New Imperialists : Ideologies of Empire

MIRRLEES: American Soft Power 215
of America’s post-9/11 national security crisis and the war on global
terrorism to rationalize American soft power.
Through his rationalization of American soft power (as military
information operations), Armistead contradicts America’s purported
principles of a free, pluralistic, and democratic commercial media system.
The ideal of a free-market media system that is not subject to state
regulation, under partisan political control, or susceptible to propagandistic
intervention by the military is laid to waste with Armistead’s
recommendations. Dismissing the erosion of American civil liberties and
advocating the military recruitment of the commercial media for
government propaganda purposes, Armistead worries:
The openness and freedom that make life in America so precious
to its citizens also make it vulnerable to informational warfare by
its adversaries. . . . The very laws that protect our civil liberties
make it possible for our adversaries to operate in relative obscurity,
right under our noses. . . . [T]here is now serious debate about
curbing civil liberties in exchange for security. . . . Though, to an
extent, this sense of anxiety has settled down with the American
populace, still the nation has obviously forgotten about the necessity
for cooperation between military and media during national
emergencies, a practice that was so common during World War II.
It can be easy to blame the news media’s lack of discretion today,
and we as a nation have to do better. 71
“Doing better” appears to be an acceptance of military and state
propaganda as a necessary function of U.S. national security. Forget
about the free-market ideology espoused by the proponents of the U.S.
commercial media system, which used the threat of big government
to demonize all public struggles for media reform and regulation. “In
contemporary information operations,” argues Armistead, “the full
integration across government agencies with private industry must
occur.” 72 This “means horizontal as well as vertical integration and
cooperation, and includes not only United States Government Agencies
and departments, but also non-government units and private industry as
well”; 73 information operations “must also be led from the top-down,
with full White House and National Security Council leadership to
ensure full inter-agency participation.” 74
Armistead’s desire to temper the supposed freedom of the American