf]


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- Balance long-term brand image with short-term promotions.

- Become a local player.

- Create and engage in communities.

- Use alternative channels and evaluate when to bypass traditional ones.

Media Mass media, new forms of mass communications based on Internet should be

considered as inalienable part of communication management in a modern foreign

policy and international relations. Thus, if the traditional mass-media based on mainly

thematic inertia of attention, concentrated on main events and not lighting other events,

new technologies allow to the audience to take part in presentation of positions of the

different states and social groups, to influence on forming of public opinion and to

create competition of news. As a result, new media besides classic functions of agenda-

setting, framing, priming23 fulfill also function of mediator in the international messages

transmission. Thus often complementing events by non-existent details and distortion of

facts. It often becomes the factor of complication of relations of media and MFA,

because the foreign media use thoughts of national leaders in estimation of other states

and their representatives. And these estimations can’t coincide with a foreign-policy

course of the other country, especially if the countries are in conflict. Besides analysing

the last trends of media, researchers mark considerable reduction of foreign

representative offices of media conditioned by economic ineffectiveness of permanent

presence24.

As a result R.K.Manoff discussed that media's role in conflict management is

quite small. Although, as Manoff noted, media could play the roles of engaging in

confidence building, identifying underlying interests of each party involved,

establishing networks to circulate information on conflict prevention, etc.

Thus development of information technologies requires the constant revision of

media-diplomatic relations, and role of media not always estimated as positive.

Especially in crises situations when, as writes M.Baum, "…media outlets cover major 23 Hulme, S.J. The Modern Media: The Impact on Foreign Policy. Fort Leavenworth, KS, Army

Command and General Staff College, June 1, 2001. 106 p. [http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/army/media-hulme.pdf]

24 Potter, E.H. (Ed.) Cyber-Diplomacy: Managing Foreign Policy in the Twenty-First Century: McGill-Queen's University Press 2002


events in the past, including the entertainment-oriented soft news media. When they do

cover a political story, soft news outlets focus more on “human drama” than traditional

news media—especially the character and motivations of decision-makers, as well as

individual stories of heroism or tragedy—and less on the political or strategic context,

or substantive nuances, of policy debates. …[S]oft news media raise attentiveness to

foreign policy crises. Because they rarely cover ‘politics as usual’, however, soft news

does not raise interest in foreign policy beyond crises. When public attentiveness to

crises rises, in turn, politics becomes increasingly oriented toward the interests and

priorities of the newly attentive segments of the population. In the United States, soft

news reorients politics toward personalities and away from policies"25.

Characterizing coverage of foreign policy Nik Goving specifies that media often

counterproductive for diplomatic activity and crisis management. Too often during discussions or negotiations, the protagonists or delegations perform somewhat

theatrically for the press corps, thereby apparently stiffening their positions and compounding

the problems of mediation or confidence building…. It is misguided for diplomats, the military,

and NGOs to view the "media" as a single, homogeneous grouping of journalists and

broadcasters who act in a predictable, uniform way. The media are neither monolithic or

homogeneous. They are a diverse, highly competitive, unpredictable lot.

During foreign-policy crises unconnected with global problems and not attracting

public as audiences of mass-media, “there is no automaticity to a uniform, international

news response. Indeed, the response of news organisations at all levels has become

increasingly variable and unpredictable”. Besides attention of media can be related to

the editorial policy, but here the selection of events takes place depending on national

priorities of country.

Nik Goving continues that "a crisis in one part of the world can easily be viewed

elsewhere as irrelevant. The level of coverage (or refusal to cover) will often be a

function of national interest and distance from the event. The lower the national interest

and the greater the distance, the less likely it is that news organisations will have

anything more than a passing interest in the developing story. There is no uniform

media response that defies international borders and national identities. Responses to

conflicts depend on considerations like editorial perceptions, the nationalities of those

fighting and the forces being engaged to stop them, calculations about the interests of 25 Baum M.A. Soft News and Foreign Policy: How Expanding the Audience Changes the Policies //

Japanese Journal of Political Science 8 (1) 115–145


18

their audiences, and cash- availability in the news organisation. Gatekeeping theory has

narrowed the media trends in conflicts that are a fickle and nationalistic process”26.

Media functions of agenda-setting and framing are widely used by foreign policy

departments and diplomatic missions. For example such elements of agenda setting as

problem perception, issue definition and institutional attention could be used in foreign

affairs in connection with domestic issues. As a result “the economy of attention is

stable so long as issues persist and problems continue to be defined as important.

Disturbances to this stability may occur, however, due to exogenous events or changing

public perceptions of the relative importance of foreign policy problems”27.

The most disputable phenomenon of media-foreign policy relations is CNN

effect which in fact arose during Somali, Yugoslavia and Iraq crises in 1990ies. In spite

of different estimations of CNN effect there are three basic variations how modern

media could affect international relations in conflict zones. S. Livingston in particular

wrote that media could be accelerant as media shortens decision-making response time

and offer potential security-intelligence risks. Another effect is impediment when

grisly coverage may undermine morale and constitute a threat to operational security.

Third effect is agenda setting when emotional compelling coverage of atrocities or

humanitarian crises reorder foreign policy priorities28 .

Livingston also summurised types of media behavior in different crisis

situations. So, during (1) conventional warfare media and public have the biggest

interest. Experience in recent wars indicates that when and where possible, the military

will attempt to control the movements of journalists and the content of their reports,

behavior rooted in the two concerns outlined above: fear that the “wrong” pictures will

undermine public or congressional support for the effort and, second, that journalists

will inadvertently disclose tactical or strategic information to the enemy. At the same

time, high public interest and the journalist’s ambition and sense of independent

professionalism will lead to efforts to avoid and undermine the military’s attempts to

26 Gowing N. Media Coverage: Help or Hindrance in Conflict Prevention? New York, Carnegie

Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, September 1997. 46 p. [http://wwics.si.edu/subsites/ccpdc/pubs/media/medfr.htm]

27 Wood B.D., Peake J.S. The Dynamics of Foreign Policy Agenda Setting. The American Political Science Review, Vol. 92, No. 1. (Mar., 1998), pp. 173-184.

28 Livingston S. CLARIFYING THE CNN EFFECT: An Examination of Media Effects According to Type of Military Intervention Research Paper R-18 June 1997 [http://www.hks.harvard.edu/presspol/research_publications/papers/research_papers/R18.pdf]


control them. The media will be assisted in these efforts by the greater mobility

provided to them by smaller, light-weight equipment capable of point-to-point

transmissions from anywhere to anywhere on Earth. In conventional warfare, media are

most likely to serve as accelerants and impediments in the policy process. The media

effect of greatest concern to the military in conventional warfare is their ability to

provide adversaries sensitive information. In an era of highly mobile, decentralized,

global, real-time media, the risks to operational security are considerable.

During (2) strategic deterrence it is used “the persuasion of one’s opponent that

the costs and/or risks of a given course of action he might take outweigh its benefits.”.

Thus persuasion involves communication. Typically, media coverage of strategic

deterrent operations during times of relative stability will be highly routinized. The level

of media and public interest will vary according to the perceived stability of the

situation, that is, according to the perceived effectiveness of deterrence. Meanwhile in

(3) tactical deterrence as a rapid response media interest is likely to be extremely high.

Global media are often important and valuable assets to the military, particularly when

time is short and conditions are critical.

(4) Special operations and low-intensity conflict (SOLIC) include counter-

terrorism operations, hostage rescue, and during conventional warfare, infiltration into

enemy territory. Such operations take place in hostile environments, are usually limited

in scope, and are conducted in an envelope of extreme secrecy. Thus they are sensitive

to media coverage.

(5) Peacemaking operations aimed to create the conditions necessary for the

implementation of an accord. The hostile, unstable nature of the peacemaking

environment means media and public interest is likely to be extremely high, at least

initially. As with peacekeeping, if and when a sense of stability is established, media

interest will diminish accordingly. Also as with peacekeeping, the most likely potential

media effect with peacemaking is as an emotional impediment. (6) In Peacekeeping

missions lightly-armed forces are deployed in a “permissive environment” to bolster a

fragile peace. News media will show considerable interest in peacekeeping operations,

though after a period of apparent stability, media interest is likely to flag.

(7) Imposed Humanitarian Interventions objectives are limited to providing

food, medicine, clean, safe water, and a secure but limited geographical location. In


20

these circumstances the military is used for their technical capabilities, such as water

purification, field medicine, and, most importantly, logistical capabilities. Media

interest is likely to be quite high, particularly at the beginning…. This will be

particularly true if correspondents can operate safely in the secure zone established by

the military. Though media content alone is not likely to lead to an imposed

humanitarian intervention, it cannot be ruled out. The media effect of greatest potential

in imposed humanitarian missions is as an impediment. (8) Consensual Humanitarian

Interventions involve the use of the military in addressing the urgent needs of a

distressed population. Such interventions are relatively low-cost, not only in material

resources but also in terms of the potential political capital at stake. If truly consensual,

and if it remains so, there will probably be little sustained media interest in the story.

Media also have the function of framing, which can be important for the

decision-making in extreme situations, at negotiations, for determination of descriptions

of situation, actions of sides etc. According to Robinson frames offer ways of

explaining, understanding and making sense of events29. At the same time most scholars

noted importance of framing first of all for elites. As M.Baum noted ‘cheap framing’ is

important for policymakers and it is made by soft news media. As a result US

politicians using media—“that is, highly accessible, episodic coverage of

sensationalized human drama—by portraying America’s adversaries as the embodiment

of evil, thereby turning virtually any foreign crises into a morality play. For instance,

following 9/11, President George W. Bush repeatedly referred to the hijackers as

‘evildoers’”30.

Character of crisis communications in international relations transformed since

new media based on Internet and mobile communications developed. Although new

media meant both negative and positive consequences. As Matt Armstrong noted new

media has more than 24/7 news cycles with such defining characteristics as

“hyperconnectivity, persistence of information, inexpensive reach, and dislocation with

29 Robinson P. Theorizing the Influence of Media on World Politics Models of Media Influence on

Foreign Policy European Journal of Communication 2001, Vol 16(4): 523–544. [http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/papers/pmt/exhibits/1848/robinson2.pdf]

30 Baum M.A. Soft News and Foreign Policy….


speaker and listener virtually close but geographically distant”31. Consequently Internet

affected and improved crisis communication in such forms as:

1) Decentralization of crisis communication. Crisis communication becomes multi-

directional, more intercultural.

2) Qualification of journalism. Media communication is supplemented by personal

communication.

3) Acceleration of crisis communication. The disembeddedness of Internet

communication relative to time means that there is a continuous flow of

information; news spreads without temporal boundaries. Internet enables

distribution to an unlimited audience.

4) The Internet has become a watch dog of official and journalistic crisis

communication.

5) The Internet becomes a global archive of crisis communication.

6) The Internet creates global virtual communities32.

In international conflicts, as a result, Internet creates possibilities for all parts in

conflict to persuade, mobilize, and facilitate action. Armstrong continues that new

media for terrorist and insurgent amplify and increase the velocity of an issue that is

critical. “They increasingly rely on the Internet’s ability to share multiple kinds of media quickly and

persistently to permit retrieval across time zones around the world from computers or cell

phones. The value is the ability to not just persuade an audience to support their action, but to

mobilize their support and to facilitate their will to act on behalf of the group”.

However it also creates some negative side of Internet in crisis communications.

H. Bucher selected among negative effects: (1) limited access to certain kinds of

information; (2) rumours and hoaxes; (3) false information; and, (4) bias.

Methods For analysis of CC in modern foreign politics this study focuses on the coverage

of three cases: USA in Iraq, Russia on Caucasus, EU in Kosovo, as well as Ukrainian

foreign policy. Counter-crisis measures for change of reputation of the states and

31 New Media and Persuasion, Mobilization, and Facilitation

[http://mountainrunner.us/2008/08/new_media_and_persuasion_mobil.html] August 5, 2008 32 Bucher, Hans-Juergen Crisis Communication and the Internet: Risk and Trust in a Global Media. First

Monday, vol. 7, no. 4 2002 [http://www.firstmonday.org/Issues/issue7_4/bucher/index.html]


22

political leaders is the central concept of these events. For this purpose we estimate

quality of system of the foreign-policy making and activity of foreign media. On the

whole, these concepts can be described in the basic terms of social networks analysis:

degree is count of the number of different categories that connected each other;

betweenness measures the importance of mentioned categories as a link between other

categories. It counts the number of the shortest communication chains throughout the

network that include the category; closeness measures the ability of mentioned category

to send information out through the network or receive information back in. It reflects

the average number of intermediaries needed to reach other categories or receive their

information.

Thus we focus on social network analysis as core approach for definition of

events, their coverage and effectiveness of foreign policy communications provided by

main participants or so called “speakers” (stakeholders). Adequacy of method proved by

other researches of international problems. As H.Anheier and H.Katz33 noted that

“network analysis is useful because global… society is a very relational, ‘networky’

phenomenon. …[Among examples we could mention] Rosenau described global

governance as a framework of horizontal relations; Castells’ argument that actors

increasingly form metanetworks at the transnational level and create a system of

‘decentralised concentration’, where a multiplicity of interconnected tasks takes place in

different sites. Castells points out, technologies such as telecommunications and

Internet brought about the ascendancy of a ‘network society’ whose processes occur in a

new type of space, which he labels the ‘space of flows’. This space, comprising a

myriad of exchanges, came to dominate the ‘space of places’ of territorially defined

units of states, regions and neighbourhoods, thanks to its greater flexibility and

compatibility with the new logic of network society. Nodes and hubs in this space of

flows construct the social organisation of this network society. According to M.

Ratcliffe and J. Lebkowsky34 in political sphere this network process creates “extreme

democracy” (in the context of concept “emergent democracy” of J.Ito35), when people

33 Anheier H., Katz H. Network Approaches To Global Civil Society // in Anheier, Helmut, Marlies

Glasius and Mary Kaldor (eds.). Global Civil Society 2004/5. London: Sage, 2004. [http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/global/Publications/Yearbooks/2004/NetworkApproaches2004.pdf]

34 Extreme democracy. Ed. by Mitch Ratcliffe, Jon Lebkowsky [http://www.extremedemocracy.com/] 35 Joichi Ito, Emergent Democracy // Extreme democracy. Ed. by Mitch Ratcliffe, Jon Lebkowsky

[http://extremedemocracy.com/chapters/Chapter One-Ito.pdf]


become the participants of political process of decision-making, which is based on the

great number of centers linked between themselves by network coalition and organized

on the base of local, national and international problems.

Network metaphor, thus, can be used for the international relations. In spite of

novelty, there are some researches about modern organization of hidden or

decentralized social structures which do not have clear scopes: international

organizations36, NGOs, mass media (especially so called social media), social protests,

religious communities terrorist organizations. Network organizations are also analysed

in military sphere, that related to the change of features of battle operations in modern

conditions. RAND Corporation in 1998 proposed concept “social netwar”37 as new

form of protest.

It is also possible to describe international communications as network

structures, concept of Internet includes network metaphor38, even more such approach

allows to define another concept of “news”. The modern system of mass-media

represents the network of satellites, digital, mobile and other technologies in which the

message published by agency or national media gets an impulse as the reaction of

readers, quoting in other, including foreign, media. So emerges glocalisation of news,

when media managed by economic laws select international news with the purpose

attract audience. Ritzer defines glocalization as “the interpenetration of the global and

local resulting in unique outcomes in different geographic areas”39, as a result Nel

Ruigrok and Wouter van Atteveldt even proposed hypothesis that: newspapers pay more

attention to local events than global events; all news is local; local news is globalized;

the local media will perform a “rally around the flag” role.

The reaction on news and events can be studied on the examples of social

projects, blogs and comments which arise up in Internet. In this case not organizations

or personalities but separate words and combinations of words, which create an

information stream, can become units of SNA. Hyperlinks in similar virtual associations

36 Hafner-Burton E.N., Montgomery A.H. Power Positions. International Organizations, Social Networks,

And Conflict // Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. XX No. X, Month 2005 37 Ronfeldt D.F., Arquilla J., Center A., Fuller G., Fuller M. The Zapatista “Social Netwar” in Mexico,

Rand Corporation, 1998. 168 p. 38 Halavais A. National Borders on the World Wide Web New // Media & Society, Vol. 2, No. 1, 7-28

(2000) [http://nms.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/2/1/7] 39 Cited: Nel Ruigrok and Wouter van Atteveldt Global Angling with a Local Angle: How U.S., British,

and Dutch Newspapers Frame Global and Local Terrorist Attacks Press/Politics 12(1):68-90 2007


24

can also serve as the object of analysis. In both cases, semantic and hypertext SNA

allows to set a subject, activity, emotional colouring of event, estimate geographical or

temporal descriptions of news stream.

Thus, taking into account modern of communications processes, we can specify

on importance of network approach:

1. it is necessary to examine the modern international relations as network of

relations of traditional and new participants;

2. activity of media also finds new quality—decentralization of information

generators related to development of Internet;

3. Nature of news report also changes—independent “life” of event is determined

by the reaction or attention to the report, quotation or foot-note on the report

about an event40.

These features can be used for estimation of foreign-policy communications. For

treatment of large volumes of information on network structures, and also for their

graphic interpretation we can use software NetDraw41, Pajek42, Issuecrawler43.

40 See also: M. Rosvall, K. Sneppen Dynamics of Opinions and Social Structures (August 2, 2007)

[http://arxiv.org/abs/0708.0368] J.C. Gonzalez-Avella, V. M. Eguýluz, M. San Miguel, M. G. Cosenza, K. Klemm Information feedback

and mass media effects in cultural dynamics [http://arxiv.org/abs/0705.1091] 41 Hanneman, Robert A. and Mark Riddle. 2005. Introduction to social network methods. Riverside, CA:

University of California, Riverside [http://faculty.ucr.edu/~hanneman/] 42 Wouter de Nooy, Andrej Mrvar, and Vladimir Batagelj, Exploratory social network analysis with

Pajek: New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 334 p. 43 Rogers R. Mapping Web Space with the Issuecrawler

[http://www.govcom.org/publications/full_list/issuecrawler_1oct06_final.pdf]


PART II:

GWOT. CRISIS MANAGEMENT

IN MODERN BATTLE OF IDEAS

There are few important conditions for modern public diplomacy and

consequently for foreign policy communications. As Dr. Marieke De Mooij noted that

“the ‘western’ model of communication doesn’t work equally well in other parts of the

world” and “communication will be more effective if it is adapted to the communication

behaviour of those at whom it is targeted”44. It is obvious that these conditions are

vitally important for modern US foreign policy communications.

Understanding of necessity of crisis management in US foreign policy arose up

during Caribbean crisis 1962, when R.S. McNamara, J.F.Kennedy's defense secretary,

declared that "there is no longer such a thing as strategy; there is only crisis

management", not crisis prevention or solving45. In 21 century unipolarity of US

position in international relations created more negative than positive moments.

Foremost absence of obvious opponent after Cold war complicated determination of

source of threat to US national interests. September, 11 2001 testified growth of tension

and made crises categories significant for US foreign policy, namely national security

and war with terrorism (which is according to Bush administration proceeded from

Middle East and Muslim world on the whole). Thus, as A. Bailes wrote “the security

behaviour of the United States has been dominated …by its often costly effort to block

new perceived sources of vulnerability”46.

New crisis management in US foreign policy showed up in formulation of Bush

Doctrine in 2002 as unilateral pre-emptive/preventive war to defeat terrorism, stop

nuclear proliferation and democratize global politics, starting with Afghanistan and

Iraq. On the first stage (2001-2004) "diplomatic, military, financial, intelligence,

investigative, and law enforcement actions—at home and abroad" defined as Global

44 De Mooij M. Cross-Cultural Communication in a Globalised World [http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/about-

the-fco/publications/publications/pd-publication/cross-cultural] 45 Caldwell D. “The Cuban Missile Affair and the American Style of Crisis Management” RAND, 1989

[http://www.rand.org/pubs/notes/N2943/] 46 SIPRI Yearbook 2007: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security

[http://yearbook2007.sipri.org/]

Part II: GWOT. Crisis Management of Modern Battle of Ideas

26

war on terrorism, directed "against all those who seek to export terror, and a war

against those governments that support or shelter them" (George W. Bush October 11,

2001). This term was especially actual during preparation of military campaigns in

Afghanistan and Iraq—operations Enduring Freedom и Iraqi Freedom.

First response US actions in 2001 were directed on Afghanistan to capture

Osama bin Laden, destroy al-Qaeda, and remove the Taliban regime which had

provided support and safe harbor to al-Qaeda, however key element of US war on

terrorism became war in Iraq started in 2003 G.Bush declared repeatedly, that Iraq is

"the central front in the War on Terror", where chemical and biological WMD were

placed. Bush and his officials made hundreds of false statements in an PR campaign for

the Iraq war47. For example, on at least 532 occasions top Bush Administration officials

stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, or was trying to

produce or obtain them, or had links to al Qaeda, or both. U.S. media facilitated the

government's campaign of false statements by their largely quite uncritical and

deferential coverage of USG statements, thus providing seemingly "independent"

validation of the false statements in the minds of the U.S. public48.

Official military campaign of encroachment and occupation of Iraq passed in

March-May 2003—“mission accomplished”—however after escalation of tension in

2004 and start of civil war it became obvious that the military stay in Iraq can delay:

"The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every

effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done"49. In 2005 the war was rebranded

into Global struggle against violent extremism (G-SAVE) that has been in use since

at least May 2005 by the Department of Defense. The New York Times reported July 26,

2005 that the "Bush administration is retooling its slogan for the fight against Al Qaeda

and other terrorist groups, pushing the idea that the long-term struggle is as much an

ideological battle as a military mission". In August 2005 US strategy was renamed into

“long war” strategy—term proposed by Rumsfeld50.

47 Study: Bush led U.S. to war on 'false pretenses' // [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22794451/] 48 Public relations preparations for 2003 invasion of Iraq

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_relations_preparations_for_2003_invasion_of_Iraq] 49 'Mission Accomplished,' 5 Years Later

[http://cbs2.com/national/iraq.mission.accomplished.2.713064.html] May 1, 2008 50 Regan T. The 'rebranding' of the war on terror // Csmonitor.com

[http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0728/dailyUpdate.html]


In January 2007 G.Bush declared a shift to “new strategy [that] will change

America’s course in Iraq, and help [to] succeed in the fight against terror”—The New

Way Forward in Iraq51. According to WH fact sheet Iraq in this strategy remained key

element in war on terror: “Our enemies …are trying to defeat us in Iraq. If we step back

now, the problems in Iraq will become more lethal, and make our troops fight an uglier

battle than we are seeing today”. New strategy, meanwhile, was based on six

fundamental elements: (1) let the Iraqis lead; (2) help Iraqis protect the population; (3)

isolate extremists; (4) create space for political progress; (5) diversify political and

economic efforts; and (6) situate the strategy in a regional approach. However, such

strategy also included increase of number of troops in Iraq, that enabled opponents to

criticize G.Bush, and to compare surge and escalation of conflict. Such criticism had

certain base. According to information of ICasualties at the end of 2006 after stage of

disengagement (from December 15 2005 to September 23, 2006) started insurgent

offensive stage (September 23 2006 to February 3, 2007), then started period of US

surge troop buildup (February 4 2007 to June 16 2007)52. Not looking on changing of

priorities, the change of strategy resulted in the increase of killed soldiers exactly in the

first half of 2007 (this year became most “bloody” for US army, 961 soldiers were

killed—about 25% of all period of military actions in Iraq).

US officials and militaries estimated events in 2007 as successful operation

which dramatically improved security in Baghdad and throughout Iraq53 54. But

according to CrisisGroup “in the absence of the fundamental political changes in Iraq

the surge was meant to facilitate, its successes will remain insufficient, fragile and

reversible”. In addition CrisisGroup and SIPRI reported that if before USA tried to set

in Iraq some model of regional democrasy—battle for political control—in 2007-2008

there was necessity to set rational relations between Sunni and Shia groups in Iraq, it

51 Condoleezza Rice Iraq: A New Way Forward Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations

Committee Washington, DC January 11, 2007 52 http://icasualties.org/oif/CasualtyTrends.aspx 53 Kagan K. How They Did It. Executing the winning strategy in Iraq. 11/19/2007, Volume 013, Issue 10

[http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/346ydlgo.asp] 54 Surge Strategy Helping Iraqis Protect Their Country, Bush Says. President cites “hopeful signs” in

dealing with sectarian violence [http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2007/June/20070629171522idybeekcm0.7258112.html] 30 June 2007


28

needs as well to reconfigure the fight against general enemy al-Qaeda as it was

weakened but not vanquished55 56.

As a result US Army is on the stage of surge of operations (from June 17 2007 to

August 2008). It didn’t mean stop of violence as in March-May 2008 Iraq Spring

Fighting exploded in southern Iraq and Baghdad, that began with an Iraqi offensive in

Basra which was the first major operation to be planned and carried out by the Iraqi

Army since the invasion of 2003. The whole fighting followed a lull in the civil war in

Iraq and was the most serious crisis since October 2007.

The whole timeline of military and political events connected to US war on

terrorism, and particular war in Iraq, since 2003 was provided in the frames of Bush

statement that “struggle against international terrorism is different from any other war in

[US] history. [US] will not triumph solely or even primarily through military might”. At

the same time, he defined descriptions of GWOT primary objective—terrorist networks

with global distribution. Thus, it defined key feature of GWOT and war in Iraq:

combination of military and political operations, simultaneously directed on opponent—

Al Qaeda and its supporters, but also on public attention in a whole world and foremost

on public of countries of GWOT coalition participants, as well as on political and public

actors in Muslim world.

In this case it is important to notice so called rules of engagement. These rules

are the method of crisis management uniting the political and military requirements for

the decline of vagueness in public in connection with military operations. As Bradd C.

Hayes noted "tension inescapably exists in a system that subordinates armed forces

under civilian control while retaining military command. Managing this tension by

delineating the boundaries of military action in support of political objectives is another

major role of ROE. Finally, ROE used in managing another related tension—centralized

versus decentralized control”57. In crisis ROE help manage the tension between defense

and political objectives. In wartime ROE are very limited because political and military

objectives are generally in tune. Embedded journalists in Iraq war could be an example

55 Iraq after the Surge II: The Need for a New Political Strategy Middle East Crisis Group Report N°75 30

April 2008 [http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5418&l=1] 56 Stepanova E.Trends in armed conflicts // SIPRI Yearbook 2008: Armaments, Disarmament and

International Security [http://www.sipri.org/contents/conflict/YB08chapter2.pdf/download] 57 Hayes B.C. Naval Rules of Engagement: Management Tools for Crisis July 1989

[http://www.rand.org/pubs/notes/2005/N2963.pdf]


of rules of engagement, troops both embedded media into their operations and worked

on topics to be discussed, conditions of interview and reporting.

Rules of GWOT engagement included attack on Al-Qaeda ideology provided

first of all through civilian field. It would help to avoid clash between USA and Islamic

world caused by lack of credibility. According to US National Strategy for Combating

Terrorism 2006: "In the long run, winning the War on Terror means winning the battle

of ideas"58 so most officials, militaries, researchers etc. noted that GWOT is a struggle

of ideas, based on new environment that completely different from Cold War. From one

side, this collision of different cultures and religions (Christianity and Islam), from the

other side it is conflict between state and non-state formations which successfully apply

new information technologies for the ideological fight, therefore there is a necessity for

the USA to review approaches to diplomatic, military and ideological activity. As a

result battle of ideas in GWOT includes basic elements of crisis communications that

was reflected in U.S. National Strategy for Public Diplomacy and Strategic

Communication (NSPDSC) 2006.: (1) definition of main messages and ideology; (2)

creation of rapid response team; (3) definition of key speakers; (4) definition of key

audience; (5) active co-operation with media.

All these elements are included in complex system of US strategic

communications thus public diplomacy became a US national security priority and core

instrument for GWOT communications management. Although US public diplomacy

has challenges and problems of realisation. First of all it deals with decreasing

international image of the USA since 2003 both in Muslim and European societies59. At

the same time critics of US Middle East policy strengthened as US fights an enemy it

hardly knew. Its descriptions have relied on gross approximations and crude categories

(Saddamists, Islamo-fascists and the like) that bear only passing resemblance to reality.

From the other side GWOT PD strategy also needed reconsideration. As

C.Hayden stated U.S. public diplomacy is losing the "information war," because it is

being outflanked by jihadist media campaigns. Meanwhile U.S. efforts look absurdly

anachronistic as the USA relies on message strategies rooted in Cold War models and

58 [http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nsct/2006/sectionIV.html] 59 Global Unease With Major World Powers Rising Environmental Concern in 47-Nation Survey

[http://pewglobal.org/reports/pdf/256.pdf] 27 June 2007


30

appears increasingly unresponsive to audiences in the Middle East and Islamic world60 61. In 2008 J. Glassman, Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public

Affairs62 stated that "in the early 1990s, the United States, in bipartisan fashion, began to

dismantle this arsenal of persuasion. It was "a process of unilateral disarmament in the

weapons of advocacy." As a result public diplomacy in GWOT faces row of problems

which B.Gregory charaterised as “episodic commitment, organizational stovepipes,

tribal cultures, and excessive reliance on “accidental” personalities”63 64. J. Glassman

also noted that strategy towards public diplomacy have already changed, “budgets have

risen, backing is bipartisan. One of the biggest enthusiasts for public diplomacy in

government is the secretary of defense”.

Last notion shows overlap of interests between USG and DoD in definition of

objectives and directions of public diplomacy. Glassman stressed on “war” as central

objective for modern US public diplomacy “to create an environment hostile to violent

extremism”. That’s why “war of ideas is not a radical departure from overall public

diplomacy strategy. It is an integral part of that strategy”. He also made clear priorities

for war of ideas: first, the United States itself is not at the center of the war of ideas but

couldn’t as well to be a bystander in battle for power in Muslim societies; second, US

will help to destroy Al-Qaeda brand. “The effort is to help show populations that the

ideology and actions of the violent extremists are not in the best interests of those

populations“.

Glassman also defined the methods for “war of ideas”. First, to confront the

ideology that justifies and enables the violence by identifying, nurturing and supporting

anti-Islamist Muslims. Second, cooperation with the private sector and using the best

technology including Web 2.0 social networking techniques, a full range of productive

60 Hayden C. Can branding define public diplomacy 2.0?

[http://uscpublicdiplomacy.com/index.php/newsroom/pdblog_print/070209_can_branding_define_public_diplomacy_20/] FEB 9, 2007

61 Ludowese J.C. Strategic Communication: Who Should Lead the Long War of Ideas? Strategy Research Project [http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/army-usawc/long_war_of_ideas.pdf] 15 March 2006

62 Glassman J. Winning the War of Ideas [http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/pdf.php?template=C07&CID=408] July 8, 2008

63 From the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy: no one in PD conducts PD overseas June 24, 2008 [http://mountainrunner.us/2008/06/from_the_us_advisory_commissio.html]

64 Gregory B. Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication: Cultures, Firewalls, and Imported Norms Presentation at the American Political Science Association Conference on International Communication and Conflict [http://www8.georgetown.edu/cct/apsa/papers/gregory.pdf] August 31, 2005


alternatives to violent extremism. The shorthand for this policy is powerful and lasting

diversion, the channeling of potential recruits away from violence with the attractions of

entertainment, culture, literature, music technology, sports, education, business and

culture, in addition to politics and religion. Our role is as a facilitator of choice. The

third method is to create a broad awareness of the war of ideas throughout the U.S.

government, business, academia. But more than the war of ideas itself. We want to

spread a culture of "active understanding".

The result of such approach transformed into military and governmental interest

in strategic communications. As Todd Helmus noted US military and government “has

spent the past three years studying lessons learned …in Iraq and Afghanistan, is that

like any corporate brand, the US military must make sure its actions match its words.

Otherwise, it won't receive the trust or support of the ever-critical civilian population on

which military operations ultimately depend”. Jack Leslie added that the US

government is increasingly willing to study best practices from the corporate world.

Keith Reinhard also agreed that government agencies are embracing corporate

communications principles65.

Messages As it was mentioned before “war on terrorism” was central element for Iraq war

which lately transformed into “struggle against violent extremism”. Accordingly, as

W.Rosenau noted, “war of ideas” is based on a coherent and powerful set of themes that

are meant to suggest in a general way what the campaign might look like and how it

might be orchestrated. The Islamic world, made up of more than one billion people, is obviously diverse, and so it will

be critical to tailor these themes to Muslims in specific nations or regions and Islamic traditions.

The focus here is on elite and intellectual opinion, although some of these themes might be

adapted for a broader audience: (1) Jihadist-Salafism as an Alien Ideology; (2) Jihadist-Salafism

as a Threat to Islam; (3) Al-Qaida and Nationalism; (4) Al-Qaida as a Threat to Key Values66.

65 McKenna T. Comms pros consult on US military report // PR Week,

[http://www.prweek.com/uk/news/article/673768/Comms-pros-consult-US-military-report/] July 30, 2007

66 Rosenau W. Waging the ‘War of Ideas’ [http://www.rand.org/pubs/reprints/2006/RAND_RP1218.pdf]


32

In U.S. National Strategy for Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication8

(NSPDSC67) the quest for control of the message also exists. The report begins by

setting out a group of themes—essentially broad talking points—that are designed to

promote American values and support national security objectives68. Specific attention

in NSPDSC was paid to war on terror with accents on freedom and tolerance. The

message of public diplomacy also stressed on “clear message: that killing oneself and

murdering innocent people is always wrong”. As for international community NSPDSC

should foster debate, encourage education and provide information, to help people learn

and make decisions for themselves, because “most people everywhere, of every faith,

will choose freedom over tyranny and tolerance over intolerance.

Rapid response team U.S. National Strategy for Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication

defined Interagency Crisis Communication Team69 for coordination of US efforts

against extremism which included: (1) White House Communications Office; (2)

National Security Council; (3) White House Press Secretary; (4) State Department

Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs; (5) Defense Department Public Affairs.

Though definition of most active participants, players and initiatives should be

expanded and more detailed. First initiatives on crisis reaction were made just after

September 11, 2001 when under US President The Office of Strategic Influence (OSI)

was "established shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a response to concerns in the

administration that the United States was losing public support overseas for its war on

terrorism, particularly in Islamic countries"70. As well as The Office of Strategic

Initiatives, part of the Executive Office of the White House, is "responsible for

coordinating the planning and development of a long-range strategy for achieving

Presidential priorities. The office conducts research, and assists in message

development and other communications activities in conjunction with the Office of

Public Liaison and the Office of Political Affairs."

67 U.S. National Strategy for Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication

[http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/87427.pdf] 68 Corman, S.R.; Dooley, K.J. (2008): Strategic communication on a rugged landscape: principles for

finding the right message. Consortium for Strategic Communication [CSC], January. - 16 p. 69 U.S. National Strategy for Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication… 70 Ludowese ….


In 2002 the White House temporary wartime communications were transformed

into a permanent Office of global diplomacy to spread a positive image of the United

States around the world and combat anti-Americanism. In July 2002 The Office of

Global Communications (OGC) was established by WH "to coordinate the

administration's foreign policy message and supervise America's image abroad." [2][3]

The OGC was made official January 21, 2003, by President George W. Bush through

Executive Order: Establishing the Office of Global Communications.. There were also

another The White House Iraq Group (aka, White House Information Group or

WHIG)—the marketing arm of the White House whose purpose was to sell the 2003

invasion of Iraq to the public. As Frank Rich noted spirit of WHIG saved in 2007 but

“instead of being bombarded with dire cherry-picked intelligence about W.M.D., this

time [it] serenaded with feel-good cherry-picked statistics offering hope”71.

US Department of State also had a number of initiatives and offices

responsible for public affairs, first of all provided by Undersecretary for Public

Diplomacy and Public Affairs. This undersecretary includes in particular Bureau of

International Information Programs—the former U.S. Information Agency. The

Bureau is "the principal international strategic communications entity for the foreign

affairs community. IIP informs, engages, and influences international audiences about

U.S. policy and society to advance America's interests. IIP is a leader in developing and

implementing public diplomacy strategies that measurably influence international

audiences through programs and technologies, and provides localized context for U.S.

policies and messages, reaching millions worldwide in English, Arabic, Chinese,

French, Persian, Russian, and Spanish." Office of Strategic Communication (OSC),

which falls within the IIP is "responsible [in particular] for countering misinformation

and disinformation in the foreign press"

In late 2005 Undersecretary became a platform for rapid response office

creation72. In her testimony before the House Committee on International Affairs, Karen

P. Hughes, Under Secretary of State for Diplomacy and Public Affairs, said:

71 Rich F. As the Iraqis Stand Down, We’ll Stand Up // New York Times

[http://select.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/opinion/09rich.html?_r=1&oref=slogin] September 9, 2007 72 Hughes K. Strategic Communication and Public Diplomacy: Interagency Coordination Remarks at

Department of Defense Conference on Strategic Communication Washington, DC [http://www.state.gov/r/us/2007/88630.htm] July 11, 2007


34

"We have set up a new rapid response office at the state department. It monitors global news and

issues report each morning with alerts as needed so that busy policy makers focus not only on

the news environment in Washington or America, but also around the world. This has already

proven to be an effective early warning system that helps us respond quickly to misinformation

or emerging stories. We are asking ambassadors and public affairs officers to speak out on major

issues, to do more speeches and television interviews, and my office is providing tools and

guidance to help them do so in ways that are clear, concise and coordinated. We’re proceeding

with plans to set up regional public diplomacy platforms to expand our television presence, and

make programs such as our speaker’s bureau more targeted and strategic. We are at work on a

technology initiative to make greater use of web chats, graphics, streaming video perhaps even

text messaging to help amplify our message and make it relevant to younger audiences."73

Among other initiatives of USG were: in 2005, IIP created its “Media Matrix,”

an internal Web site and database that tracks information about key media outlets in

individual countries around the world. Embassy staff were responsible for inputting and

maintaining the information. Bureau of Intelligence and Research conducts and

contracts for public opinion polls and focus groups, in over 50 countries each year, to

support U.S. government public diplomacy staff, as well as members of the intelligence

community. Research activities focused on both mass and elite audiences and examine

public opinion of the United States, including foreign policy, as well as other issues of

importance to foreign audiences. Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA)

conducted focus groups, in-depth interviews, and surveys with program participants to

evaluate the impact of bureau programs, including exchanges. Media Reaction

Division, Office of Research, INR that monitored print commentaries around the world,

and provides daily summaries and special products. Digital Outreach Team monitored

of blog content as part of an effort to counter terrorist use of the Internet74.

US Army (DoD) is, currently, the main public diplomacy institution regarding

rules of GWOT engagement75. DoD closely cooperates with USG and other institutions

of public diplomacy and structure of DoD public diplomacy includes information

departments in each Command and besides has 4th Psychological Operations Group,

Strategic Studies Detachment (SSD) which conduct target audience analysis, assessing

73 http://wwwc.house.gov/international_relations/109/hug111005.pdf 74 U.S. PUBLIC DIPLOMACY Actions Needed to Improve Strategic Use and Coordination of Research

[www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-904] July 2007 75 Wright D.P. The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, May 2003-January 2005: On Point

II: transition to the new campaign / Donald P. Wright, Timothy R. Reese ; with the Contemporary Operations Study Team. 720 p.


how to communicate specific messages to identified target audiences, to support

psychological operations around the world. The Information Awareness Office is a

branch of the DoD’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency whose mission is to

"imagine, develop, apply, integrate, demonstrate and transition information

technologies, components and prototype, closed-loop, information systems that will

counter asymmetric threats by achieving total information awareness".

Information, media, and public affairs work in Iraq fulfilled by several

institutions. The temporary offices which comprised the Bush administration's "'rapid

response' team" included Coalition Information Center established shortly after

September 11, 2001, as "a temporary effort to rebut Taliban disinformation about the

Afghan war" and propaganda war" against Osama bin Laden. In January 2003 Defense

Department recommended the creation of a "Rapid Reaction Media Team" to serve as a

bridge between Iraq's formerly state-controlled news outlets and an "Iraqi Free Media"

network. The team portrayed a "new Iraq" offering hope of a prosperous and democratic

future, which would serve as a model for the Middle East. US, British, and Iraqi media

experts provided "approved USG information" for the Iraqi public as a part of "strategic

information campaign" for "likely 1-2 years ... transition"76.

Later Combined Press Information Center in Baghdad oversees the media

offensive, including the Iraqi Media Engagement Team (IMET, March 2004) that was

vital to spreading releases about coalition efforts in Iraq. IMET worked closely with the

Arabic media. The Information Operations Task Force (IOTF) was a unit -- "deeper in

the Pentagon's bureaucracy" -- which assumed much of the operations of the Office of

Strategic Influence after it was shut down in February 2002. According to "Pentagon

documents, the Rendon Group played a major role in the IOTF. The company was

charged with creating an 'Information War Room' to monitor worldwide news reports at

lightning speed and respond almost instantly with counterpropaganda"77. The Iraq

Communications Desk at the Pentagon—running 24/7—"to pump out data from

Baghdad — serving as what could be considered a campaign war room".

76 IRAQ: THE MEDIA WAR PLAN National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 219 Ed. by

Joyce Battle [http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB219/index.htm] May 8, 2007 77 Bamford J. The Man Who Sold the War // Rolling Stone magazine

[http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/8798997/the_man_who_sold_the_war/] November 17, 2005


36

Besides crisis communication functions were made by other US state

organisations. Broadcasting Board of Governors that includes International

Broadcasting Bureau responsible for Voice of America, Radio/TV Marti, and the

Middle East Broadcasting Networks, as well as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and

Radio Free Asia. U.S. Agency for International Development has missions in

Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, and West Bank/Gaza and others to

support specific, targeted public awareness campaigns through the Development

Outreach and Communications Program. Central Intelligence Agency includes Global

Information and Influence Team (GIIT) that conducts polling with an undisclosed

focus in an undisclosed number of countries7879.

NSPDSC 2006 also foresaw closer cooperation between governmental and

private organisation in foreign policy communications, although this cooperation

existed during Iraq invasion in 2003. There are several reasons for private organisations

participation, as US Army operates in areas where culture and language are not well-

understood, it causes misinformation and rumours. Work involves a wide range of

communications activities, including monitoring and analyzing Arabic and Western

media; spokesperson training; and development and dissemination of TV, radio,

newsprint, and Internet “information” products80. The general contractors of US public

diplomacy are Rendon and Lincoln Groups, who mainly work in Iraq.

The Rendon Group is a secretive public relations firm that has assisted a number

of US military interventions in nations including Argentina, Colombia, Haiti, Iraq,

Kosovo, Panama and Zimbabwe. Company founder John Rendon described himself he

is "an information warrior and a perception manager81. Rendon's activities included

organizing the Iraqi National Congress, a PR front group designed to foment the

overthrow of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

78 U.S. Public Diplomacy. Actions Needed to Improve Strategic Use and Coordination of Research

[www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-904] July 2007 79 U.S. Public Diplomacy. Interagency Coordination Efforts Hampered by the Lack of a National

Communication Strategy [www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-323] April 2005 80 McKenna T. Military to select firm for 'info ops' initiative in Iraq // PRWeek

[http://www.prweekus.com/Military-to-select-firm-for-info-ops-initiative-in-Iraq/article/115740/] August 21, 2008

81 Gerth J., Gall C., Khapalwak R. The reach of war: propaganda; Military's Information War Is Vast and Often Secretive [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9500E6DF1E31F932A25751C1A9639C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print] December 11, 2005


The Lincoln Group is "business 'intelligence' company that handles services

from 'political campaign intelligence' to commercial real estate in Iraq.". In June 2005

The DoD Special Operations Command awarded three five-year contracts, totaling $300

million, for articles, broadcasts, advertisements, T-shirts, bumper stickers, and other

messages meant to win international support for the U.S. government, including one to

the Lincoln Group, which claims "select relationships in Congress, the Administration

and the U.S. Department of State." According to the New York Times, Lincoln becomes

"the main civilian contractor for carrying out an aggressive propaganda campaign in

Anbar Province82. In November 2005, the firm was outed for covertly planting articles

written by U.S. military officers in Iraqi newspapers.

Another element for information work in the region was AL-Hurra channel,

created in the frames of Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc., which in turn was a

part of Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG). AL-Hurra, as well as AL-Hurra Iraq,

was created in February-March 2004. As Dafna Linzer83 wrote President Bush in his

State of the Union address, just three weeks before the network went on air, announced

that the United States was launching a television station for the Middle East and

expanded radio broadcasts in Arabic and Farsi. According to Bush such an audacious

strategy would “cut through the barriers of hateful propaganda” that his administration

had come to blame for the loss of global support for the United States. He was

proposing what would become the largest and most expensive effort in America’s long

history of public diplomacy. Unlike Al Jazeera, Bush said, this new, U.S.-funded

network “will begin providing reliable news and information across the region.”

According to GAO Report84 the main objective of the channel (as well as Radio

Sawa) corresponds with key priorities of BBG “to support antiterror broadcasting

initiatives in the Middle East and counter media campaigns used by terrorists by

providing accurate reporting and analysis of the news and by explaining U.S. policies”.

However these channels have difficulties of realization of information policy. Besides

complication of collection of information and shortage of personnel, these channels are

82 Cloud D.S. Quick Rise for Purveyors of Propaganda in Iraq // New York Times

[http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/15/politics/15lincoln.html?pagewanted=print] February 15, 2006 83 Linzer D. Lost in Translation: Alhurra—America’s Troubled Effort to Win Middle East Hearts and

Mind [http://www.propublica.org/feature/alhurra-middle-east-hearts-and-minds-622] June 22, 2008 84 U.S. International Broadcasting Management of Middle East Broadcasting Services Could Be

Improved [http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-762] August 4, 2006 P.9


38

forced to operate in the conditions of competition with the such Arabic media channels

as Al Jazeera and others. How Mark Linch marked, the state of Al Hurra in 2008

showed the state of fight for minds and hearts on Middle East. In particular, not looking

on considerable investments, the channel did not become popular among target

audience. And its opacity only strengthened complication of realization of information

strategy, in fact according to Smith-Mundt Act such channel is considered as a mean of

propaganda which must not work in the USA8586.

In 2008 management of channel was critised, as Alhurra’s reporters and

commentators operate with little oversight. Besides “U.S. experts on the Arab world

have long worried that the network was doing little to help America’s image in the

region. Unpublished reports, audits and internal government e-mail show a steady

stream of concern inside the State Department, in Congress, at the government’s

broadcasting headquarters and even inside the network itself that Alhurra and Sawa are

undermining U.S. policy goals while sometimes promoting the interests of Iran and its

allies”87.

“New Way Forward” Case: September 2007

According to official White House release in 2007 Bush discussed the

importance of defeating Al Qaeda in Iraq in more than 40 public appearances:

“President Bush has consistently argued that Iraq is the central front in the War on

Terror. Al Qaeda leaders describe it the same way, which is why they are trying to use

murder and mayhem to provoke sectarian violence, foment chaos, and create a safe

haven for terror. Defeating al Qaeda has been central to our new strategy in Iraq from

day one and will continue to be”88.

Apparently it set a response communication strategy for Bush foreign policy

activity in August-September 2007. During that period Bush made statements and

public addresses every week and they were aimed mainly on US audience. Bush used 85 U.S. Public diplomacy. State Department Efforts to Engage Muslim Audiences Lack Certain

Communication Elements and Face Significant Challenges [www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-535]. May 2006

86 Lynch M. The failure of public diplomacy. What the downfall of al-Hurra, America's Arabic language television station, says about US efforts to win hearts and minds in the Middle East. Guardian.co.uk, June 16, 2007

87 Linzer D. … 88 Setting the Record Straight: Targeting Al Qaeda

[http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070725-2.html]


results of “New Way Forward” strategy and proposed initiative to continue presence of

US troops in Iraq and saving of influence in Middle East. According to crisis

communications these actions must be considered as crisis issue management, when

“organization has the luxury of foreknowledge of the impending crisis and the

opportunity, to some extent, to choose the timing of its revelation to stakeholders and

the public and reveal the organization’s plan to resolve the issue. …[T]he organization

is central to the event”89. Besides issue management depends on communicator who is

interested in timing of messages and the main goal for communicator is to persuade and

to explain.

However it is necessary to note that research of news volume and search archive

of Google showed that this period had not become central for Bush, on the contrary

dynamics of mentioning of Bush on the Iraqi subject decreased during 2007, and the

key events of campaign did not influence considerably on media coverage. It was

confirmed in particular by the dynamics of basic themes in Bush’s activity. For

example, if concepts “Iraq” and “war” had permanent link, after September 2007 the

discussion of war and Iran began to prevail and attention to Iraq gradually went down.

The publication of Bin Laden video became the important event of this period as it was

for first time for a few years and coincided with the visit of Bush to Iraq and on APEC

summit. The interest to the tape was two times higher than visit of Bush to Iraq90.

According to D.R. Matchette it is possible to consider actions of US president

and government as marketing of Freedom, Democracy, Security and Stability91.

Consequently any statements, actions or visits of official US representatives, and also

information work in the areas of national interests of the USA is part of campaign on

promotion of these concepts. GWOT and events related also aren’t exception. The

authors of book Enlisting Madison Avenue also mention importance of these terms.

“Words cause similar cultural confusion. Some serve as cultural shorthand for value-

laden concepts that seem clear in translation but lose something essential. Freedom and

democracy are two examples of English words that imply more than they denote in 89 Reynolds B. Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication

[http://www.orau.gov/cdcynergy/erc/CERC%20Course%20Materials/CERC_Book.pdf] 90

http://www.google.com/insights/search/#cat=&q=bush%20iraq%2Cjihad%2Cbush%20war%2Cbush%20iran%2Cbin%20laden%20video&geo=&date=1%2F2007%2012m&clp=&cmpt=q

91 Matchette D.R. Marketing as an Element of Strategic Communication. Civilian Research Project (CRP) [http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/army-usawc/marketing_stratcomm.doc] 6 April 2006


40

certain cultural contexts, and perhaps less in others”92. Thus authors make an example

of US military formulation of the terms: Thus when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this

is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy. Moreover, saying that “freedom is the future of

the Middle East” is seen as patronizing, suggesting that Arabs are like the enslaved peoples of

the old Communist World—but Muslims do not feel this way: they feel oppressed, but not

enslaved93.

As a result, according to John Stauber, August-September 2007 became

"brilliant campaign using deception and nonexistent links between Iraq and 9/11"94

aimed to save presence of US troops in Iraq as long as possible. This campaign was

foremost directed on the internal US discussion about war in Iraq, however it got

international attention as well95.

The feature of network analysis in US case was comparison of reaction of media

(mainly English-language) as reaction on the statements and releases of G.Bush

represented on the official site of US president during August-October 2007. The model

of network analysis, thus, includes comparison of results of news search (by relevance)

with the use of Issuecrawler Link Analysis. Link between key terms can be described as

amount of articles where pairs of key terms were mentioned simultaneously.

Additionally, the “cloud” of key terms is formed and showed how mentioning is related

to importance of terms. This model allows to set the dynamics of accents in Bush’s

rhetoric.

Key terms include 61 words and combination of words, which have chronologic

binding. Basic data for the network analysis were presented as the VNA format, where

the amount of articles was the distinctive feature of every node with mention of relevant

term.

92 Helmus T.C., Paul C., Glenn R. Enlisting Madison Avenue. The Marketing Approach to Earning

Popular Support in Theaters of Operation RAND 2007 [http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2007/RAND_MG607.pdf]

93 U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics (2004, p. 40).

94 From Freedom Watch to Petraeus, A Look at the Bush Administration’s Iraq War PR Campaign [http://www.democracynow.org/2007/9/13/from_freedom_watch_to_petraeus_a] September 13, 2007

95 The techniques of "spin" include: Selectively presenting facts and quotes that support one's position (cherry picking); Non-denial denial; Phrasing in a way that assumes unproven truths; Euphemisms to disguise or promote one's agenda; Ambiguity; Skirting; Rejecting the validity of hypotheticals; Appealing to internal policies. Another spin technique involves careful choice of timing in the release of certain news so it can take advantage of prominent events in the news.


General description of the received network model showed that media coverage

of Bush actions had homogeneous character, intensity of links between categories

changed only. It can mean exponential nature of news communications and identical

value of most nodes-categories.

Analysing appearances and statements of Bush on Iraq during August-

September 2007 it is possible to define that by his basic messages both for internal and

for external audience were success of US troops of the last months, impossibility to

withdraw from Iraq and to do not support of official Maliki government, necessity to

strengthen the fight with Al Qaeda. Among main descriptions of campaign that the

"surge" is "working" and it is premature to commence withdrawal it is important to note

that “(1) many in the media have been complicit in the administration's PR offensive:

ignoring that a crucial criterion for the success of the administration's strategy --

political progress in Iraq—has in the assessment of people inside and outside the

administration not occurred; (2) repeating administration claims of military progress

while ignoring evidence to the contrary; (3) repeating distortions of comments by

Democrats to claim that they acknowledge the surge is working; (4) characterizing

proponents of a withdrawal timeline as calling for a "precipitous" withdrawal; and (5)

uncritically repeating the widely dismissed claim by Bush and administration supporters

that the terrorists will follow us home if the U.S. withdraws from Iraq”96. Such

estimation also confirmed by definition of blocks and cutpoints: first of all general

network map defined Iraqi Security Forces, while analysing key terms without basic

massages of freedom, security etc. It turned out that Middle East and Iran were of first

importance.

Thus, presidential campaign can be divided into external and internal phases.

The internal one foresaw activation of pro-war propaganda and rhetoric of Bush,

supported by increased television advertising. Basic accent was made on Iraq. In the

USA this campaign foresaw the emergence of a new White House front group

Freedom’s Watch, headed up by Ari Fleischer, the former White House PR flak, who

was on duty in the White House in the selling of the war in 2002, 2003. Freedom’s

Watch was sort of a number of Republican front groups, along with Vets for Freedom,

Move America Forward, organizations that held pro-war rallies and ran TV

96 Myths and falsehoods about progress in Iraq [http://mediamatters.org/items/200709090001]


42

advertisements that used wounded Iraq veterans and equate winning the war in Iraq with

the terror attacks of 9/11.

Additionally there was an element of Petraeus hearings. According to SNA term

of “General Petraeus” was linked with term of “surge” in Bush’s speeches and media

coverage. Egonetwork for “General Petraeus” had 27 nodes and index of degree 26,

index of betweenness 79,6. US media noted that General Petraeus was the perfect

person for the Bush administration, as New York Times/CBS survey showed that

overwhelmingly six of ten Americans look to Petraeus and other commanders to take

charge of Iraq, and those are the people who they think are best equipped to end the

war. Harper’s magazine’s Ken Silverstein provided far away the best analysis of what

Petraeus said.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS

- the surge is meeting its military objectives,

but we need more time.

- US Marines and Special Operation forces

have been striking terrible blows against al-

Qaeda.

- Anbar province was al-Qaeda’s base in Iraq

and was written off by many as lost.

- The consequences of withdrawal would be

disastrous.

- The military objectives of the surge are,

in large measure, being met. It will take

time.

- Coalition and Iraqi forces have dealt

significant blows to al-Qaeda

- A year ago the province was assessed as

lost.

- A premature drawdown of our forces

would likely have devastating

consequences.

Finally, Bush’s scheduled prime time address on September 13 culminated a

carefully orchestrated PR campaign to win support for the continuation of the war in

Iraq.97

The analysis of network media map showed that changing of foreign-policy

priority of Bush happened in September 2007: September 2007—Iraq, in October 2007

Iran prevailed. The network analysis allowed to trace changing of political discourse on

concepts mentioned by Matchette. Most covered concept was security and it got the

biggest network support and consequently the most essential. For comparison the

concepts of freedom, democracy and stability, not looking on a structural closeness 97 From Freedom Watch to Petraeus….


between themselves, had the less developed network structures. Statistics of links also

confirmed the network structure of coverage: it is thus necessary to mark that for

different concepts the set of key terms is typical. For example, "Iraqi Security Forces",

"success | progress", "troops cut" became the most essential concept for security as

basic term. At the same time, security included the term of stability as well (one of four

key terms). Stability became a second term by value with a main accent on “surge” and

“sectarian violence”. Freedom and democracy became the least used terms.

Judging on chronology of basic terms:

- freedom had the strongest link with "Address by the President to the Nation"

(14.09.2007), terrorism (28.08., 15.09., 25.09.);

- stability—security (14.09., 20.09.), surge (13.09.), “oil revenue” (22.08., 20.09.),

success or progress (14.09.);

- democracy linked with "Middle East" (22.08, 28.08., 20.09), "Address by the

President to the Nation" (14.09.), “important to the future” (25.09.), security (14.09.,

20.09.);

- security linked with "Iraqi Security Forces" (28.08., 13.09., 20.09., 25.09.), success

or progress (14.09.), Maliki (22.08., 28.08., 14.09., 20.09., 25.09.), surge (28.08.,

14.09., 20.09.), "sectarian violence" (24.07., 11.08., 28.08., 14.09., 20.09.)

Other peak data were marked for the pairs of such terms as surge-stability (the

most relevant value got on the end of August- start of September), surge-Gen.Petreaus

(14.09., 20.09.), Iran-Middle East (end of August), Iran-nuclear (28.08., 19.09., 25.09.,

17.10.), Gen.Petreaus-Anbar Province (28.08., 03.09., 13.09., 20.09.).

Thus it is obviously, that most saturated by the statements and events was

foreign-policy phase at the end of August-September 2007. In this period in the

conditions of hard criticism from the side of Democrats about failed strategy in Iraq

Bush has argued that the USA need enough time to quell the sectarian and terrorist

violence that has wracked the country. As a result Bush in speeches to U.S. military

veterans, has signaled he wanted to keep his 30,000 troop-buildup in place to defeat

insurgents and terrorists amid some signs that security conditions are improving, though

no final decisions have been made.

According to PEJ research in August and September 2007 topic of Bush Iraq

spin was among the key in US media. For instance in August 2007 Bush used


44

comparison with Vietnam. “By injecting the V-word into the debate over strategy in

Iraq, Bush not only triggered memories of America’s most controversial war (at least

before the conflict in Iraq). He also generated a heated response from several quarters,

including opponents of his Iraq strategy… The President’s Vietnam comparison was

only one factor that helped propel coverage of the debate over Iraq policy last week

after a summer in which the subject had been noticeably more muted”98. “Today, speaking before a supportive audience of veterans, Mr. Bush found a comparison to

Vietnam he embraced” declared ABC correspondent Martha Raddatz on August 22. The

newscast then aired a clip of the President warning that the «price of America’s withdrawal

[from Southeast Asia] was paid by millions of innocent citizens,” including those slaughtered by

the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

As S.L.Myers noted that campaign was a strategy for a crisis of faith—first of all

from US public99. And Bush just continued his way to solve such crises: with a

relentless campaign to persuade people to see things his way. Myers called such

strategy in military terms as “preparing the battlefield—in this case for the series of

reports and hearings scheduled on Capitol Hill … to debate the wisdom of struggling on

in the midst of sectarian chaos and bloodshed in Iraq”.

Important element of this company was surprise, unannounced visit of G.W.

Bush to Iraq on an air base in the Iraqi Anbar province100. It was his third surprise visit:

in Nov. 27, 2003, and the other on June 13, 2006, a week after a U.S. air strike killed

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq. It is another proof of Bush’s

preemptive communication strategy. Mr. Bush pre-empted pressure for withdrawal, expected at Congressional hearings…, by hailing

what he called successes in Iraq and contending that only a stable Iraq would allow American

forces to pull back.

98 PEJ News Coverage Index: The V-Word Heats Up the Iraq Debate

[http://www.journalism.org/node/7281] August 19-24, 2007 99 Myers S.L. Bush renews PR blitz for the war in Iraq // International Herald Tribune August 27, 2007 100 Runningen R. Bush Makes Unannounced Iraq Visit on Way to APEC (Update2)

[http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aIi7x9fE4Ri0&refer=home] September 3, 2007


This visit was made before the U.S. Congress intensified the debate on Bush's

strategy in the conflict and the efforts of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government to

meet benchmarks toward unifying the nation. An assessment by U.S. intelligence

agencies released Aug. 31 concluded that Iraq's political leaders still can't govern

effectively even as the addition of 30,000 more U.S. troops this year is helping curb

sectarian violence. The report has increased pressure on Bush from congressional

Democrats and some Republicans, who are calling for the administration to begin a

gradual withdrawal of forces.

Before Bush also went to the Pentagon on Aug. 31 to get reports from the Joints

Chiefs of Staff and top military advisers about troop strength, the effect of 15-month

deployments in Iraq on military personnel and the global condition of U.S. forces. The stakes in Iraq are too high and the consequences too grave for our security here at home to

allow politics to harm the mission of our men and women in uniform. It is my hope that we can

put partisanship and politics behind us and commit to a common vision that will provide our

troops what they need to succeed and secure our vital national interests in Iraq and around the

world.

As a result, president Bush got the headlines he wanted with his Labor Day

drop-by in Iraq. New York Times: "Bush, In Iraq, Says Troop Reduction is Possible."

Los Angeles Times: "Bush Hints at Troop Reduction." Washington Times: "In Anbar,

Bush Optimistic for Pullout."… It was obviously a PR coup for the president to be

Fig. 1. Network media-map for Bush’s Iraq keywords in July-August 2007


46

photographed with the troops in Anbar, a place where the military has clearly achieved

results, and to dominate a slow news day101.

According to media coverage network we could observe significant shift in Bush

rhetoric from “surge” to “Iran” with its nuclear program and “General Petreaus”.

Besides it turned out that both networks had different centrality: before visit to Iraq

media-coverage network was balanced, meanwhile media-discussion after visit was

disbalanced that could be caused by another latent reason—framing of new issue of

amplification of US forces in Middle East and improving of Bush image in Iraq.

Although according to December 2007 report of Lincoln Group it turned out that Bush

became a uniter of … Iraqis as they "describe the negative elements of life in Iraq

beginning with the 'U.S. occupation' in March 2003" and Iraqis interviewed had "far

more commonalities than differences," including that they "see the departure of

'occupying forces' as the key to national reconciliation."102

Counterinformation component of Bush campaign was reaction on Bin Laden

video tapes. These materials were published in Internet and in global media in a few

days after the visit of Bush to Iraq, but also before his official address to American

people on September, 13 2007 Bin Laden Appearance caused a considerable public

interest and, accordingly, there was the necessity of G.Bush to react on the Bin Laden

101 Kurtz H. Falling for the Spin // Washington Post, September 5, 2007 102 Bush a Uniter - of Iraqis, Against the U.S. // Washington Post, December 19, 2007

Fig. 2. Network media-map for Bush’s Iraq keywords in September 2007


statements. It should be noted that, according to SITE data, information about Bin

Laden new video appeared at the beginning of July, 2007.

In his massage Bin laden pulled out no threats in the address of the USA and the

West on the whole. Al Qaeda leader concentrated on a situation in Iraq and traditionally

demanded to withdraw US contingent out of country, "to end the war between us". By

estimations of specialists this videoappeal, foremost, must prove that it was Al Qaeda is

still alive. As for G.Bush such appearance of Bin Laden became an additional argument

in a dispute with US democrats.

As a result G.Bush immediately reacted on APEC summit in Australia marking

that statements of "terrorist number 1" remind for all that how dangerous world we live

in. Bush underlined that now the main task of terrorists consists of forcing of the USA

out of Iraq, to create there a "reserve base" and to carry out from there the attacks on the

USA and its allies. The words of president were supported by the head of CIA, who

declared that "Al Qaeda" planned new acts of terrorism on territory of the USA. The tape is a reminder of the dangerous world in which we live and it is a reminder that

we must work together to protect our people… I found it interesting that on the tape Iraq

was mentioned, which is a reminder that Iraq is part of the war against extremists. If Al-

Fig. 3. Intersection of network media-maps for Bush’s Iraq keywords

in July-August 2007 (blue) and September 2007 (red)


48

Qaida bothers to mention Iraq, it's because they want to achieve their objectives in Iraq,

which is to drive us out103.

It should be noted that Al Qaeda information strategy was an important element

for the Bush campaign. According to D. Kimmage “recent controversies surrounding

U.S. efforts to influence media in Iraq and the Middle East signal increasing interest in a

war of ideas that is part of the conflict between the West and the worldwide jihadi

movement104. Jihadis pursue strategies of legitimation, propagation of their movements

as well intimidation of opponents by using sophisticated, modern methods of

communication and public relations. They segment audiences and adapt their message

to the audience, apply some of the same PR techniques used by large corporations,

conduct disinformation campaigns, and coordinate communication with operations.

They do this using a variety of sophisticated means, including traditional mass media

and new media channels, especially the Internet, to understand the implications of a

“virtual jihad”105.

****

The problem of the future of war in Iraq became actual for US foreign policy of

the last years. Actually the USA had to run into the new model of propaganda, which

differs from Cold war by both the model of intercultural conflict and new technologies

and methods of information work from the side of Muslim countries. As a result, having

the complex of institutions and methods of public diplomacy, the USA run into low

efficiency of information operations in Iraq. At the same time there was a necessity for

Bush in 2007-08 to resist internal criticism of democrats. Example of the “New way

forward” was considered as variant of crisis management and decision of military tasks.

Network mediamap showed thus, that the reaction of international and US media mainly

had been directed on the problem of security in Iraq, and also it is necessary to note the

origin of new theme—Iran nuclear program as a method to distract attention of public.

And appearance of Bin Laden new records only complemented preemptive strategy on

the distraction of attention.

103 [http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/09/images/20070908-5_d-0114-1-515h.html] 104 Corman S.R., Schiefelbein J.S. Communication and Media Strategy in the Jihadi War of Ideas April

20, 2006 Report #0601 Consortium for Strategic Communication Arizona State University 105 Kimmage D. The Al-Qaeda Media Nexus: The Virtual Network Behind the Global Message An

RFE/RL Special Report March 2008

Crisis communicatons in global politics

49

Fig. 4. Concepts cloud for Bush activity in July-September 2007


50

Fig.5. Media connections of key concepts for New Way Forward in July-September 2007


PART III:

KOSOVO CASE. EU CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS IN

INTEGRATION AND ENLARGEMENT PROCESSES

For today EU became one of the basic geopolitical actors, that have “saving of

security and peace in a region” among the main tasks. Thus the special attention should

be paid to both the internal aspects of EFSP and EU role as a global peacemaker. And

the modern tendencies of EU enlargement form a dynamic agenda for European

security. As A.Bailes noted “…enlargement also widens the spread of our security

responsibilities and brings Europe’s frontiers closer to some still very unstable areas”.

In addition to old problems such as unsolved “stubborn internal security challenges”

like Northern Ireland and Basque extremism, there are “problems of Balkan instability

[solved] by full European integration one day” and currently Balkans for Europe are

like “a very noisy and violent baby” in that region (as shown by the latest incidents in

Kosovo). Besides EU and Russia “seem to lack a clear and convincing strategy” as well

as “enlargement made it impossible for [EU] to ignore the unresolved problems of the

Caucasus and Central Asia, the Middle East and Northern Africa”106.

At the same time development of EU is also on critical stage. According to

Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker "The European Union is going

through a crisis… the French and Dutch 'no' votes "did not cause this crisis, but simply

made it more visible."107. IHT also noted that EU crisis of confidence is also seen in the

way momentum for expansion — the chief way Europe has been able to use its

philosophy of "soft power" to engineer democratic reforms in former dictatorships —

has all but petered out.

The solving of Kosovo case in 2008 became the example of crisis management

of EU security policy and foreign policy. From one side, EU must make decision about

future status of Kosovo, which was under the actual mandate of UN for the last decade

and created the threat to the further integration processes. On other hand proclamation

106 Bailes A.J.K. Security challenges for the EU CIDOB Foundation, Barcelona,

[http://www.sipri.org/archive/ab/2004041701.html] 16 April 2004 107 EU turns 50 but celebrations dampened by uncertainty over future February 17, 2008

[http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/02/17/europe/EU-GEN-EU-at-50.php?page=1]

Part III: Kosovo case. EU Crisis communications in integration and enlargement processes

52

of independence of Kosovo created new precedent for international relations and law,

consequently it could result in growth of tension as between supporters and opponents

of such decision both in EU and in relations of EU, the USA and Russia, as basic

geopolitical actors of this region.

As the solving of Kosovo case foresaw activity of such complex international

formation as EU, thus network analysis requires use of several participants, each of

them has position of support or criticism of decision about Kosovo independence. As a

result the dynamic field of speeches was formed, and they were simultaneously linked

to several participants. The network analysis was realized with the use of row of

categories: country, participant, date that allows to analyse these campaigns and to set

quality descriptions of links between positions of separate political leaders, states, or to

trace the dynamics of changes.

The participants of network analysis were “the speakers”: Serbia (Boris Tadic,

Vuk Jeremic), Kosovo (Hashim Taci), Russia (Putin, S. Lavrov, D.Rogozin,

V.Churkin), the USA (G.Bush, K.Rice), France (Sarkozy, Couchner), Germany

(Merkel, Steinmeier), Great Britain (Milliband), Slovenia (Rupel), and also UN (B.Ki

Mun), EU (Barroso, Solana, O.Rehn) and NATO (Scheffer). They used 147 categories

for presentation of the positions during February, 2008. Information for the network

analysis was represented as the VNA format with indication of quality of relations and

nodes.

EU civilian crisis management

In 1999 NATO bombed Serbia for prevention of military actions between Serbia

and Kosovo Army of liberation. Then, military operation of NATO Allied Force

included the information component, directed both on Serbian population and on

European and global public as well108. As M.A. Schoenberger-Orgad noted “NATO’s

public relations campaign was successful in maintaining both credibility and popular

support for a 78-day bombing campaign within the 19 nations of the Alliance. The

campaign allowed NATO to claim that it was the only organisation that could provide

security and stability, as well as be the main bulwark of the defense of Western values

in a rapidly globalising and changing world. Moreover, by framing the Kosovo air 108 Berinsky A.J., Kinder D.R. Making Sense of Issues Through Media Frames: Understanding the

Kosovo Crisis // The Journal of Politics (2006), 68:640-656 Cambridge University Press


campaign as a humanitarian intervention, NATO was not only able to legitimise its

actions but transform its military might with an acceptable human face in order to

achieve its broader ideological goals in Europe”109.

As well as NATO at the end of 1990s, EU’s problem in 2008 was legitimation of

Kosovo independence decision as a part of EU Enlargement policy for South East

Europe as this region became a priority one for EU after 2004. However in comparison

to Eastern Europe, the level of economic and political development of South Europe

was lower and the decision-making about new members was more political decision. At

the same time it is possible to select different approaches to SEE in EU: such states as

Bulgaria and Romania were accepted in 2007, the active preparation phase of European

integration of the Yugoslav republics started after this event. In 2003, the countries of the Western Balkans received the promise of EU membership.

Surrounded by other EU members—a kind of 'enclave' within the enlarged Union—

these countries effectively constitute the EU's 'next frontier'110.

However, the basic problem of Yugoslavia—in addition to economic situation—

was interethnic tensions between Serbians and Kosovo Albanians. Actually solving of

this problem was central for EU in definition of the future of Serbia. After the

Yugoslavia conflicts in 1990s it was important for modern EU not to allow excrescence

of new conflicts, however in Serbia which did a lot for European integration, lately a

thesis about incompatibility of national interests and European future of Serbia became

to sound more frequently. Some kind of legitimacy gap emerged when "the behaviours

and actions of the organisation do not conform to the expectations of key publics”.

Different views on reality of Serbia’s EU future made possible “perception

management”. Larabee contends that “the theory behind perception management is that

in a crisis, ‘perception’ is out of synch with ‘reality’ and successful managers must

bring the two together, asserting control over the external and internal ‘chaos’ created

by a disaster”. As a result, the decision of the Serbian question is simultaneously in the

area of responsibility of a several EU departments:

109 Schoenberger-Orgad M.A. Communicating Strategically: Public Relations And Organisational

Legitimacy University of Waikato 2007 [http://adt.waikato.ac.nz/uploads/approved/adt-uow20070614.114249/public/01front.pdf]

110 Avery G. Europe and the Balkans: What's to be done? European Policy Centre [http://www.euractiv.com/en/enlargement/europe-balkans-done/article-173423] 17 June 2008


54

- EU Common Foreign and Security Policy: The solving of the Yugoslavian case was

one of key elements of EU crisis management, actually the first conceptions about

creation of policy of the crisis reacting and prevention of conflicts appeared after the

end of military actions in Yugoslavia at the end of 1990s within the framework of

the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the European Security and

Defense Policy (ESDP). According to A.Nowak definitions of CCM appeared in EU

documents in 1999 though its definition wasn’t clear. Different organisations,

multiple stages and actors influenced the gap of understanding CCM at EU level.

Broadly EU civilian crisis management (EU CCM) is defined as the intervention by

non-military personnel in a crisis that may be violent or non-violent, with the

intention of preventing a further escalation of the crisis and facilitating its

resolution. However, experts in this field usually draw a distinction between

‘conflict prevention’ and ‘crisis management,’ with the former generally being used

to refer only to activities that take place before any hostilities have occurred,

whereas the latter usually refers to intervention only after violence has erupted111.

Firstly EU CCM was realised through Rapid Reaction Mechanism, later in 2007

Instrument for Stability (IfS) replaced it. Crisis response projects under the Instrument

for Stability focus on a wide range of issues, such as support to mediation, confidence

building, interim administrations, strengthening Rule of Law, transitional Justice or the

role of natural resources in conflict. Under the IfS, these activities can be supported in

situations of crisis or emerging crisis, when timely financial help cannot be provided

from other EU sources.

As a whole EU CCM seen as system of missions that prevent military conflicts

or humanitarian crises. In most cases these missions aimed on regions of conflict and

communication in these cases is based on public affairs campaigns for reducing tensions

in conflict societies. In most cases EU CCM has reactive strategy that, probably, caused

by the role of EU as “regional pacifier” and “mediator of conflicts”112 113.

111 Lindborg C. European Approaches to Civilian Crisis Management BASIC Special Report 2002

[http://www.basicint.org/pubs/Research/2002ccm.pdf] 1 March 2002 112 Rodt A.P., Wolff S. EU Reactive Crisis Management in the Western Balkans

[http://www.psa.ac.uk/2007/pps/Rodt.pdf] 113 Civilian Crisis Management: the EU way Challiot Paper n90

[http://www.weltpolitik.net/attachment/0644a930ba1074b5cca2acd4809cbed5/558ce96132a4c781df565773f49dac49/chai90.pdf] June 2006


Importance of crisis approach in EU foreign policy in South Europe also

supported by the fact of creation of the first and the biggest EU mission in Bosnia and

Herzegovina, and also in Macedonia (Operation Concordia), former Yugoslavia

(Operation Proxima), other missions.

- EU DG Communication: As a new enlargement strategy was accepted by EU in

2005 it defined basic concepts of further enlargement—consolidation,

conditionality, communication—as important elements of "carefully managed

enlargement process" communication: the EU wants to improve its communication to the citizens on the process of

enlargement, which is defined as "one of the EU's most powerful and most successful policy

tools"

Communication with EU citizens and those of membership-aspiring countries

represents a significant share of the Commission’s public diplomacy efforts. The

responsibility of engaging with publics in member-countries is assumed by the

Directorate General (DG) Communication. It serves as the main planning entity and

coordinates the efforts of all other DGs' communication units into one joint output. To

ensure that its programs are not disconnected from popular sentiments and that citizens

are properly socialized into its policies, the Commission is careful to place an emphasis

on the two-way aspect of its communications. As stated in the Action Plan,

"communication is more than information: it establishes a relationship and initiates a

dialogue with European citizens, it listens carefully and it connects to people … It is not

just about EU institutions informing EU citizens but also about citizens expressing their

opinions so that the Commission can understand their perceptions and concerns.

Europe’s citizens want to make their voices in Europe heard and their democratic

participation should have a direct bearing on EU policy formulation and output."

EU Medium Term Communication Strategy 2005-2009, as it was adopted for

the period of new wave of Enlargement (Bulgaria, Romania, Western Balkans) also

includes elements of crisis communications. For instance, among main objectives we

could find topics of Enlargement and future of EU. This strategy should be based on

variety of forms and processes as it has different stakeholders and target audiences114.

114 DG Development Unit A/5 Information And Communication Strategy 2005—2009

[http://www.dgdc.be/documents/en/topics/european_conference_public_awareness/DG_Development_Information_Communication_Strategy_2005-2009.doc]


56

- EU DG Enlargement. The implementation of enlargement policies is carried out by

the DG Enlargement which is also heading all related communication and

information work within the framework of the Communication Strategy for

Enlargement115. The Strategy follows a decentralized approach and is implemented

in cooperation with various sectors of society at the EU and national level. In order

to explain new integration initiatives CSE include three key objectives for member

states:

1) to communicate the reasons for enlargement to the public including its likely

impact and the challenges it poses. The outcome should be improved

understanding of the enlargement process, which in turn should assuage

apprehensions about its impact;

2) to promote dialogue at all levels of society between policy-makers and the

public on issues related to enlargement. This should ensure that progress

through the negotiations towards enlargement is accompanied by public

understanding and support; and

3) to provide information about the candidate countries to help promote general

understanding.

As for content CSE in member states covered: 1) reasons why the EU has

undertaken a new round of enlargement; 2) The enlargement process (negotiations,

preparations in the EU and in the candidate countries); 3) The relationship between

enlargement and the strengthening of the EU; etc. In comparison Communication

Strategy in Serbia seeks to raise awareness and eventually change attitudes. In this

particular, the chosen approach should ensure that progress towards the EU membership

is based on adequate and reliable supply of information. The main strategic objective of

the communication strategy as support to the Stabilisation and Association Process of

Serbia-Montenegro is to ensure that the citizens of Serbia-Montenegro are familiar with

the SAP, that they understand the general objective of the EU association, have a

balanced view about its consequences and possess sufficient and reliable information to

take up their role and responsibilities in the SAP116.

115 http://europa.eu/scadplus/leg/en/lvb/e50008.htm 116 Communication strategy of the Republic of Serbia about the stabilisation and association process of

the State Union Serbia Montenegro. Government of the Republic of Serbia. European Integration Office 2004


Come to Europe!117

Frames for the solving of Kosovo case was offered in March, 2007 in the well

known Ahtisaari Plan. Among the terms of the plan was proposition of internationally

supervised sovereign entity that provoked international discussions. As Toksdorf noted

“it does not specifically use the word “independence”, the Ahtisaari proposal envisages

an internationally supervised sovereign entity that is committed to ensuring minority

rights and special protection for all minorities in Kosovo. At the same time, the proposal

would provide Kosovo with the rights to apply for membership in international

organizations such as the World Bank and the IMF, to create a lightly armed security

force, and to adopt national symbols (such as a flag and seal). It would thus allow

Kosovo to become a functional state”118.

As a result at the end of 2007 different countries in EU and the USA where on

different stages of readiness to declare Kosovo independence according to Ahtisaari

Plan.119 Almost all EU states supported development of law-enforcement mission within

the framework of the EU security and defence policy (ESDP)120. The USA declared about

the support of Kosovo independence. Serbia and Russia deprecated categorically.

According to The Economist Russia insisted that the resolution should be a compromise

between the two sides, rather than the "one-sided" Ahtisaari plan121.

Independence of Kosovo was declared on February 17, 2008 that caused the

dissidence in opinions of international community and also ethnic collisions in Kosovo.

News statistics in February 2008 shows that declaration of Kosovo independence

became a world headline event. At the same time it is necessary to specify on the

gradual increase of attention of public to this subject, that can mean understanding of

117 The ‘Come to Europe ' campaign was launched on 19 th May, 2008. It is a joint campaign organised

by EULEX, EUSR, ICO and the European Commission. The aim is to explain the role of the EU presences in Kosovo to the people of Kosovo. The heart of the campaign is a dynamic Roadshow travelling to 20 towns across Kosovo. [http://www.cometoeuropeks.eu/]

118 Tolksdorf D. Implementing the Ahtisaari Proposal: The European Union’s Future Role in Kosovo Bertelsmann Group for Policy Research No. 1 · May 2007 [http://www.cap.lmu.de/download/2007/CAP-Policy-Analysis-2007-01.pdf]

119 See: Kosovo: No Good Alternatives to the Ahtisaari Plan. ICG Europe Report N°182 14 May 2007 [http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?action=login&ref_id=4830]

120 Kosovo Countdown: A Blueprint for Transition. ICG Europe Report N°188 [http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?action=login&ref_id=5201] December 6, 2007

121 Russia's politics // The Economist [http://www.economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9278316] June 1, 2007


58

importance of all elements and stages of crisis management from the side of main

initiators of independence: prevention, preparation, response and learning.

Fig. 6. GoogleInsight data on Kosovo independence

Prevention and Preparation. EU Missions on Balkans were the method of

prevention of ethnic conflicts in a region. While Ahtisaari Plan became actually the

form of preventive diplomacy for Kosovo case to decline vagueness and ethnic tensions.

Thus development of similar scenario was related to complication eccentricness of this

decision, consequently there was the mechanism of reacting on possible “unexpected”

events. In particular before declaration of independence EU leaders gathered to discuss

potential unrest in Serbia, but failed to reach a common position on how to react if

Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority were to declare independence in the coming months.

The bloc did, however, decide to send 1600 peacekeepers to Kosovo122.

Slovenia presidency in EU in the first half of 2008 also was a symbolical for

Kosovo case. In particular official site of Slovenian presidency in EU mentioned that

after proclamation of Kosovo independence “[Slovenia] succeeded to maintain unity in

all major issues and prevent destabilisation of the region”. At the same time, Slovenia

came forward as mediator between EU and Serbia in its integration initiatives.

122 http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,522366,00.html


Google data and network analysis showed gradual growth of public attention to

the question of proclamation of Kosovo independence. At the beginning of February

2008 basic attention of international speakers on the Serbian and Kosovo cases was

concentrated on parliament elections in Serbia, which were considered as important

stage of integration of Serbia. In particular according to network estimation of category

“elections” European Union was considered as above all result of the conducted

elections, and victory of pro-western candidate meant certain facilitation in EU.

However, already on this stage (start of February 2008) a political rhetoric was related

to the problem of decision of Kosovo future.

Further preparation to declaration of Kosovo independence resulted in

appearance of political statements from the side of all participants of process, except for

UN, Kosovo and France. So, network research of period of 01-15.02.2008 showed

rapprochement of categories EU and Serbia, where the closest categories to EU were

membership of Serbia, future and question of EU mission in Kosovo. Categories of

Kosovo and independence were maximally drawn together and were complemented by

the requirement of “recognition” from the side of Kosovo. However, such rhetoric was

accompanied by criticism of the Serbian politicians about possible interethnic tension

and conflicts creating the problem of EU security. Besides in reply to the statements of

Fig. 7. Network map of election period in Serbia 2008


60

Kosovo politicians about possible fast recognition of Kosovo independence, Serbia

called such actions a mistake and direct intervention.

Response. Period 16.02.-22.02.2008 became most tense, as the reactions of all

basic speakers were disturbed by a situation in Kosovo and possible growth of violence.

On the whole the network map of this period got considerable expansion of categories,

however much European Union became the primary site of network as source of

decision about independence and the most interested speaker. Rapprochement of

categories of EU and Kosovo and also removal of category Serbia was the basic

tendency of this period. Thus, if the statements about considerable success of mission to

Kosovo and also appeals to calm from the side of the EU leaders were important for

rapprochement of EU and Kosovo, the relations between Serbia and EU were

considered through the statements about violation of international law, illegality of the

accepted decision and worsening of relations between EU and Serbia.

The USA and EU became main support of Kosovo. According ICG recognition of

independence of Kosovo by the EU states actually legimised decision of EU and provided

“political space for the maneuver of EU missions, and gave Kosovo clear prospect to join

EU, and confirmed realism of EU plans to provide large financial and political

investments in Kosovo”.

At the same time “EU operated with remarkable unity, even in face of oscillation

of some its members about recognition of Kosovo. On February 18 EU adopted common

statement about declaration of independence and undertook the obligation to play a

leading role in helping to the young state. Before EU authorised EULex mission to

Kosovo and also EU Special Representative. J. Solana, as well as Minister for foreign

affairs of Sweden K.Bildt and NATO Secretary General J. de Hoop Scheffer were a

unique high public servants visiting Kosovo in the first month after declaration of

independence. On February, 28 in Vienna EU states and the USA undertook initiative on

creation of International working group on Kosovo for control of independence of

Kosovo”.

Position of NATO, and KFOR in particular, was based on UN resolution 1244,

that gave these forces authority on providing of "terms of safety and guard" on all

Kosovo territory and defence of territorial integrity of region. KFOR named it the

policy of "neutrality in relation to status", but NATO, however, intended to add a


learning component to the presence and to form new Kosovo security forces instead of

Kosovo Corps of Defence, as it was foreseen by Ahtisaari plan.

Network estimation, in particular confirmed priorities of main supporters of

Kosovo independence: the USA, ЕU and NATO. For example, for USA recognition of

independence was considered as historical possibility, which at the same time had

several vectors—in the relationships with Russia it was the precedent-warning, for

NATO it was solving of security questions in Europe, for EU it was peace support. At

the same time, EU aimed to balance between Serbia and Kosovo (as a feature of crisis

management) and offered for Serbia a proEuropean rhetoric about the “European way”,

“collaboration”, “key actor for stability on Western Balkans” etc.; for Kosovo a basic

rhetoric was concentrated around importance of event and fixing of new status, and also

necessity to satisfy the opponents of independence inside EU. Rhetoric of NATO was

concentrated around stability in a region.

If to considers the rhetoric of European and US leaders, it is possible to select

different priorities in the statements. So, for the president of Slovenia EU, Kosovo and

unique situation became the most essential categories; position of B.Couchner, Minister

for foreign affairs of France, was not centralized, it had two blocks—Serbian with

connections to EU mission in Kosovo, and also Kosovo block with an accent on “great

success” of the accepted decision. Position of the President of France Sarkozy, as well

as Germany prime minister A. Merkel, was less public—Sarkozy marked importance of

“inevitability” of the accepted decision, and Merkel named independence of Kosovo as

“sui generis”. Minister for foreign affairs of Great Britain Milleband defined main

theme of the statements as Kosovo with an accent on security and stability in Europe.

Germany Minister for foreign affairs Steimeier did a greater accent on “optimal

solution” and “relief”, which the decision will bring for EU and Serbia. Position of

Solana possibly was most complex from EU side as it had two blocks—Serbian with the

appeal to calmness and negotiations, and Kosovo one with an accent on importance of

security and saving of stability. Position of Scheffer was also linked to security. The

statements of EU Commissar on integration of O.Rehn were mainly about integration

plans of Serbia, therefore in addition to concepts of EU, Serbia and Kosovo he

mentioned such categories as “membership” and “real and tangible”.


62

Table 1 Degree and betweenness of concepts used by key speakers during response phase

Terms Degree Betweenness

Kosovo 12 220,9 independence 10 116,9 bring peace 5 153,5 USA

recognition 5 83,6 Kosovo 24 366,3 EU 22 324,4 Serbia 19 201,0 European path 6 15,0

EU

Kosovo mission 6 86,9 EU 16 183,1 Kosovo 16 135,9 Serbia 13 117,6 independence 11 54,9 great success 6 26,7 optimal solution 6 42,3

France, GB, Germany, Slovenia

unique situation 5 28,5 Serbia 7 49,0 Kosovo 5 21,3 Summit 5 20,5 NATO appeal to calm 4 14,2


Fig. 9. Network map of terms used by USA and NATO representatives

Fig. 8. Network map of terms used by EU representatives


64

Thus realization of Ahtisaari plan, IWG activity and EULEX mission could not

operated without UNSC, mainly, because of counteraction of Russia. UN Secretariat

and NATO felt that they will not be able to move up farther than "status neutrality"123.

At the same time Serbia also began to critise EU and USA.

The network map of Serbian position showed that it had three blocks of

categories. At first, position of Serbia about territorial integrity, that it was addressed

above all to the EU officials. Secondly, illegality of decision about independence and

requirements to consider a question about Kosovo on UNSC. The third block was a

question about legality of activity of EU mission in Kosovo, for which Serbia required

the UN mandate.

According to ICG Belgrade considered Kosovo as inalienable part of Serbia, but

at the same time the reaction of Serbia was in a greater degree tactical and diplomatic

character. Serbia didn’t launch any military moves but certainly did its best to boycott

Kosovo while trying to support the Serb minority there. The attacks were accomplished

on embassies in Belgrade, and also on the representative office of mission of UNO.

From point of Serbia the attacks are directed not against actually UN mission, and

caused by aspiration to halt any transmission of state prerogatives of UN to the new

government of Kosovo. Statements of Serbian Minister for foreign affairs V.Jeremic in

UNSC, and also comments of Kostunica and Samardzic, specified, that Belgrade

considered UN mission a unique legal international civil presence in Kosovo and

continued to support its work to the certain degree. But Serbia renounced to

acknowledge the plenary powers of UN on institutional construction, given by UN

Resolution 1244. At the same time, Belgrade categorically renounced to co-operate with

EULex. In the speech, pronounced on February, 17 after the declaration of

independence, Kostunica declared: "Serbia also nullified the EU decision which

illegally sent the mission in the region that became possible as a result of deficit of

power in Europe"124.

123 Kosovo's First Month ICG Europe Briefing N°47

[http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?action=login&ref_id=5335] 18 March 2008 124 www.srbija.sr.gov.yu/vesti/vest.php? id=83981.


Table 2 Degree and betweenness of concepts used by key speakers of Serbia and Russia during

response phase

Terms Degree Betweenness Kosovo 41 654,9 EU 38 733,3 independence 36 564,4 recognition 19 86,3 Serbia 12 67,9 long standing ally Russia 11 78,9

Russia

Kosovo mission 10 45,1 Kosovo 26 319,2 EU 25 256,6 Serbia 25 188,8 territorial integrity 14 38,5 independence 12 33,7 Kosovo mission 12 186,1

Serbia

membership 10 33,6

Russia estimated negatively declaration of Kosovo independence, realization of

Ahtisaari plan and development of EU mission. Putin reproached the EU states in

application of "double standards for settlement of the same problem in different parts of

world [by different ways]"125. …Constantly asserting that Kosovo independence violates an international law, and that

recognition creates an international precedent, it, however, compelled many states to hold back

from recognition of Kosovo independence and was instrumental in conducting by Serbia of hard

line about this question. Russia’s veto of draft resolution of UNSC about Ahtisaari plan also limited

possibilities of UN to carry out effective co-operation with EU. Adopting on March 2008

chairmanship in UN Security Council, Russia put pressure on Secretary General in order to save

financing of UN mission in Kosovo, and to prevent to transition of plenary powers from UN to

EULex.

125 http://kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2008/02/14/1011_type82915_ 160266.shtml.


66

Thus, Russia actively supported position of Serbia, and it showed up in a

network map. According to the analysis, the process of confession became for Russia

more important event than Kosovo itself. Actually the question was about the

diplomatic fight of Russia in UN, diplomatic missions in Europe and the USA. Analysis

of positions of the key Russian speakers showed that the categories of Putin’s position

had the high level of betweenness, and concentrated mainly on the negative

consequences of decision and “double standards” of EU policy; EU also was main topic

for Russian Minister for foreign affairs S. Lavrov; and the representatives of Russian

Federation in UN (Churkin) and NATO (Rogozin) required abolitions of EU decision

and named it an error and violation of international law.

Fig. 10. Network map of terms used by Russian representatives


Fig. 11. Network of key speakers in Kosovo case


68

Fig. 12. Network map for key concepts used in Kosovo independence case


01.02

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Ban-Ki-moonBushRiceBarrosoSolanaSchefferOlli-RehnSarkozyKouchnerMerkelSteinmeierMilibandVuk-JeremicBoris-TadicDimitrij-Rupel

Hashim-ThaciChurkinLavrov

PutinRogozin

Ban-Ki-moonBushRiceBarrosoSolanaSchefferOlli-RehnSarkozyKouchnerMerkelSteinmeierMilibandVuk-JeremicBoris-TadicDimitrij-RupelHashim-ThaciChurkinLavrovPutinRogozin

Fig. 13. Dynamics of key speakers activity during Kosovo case


PART IV:

RUSSIAN FEDERATION.

MODERN FOREIGN POLICY COMMUNICATIONS IN

CRISES SITUATIONS

President elections 2008 in Russia designated the results of activity of Putin,

including a foreign-policy sphere. In particular, Russia began to use energy lever as

strategic instrument of influencing on an international scene, especially at regional

level—in Eastern Europe. According to SIPRI Yearbook 2007 “Russia used its energy

wealth to revive national pride, to restore its influence in its ‘near abroad’ and to

maximize its geopolitical power. In doing so, it has shown a disregard for other states’

goodwill that may work against it in the longer term. One consequence of Russia’s

current course is the emergence of a—still not geographically precise—‘soft’ division

between the new, expanded West and the under-reformed, less-integrated parts of

Eastern Europe. Additionally using natural resources as a successful political weapon,

Russia has returned to its traditional policy of playing its European partners against each

other—seeking to weaken the transatlantic ties and to reassert its influence over the

former Soviet states”126. In 2007 at Munich conference Putin defined aspiration of

Russia to multiply its geopolitical position: 'Everybody should understand that Russia

today is not that state it is possible to glue on labels or to put pressure. Who will do this,

lose and feel bitterly sorry about it'127.

Estimation of future foreign policy of Russia divided after the actual

transmission of power from Putin to Medvedev. Most experts marked that Medvedev

would continue the line of Putin, though he will be a more liberal politician. From the

other side Putin became a prime minister, actually a main executor and manager of

foreign policy of Russia. According to Kommersant new Russian foreign policy

doctrine included chapter “Forming and realizing foreign policy” with special provision

points that “government of the Russian Federation takes measures to realize foreign

126 Dunay P., Lachowski Z.Euro-Atlantic security and institutions SIPRI Yearbook 2007 Armaments,

Disarmament and International Security [http://yearbook2007.sipri.org/files/YB0701.pdf] 127 Американская стратегия по дискредитации России ("Al Waqt", Бахрейн) ИноСМИ.Ru [http://www.inosmi.ru/translation/241739.html]

Part IV: Russian Federation. Modern foreign policy communications in crises situations

71

policy”. Before in Putin’s doctrine 2000 there was no role of the government at all in

the document128.

In addition Medvedev-Putin doctrine 2008 included few more differences. First

of all it was mentioning that “West’s losing its monopoly on global processes”, and

Europe needs new system of security. Among European partners Medvedev defined

countries which are Russia’s partners in the gas sphere: Germany, France, Italy, Spain,

Finland, Greece, the Netherlands and Norway

The process of the international strengthening of Russia is indissolubly related to

the origin of political and economic conflicts, contradictions between Russia, EU and

the USA. As a result the Medvedev doctrine strengthens the security vector of the

state129, however the factor of force can not be main, and the more a unique.

“Economic, scientific and technical, ecological, demographic and information factors

considered as main factors of influencing of the states on an international policy”,—

stated in Russia’s Conception of foreign policy130.

In addition, according to D.Trenin, modern Russian diplomacy changed the

style. After successful, but exhausting, tactics of “storm and onslaught” of Putin in

Munich, a new problem got up before Moscow: not to comment actions, but to tell

itself131. However, attention to communications in the Russian foreign policy was paid

yet by Putin, so in 2005-07 RF activated external information vector. As a result it is

marked in Medvedev conception that world public must know about opinion of Russian

Federation on global questions and to get complete and exact information about foreign-

policy initiatives and actions of Russian Federation. “Within the framework of public diplomacy Russia will insist on objective perception in the

world, to develop the personal effective tools of information influence on public opinion abroad,

to provide strengthening of positions of Russian media in external information space, giving

them necessary state support, to participate actively in international cooperation in information

sphere, to take measures against information threats to its sovereignty and safety”132.

128 To MFA in the Whole World. Dmitry Medvedev urged Russian ambassadors to be more aggressive

[http://www.kommersant.com/p912790/r_527/Dmitry_Medvedev_delivered_a_keynote_speech_on_foreign_policy/] July 16, 2008

129 Концепция внешней политики Российской Федерации 12 июля 2008 года, Пр-1440 [http://www.kremlin.ru/text/docs/2008/07/204108.shtml]

130 Доктрина Медведева // [http://www.vz.ru/politics/2008/7/15/187046.html] 15 July 2008 131 Тренин Дм. Внешняя политика Медведева: пора ставить задачи

[http://www.ej.ru/?a=note&id=8216] 10.07.2008 132 Концепция внешней политики РФ….


About possibility of crises in realization of Russian foreign-policy course

marked also the fact of creation of crisis center in the frames of Russian MFA for co-

ordination of work of all MFA in extraordinary and crises situations of different

character. For example, in the case of terrorist threat, military operations, natural

cataclysms, and also for evacuation of Russians. The basic task of center was collection

of necessary information, its analysis and making of variants of decision of problem133.

The elements of crisis approach to information activity of Russian MFA were

marked also in reports about foreign-policy and diplomatic activity of RF in 2006 and

2007134 135. The peak of new initiatives was in 2007, when Russian MFA specified on

importance of information component: The key of perception of results of negotiations, one or another facts, events and tendencies in

the field of international relations in a great deal is formed not so much by the accepted

documents, but by their information background—comments, expert appearances, publications

in media.

Then description was given to foreign-policy communications of Russian

Federation. At first, it was marked a necessity to strengthen counteraction to

stereotypical anti-Russian thought in the West. Thus efficiency of “purposeful official

propaganda” must be increased to Russian MFA in mastering of new world information

spaces jointly with foreign media. At the same time it was noted absence of the arranged

system of forming of international image of Russia: “Taking into account the calls… it

needs to create co-ordinating center on information work. Insufficient attention of it

was also noted by international partners of Russia”. At the same time the information

constituent of diplomatic activity was appraised as offensive, that, in opinion of the

Russian diplomats, must not mean “returning to confrontation and ideological

opposition”. A discussion on key international issues, not acquittal for the actions and

position, must become main strategy of foreign-policy communications of Russian

Federation.

133 Полетаев В., Сорокина Н.МИД создал кризисный центр // Российская газета №4404 4 июля

2007 г. 134 Обзор внешней политики Российской Федерации 431-27-03-2007 [http://www.ln.mid.ru/ns-

osndoc.nsf/0e9272befa34209743256c630042d1aa/d925d1dd235d3ec7c32573060039aea4?OpenDocument] 135 Внешнеполитическая и дипломатическая деятельность Российской Федерации в 2007 г. Обзор

МИД России, март 2008 г. [http://www.ln.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/itogi/9B6D03B7DC298E37C325741000339BEC]


73

The use of foreign PR-campaigns became an important element of foreign-

policy communications for promotion of RF, in particular the US company Ketchum

and its European representative office GPlus (both are included in Omnicom group). A

contract with this company became the first case of appeal of Russian authorities to

services of foreign PR-agency, and the idea belonged to Putin136. The basic task of

campaign was to help in adjusting of contacts of Russian leaders with western media

during G8 summit in S.-Petersburg in 2006 and, on the whole, chairmanship of Russia

in this informal club.

Description of Ketchum activity in Russian case related first of all to the crisis

management and it is necessary to consider it as combination of reactive (in 2006) and

proactive (from 2007) strategies of foreign-policy communications for destruction of

stereotypes about Russia, folded in the West before 2006137. Among key tasks for

Ketchum were research of public opinion about Russia, opening direct lines of

communication between Russian ministers and the media, educating influencers to tell

the Russian story, and capitalizing on new media channels to increase visibility. In

addition Ketchum arranged a global webcast with the BBC and produced the Russian

government’s first-ever podcasts featuring senior Russian officials. Ketchum also

upgraded the G8 Web site and managed a series of high-profile print, radio, and

broadcast placements around the world.

According to Russian PR-edition Sovetnik “it is difficult to estimate the

veritable results of collaboration… Basic activity of agency was work with media, but

the mechanism of this work was not showed, except for adjusting of channels of

operative delivery of information”. In particular, Ketchum succeeded in helping make

the once-obscure news of the Kremlin open to the world and shift global views of

Russia to recognize its more democratic nature. As a result percentage of positive

coverage more than doubled during Summit, negative coverage cut in half. The

Financial Times commented on Russia's "re-emergence as a world force" while The

Washington Post observed “normally opaque Kremlin put on an extravagant show of

Western-style openness to the international media.”

136 Товар лицом. Кремль продлил контракт с пиар-агентством Ketchum

[http://www.sostav.ru/news/2007/06/06/13r/] 137 Opening Its Doors to the World: Russia’s Presidency of the G8 Summit

[http://www.ketchum.com/russia_g8_summit_case_study?service_type=196] 2007-09-05


In 2007 it was decided to continue the contract with Ketchum, and its work

according to Jack O'Dwyer's Newsletter, was “lobbying for Putin to be Time’s “Person

of the Year” and dozens of media briefings in Moscow, New York and Washington,

D.C. for both Russia and Gazprom138… [In addition to G8 Summit Ketchum also

supported] a Moscow visit by US Defense Secretary R. Gates and C. Rice. The firm

arranged dozens of meetings with media like Washington Post editorial board, New

Yorker editor David Remnick, and Wall Street Journal editorial board”. As a result

Russian rebranding strategy developed into publicity storm likely to surround the 2014

Winter Games in Sochi139. Another Ketchum’s “message” of Kremlin was, according

S.Lock, to play rough with NATO, EU and the USA and without obligation to conform

to Western standards of democracy and human rights.

The reanimation of Russian news agencies and channels became other important

direction of foreign-policy communications140. For example, one of the largest news

agencies RIA Novosti participated in a large-scale campaign on creation and

presentation to the world of image of Russia as a country, where economics grows and

democracy develops141. It was used to counteract… to criticism of the West during the

transmission of power from Putin to Medvedev.

RIA Novosti are also financed the information and analytical site

Russiaprofile.org, which is marked in a number of western commentators as clever,

fascinating resource which the wide spectrum of opinions represented on, including,

enough hostile opinion in regard to Kremlin. Additionally, RIA Novosti conducts

meetings of Russian and foreign experts, so called Valdai club.

In 2005 English-language channel for foreign audiences was launched—Russia

Today—‘Russian CNN’, however channel has uncritical position in relation to Kremlin.

Anna Badkhen, in SFGate.Com said that the channel has ‘a pro-Kremlin slant and feel-

good features about Russian culture to Asia, Europe and North America on a $40

million annual budget.’ In 2007 Arabic analogue of the TV channel started to work and

138 Ketchum Outlines Russia Work // Jack O'Dwyer's Newsletter Internet Edition, February 27, 2008 139 Brian Whitmore Spinning the Kremlin // RFE/RL (06/11/07) 140 John Brown Public Diplomacy Media Overview. Public diplomacy as a global phenomenon, 2006: An

internetbased overview of Englishlanguage world media reports on public diplomacy — Part III: Europe and the Americas (excluding the United States) Place Branding and Public Diplomacy (2007) 3, 337 –347.

141 Питер Финн (Peter Finn) Россия тратит десятки миллионов на полировку своего имиджа за рубежом ("The Washington Post", США), 06 марта 2008


75

it cost 35 million dollars. Russia Today also used social network YouTube—RuTube—

as an additional channel.

The Governmental 'Rossijskaya gazeta' creates the monthly appendixes to the

Indian, British, Bulgarian and American newspapers. "Russia: Beyond the Headlines"

was the appendix to Washington Post and cover numerous 'soft' themes: for example,

about Christmas in Russia and Russian tennis stars.

Also Russian foreign-policy communication includes counter propaganda

measures. In particular, ‘Russian regulators have forced more than 60 radio stations to

stop broadcasting news reports produced by Voice of America and Radio Free

Europe/Radio Liberty’.

Thus, Russia aims to use new technologies and models for international

communication. According to V.Novikov “Russians study experience of US

nongovernmental agencies on distribution of certain opinions in the world [although]

'we are very far from that Americans do... We are novices'.”142. As a result Russian

foreign-policy communication has the row of lacks and discussable moments.

1) Activation of information direction of foreign policy of RF was directed mainly on

Western Europe and Islam world, at the same time former USSR republics still

remain in the area of cultural, religious and media influencing of Russia. A

linguistic closeness allows to conduct the Russian foreign-policy decisions on the

most difficult directions in relations with Ukraine, Georgia, and also Baltic states.

Penetration of Russian media also enables to conduct information operations.

2) According to theses of Medvedev and Putin that most important relations of RF are

with next-door neighbours—it is possible to assume that foreign-policy information

operations could be more successful for Russia exactly on “home” field. As Marat

Gelman noted “Russia must do more to battle its negative image abroad, particularly

in neighboring countries".

3) At the same time stereotypes about Russia as “world bear” still negatively effect on

efficiency of Russian foreign-policy communications. In the West, Russia was

critized for its efforts to improve image as Europe and USA saw Russia’s campaign

more as a form of propaganda rather than legitimate public diplomacy. Aleksandr

Grigoryev, editor-in-chief of the news and information agency Washington Profile, 142 leader of organization 'Russian world' which get from Russian government $20 million a year on

propaganda of Russian language


claims that reasons for the West’s criticisms lie in the fact that Russia’s external

change, must first come from a change within.

Russian-Georgian relations In Russian foreign policy it is possible to name relations of RF and Georgia as

an example of the crisis reacting, especially after Roses revolution in Georgia in 2003.

The basic problem of Russian-Georgian relations was recognition of Abkhazia and

South Ossetia independence, which de jure are parts of Georgia, and de facto have

strong support of Moscow. At the same time Georgia, declaring integration in NATO

and getting financial and material sponsorship of the USA, became the area of political

conflict between Russia and the USA. As possible reason of interest to the region of

these two countries it is called energy transit corridors, which are alternative for transit

corridors going through RF. The statements of Georgia about military integration

became the additional lever of political pressure of RF which repeatedly declared about

militarization of Georgia and, as a result, possibilities of military conflict in Abkhazia

and South Ossetia.

For the analysis of foreign-policy management of Russia during conflict with

Georgia it was used personalised network approach. As a crisis management foresees

participation of so called “speakers”, it allows to analyse an international conflict as the

series of utterances and statements of group of people which got coverage in media.

Thus, the network of basic terms is formed. At the same time it is necessary to mark that

the analysis of media in this case is not considered, as the “frames” of message are here

created by “speaker”.

History of the conflict

Gradual escalation of the frozen conflict in Georgia took place in 2007-2008,

period of changing of president of Russian Federation. Thus Abkhazia was the basic

area of conflict, in particular Georgia accused Russia of two attacks — a helicopter and

ground-to-ground rocket attack in the Kodori Gorge in March 2007, and an attack from

a Russian jet with an air-to-ground missile in August 2007. However Russia rejected the

accusations of the Georgian side and named them as “fake attacks”.


77

In 2008 there was an accident with downing of Georgian drone. As New York

Times noted Georgia firstly denied Abkhaz reports that it had lost a drone, but then

changed opinion and declared that drone was used for estimation of situation in a

border-line area between Abkhazia and Georgia. Meantime, Russian side didn’t dispute

that a Georgian drone had been downed by an air-to-air missile. But it said an Abkhaz

L-39 training plane had flown the mission, not a Russian MIG-29. Besides Russia

denied claim, saying that none of its military planes flew in or near southwestern Russia

on Sunday and that its pilots were not working that day. But Georgia released the video

recording of the final live feed received from the drone before it was struck by an air-to-

air missile.

Buoyed with what it called clear evidence, Georgia countered with a diplomatic

and public relations offensive. President Mikheil Saakashvili appeared on national

television and said he had spoken with President Vladimir V. Putin and demanded an

end to what he called “unprovoked aggression against the sovereign territory of

Georgia.” Georgian officials said the video had been shared with foreign embassies in

Tbilisi. Also M.Saakashvili insisted to consider this tape on UN Security Council and in

OSCE143144. Video from downed drone was shown most TV channels and widespread in

Internet.

Thus, from the Georgian side it was used the model of event management with

elements of event—reaction—statement for world media—appeal to international

organizations. Every phase got the coverage, as a result before appeal to international

organisations public already had proof image of culprit and victim.

At the same time, it is impossible to underestimate Russian position. Russian

“bewildered” position (statement of Putin "bewilderment" about plane) and the whole

episode occurred only days after several Western countries, including the United States,

criticized Russia’s announcement that it would expand its support for the breakaway

regions. Consequently, a similar conflict was not a surprise for Russia, in fact crises in

the relationships with Georgia arose up periodically, and decision to down the drone

wasn’t spontaneous. Position of basic “speakers” of foreign policy of Russia—Putin,

143 Chivers C. J. Georgia-Russia Tension Escalates Over Downed Drone // NYT April 22, 2008 144 Georgia Pushes Drone Downing at OSCE // Civil Georgia, 4 June 2008

Georgia Wants UN Security Council Session over Drone Downing // Civil Georgia 29 May 2008


Lavrov, Churkin and others—it is possible to estimate as homogeneous and principle of

crisis management of unity of the outspoken opinion was consequently stored.

Growth of tension in August 2008 meant a necessity to strengthen co-ordination

of foreign-policy and defense departments of Russian Federation. At the same time,

August 2008 became the symbolic 100-daily border of Medvedev ruling who needed to

fasten the image as a new president of Russian Federation.

Exactly interdepartmental co-ordination between president, government,

ministry of defence and MFA became basis of crises communications in the “five-day

war” with Georgia and defined the verge of political and military value of foreign-

policy communications. However, as Kommersant noted that “war in Ossetia put an

absolute record on the amount of lie accompanying. Every event had three-four variants

of interpretations, sides all the time gave very different information, whereupon manage

to refute itself and however to reject all prosecutions of opponents. The information

given by Russian, Georgian and western media were so different, as though the question

is about different events, different countries and different intervals of time”145.The

military decision of conflict meant set of rules of engagement for media, and also

opening of active phase of the international information confrontation.

Began the “opened” phase of conflict was often determined by start of fire of

Tshinvali by Georgian military on August, 8, 2008. However a latent phase arose up at

least 7-10 days earlier, when appeared the messages about the victims and refugees

from Tshinvali. Then the central message of each of sides was formed. As T. McKenna

noted “clearly, both countries had a “narrative” they aim to tell”:

- Russia claimed it's responding to an unprovoked attack on the independent,

though disputed, territory of South Ossetia; and also for defence of habitants

and citizens of Russian Federation (South Ossetins, having the passports of

Russian Federations, and Russian peacemakers).

- Georgia said it's the victim of a bullying Russia, using the dispute as a pretext

to an attempted takeover of the Georgian territory146.

During the conflict Saakashvili remained main newsmaker, actually creating for

Russia the primary terms of reactive crisis communications. At the same time, the basic

145 Пятидневная война // Власть № 32(785) 18.08.2008 146 McKenna T. Countries count on comms during a war // PRWeek

[http://www.prweekus.com/issue/August/25/2008/1334/] August 25, 2008


79

speakers of Russia in a conflict were Minister for foreign affairs S.Lavrov, UN

Ambassador of Russian Federation Churkin, representative of Russian Federation in

NATO Rogozin, and also General Nogovitsyn from the Russian Ministry of defense.

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

03.08.2008 10.08.2008 17.08.2008 24.08.2008 31.08.2008Lavrov Churkin Rogozin Nogovitsyn

Fig. 14. GoogleInsight search volume (Latin, mostly English):

Lavrov vs. Churkin vs. Rogozin vs. Nogovitsyn (Worldwide; Aug 2008)

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

03.08.2008 10.08.2008 17.08.2008 24.08.2008 31.08.2008

Лавров Чуркин Рогозин Ноговицын

Fig. 15. GoogleInsight search volume (Cyrillic): Лавров vs. Чуркин vs. Рогозин vs. Ноговицын (Worldwide; Aug 2008)

Public attention can be estimated according to GoogleInsight. In particular, it

should be noted the difference of Cyrillic and English variant: activity of Lavrov and

Churkin prevailed in English variant, and also importance of position of Nogovitsyn

was noticeable, attention to whom achieved activity of Churkin. It should be noted


circumstance that Nogovitsyn appeared in Russian media on August 9 (according to

RIAN and Yandex.News), and in foreign media he appeared only on August 10, at the

end of the open phase of conflict. As Kommersant noted, it was possible to notice that

the reaction of Moscow was unhurry. “In all previous cases Russia immediately ordered to fly up the airplanes and declared, that

Georgian encroachment succeeded to be prevented. This time it seemed nobody tried to prevent

war. Russian Ministry of Defence was quiet. The UN representative of Russia Churkin call the

urgent meeting of UNSC only in the morning by Moscow time, that around midnight by New

York. And the sharp statement of the president Medvedev sounded only in 15:00. When a 58th

army already moved up to Roki tunnel”147.

At the same time, summarising military operation on the meeting of Valdai club

on September 13, 2008 Nogovitsyn marked that creation of press-club of Russian

Ministry of Defence and co-ordination of activity of media substantially distinguished

style of conduct of Russians and Georgians: the last assumed journalists in the region,

while Russians aimed to create the “embedded journalism”. It allowed Russians to

obtain the break in the information policy of western countries in regard to coverage of

situation in Georgia and South Ossetia which in the beginning was fully on the side of

Georgia. "By guidance of the state and Ministry of Defence the decision was initially accepted about

maximal transparency for media and public of actions of Russian troops about peacemaking

objectives, and this model of co-operation between Ministry and public …proved the utility and

efficiency"148.

Main stages and elements of opposition

Start of open conflict

The first signs of military decision of relations between Georgia and Russia were

set after declaration of Kosovo independence and conducting of Summit of NATO in

Bucharest. The first event became the source of statements of Russia about the revision

of the system of international law and international relations. Second was the cause for a

discussion between the representatives of NATO, Russia, Ukraine and Georgia about

the prospects of NATO east enlargement. Thus basic accent in Georgian actions was

147 Пятидневная война… 148 РФ добилась перелома в освещении Западом ситуации на Кавказе—Генштаб // РИА Новости.

13.09.2008


81

done on Abkhazia. And development of the Russian-Georgian relations, according to

ICG looked like:

In February 2008, after conducting of negotiations on Georgian-Abkhazian

conflict with participation of UN, Saakashvili met Putin for the “improvement of

relations”, however Russia criticised aspiration of Georgia in NATO. At the beginning

of March 2008 South Ossetia and Abkhazia demanded to recognise independence on

the basis of “Kosovo precedent”, that caused growth of tension and first displays of

military variant. In April 2008 it was discussed the opinion about “military reaction”, if

Georgia will intrude to Abkhazia. In June 2008 NATO head de Joop Scheffer said

Russia "escalating situation" as it deployed 400-strong railway force in Abkhazia.

Saakashvili and Medvedev met 6 June in St. Petersburg at CIS summit, no agreement

reached. Moscow warned of “bloodshed” if “provocations” continued after 4

peacekeepers briefly detained 17 June in Zugdidi district (Abkhazia). In South Ossetia 1

soldier left dead in 14-15 June clashes between Georgian, South Ossetian forces. In July

2008 appeared the first messages about evacuation of refugees from the area of possible

military conflict in South Ossetia.

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

30.0

7.20

08

31.0

7.20

08

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.08.

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.08.

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.08.

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.08.

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.08.

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.08.

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01.0

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0802

.09.

2008

MedvedevSaakashvili

Fig. 16. Dynamics of public attention to Medvedev and Saakashvili (Google Insight data)


However information of network analysis of activity of the basic Russian

speakers on the theme of Georgia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia showed (on the basis of

reports of RIAN and Reuters), that Russia to August, 8 did not aim to fasten own

position in media and public opinion (06.06.-04.08.2008). For example, Churkin in this

period came forward with “critics of the West” about question of Kosovo, the Russian

representative in NATO Rogozin was considered in the West foremost as fervent

nationalist, however his basic message for NATO was “improvement of links” and once

again confirmed importance of ideas of development of security on continent. Most

aggressive rhetoric was used by Lavrov, his main opponent was the head of ESDP

J.Solana, and “warning”, “open aggression”, “bombing”, “Abkhazia” became the basic

terms of Larvov.

On August, 8—after the fire of Tshinvali by the Georgian troops—sounded

statements of Russian leaders. As it noted before, this reaction did not look efficient.

Taking into account circumstance that Putin was in Beijing, his statements that the

attacks of Georgia will "cause return actions" coincided with the official statement of

Medvedev. Besides at this time Russian troops already moved toward Tshinvali.

In 15.00 Dmitry Medvedev declared on Security Council:

"We will shut out unpunished death of our compatriots".

According to western observers, at this time the «primary purpose of

information support of actions of Russia on Caucasus was internal, Russian audience.

And only the second level task was influence on western public opinion”149.

Network analysis testified that actual function of crisis manager of military

operation made by S.Lavrov. Main accent of his appearances this day was the attack on

the Russian “peacemakers” and ethnic cleanings of South Ossetins. As Zhuravlev noted

at the beginning of conflict Lavrov and other Russian politicians, “suddenly began to

pronounce the name of city of Tshinvali on Ossetin manner—Tshinval. It immediately

specified, on whose side they were”.

At the same time Saakashvili began the active bringing in of international media

for advancement of Georgian estimation of events, in particular he declared in the

149 Журавлев А. Уроки информационной войны на Кавказе // BBC 26 августа 2008 г.


83

interview of CNN: "Russia wages war with us on our territory". It caused the row of

statements of western countries about the necessity to stop military operation against

Georgia. As a result, the reactive campaign of Russia began in NATO and UN: Rogozin

and Churkin cast aside the accusations of the beginning of military actions. According

to Y.Levine “All the Russians did was call an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security

Council to try to pass a resolution demanding that Georgia and the S. Ossetia lay down

their arms. It wasn’t much of a psychological operation, one that the U.S. didn’t even

back”150.

In the first days of war Russian militaries in Tshinvali shut out western

journalists, that made sharply negative impression in a whole world. As Robert Coalson

wrote “independent journalists have been denied visas, meaning that media reports from

the ground have come largely from Russian state-media journalists, including reporters

from Russia Today and the Russian state military channel Zvezda”151.

Coalson also stated that during first days of conflict Russia Today channel was

the main international media-channel for Russia. “Russia Today has reported a steady

string of Russian government statements, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's

assertion that he has received reports of "ethnic cleansing" by Georgian troops in South

Ossetia. On August 9, Russian Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu arrived in

the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, bolstering Russia Today's narrative that the

Russian incursion is a "peacekeeping operation" intended to restore order and provide

humanitarian relief”.

Despite the imperatives of breaking news in a fluid situation, Russia Today on

both August 8 and 9 found time to run a half-hour report called "The Fragile State" on

the political situation in Georgia in general, emphasizing the country's political crisis

last winter. During that time, the government cracked down harshly on opposition

rallies and briefly shut down all nonstate broadcasters. The tone of the Russia Today

report was both that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is willing to do anything to

maintain an increasingly tenuous hold on power and that the 1994 Rose Revolution is a

failure, with Georgians in general pining for the prerevolutionary period and, in some

150 Levine Y. The CNN Effect: Georgia Schools Russia in Information Warfare

[http://exiledonline.com/the-cnn-effect-georgia-schools-russia-in-information-warfare/] 151 Coalson R. South Ossetia Sinks Into The Spin Zone

[http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2008/08/mil-080809-rferl02.htm] August 09, 2008


cases, even Soviet times. The channel scheduled "The Fragile State" for broadcast six

times on August 9.

Coverage of the conflict in world and Russian media was not co-ordinated,

although there was some initiative from the side of Russian MFA. For example,

information about the downed Russian airplanes was covered in media as follows152.

The message about downed airplanes appeared in headlines on August, 8 in

11:19 with reference to the Georgian TV channel “Rustavi-2”. Georgia: the Russian airplanes bomb Gori. Four airplanes flying from the side of Russia,

whipped off bombs on Gori approximately in 11:00 on August, 8, the Georgian broadcasting

company “Rustavi-2” reports. According to TV channel, one of airplanes was already shut down

by the Georgian troops. // News Georgia.

In an hour, in 12:21, refutation appeared from the side of Russian MFA about a

bluff from the side of Georgia about the downed Russian airplanes. MFA of Russia named the report about the downed Russian airplane as a “delirium”. MFA of

Russia named the “delirium” and “provocation” of report of Georgian media about the downed

Russian military airplane. “This is delirium, next infamous provocation of Georgian

authorities”,—the representative of Department of information of MFA of Russia said,

commenting the report of Rustavi-2 that the Georgian troops allegedly downed the Russian

airplane bombing Gori. // RIAN

In an hour—in 13:43—the official comment of Department of defense of

Russian Federation appeared: Ministry of defence refuted information about the downed Russian airplanes. Ministry of defence

of Russia refuted information about the Russian airplanes downed in South Ossetia. As reported

in the press-service of ministry, “any downed Russian airplanes is out of the question. This is

next information provocation”. // ITAR-TASS

However already on August, 9 in 12:41 Nogovitsyn officially confirmed the loss

of the Russian airplanes. Ministry of defence acknowledged the losses of two airplanes in Georgia. Ministry of defence of

Russia acknowledged the losses of two airplanes during operation on maintenance of

peacemakers and population of South Ossetia, the general Nogovitsyn declared today.

“Information about the losses change constantly. I can acknowledge one—we lost two

airplanes”,—he said. General specified, that the decision about use of force from the Russian

side had been accepted on August 8 in 11.00 by Moscow time, when the Georgian troops took

152 Информационная война на Кавказе, или Как из черного делали белое

[http://forum2.km.ru/Forum.aspx?id=2a3fce10-cebe-429b-a50f-1ec5b70c638c]


85

small towns “North” and “South” of the Russian peacemakers. “At this time the decision was

accepted”,—he said. // ITAR-TASS

Central phase

The most active battle actions were on August, 9-11 and were accompanied by

the massive information campaign both by Russia and Georgia. For example, on

August, 9 in Georgian media appeared the statements about bombing of the Georgian

city Gori located south of Tshinvali and 10 downed Russian airplanes. Georgian TV

showed the captive Russian pilots and one killed. Russian Ministry of defence

acknowledged the loss of SU-25 and TU-22. The Georgian media also reported about

the explosion of Roki tunnel, being part of a unique way conducting from Russia to

South Ossetia. However this information was not confirmed.

This day the basic speaker of Russia were Rogozin, who continued the theme of

genocide by Georgians and noted that Russia would not conduct negotiations with

Georgia; and Lavrov who marked that Russia does not wage war, and only “answers on

aggression”.

On August, 10 the Georgian side declared about numerous airshots. Russian

Ministry of defence specified, that airplanes attacked military objectives only. Thus,

military campaigns went on the first plan and Nogovitsyn appeared, which did in the

beginning an accent on peacemaking forces in the district of conflict between Georgians

and Ossetins. Thus Lavrov uttered personalised declaration that Saakashvili no more a

partner for the solving of situation, and the western media were accused in biased

coverage. Position of Lavrov was “retransmitted” by Churkin, who marked, that the

western media misinformed public. Also Lavrov marked possibility of withdrawal of

troops.

However on August 11 the Russian troops began to move up from territory of

Abkhazia deep into to Georgia. Without a fight they entered in Zugdidi, Senaki and Poti

"with the purpose of non-admission of regrouping of Georgian forces and concentration

of the additional armed formings". In the second half of day the Russian troops began

advancement to the border with Georgia southward, westward and eastward. In the

evening the Georgian troops began retreat with positions in a Gori district, giving up a

military equipment and property. The Georgian president in presence the heads of MFA

of France and Finland signed a document about the cease-fire. At the same time,


Saakashvili declared that Russian troops controlled greater part of territory of Georgia.

It turned out soon, that the Russian army stopped, taking the village Nikozi not far away

from Gori, and there were no threat for Tbilisi.

It is possible to consider August 11 as apogee of campaign, when all basic

speakers of Russian Federation commented events and uttered declarations. In this day

exactly Nogovitsyn became a basic information generator about actions of Russian

army, although his basic messages were the denials or refutation of information that the

Russian airplanes bombed out civil objects or international oil pipeline. At the political

“front” Lavrov stated about the revision of relationships with the West and participation

in a club G7, additionally he rejected the accusations about encroachment of Russia and

military help to self-declared Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In this day Lavrov and

Churkin commented the French variant of peace agreement between Georgia and

Russia.

Table 3 Degree, betweenness and closeness of concepts used by key Russian speakers at the

beginning of open conflict phase

Deg

ree

Bet

wee

ness

153

Clo

sene

ss15

4

no mediation 0 0 100 not all out war 1 0 83 OSCE head 0 0 100

Lavrov

triggering the violence 1 0 83 genocide 1 0 83

09.08.2008

Rogozin no talks 1 0 83 bias 1 0 84 not partner 2 0 83 regime change 0 0 121 Saakashvili 2 0 83

Lavrov

withdraw 1 0 84 peacekeeping forces 1 0 102

10.08.2008

Nogovitsyn Tskhinvali 1 0 102

Churkin French resolution 2 13 50 11.08.2008 Lavrov G7 1 0 56

153 Index of importance 154 Ability to influence


87

no military assistance 1 0 56 bombing Georgian oil pipelines 2 0 54 denies 3 0,5 53 Georgia 6 46 43 no orders to go beyond 1 0 55 rejected 1 0 55 Russia invasion 1 0 56 Russian jets had bombed 2 0 54

Nogovitsyn

S Ossetia 4 60 39

This period became the peak of information cyber-war. There are a few opinions

that active counteraction to the electronic resources was the element of military

campaign of both sides. From one side, experts named events in Ossetia as the first

coincidence of cyber-attacks and real battle actions155. As IWM noted the main question

in this case was: were the attacks in cyberspace part of deliberately planned campaign,

or did they happen spontaneously, inspired by events? The cyber aspects of the Russian

Georgian conflict may not look like any existing doctrine of information operations or

psychological warfare, but they have proven effective at achieving similar outcomes156.

As G.Evron noted cyber-attacks were conducted by nationalistic hacker groups,

however often the information resources of the sides simply did not get along the

interest of users and with the stream of queries.

At the same time, locking of information resources became the important

element of conflict. According to IWM the basic stages of electronic war were157:

1) Employment of “military” bot-net to attack critical Georgian government

websites and routers. Commercial bot-nets linked to known “black net” providers

(possibly, Russian Business Network) were responsible for the most serous attacks

against Georgian government websites that occurred after August 8. The website of

the President of Georgia remained under denial of service despite being moved to a

service provider in the United States. Webtie of Georgian MFA was moved to

international blogspot.com platform.

155 Lamb G.M. Anatomy of a cyberwar in Georgia

[http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/13/anatomy-of-a-cyberwar-in-georgia/] 13.08.08 156 Russia-Georgia Cyberwar [http://www.infowar-monitor.net/] 15 August 2008 157 Russia-Georgia Cyberwar…


2) Active route hijacking by Russian hackers, redirecting traffic to Russian telecom

operators. If confirmed it would suggest that Russia ISPs are capable of enforcing

an information blockage against a “cyber-locked” Georgia.

3) Script kiddies and on-line partisans join the campaign against Georgian

websites. The Russian "patriotic" hacker site stopgeorgia.ru , for example, provides

anyone connected to the Internet with the opportunity to launch denial of service

attacks against Georgian websites.

4) Web 2.0. Global Voices reports that information attacks have spread to ICQ and

social network sites that are being targeted with pro-Russian messages.

5) Attacks against regional new portals. In addition to attacks against the Azeri news

sites, Day.Az and ANS.Az, several Ukrainian websites (delo.ua and

vosvoboda.info) have now been affected by denial of service attacks allegedly by

pro-Russian hackers

Russian approach to electronic warfare caused ambiguous estimations among

experts. According to Morozov the amount of publications of Russian bloggers

increased as far as advancement of the Russian troops, mainly that the western media

biased represented events in Ossetia.

Later one of the founders of Runet, the founder of many internet-projects Anton

Nosik marked that during a conflict in South Ossetia some people were purposefully

engaged in festering of atmosphere around this theme in the Internet and created the

certain background of information. "During war in South Ossetia we saw in blogosphere purposeful work of people which in the

morning came on work and sat down to wire certain looks in all places, where they saw the

unprovoked discussion of subject. They in the morning began and late at night finished, and then

the second changing came. Before invasion of the Russian troops to Georgia 80% of readers of

my magazine said that it is not necessary to invade Georgia, but 20% said that it is necessary.

And in subsequent days these 20% made 120% of political comments. Everybody which was at

execution, he offered an opinion ten times from ten different names. As a result I, in the own

magazine, got feeling, that no point of view in general was except for that which exists on state

TV. And it was done by facilities of the Internet, this was done in a free competition

environment, we usually think that such manipulations in it are impossible"158.

Georgian answer for electronic war were:

158 Блогосфера стала ареной войны за общественное мнение—эксперт // РИА Новости 12.09.2008


89

1) Filtering of Russian media sites and closing down domain .ru. Inaccurate and

inflammatory reports by Russian media sites are apparently behind the decision by

major Georgian ISPs to implement limited Internet filtering. The limited filtering of

Russian media sites appears to be part of the government's declared state of

emergency. At least two Georgian ISPs have implemented limited filtering this

week as a "defensive measure" aimed at protecting the population and reducing the

potential for panic during a time of national crisis.

2) Attacks on Russian media sites. Several leading Russian media sites, including

Izvestia and RIA Novosti, were inaccessible on 11 August due to massive denial of

service attacks.

3) Cyber-sniping—Targeting of cell phones in Ossetia. Georgian forces allegedly

used EW to strike at targets using cell/sat phones in Ossetia causing casualties

among journalists and reporters.

End of conflict

With the help of Couchner and Sarkozy (Kommersant marked actual diplomatic

competition of French diplomats and Lavrov) on Tuesday, on August, 12, President of

Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev reported that he made decision about completion

of operation on urging to the peace. Then he met with N.Sarkozy and declared about

achievement of agreement on the settlement of conflict. Sarkozy was a mediator and

brought in Tbilisi proposition about the cease-fire, which was adopted by Saakashvili.

However, tension was saved as Georgian troops expected possible encroachment of the

Russian troops in Tbilisi.

As Nogovitsyn said, summarizing military campaign within the framework of

Valdai club, according the results of military operation "Russian side was succeeded to

break tendentious, one-sided opinion, that Russia aggressor, as the Georgian side

declared" . A proactive phase began for the Russian side as it was confirmed by

strengthening of misinformation statements from Georgian officials. So, on Tuesday

appeared the statement that the Russian troops took Gori and move on Tbilisi. Already

the next day Georgian authorities admitted that this was a misinformation — no Russian

tanks near capital appeared.


Also up to Tuesday Georgia was considered by western media as a side initiating

a conflict. In numerous appearances on CNN and ВВС Michael Saakashvili had to

answer question, why he gave order to attack Tshinvali. To break information war, the

Georgian side began actively use image of victim.

Lavrov stated that Russia does not aim to displace the president Saakashvili.

Fully probably, that the similar statements became a component on Russian message on

August, 12, as Nogovitsyn also refuted information about advancement of the Russian

troops to Tbilisi and bombardments of Gori.

On Wednesday, August, 13, the media reported two Georgian drones were

downed in South Ossetia. Later Russian soldieries refuted this information. During a

day Georgian officials repeatedly reported about a capture of Gori by the Russian troops

and advancement of tanks on Tbilisi. Russian Ministry of defence refuted these

information and declared about beginning of withdrawal of troops from South Ossetia

and Abkhazia. In the evening Lavrov acknowledged the presence of Russian troops on

the territory of Georgia — around Gori and Senaki. According to his statements,

Russian troops guard the ammunitions and military technique abandoned by the

Georgian army, and also give humanitarian help to the local population.

The active information campaign of Russian officials began at the same time.

According to Reuters data, before signing of cease-fire with participation of France,

Medvedev, who has steered Russia towards the biggest dispute with the West since the

Cold War, had not given a single interview to foreign media since the crisis began159.

But on Tuesday Medvedev gave, in short order, interviews to CNN, the BBC, TF1, Al

Jazeera and Russia Today. He also wrote an opinion piece for the Financial Times that

appeared on Wednesday morning.

Network analysis showed more international context on August, 13. So, Lavrov

in reply to appearance of the US ships in the Black sea and statements of Rice about the

help to Georgia, named Saakashvili regime as “virtual project” of the USA. Also he

opened the question of sovereignness of territories in the “dangerous game”. His

rhetoric was continued by Rogozin, who marked importance of moment for the

counterterrorist fight. Nogovitsyn, in turn, refuted information about advancement of

the Russian troops to Tbilisi. 159 ANALYSIS-Kremlin fights back in PR battle over Georgia

[http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSLQ433217] Aug 29, 2008


91

An international discussion proceeded on August, 14, when Sarkozy came

forward as a mediator in the search of peaceful decision of conflict. So, Lavrov in this

day declared that Georgia must forget about Abkhazia and Ossetia. These statements

sounded on a background of signing of plan of solving of conflict signed by the

presidents of unrecognized republics of North Ossetia and Abkhazia in presence of

Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow. Thus, speaking about status of unrecognized republics,

Medvedev declared that Russia would support "any decision which signs people of

South Ossetia and Abkhazia". Nogovitsyn then declared that not ready to name a date,

when Russia will begin the withdrawal of troops from with Georgia.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin continued the blitz on Thursday, giving a robust

interview to CNN, in which he accused U.S. officials of provoking the whole conflict.

"Yes, naturally, certain conclusions will be made from this situation," a Kremlin source

told Reuters. "Practice has shown that a confrontation in such situations is not limited to

armed conflict and diplomatic battles but is carried through into the communications

sphere.

"Unlike the Georgian side, which has been praised by some for 'a successful

information campaign', Russia had not prepared for this war and was concerned above

all not with the polemics of Saakashvili, but with the defence of its citizens." Putin told

CNN that the United States had been much better at managing media coverage of the

conflict than Russia. "We have got a lot to learn," he said.

After demonstrative propagandist actions followed both from Russian and

Georgian sides. Russian television showed the concert of V.Gergiev given in South

Ossetia. This was a symbolic gesture. Thus many British newspapers, as, for example,

Times, marked that unlike D.Barenboim, who often makes concerts before Palestinian

audience with the orchestra with both Israel and Palestinian musicians. But Gergiev

obviously declared the pro-Russian position in this conflict.

In that day Parliament of Georgia abolished all documents about including of

Georgia in CIS. Georgian officials continued to come forward with the statements about

moving of the Russian tanks deep into the country. Russian troops declared the

transmission of Gori under the control of Georgian police.

Post-conflict phase


Actions of speakers after completion of active phase had such network

descriptions (August 15-30, 2008). Medvedev became the main category of this period,

to which three speakers refer at once—Lavrov, Churkin and Rogozin. Thus Lavrov

provided political position in relation to the withdrawal of troops and future security in

the region, Rogozin specified on worsening of relationships with NATO and stopping of

military collaboration. The least influential was Churkin who marked the necessity of a

peaceful plan. Nogovitsyn continued though less actively, to comment actions of

Russian army and possibility of withdrawal of troops.

Already after a conflict the messages appeared about PR companies working for

Georgia and Russia. Authors marked foremost, that Georgia won the information battle.

Main PR agency for Saakashvili was Aspect Consulting (in Brussels and London),

Orion Strategies and Squire Sanders Public Advocacy (in Washington). On August 8,

Aspect sent its consultant Patrick Worms160 to Tbilisi to brief journalists. Equally, the

firm inundated the world press with over 200 handouts. In Washington, Orion

Strategies, founded by Randy Scheunemann161, managed to arrange a telephone call

between McCain and Saakashvili in April, after which McCain publicly came out in

favour of Georgia’s sovereignty. Reporters covering the conflict have been showered daily with emails providing news, contact

details, mobile phone numbers of officials, video footage, background material, and tele-

conference access to Georgians from Saakashvili down. Highly efficient, highly effective,

usually punctual162.

For its part, Russia has been using firms belonging to the communications giant

Omnicom to burnish its image since 2006. At the same time it was a mystery an

uncertainty of actions of companies which worked before a conflict for international

image of Kremlin more than two years. They are Ketchum in London, the office of

Gavin Anderson in Japan, GPlus in Brussels and the Washington Group in the

United States. Moscow can also call on the fire power of its pro-government press in

160 A former European Commission staffer (communication department) who subsequently worked for

Ogilvy Public Relations' office in Brussels. In Brussels Goergian action was supported by James Hunt—British, co-founder of Aspect. He is ex-managing director for international corporate communications at Hill & Knowlton. Previously worked with Weber Shandwick and Ketchum.

161 foreign affairs adviser to the Republican candidate for the presidency, John McCain 162 Traynor I. Plucky little Georgia: Saakashvili's PR agency wins on second front // The Guardian,

August 16 2008


93

Russia and recently set up think-tanks in Paris, Brussels and Washington to get its

messages across. The Kremlin's account is held by another Brussels agency, GPlus. It insists it is not in the

business of peddling propaganda, far less falsehoods, but merely facilitates international media

access to Russian policy-makers and advises the Russians on their media strategies. "We give

them logistical support," said Tim Price of GPlus. Even the Russians are complaining that their

side is losing in the publicity stakes. "You can't fail to notice that Russian leaders are ignoring

the opportunity to convey their point of view to the world," wrote the Moscow pundit, Aleksei

Arbatov. "Saakashvili is really never off American TV screens. I suspect that if Medvedev

decided to talk to foreign journalists, they would, of course, respond."163

***

163 Traynor I. Plucky little Georgia…

Crisis communicatons in global politics

94

Fig. 17. Network map for key Russian speakers in Russian-Georgian conflict

Part V: Ukraine. Foreign Policy Management. Crisis Communication approach

95

PART V:

UKRAINE. FOREIGN POLICY MANAGEMENT.

CRISIS COMMUNICATION APPROACH164

Phenomena of conflict and turbulence became inalienable part of modern

international processes and accompanied the processes of political defragmentation and

integration (Rosenau). These tendencies showed up especially brightly in transition

societies which must combine forming of political institutions with the dynamic

changes of international environment. For example, Ukraine is in the field of active

transformations of post-Soviet space which is accompanied from one side by growth of

authoritarian tendencies in Russia and Belarus, and from other side—EU enlargement.

It creates new dilemmas for Ukrainian foreign policy: internal opposition of national

elites shows political transformations, but slows formulation of state foreign-policy

strategy. Thus it is more difficult for international public to define where Ukraine goes

having important geopolitical position between Western Europe and Russia.

As a result international public attention binds Ukraine mostly to the crises,

conflicts, unexpected events. For example elections 2004 got the special attention of

media and public, doing Ukraine an international top-news. Or such “unexpected”

events as gas crisis in the relations of Ukraine and Russia in 2005 and World Football

Championship 2006 in Germany, where Ukrainian team reached to ¼ final165. These

events were out of activity of foreign-policy department, but at the same time were

important in forming of political and public estimations of Ukraine abroad.

Foreign policy management of Ukraine

Foreign-policy management in Ukrainian case can be divided into two levels. A

lower (diplomatic) level includes activity of embassies, representative offices and other

missions on the most essential vectors of foreign policy of Ukraine. General estimations

164 Research of this part was supported in part by the Carnegie Research Fellowship Program, which was

funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and administered by the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research (NCEEER). The opinions expressed herein are the author’s own and do not necessarily express the views of either the Carnegie Corporation of New York or NCEEER

165 According GoogleTrends data


of such activity mainly positive and related to names of definite diplomats conducting

negotiations and lobbying interests of Ukraine.

However, quality and style of higher level of foreign-policy management in

Ukraine are determined by geopolitical position and internal political instability. And if

geopolitics is a source of multivector foreign-policy strategy, it is necessary to consider

an internal situation as basis of foreign-policy tactic of fight between political forces in

Ukraine. Such situation for last years is caused by constitutional reform with weakening

of presidential power, including foreign policy. It might provide transparency of

procedures of decision-making foreign-policy, but on a modern stage resulted in

absence of single center of decision-making in foreign-policy and complications with

co-ordination of foreign policy activity of President, Prime Minister and Minister for

foreign affairs. As a result, as during Kuchma’s period, personification and opacity of

practical realization of foreign policy only increased166.

Evolution of foreign-policy management can be estimated on appointments of

Minister for foreign affairs, their relationships with president or premier. So till the end

of 2004 triumvirate of Kuchma-Yanukovich-Gryshchenko provided a primary

objective—to change the negative image of Kuchma in Europe. In particular it was

decided to create Governmental program of providing of positive international image of

Ukraine 2003-06, which was rather directed on the improvement of image of definite

officials. At the same time MFA didn’t have considerable role in the first Yanukovitch

government and implemented a tactical task (under Gryshchenko) on stable

accompaniment of actions of Yanukovitch as Kuchma’s successor, but without active

participation in information accompaniment of his official visits.

In 2004 MFA of Ukraine and diplomats (without Gryshchenko) became one of

the first state institutions which supported Yushchenko during OR. However his victory

and forming of “technical” government of Tymoshenko in 2005 only complemented the

vagueness of the functional distributing and organizational crisis of MFA of Ukraine.

So, during parliament elections 2006 Secretariat of President had key influence on

Foreign-policy Department. Key foreign-policy managers of this period were vice-

prime-minister of European integration Oleg Rybachuk and Minister for foreign affairs

Boris Tarasyuk, which represented Euroatlantic vector of foreign policy of Yushchenko. 166 Чалый В., Пашков М.Внешняя политика внутреннего пользования // Зеркало недели

http://www.zerkalo-nedeli.com/ie/show/420/36837/ (23 октября 2002 г.)


97

Style of their activity was estimated as “offensive” and was basis for activation of

Yushchenko’s foreign-policy, who made more foreign visits twice then his predecessor

Kuchma.

But if in the first Tymoshenko government B.Tarasyuk still represented political

position of President, a situation about MFA in the transition Yekhanurov government

strengthened the lack of initiative and uneffectiveness of MFA to protect national

interests. For example, Ukrainian-Russian gas conflict at the end of 2005167 showed that

MFA was actually excluded from system of executive power. Besides Tarasyuk’s

political dependence was confirmed in 2006 during parliament elections, when he (at

the same time leader of right-center party Narodny Rukh of Ukraine) spared more

attention to campaign.

The results of elections and consequent forming of Yanukovitch government

actually meant stopping of Tarasyuk activity as a minister. It had negative effect on of

Ukrainian foreign-policy activity, on the diplomatic contacts of Kyiv: because of

vagueness with status of Tarasyuk there were cancelled his visits to Belgium, on

meeting of Council of ministers for foreign affairs of OSCE countries, and also to

Algiers and Switzerland. Ambiguity of situation with Tarasyuk complicated co-

operation of MFA with other Ukrainian ministries and departments168. Among scandals,

accompanying the relations of Tarasyuk and Yanukovitch, the refusal of Ministry of

finance in January 2007 to finance diplomatic work of Tarasyuk—his foreign journeys

and also to adopt financial documents, signed by Tarasyuk on position of Minister for

foreign affairs169.

Yanukovitch, taking into account the tense relationships with MFA of Ukraine

and diplomats, became more attentive to the skilled providing of foreign policy activity.

He formed “shadow MFA” with people who worked before in MFA and became his

basic advisers: K.Gryshchenko worked as basic moderator between Yanukovich and

West. A. Zlenko which got the title of "adviser on special international questions". Two 167 According to four Ukrainian ex-ministers for foreign affairs (Zlenko, Chaly, Gryshchenko, Tarasyuk)

gas agreements with Russia were the general foreign policy lost of Ukraine, activisation of relations on regional level and with the USA was the general succes (Внешнеполитический квартет: какофония тактики, гармония стратегии? // Дзеркало тижня № 50 (629) 30 декабря — 5 января 2007)

168 Кравченко В. Чинник Тарасюка // № 49 (628) 23 — 29 грудня 2006 http://www.dt.ua/1000/1550/55459/

169 Мінфін не дасть жодної копійки Тарасюку // http://www.bbc.co.uk/ukrainian/domestic/story/2007/01/070123_azarov_tarasyuk_oh.shtml


more advisers A. Fialko and A. Orel worked before in Kuchma’s administration. Fialko

had pro-western views, while Orel—prorussian170.

Situation about management of MFA of Ukraine became more complicated

when Yanukovitch government with support of parliament majority fired Tarasyuk.

Thus during first two months 2007 MFA of Ukraine remained without actual

management. V.Ohryzko, former first deputy minister of MFA who dealt with questions

of delimitation of Ukrainian border and Black Sea Fleet and known by pro-Ukrainian

position. Firstly Ohryzko was a basic candidature for minister for foreign affairs,

however parliament refused to adopt him. As a result political opponents supported

Yatsenyuk who wasn’t a professional diplomat and his appointment rather meant

strengthening of role of Secretariat of President in the management by a foreign policy.

Ohryzko returned on position of minister of MFA in the new Tymoshenko

government from the end of 2007 MFA. However, in this case MFA of Ukraine only

confirmed the second-rate complementary function. The basic foreign-policy manager

was H.Nemyrya—before the Tymoshenko adviser on international questions, now vice-

prime on Eurointegration. By estimations of the Ukrainian experts, Nemyrya was

known by pro-European rhetoric and had considerable influence on the management of

Tymoshenko foreign visits, he was engaged in organization of her interviews and

publications, analytical support of her foreign-policy decisions. His appointment

testified aspiration of Tymoshenko to strengthen an own pro-European policy and to

compete with Yushchenko in determination of foreign-policy vector of Ukraine.

Bistro Plan: Yushchenko post-crisis campaign

Impulse of Orange revolution might improve image of Ukraine and actually to

fulfill the main function of foreign-policy communications. It happened at the level of

public perception, while political leaders aimed to fasten new direction in Ukrainian

policy at official level. As a result Yushchenko—as main OR hero—just after

inauguration accomplished visits to Moscow, Brussels, Strasbourg, Berlin, Washington

to carry new position of Ukraine about integration to Euro-Atlantic structures. Actually,

every such visit was logical continuation of previous and created a certain information

field which showed up in international and national media. 170 Сушко О. Хто виводить провідних політиків України на міжнародну сцену? // Дзеркало тижня

№ 22 (651) 9-15 червня 2007


99

Comparing the media-coverage of these visits (January-April 2005) it is possible

to trace how Yushchenko rhetoric changed depending on the aim of visit and from the

reaction of officials in Russia, EU and the USA. For example, visit to Moscow on

January, 24, 2005 was accompanied by positive articles in Russian media about

Yushchenko, who did not “afraid to arrive to Russia”. However the topic of his meeting

with Putin moved on the second plan by the Yushchenko about appointment

Tymoshenko as the prime minister, who was under criminal case in Russia. At the same

time European and US press, considering primariness of Yushchenko visit to Moscow

for renewal of relations between countries, noted importance of Tymoshenko

appointment. Topical network analysis of foreign media specified that the term

“Tymoshenko” in this period contacted above all with possibilities of overcoming of

manipulations in the relations of two countries. Discussion of economic integration was

linked with Tymoshenko and Putin. The theme of “renewal of relations” also was

strategically important, related to the necessity of removal of shadow relations and

revision of economic integration. The topic of European integration of Ukraine, here,

remained in direct dependence on the “delicate balancing” between Russia and Europe,

and also related to success of democratic reforms.

Nevertheless, the short-term of visit allowed to develop this theme and media

automatically switched on coverage of Yushchenko visit to Strasbourg on January, 25.

Not looking on less coverage, this visit and its continuation in Auszwitz and Davos,

Yushchenko succeeded to attain a greater international effect. In particular, purpose of

visit to Strasbourg was to provide a dialog between the European MPs and new

postsoviet elites. Visit to Auszwitz became the informal meeting with the leaders of

Europe and the USA. Meeting with Cheney became the central topic of this visit, and

according to network data Ukraine was considered as partner of Europe and the USA.

The question of European integration was estimated as key task of Tymoshenko

government and on initial stage was seen as fight against corruption and carrying out

state reform. The key term of visit to Davos was “investments”—according to foreign

media it depended both on co-operation with EU and USA and from position of Putin

which could slow the entry of Ukraine to WTO. Visit on the World economic forum in

Davos allowed Yushchenko to meet with world economic leaders and to represent

Ukraine as a stable economic partner. However, already on this stage European press


began to publish doubts about positive reaction of EU on aspiration of Ukraine to

become by the member of European Union. So, The Times described position of Europe

as “careful avoiding” when Yushchenko “wanted to awaken this asleep elephant

[Ukraine] and to ride him into EU”.

Visit to Brussels took place at the end of February, 2005, though it was planned

as part of the first European tour of Yushchenko. The purpose of visit was discussion of

Ukraine membership in WTO and NATO. For this purpose it was foreseen to conduct

meetings with the US president, the leaders of EU Barroso and Solana. In addition it

allowed again to confirm intention of Ukraine to join WTO already in 2005, and in

2008 to begin negotiations about the joining EU. The network analysis showed that

NATO, Bush, “western family”, “barrier” were central concepts during visit. In

particular, the category of NATO was important for the concepts of the actions related

to Plan Ukraine-EU. Category “western family” was more problematic, related to the

concept of “barrier”, “search of near links”. Relations of Ukraine and EU here were

under the special influence of Russia. For example, such category as “opened for

Ukraine”, mentioned in context about position of NATO about Ukraine depended

Russian position.

The subject of European integration continued in Berlin, however in the context

of preparation to joining WTO. Key events of visit were speech before Bundestag and

meeting with Germany Minister of foreign affairs J. Fischer171. In particular

Yushchenko uttered “balanced” declaration about necessity to support aspiration of his

country to enter in EU, simultaneously assuring Berlin, that Kyiv wanted to support the

good relationships with east neighbour—Russia. However information support of visit

was complicated by “visa scandal” in relation to illegal issue of German visas to

Ukrainians. According to media-analysis Yushchenko visit contained two thematic

constituents: integration of Ukraine and Gongadze case as the index of democratic

transformations. Central message of Yushchenko was “we are the family” and it was

considered as basis for co-operation of Germany and Ukraine first of all by conservative 171 Disagreements in activity of President of Ukraine and embassies of Ukraine appeared in Berlin. The

visit of Yushchenko to Berlin foresaw meeting with the president of Germany H. Koeller. Ceremony included the formal meeting with the hymns of two countries. When glows the hymn of Ukraine Yushchenko laid a hand on a heart. It is not the requirement of protocol, but similarly did Minister for foreign affairs Tarasuk, Vice-prime Kinakh and State secretary Zinchenko. Only ambassador of Ukraine Farenyk continued to stand dropping hands. He was appointed at Kuchma and did not know how new authorities differed from an old one.


101

CDP, which was at that time in opposition. Actually, according to media OR and visa

scandal were used for the distraction of attention of public from internal problems. In

particular, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung considered a visit from view point of

German internal policy and noted that minister for foreign affairs J. Fischer was the

pressure of visa policy. The network analysis specifies also, that it is necessary to

consider category “EU joining” depending on Russia which can influence on

strengthening of category “strong European links”, as most German politicians

renounce to admit that Ukraine is part of Europe.

After restrained European estimations, the US visit in April, 2005 was

considered as “triumphal”, symbolizing the fight of Ukrainian people for democracy

(may be it was coincidence but before the visit of Yushchenko to the USA a small

Ukrainian girl who rescued a sister from a fire and getting strong burns N.Ovchar was

transported to USA for treatment. Yushchenko met her and it created an additional

information coverage. However, this visit passed on a background of death of the Pope

John Paul ІІ, that distracted attention of press and public). According to Google

information visit to the USA got wide coverage in press, comparable with visit to

Moscow. In particular press estimated it as search of financial and material support for

development of democracy and integration aspirations of Ukraine. Category

“democratic changes” was related to possibility of tacking to alliances. And this not

looking on that Ukraine after OR came forward for withdrawal of the Ukrainian

contingent from Iraq. The “economic lobbying” also had link with solution of

integration tasks. Category “strategic partnership” was first of all related with joining

Ukraine to NATO. Neue Zuercher Zeitung quoted appearance of Yushchenko in US

Congress: “He one more time expressed the desire about joining NATO and WTO.

Besides he demanded Americans to acknowledge Ukraine as country with market

economy and to abolish the Jackson-Wenick amendment. It would eliminate existent

trade barriers. “Tear Down These Walls!”,—called Yushchenko, using the famous

phrase of US president Reagan about Berlin wall 172.

172 Beifall im US-Kongress fuer den ukrainischen Praesidenten //

[http://www.nzz.ch/2005/04/08/al/articleCPW62.html]


Wild Energy: “gas war” of Ukraine and Russia

Gas dispute 2005 was first of all conflict between two business structures—

Gazprom and Naftogaz—although they have strong links with governments. Both MFA

of Ukraine and Russia didn’t take part in dispute, only once A.Butejko claimed Russia

with unfriendly politics using energy factor. At the same time representation of Ukraine

in Moscow during the crisis was weak as just before the conflict Yuschenko changed

former ambassador in Russia O.Biloblotsky on O.Diomin. He was estimated as

politically neutral person however without experience in diplomatic work.

Nevertheless the conflict was strongly politicized and had enormous media

campaign conducted against Ukraine in general, not Naftogaz. Although European and

US media reacted this dispute, their coverage was most likely an echo of events when

media tried to analyse the situation according to national interests. As a result Russian

and Ukrainian media remained main field of conflict, at the same time foreign media

were used by both sides (mostly by Russians) as place to appeal emotions of Europeans

first of all. For example the concept that “Ukraine steal gas” was spread first of all

through European media.

In terms of CM this dispute could be considered according to event management

techniques when issues “evolve in a predictable manner, originating from trends and

events and developing through a sequence of identifiable stages that are not dissimilar

to the cyclical development of organisation”. Thus gas crisis had 4 stages of issue

management, it means that at least one organization planned its action better then other:

STAGE 1—ORIGIN—POTENTIAL ISSUE—price for gas and transit conditions—issue

arises when organization attaches significance to a perceived problem that is a

consequence of a developing political or social trend. Issue begins to gain

definition when organization plans to do something that has a consequence for

another organization.

Network analysis showed that on these stages such category as “price on gas”

(economic category) was one of general for Russian media, while western media

foremost marked such category as “power independence” (political category).

The potential theme topic of “price on gas” arose up in Russian politics and media

as reaction of Kremlin on the relationships with new political leaders of Ukraine. The


103

Russian analysts named this “war” as PR-campaign to discredit Ukraine using rough

propaganda cliches, PR, notoriously unreliable information distributed simultaneously

for internal (Russian) user and for external audience. “Stealing” became the main theme

of campaign173. Thus first deputy of Gazprom A.Medvedev and press secretary

S.Kupriyanov became main newsmakers. While top leaders were not involved in

conflict.

The Russian First channel became the basic information channel of gas conflict.

Here the key participants of “war” uttered program declarations, propaganda cliches of

First channel were duplicated by other state and private broadcasting companies and in

press, for example in newspapers which belong to Gasprom and is included in

consortium Gasprom-Media: one of central Russian newspapers Izvestia174. At the same

time statistics of European and US media showed that the topic of gas conflict arose up

at the beginning of December 2005 after the statement of Putin about market price for

gas.

At the beginning of the opened phase European media divided in estimations of

situation. German media became a source for ordered articles and publications of

opinions of German and Russian experts about energy security. So, German Welt

represented opinion, actual reflection of position of Gasprom that the serious problem of

gas deliveries to Europe was caused by Ukrainian side. “Unstructural” approach of

Ukraine—according to Welt—will result in violation of gas deliveries to Germany, and

“…Ukrainian side actually sabotages signing of documents which are the basis for the

reliable supply of Russian gas to European buyers”.

STAGE 2—EMERGING ISSUE—price of energy supply to Ukraine—increasing pressure

on organization to accept the issue. In most cases it is a result of activity of

interested groups who are trying to push their own issue.

First statements about gas deliveries appeared in Russian media in summer 2005,

when appeared a necessity to decide the question of “buffer gas” placed on Ukrainian

territory during Kuchma ruling. Media actually became the main mediator and field of

political manipulations about the statements of both sides. For example Gasprom

173 Ивженко Т., Самедова Е., Наумов И. Газовая PR-атака // Независимая газета 24.11.2005 174 Освещение «газовой войны» в российских СМИ: основные сюжеты и пропагандистские клише

[http://lenta.ru/articles/2006/02/20/memorandum/a1.htm_Printed.htm]


accused Ukrainian Naftogaz in the unauthorized use and demanded compensations of

losses at “European market price”. Then the themes of future gas conflict were first

used in state Russian media. “…Conflict can complicate not only the relations of Russia

and Ukraine. But also can harm to our collaboration with Europe. There trust lost

Ukrainians…” (07.06.2005). Mutual decision wasn’t found and Gasprom declared

Ukraine the owner of the disappearing gas got on account of payment of services in

transit. Representatives of Gasprom declared that is going to fill in the deficit of gas

already at price $160.

The second component of gas war was the theme of building of North-European

gas pipeline, where Ukraine got a negative role. The “unreliability” of “continental”

way of transporting of gas and Ukraine as transit country became the basic information

thesis of this theme. Thus in Russian media published unreliable information about the

importance of Ukraine as transit country. After this period Ukrainian theme became

general in Russian state media. Ukraine was accused in intentional sabotage of

negotiations, all Ukrainian proposals were estimated as “notoriously unacceptable” and

“ridiculous”. Price of Gasprom ($160) was “offered” in a maximally sharp categorical

form.

The European subject in state Russian media appeared at the beginning of

December 2005 with the threat to rise up the “European market price” for Ukraine from

$160 to $230. This stage included two components: at first, critical comments of the

Ukrainian politicians in the address of the Ukrainian government and company

Naftogas. Secondly, by the attempt of Fradkov to attract the EU representatives for

pressure on Ukraine. Then the first selections of comments from foreign media,

testifying the “catastrophic consequences for Europe” of further escalation of conflict of

Gasprom with Ukraine, appeared in Russian media. Actually Russian side began

intimidation of “European partners”. However the refusal of EU to support position of

Russia Gasprom was interpreted by Russian state media as their benefit.

STAGE 3—ORGANIZATION—official statements of Russian and Ukrainian political

leaders, media-coverage—public or other groups should be considered as

dynamic. Increased public attention motivates leaders to become a part emerging


105

conflict that also could mount the pressure. To affect the issue becomes enduring

because of its intensity.

New attack of Gasprom started on December 11 with the use of Putin which

named the losses of Gasprom from deliveries of gas to Ukraine. And reported that

“domestic users in Ukraine got today gas at prices lower than the price which the

citizens of Russian Federation pay for natural gas". In a video accompanying Putin’s

appearance and comments of journalists of the “First channel”, for the time were used

mocking intonations which afterwards became “firm style” of Russian state media in

coverage of this theme. "…For the first time our leader openly and in public, not formal, but essentially acknowledged

independence of the Ukrainian state. Because only by absence of this independence it is possible

to account for all previous policy of Russia in relation to Ukraine… It seems that Ukraine must

rejoice—age-old matter of hetman Mazepa, Petlura and Bandera won at last. But reaction of

Kyiv was absolutely opposite. That points on the simple reflection—own stateness—the same as

language or culture—for any nation it is very burdensome, requiring superefforts in national

scale. Actually all history of independence of Ukraine divides in two unequal historical stages—

four years independence from Russia together with Germany and 300 years of independence

from Germany together with Russia. Alike, next year in Ukraine, in connection with gas scandal,

is unique historical chance—simultaneously to be independent both from Russia and from

Germany—scarcely Germans will like technical extraction of their gas from the Ukrainian

pipe..." (11.12.2005).

With the same moment started a negative campaign against Yushchenko,

government of Ukraine and Naftogas. “Positive heroes” such as “simple Ukrainians”

(damning the authorities for “unstructuralness”) and “opposition Ukrainian politicians”

(stamping operating authorities for “Rusophobia” and “incompetence”) became the

permanent elements of information campaign.

Another important event of this stage of “gas war” were “trainings” on

disconnecting of gas-supplying for Ukraine, declared by A.Miller. The vocabulary of

commentators became more hard. Dominant style was “military”. The Ukrainian side in

comments looks almost as “military enemy”. A.Medvedev became basic official

newsmaker which gave program interview in the Sunday news of “First channel”. He

repeated propositions about transition of Ukrainian gas pipelines into Gasprom property

and declared about willingness “to go to Swedish court if Ukraine goes on it”. An

interview was accompanied by demonstration how gas went out in a portable gas burner


with comment “the same will be with Ukraine”. Arguments of Yekhanurov about the

right of Ukraine for 15% of gas transported by Ukrainian territory remained without

objections. Irony and “opinion of simple people” were used for comments. Alexander Verevkin, mechanic: "Why we must suffer from it. I consider that any services must

be paid. And why Ukraine mustn’t pay for gas at price which it costs. Why we must pay for

them". Konstantin Reshetnikov, engineer: "I can’t understand. Ukraine considers itself

European country. Nevertheless—conduces an unfriendly policy to Russia. I think, how the

European countries pay, so they must pay". According to the last questioning, approximately the

same thoughts have more than 80 percents of Russians. Many experts marked: Ukrainians were

stealing our gas before, but even blushing and being sorry. But, alike, for the past year stealing

unnoticed transformed into state policy of Ukraine.". (27.12.2005)

Last stage of “gas war” began by the promised “stopping of deliveries of gas to

Ukraine”. It ensued from information of Russian state media that literally in the day of

disconnecting the European buyers began to receive less gas. Representatives of

Gasprom immediately declared about “stealing”. This theme became central during

those days of disconnecting. Gasprom attracted an international audition firm for the

receipt of exact information about what volume of gas is in pipes to crossing of the

Russian-Ukrainian border, and what the European users get. Representatives of

Gasprom underlined especially that there was no “Turkmenian gas in pipes”. At the

same time, the representatives of Ukraine declared that take away from pipes

exceptionally the Turkmenian gas. The theme of “stealing” by the end of the first day of

“gas blockade” of Ukraine was complemented by the theme of “noble compensation to

Europeans of the missed gas due to Gasprom”. Results of international public

accountants which the Ukrainian side renounced to acknowledge were not promulgated.

Volumes of “stolen gas” on territory of Ukraine the representatives of Gasprom

declared without references to the international public accountants. Other key theme

was next wave of appeals to EU before meeting of the EU commission on energy on

January 4. M.Fradkov sent to the chairman of EU Council a letter with “appeal EU to

convince Ukraine to halt stealing of gas and to provide trouble-free deliveries of fuel to

Europe”.

The last news on Russian state channels were almost wholly addressed to the

officials of European Union, going the next day to discuss “Russian-Ukrainian

conflict”. An attempt to do any imposing selection of “pro-Russian” opinions from the

European sources resulted in almost fully of remarks of personnel of German


107

companies-partners of Gasprom and structures related to them. B.Bergmann (Rurhgaz):

"In the conditions of prices advance on power supply in the world to support prices for

Ukraine at former level—unacceptable". Company Wingaz, one of importers of the

Russian energy sources to Germany: "Gasprom during many years was a reliable

partner in providing of Germany and Western Europe by natural gas, and throughout the

years without interruption discharged the duties on deliveries". A.Rahr: "If Kyiv

accepted idea of a consortium, Ukraine would be integrated in the energy system of

Europe. Transit of Russian gas would be internationalized, and Kyiv was deprived

possibility to steal Russian blue fuel". (03.01.2006). At the same time were used the

tricks of “demonizing” of operating Ukrainian authorities (mainly “Rusophobic”

utterances of employee of MFA of Ukraine), “pre-election theme”, “simple people” etc.

STAGE 4—RESOLUTION DORMANT ISSUE—Ukraine and Russia reached deal but issue

remained (Black Sea fleet, problem of Russian language etc.)

The international media-reaction on solution of conflict on January 4 showed the

difference of accents and speed of information streams, and also dependence of media

from geographical position in relation to conflict. On the whole, Russian media became

the main field for comments showing the agreement as victory of Gasprom175. At the

same time, the network analysis showed that besides importance of gas agreements, a

new conflict between Ukraine and Russia emerged: problem of lighthouses of Black sea

navy in Crimea. Network research of Western and Russian media showed a substantial

difference—for western media discussion about lighthouses and language question

(category of “Russification”) became more important, that indicated foremost on the

specific selection of news related first off all to the political aspects of development of

relations.

In Russian media discussion about lighthouses linked first of all with basing of

Black sea navy and was not primary, rather was complementary to gas conflict (at that

time Crimea was basic field for reporting of the Russian First channel with an accent on

disconnecting of gas first of all for the habitants of Crimea. Thus it wasn’t mentioned

that the amount of gas on the shelf of Crimean peninsula is sufficient for providing by

the heat of its habitants) 175 Российские СМИ по-разному комментируют итоги "газовой войны": от провала до задела

нового конфликта 03.02.2006 09:57 [http://www.grani.kiev.ua/]


The lighthouse of Yalta trade port became the reason of new conflict. As many

other hydrographical objects, this lighthouse was at disposal of Black Sea Navy, but

MFA and Ministry of transport of Ukraine for several years tried to put in order

presence of Russian BSF. As the question of BSF placing was considered as element of

foreign policy, MFA of Ukraine became the basic source of statements about the

necessity of assignation or repair of these objects (The Yalta lighthouse (as well as other

similar objects) is in the area of active navigation, therefore Ukraine responsible for

functioning of such objects). The Russian side considered actions of Ukraine as the

capture of lighthouse which was in Russian property according to agreements.

Aggressive information campaign started when Russian politicians feeling free in the

utterances, again blamed official Kyiv for the failure to observe of the signed

agreements. At the same time the commanders of Russian BSF escalated of conflict: it

was decided to strengthen the guard of those 35 navigation-hydrographical objects in

Crimea, which Russian BSF still use. And not only by marines but also by armoured

units.

In summer 2006 Ukraine planned to conduct the next trainings with participation

of NATO forces. Not looking that similar trainings were provided for several years, this

time they caused the series of anti-NATO protests in Crimea. The statements of the

Russian politicians about impossibility of entry of Ukraine in NATO became media-

accompaniment of this event.

Modern components of Ukrainian foreign policy?

Music and soccer also become the part of Ukraine’s international activity and judging from

timeline and media coverage these issues were more interesting for foreign media than

Ukrainian politics. At the same time these issues could be estimated as reflection of reality

in Ukraine. First of all it was Ruslana’s Wild Energy single. It was a business project as she

is known in Europe and one of the Ukrainian singers who makes showbiz not only in

Ukraine. But… teazer in English was issued in mid-2006 before Ukrainian variant of song

was done. Words of “energy crisis” and “energy police”, “crisis of human relations” etc.

could be transformed to real world of 2006—gas dispute between Russia and Ukraine. It is

an example of “viral diplomacy” without any participant of officials, politicians, driven by

cultural and musical events distributed in Internet, youtube, without any links with reality.

Although these events (gas dispute and single release) couldn’t be linked directly but now it

could be considered as reaction, not answer but action.


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Eurovision—cultural diplomacy in Europe—it is not a secret that EV is called as

political-cultural contest, as Serbia got first place in 2007 to activate relations of EU with

South Europe, and Serduchka… won 2nd place and provoked scandal about the words

“lasha tumbaj” or “Russia Good bye”. Eurovision is probably the unique place where singer

live could say “Ukraine is cool” for the audience about 100 mln. people… It is an example

of funky-diplomacy that has the biggest effect—as fun could be interesting for others to

participate and media will react on it.

Another unexpected event in Ukrainian foreign policy coincided with political

crisis. In April 2007 Poland and Ukraine were selected to host EURO2012. Importance of

the event was proved by Polish and Ukrainian delegations headed by presidents of Poland

and Ukraine. Decision for Poland and Ukraine was a surprise and had a “political

background”: impulse for two states—new EU member and new neighbor. But… political

crises effected harmfully the process of preparation for EURO2012, if Poland receives

support from EU, Ukraine should find investments itself.

Echo of Dreams: Yanukovych and crisis of President foreign policy

If Yushchenko visits in 2005 were rather political, Yanukovitch visits can be

considered as visits of executive power representative. He was more successful in

Russia, while in Europe or the USA his visits did not get proper coverage in media or

only national politicians (in Germany and the USA) published their opinions. The

network analysis of media showed that the visits of Yanukovitch before political crisis

2007 were related foremost to the problems of deliveries of gas to Europe, although

here Yanukovitch made political declarations which caused irritation in Yushchenko

team (Tarasyuk, Grytsenko) and misunderstanding in Europe.

International activity of В.Yanukovitch started in August 2006 from the visit of

Economic forum in Krynica (Poland), where pipeline Odessa-Brody-Plock became the

basic theme of discussion. Energy topic proceeded on August 15-17, 2006, when

Yanukovitch accomplished the first visit as prime-minister on the informal summit of

EurAzES in Sochi and tried to agree with Russia about prices on gas. "Russia adopted

Yanukovitch as friend and partner",—Izvestia wrote in article about negotiations of the

Russian premier Fradkov with Yanukovitch: "Agiotage raised among journalists about

arrival of Yanukovitch in Sochi, the impression was—it was not premier of Ukraine

who arrives, but at least, president of the USA". The network analysis showed that the

question of gas price was primary for a new premier which wanted to “smooth out acute


angles” and “to revise gas agreement with Russia”. Although, not looking on the fact of

negotiations, Russian media marked that the agreements of Yanukovitch with Putin and

Miller was very conditional, as decision about a price on gas anymore depends on

Central Asia not Russia. "Yanukovitch’s hope on a result were initially doomed to the

failure,—wrote Izvestia and added, that Russia after January scandal with deliveries of

gas could not go on price abatement, even if wanted. This would be equivalent to

declaration that prices on gas for Ukraine are dictated by a politics not market".

In September 2006 Yanukovitch made two visits to Brussels with an interruption

in one week. The main task of visits—participation of Yanukovitch in work of

commission Ukraine-NATO and meeting with an Eurocommissar B. Ferrero-Waldner.

Thus the rhetoric of Yanukovitch about eurointegration of Ukraine was self-possessed

and did not cause severe criticism. The situation differed during his visit into

Commission Ukraine-NATO. Before this visit Yushchenko made several conditions

among them official statement of Yanukovitch for Action Plan Ukraine-NATO.

However during a visit to Brussels Yanukovitch officially declared about unreadyness

of Ukraine to join NATO. This became main theme of discussion in European media

which considered Yanukovitch as a pro-Russian politician. The minister of defence of

Ukraine Grytsenko commented statements of Yanukovitch and named the utterances of

premier an “error”. Yanukovitch again visited Brussels on September, 21, 2006 and

uttered declaration about saving of intentions of Ukraine to co-operate actively with EU.

It was an attempt to neutralize an internal conflict between president and premier, and

simultaneously to form position of Ukraine as stable supplier of energy sources from

Russia.

Assuring EU in stable energy deliveries, Yanukovitch visited Moscow on

September 22, 2006, where he was accepted by Putin. Continuing the theme begun the

day before in Brussels, Yanukovitch marked also, that “we would be a predictable

partner for Russia”. The Russian media marked that Yanukovitch was independent

politician able to form the positive relations between Ukraine and Russia. Y.Boyko, minister of fuel and energy in the government of Yanukovitch, went to Moscow on the

third day after appointment on position, warning nobody about it. As a rule, if such high public

servant, as minister, goes somewhere with an official visit, diplomatic service in a proper country

as a rule must know about it.


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However the ambassador of Ukraine in Russia Oleg Diomin didn’t have information about the

visit of Y.Boyko to Moscow. Diomin: "Unfortunately, I don’t know about a visit of Boyko to

Russia, possibly, this was private journey". But press-service of Republican party of Ukraine

reported to information agency UNIAN, that "minister of fuel and energy of Ukraine Y.Boyko

with the first working visit visited Moscow, where he met with the minister of industry and

energy of Russia Victor Khistenko and chairman of Gasprom Alex Miller".

In fact before press-service of RPU asked all information agencies to rescind information about

Boyko journey which they got from anonymous sources. Information was rescinded,

nevertheless Gasprom using his speaker Kuprijanov confirmed the fact of the formal meeting

between Boyko and Miller. "Sides discussed current issues of collaboration in a gas sphere",—

said Kupriyanov reporting no other details.

During the third visit to Russia at the end of November 2006 Yanukovitch met

with Putin and declared that Kyiv was interested in participation in EES. After it he left

to Washington for meeting with a vice-president Cheney, U.S. State Secretary K.Rice

and national security adviser of US president Hadley. According to Russian media the

primary objective of premier during the US visit was to prang a negative stereotype

about him in the West after OR. “Journey to the USA must add him points in the

intensifyed fight against president, to prove that he is also interested in democracy, and

present the idea that exactly he today represents the real power in Ukraine”—

Kommersant wrote. However, estimation of US media testified showed his visit as

working, official one which did not attract public attention. Cheney and Rice was

limited to the restrained official statements, and Ukrainian diaspora organized only a

business forum and came forward with the requirement to explain of political actions of

premier.

Not looking on the relatively positive comments of Russian media about activity

the Yanukovitch problem of energy mediation of Ukraine between Russia and Europe

still remained actual. If the Russian media mainly wrote about premier’s personal

qualities, in western media he was not so popular. As a result during his visit to Davos

in January, 2007 Yanukovitch appeared in situation when the comments of other

participants of forum had greater resonance. It should be noted that the energy conflict

of Gasprom and Belarus happened the day before, created possibility to name Ukraine

(as well as Belarus) the blackmailer of Europe and Russia and thus to make doubts in

gas security of Europe. As a result, the similar statements of representatives of Gasprom

caused careful estimations of economic development of Ukraine before its WTO join.


The next was visit of Yanukovitch to Berlin and meeting with Merkel. It is

important to note that on February 8, 2007 Yushchenko visited Berlin to activate

collaboration of Ukraine and EU. On the whole, Merkel made some optimistic

statements marking that Germany will support development of free trade zones between

EU and Ukraine. After 20 days Yanukovitch came to Germany and judging on

composition of official delegation, a visit was rather a working one. He once again

confirmed the statement about intention of European integration and declared

collaboration with Yushchenko in foreign-policy questions. But during meeting Merkel

gave a hint that Ukraine shouldn’t to be seduced by the excessive hopes of Ukraine to

join EU, besides it is important to make clear energy questions [26]. Not looking on

business descriptions a visit got coverage exceptionally in German media and it was

difficult to select a central media topic.

Main information event of the visit was article Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung:

Yanukovitch: from marionette to leader. The newspaper is considered as pro-Merkel.

In particular newspaper wrote that “Victor Yanukovitch has a lot of staff that post-

Soviet grandees like to have: personal photographer who regards that during kissing the

kids Yanukovitch was in the center, biographer who glorifies his labor and finally title

of professor he easily received when he was the governor of Donets’k region. Besides

he has political designer from West, who consulted US presidents from Ford to Bush as

well as Philippines dictator Marcos and leader of Angola rebels Sawimbi...". Ukrainian

premier tries to get rid of his past as “dependence of corrupted oligarchs and Russian

president Putin created his image as remote control laughing-stock”.

Visit also included interviews for German media, however selection of edition

wasn’t successful. For example, he planned an interview for Die Welt, that few days

before published positive article of A.Rahr, German expert of Eastern Europe. Also he

met with Deutsche Welle—media-channel to promote Germany abroad. Ukrajins’ka

Pravda noticed that it would be more effective to make interview for Frankfurter

Allegemeine, but Ukrainian embassy answered that right for interview got edition that

asked first, i.e. Die Welt. Meanwhile FA saved critical voices: Yanukovitch speaks

what he wants to hear, and his visit to Berlin just adds new unclear questions about his

government.


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The US and German visits of Yanukovitch reflected the fight between premier

and president for foreign-policy course. This conflict situation eventually resulted in

retirement of Tarasyuk and appointment of Yatsenyuk as minister for foreign affairs. On

the whole this candidature satisfied both foreign partners of Ukraine and smoothed out

internal opposition. For this purpose Yatsenyuk made foreign visits to Europe, Moscow

and the USA and their traditional order was accompanied by a main thesis about

stability of Ukraine as partner in current projects. Estimation of media coverage EMM

shows that Yatsenyuk was known enough politician, which balanced contacted both

with the representatives of NATO, the USA and with Russians—Putin Medvedev,

representatives of Gasprom.

We’ll be the first: Tymoshenko

Tymoshenko was central actor of political crisis 2007 who used the foreign

visits for presentation of alternative view on events in Ukraine and opinion forming of

leaders in foreign countries and organizations. So, visits to Brussels and Berlin in

November 2006 coincided with the visits of Yanukovitch to Washington and visit of

Yushchenko on Summit of CIS to Minsk, and visits in the USA and France in March,

2007 coincided with the visit of Yanukovitch to Berlin and visit of Yushchenko to

Georgia.

Actually, this was a crisis campaign based simultaneously on the necessity of

change of the personal image of Tymoshenko and changing of foreign-policy priorities

of Ukraine. So Tymoshenko reinforced her foreign-policy principles during her unique

official foreign visit to France in May, 2005. First of all, France and Germany became

her foreign-policy priorities, simultaneously she aimed to build the pragmatic

relationships with Russia according to national interests of Ukraine. Secondly, as well

as during OR, the European media variously named Tymoshenko and she used positive

popularity among media. So in France “Slav Madonna” made interviews for French

national TV and leading papers, Figaro published almost 1-page interview with her,

even free paper Metro wrote few words about visit. Third, personal meetings

component—during the visit she met not only with French officials (Tymoshenko was


the first Ukrainian PM who met French President) but also she met with Ukrainians

who live in France176.

Participation of the such US companies as Dezenhall and TD International

testified that activity of Tymoshenko in 2006-07 was considered as crisis campaign, for

instance TD International specialized on the crisis consulting, in particular on crisis PR.

Its tasks consist in decreasing the risks of reputations. US visit of Tymoshenko was

provided by The Glover Park Group company, which unites former political consultants

of US democrats. At the same time, an ideological change was provided by the foreign-

policy adviser H.Nemyrya (after elections 2007 a vice-prime minister of Ukraine on

European integration). According to Ukrainian experts he was responsible for visits of

Tymoshenko to Brussels and Berlin, orientation of BYUT on Popular party in

Europarliament, and also publication of the fundamental article “Containing Russia” in

the prestige magazine Foreign Affairs. This article caused reaction of MFA of Russia

and series of discussions among political experts in Europe and the USA.

Thus, unlike a post-Orange period with mass coverage of Tymoshenko in a duet

with Yushchenko, the campaign 2007 was oriented to expert estimations and forming of

opinion of foreign leaders. As T.Kuzio wrote her image contrasted to the image of other

Ukrainian politicians which were with visits abroad and, unlike Tymoshenko, was not

able to manage skillfully with complex questions during the public meetings. In the

USA her opened manner complemented by knowledge of question, changed her image.

In Europe her image of the elegantly dressed eastern revolutionary and hard position

helped to change her image in relation to the European hopes of Ukraine and power

safety.

The special attention to the leaders also confirmed informal meeting of

Tymoshenko with Thatcher before elections 2007. Such meeting became an addition to

Tymoshenko image as radical reformer just like Thatcher’s Conservative party.

Definition of foreign-policy position became the second stage of Tymoshenko

crisis program after her appointment as a premier. Ideologically, Yushcenko and

Tymoshenko had no foreign-policy disagreements, nevertheless Tymoshenko aimed to

176 In June 2005 V. Yushchenko and P. Poroshenko also visited Paris, Tymoshenko organized so called

Ukrainian Days in France. But, according to diplomatic rules so many events during short period could cause at least misunderstanding, “it needs to start from minister for foreign affairs, then President in a month and later PM who will fill in the agreements made by both presidents”


115

intercept initiative of realization of foreign policy. It is possible, that it was related to

her primary foreign-policy objectives: in the relationships with EU her main message

was—Ukraine itself should give sign to EU that we decided to integrate. Louder this

signal is, greater will be the echo; the relationships with Russia were examined in the

context of energy independence and revision of prices on gas.

These priorities were declared during her first foreign visit to Brussels in

February 2008, which became an information occasion uniting both priorities of

Tymoshenko and defining her relationships with the president of Ukraine. Chronology

of attention (according to Yandex) showed also, that there was probability that

Tymoshenko in January 2008 could arrive to Moscow and then to Europe for the

decision of energy questions. However on Yushchenko insistency a visit was moved on

February—after Ukrainian-Russian intergovernmental commission with Yushchenko

participation. According to Ukrainian business edition Delo the main reason of it was

position of Yushchenko who wanted to reserve question of revision of prices on transit

of Russian gas to Europe.

A visit to Brussels became the first attempt to pursue an independent policy,

when actually Tymoshenko violated the directives on negotiations, given out by

Yushchenko. So, in particular, during meeting with the NATO secretary general

Tymoshenko was obliged to mark importance of deepening of dialog of Kyiv with

Alliance, positive hopes about consideration of Ukrainian initiatives in this direction on

the April summit of NATO in Bucharest. “Improvisations during the bilateral meetings are assumed, but exceptionally within the

framework of presidential directives” from the directive of Secretariat of President of Ukraine177.

However Tymoshenko in every way tried to avoid the theme of NATO replacing

it by initiative of White stream and other events. Media-framing of this visit specified

the main function of “White stream”—to form new discussion of energy dependence of

EU. So, at the beginning it was proposed an idea about advantage of additional pipeline

for EU safety (an idea was declared by Tymoshenko in Brussels, though she marked

that practical realization of such project while is not realised). At the same time, thesis

about absence of any prospect of Nabucco pipeline if Russia will pursue a successful

177 Already in 2006 the president directives about foreign visits became the reason of conflict between

Yushchenko and Yanukovitch. Non-fulfillment of directives was considered as the reason not to allow Yanukovitch to visit the USA.


power policy appeared in Azerbaijanian media (Azerbaijan was considered as

participant of White stream). As a result European and US editions defined energy

safety of Europe in the context of relations of Ukraine with Russia and NATO as the

central element of visit.

The energy subject of conflict president-premier continued in March-April 2008,

when Gasprom using scheme of “untwisting” created the key topic of discussion in

Russian media: question about the order of mutual payments in gas sphere. According

to media-monitoring service Medialogia Yushchenko and Tymoshenko became key

political leaders of other state, covered in Russian media. However, quality of such

coverage differed. As Yushchenko supported saving of existent agreements on gas,

often he got positive or neutral coverage (twice more than Tymoshenko). Visits of

Yushenko presented as decision of crisis, and visit of Tymoshenko to Moscow in mid-

February, had active discussion in media but it did not make any corrections in the

agreement of Yushchenko and Putin.

The Ukrainian political experts presented a few reasons of failure of

Tymoshenko’s Moscow visit. First of all, probably illness of Tymoshenko neutralized

her energetic and influence in negotiations. It was hardly to notice her persistence and

negotiation shrewdness (V.Karasiov). Secondly, impossibility of independent

statements in Moscow. The whole visit looked like produced by Russian side to show

lack of independence of Ukrainian premiere in negotiations. On the contrary,

achievements of Yushchenko looked much better and important than “technical” trip of

Tymoshenko (O.Medvedev). Third, if to compare trip of Yushchenko and Tymoshenko

it is possible to note that president’s trip was covered by both pro- and anti-Putin

Russian media that gave sometimes controversial but in general objective information.

In Tymoshenko case it is not so clear. It was full of mysteries and not much covered

(V.Nebozhenko).

Afterword

April 2008 became the next stage of crises communications in the foreign policy

of Ukraine with the central theme of Ukraine joining to NATO. It is known that this

theme was one of basic for Yushchenko and got active discussion in Tymoshenko

government. It is necessary to note that theme of NATO for Ukraine was


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simultaneously in foreign and internal policy, however MFA of Ukraine was the main

“manager” of this question. However conflict with Tymoshenko and retirement of

Grytsenko (minister of defence) substantially loosened political possibilities of MFA of

Ukraine to use the NATO theme for foreign policy. Yushchenko also had two

possibilities for advancement of question of NATO: visit of G. Bush to Ukraine on

April 1, 2008 and summit of NATO in Bucharest.

Visit of G.Bush became “strengthening” preparatory ground for position of

President of Ukraine on NATO summit in Bucharest. However summit results became

surprise for Yushchenko. First off all, acceptance of Action Plan for Ukraine and

Georgia was postponed. And although Yushchenko considered summit as “next”

victory of foreign policy of Ukraine, he dismissed the ambassadors in Russia and

Germany. Official explanation—for the necessity of rotation of diplomatic personnel.

The special attention to Yushchenko policy on summit was shown by Russian

politicians and media. The question was, foremost, about the phrase said as though by

Putin in conversation with G. Bush: “Ukraine is the not a state…”. Such occasion

became a basis for the wave of counter-Ukrainian utterances of Russian opinion-makers

(Lavrov, Luzhkov, Solzhenitsyn and others) which was distributed in Russian media.

From other side, as this phrase was unverified information, the Ukrainian diplomats

were not able to get official explanation from Russian MFA. Tymoshenko visit to

Strasbourg for PACE also loosen political position of President of Ukraine, when she

answering the question of Russian representative assured public that Ukraine wouldn’t

join NATO, if people would vote against it on referendum. Her speech was positively

estimated by many Russian media.

Similar situations and personification of foreign-policy management of Ukraine

at the level of President and Premier considerably worsen quality of work of diplomatic

missions. Actually, Ukrainian ambassador (in Russian Federation or other country

important for Ukraine) is not an information generator about position of the state, the

journalists of foreign media are foremost oriented on Yushchenko, Tymoshenko,

Yanukovitch. The analysis of events framing showed besides that the media often had

clear political position, especially among Russian media. It results in displacement of

political accents, necessity of permanent defence of the Ukrainian position. The

information policy of MFA of Ukraine also complicates a situation. For example, State


program on forming of positive image of the state in 2005-6 foresaw a PR campaign

and advertising of the state, however attempts to attract private agencies through the

tender of MFA in 2005 ended with scandal, when participants blamed its organizers for

garbling of results178. The participants of tender marked also that diplomats had

perceived the task of forming of image foremost as process of placing of advertising in

Western media.

178 Позитивный имидж Украины в мире под вопросом // Корреспондент.net 11 Января 2006

[http://www.korrespondent.net/main/141718]


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Fig.17. Ukrainian foreign policy crises zones


Fig.18. Network visualisation of Yushchenko’s foreign activity in 2005


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Table 4 Degree Index of foreign and Russian media coverage of gas conflict 2005/2006


Fig. 19. Network map of Yanukovitch foreign activity in 2006/2007

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