Why subscribe?

Arming for the War We’re In is a continuation of my blogging that began in 2004 at mountainrunner.us (that blog has been paused since I launched this substack in 2022). “Arming for the War We’re In” relates to discussions, organizations, and proposed legislation in the early cold war, which, sadly, relate to the present as well. Because we fail to understand our history, there is a broad failure to grasp the details and meaning of the trajectories of international affairs, organizations, legislation, and policies, past and present.

The purpose of this blog is to revisit history to better understand the present and to be better prepared to recommend modern solutions to current issues, some of which are not as novel as they are made out to be. Along the way, some accepted narratives will be shown to be misleading or outright false.

In looking at the first decade of the cold war, it is clear from the record that the US failed to arm for the kind of conflict then being waged, which was fundamentally non-military in nature. The result was a military-centered policy and national security structure that developed “a Maginot mentality—a belief in a strategy which may never be tested but which meanwhile prevents the consideration of any alternative.” Though that quote appeared in 1955 as a warning from Henry Kissinger, it had already become a reality. The US, starting with NSC-68 in 1950, armed not for the cold war the nation was in, but for the war it hoped would never come. The result was not a pragmatic defense; it led to an aggressive marginalization and degradation of non-military means of combating adversarial aggression in the cold war, including failing to fully address the conditions in countries abroad that Moscow and its fellow travelers relied on as they pressed their political warfare.

Centering the military in policy, organization, and conceptualizing national security persists. We encourage, if not reward, adversaries to exploit non-military means of warfare, to our great detriment, and to the detriment of allies.

Below are three quotes from the early 1960s that encapsulate the failure. The period in which these sprang is not a coincidence: a cold war that existed became the Cold War as the international situation was normalized, leading some scholars to declare the cold war won or lost.

“So long as we remain amateurs in the critical field of political warfare, the billions of dollars we annually spend on defense and foreign aid will provide us with a diminishing measure of protection.” – Senator Thomas Dodd, 1961

“Someday this nation will recognize that global non-military conflict must be pursued with the same intensity and preparation as global military conflicts.” – the Orlando Group to Congress, 1963

“American defense plans during the past decade have carefully and expensively prepared to fight the only kind of war we are least likely to face. And we have not in any meaningful sense prepared to fight the kind of war both Russia and China surely intend to press.” – C. L. Sulzberger, 1965

Who am I?

I’ve been working, writing, lecturing, and pontificating on public diplomacy, strategic communication, and political warfare since 2004. From 2013 to 2017, I served as a Governor on the former Broadcasting Board of Governors, which was later renamed the US Agency for Global Media. I was nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate to this office after Senators approached me following my tenure as the executive director of the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy.

I taught graduate courses in public diplomacy at the USC Annenberg School as an adjunct lecturer, and I was also an adjunct lecturer with the Joint Special Operations University. I have also been a guest lecturer at the National War College, the National Intelligence University, the Army War College, the NATO School at Oberammergau, and several universities across Europe, plus a few in the US.

In addition to testifying several times before different Congressional committees on information warfare and political warfare, I worked extensively with Members and staff in the Senate and House for about twenty years on public diplomacy, strategic communication, and political warfare topics, including helping to launch a House caucus focused on this topic and helping to write and provide support for related bills, including the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act.

Over the past two decades, I also worked extensively with the Defense Department, the State Department, and other executive branch agencies on these subjects.

In 2016, I was inducted into the Psychological Operations Regiment at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School as an Honorary Member.

I’m proud to share that in May 2022, five years after I left government service, Russia sanctioned me.1

I earned a B.A. in International Relations and a Master of Public Diplomacy from the University of Southern California. I studied European security and the Middle East at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.

I am a Ph.D. candidate at King’s College London, waiting to defend my thesis. My study examined how the US responded to Russian political warfare in the early cold war, from 1945 through 1965. I am also revising my book on the history and evolution of the Smith-Mundt Act, a topic I have spent way more time studying over the past dozen years than is probably wise or healthy. However, that history is relevant today since we sadly know little about – and learn even less – from our past. (I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: calls to bring back the US Information Agency are a poster child for such ignorance.)

The personal details

After ten years living in Europe, I am now in Boston since mid-2023. Before that, my wife and I, along with our two kids, lived in Switzerland (near Zürich) for 7 years and in the United Kingdom (on the west side of London) for over 2 years. We have a cat from the UK and a dog, a rescue from Romania.

“MountainRunner” is not my nickname, but that of my late running partner, Luna, whom we adopted from the Carson, CA, animal shelter. When I created the blog in 2004, I needed a name. Since it had no purpose other than to practice writing, I used my dog’s nickname, earned from our trail runs in the Santa Monica Mountains above Santa Monica / Brentwood, and her picture as my author’s pic. She joined me 3-4 times a week, for about 25-35 hilly miles each week. Her longest runs were around 14 miles. We encountered the local mountain lion twice, though that’s only the number of times we saw the cat, not how many times the cat observed us. She passed away while we lived in London. Teddy Turbo deserves an honorable mention: he was my other running partner. Also, a rescue, he was found in a trash can with a stump for his front left leg. He was a beast on the climbs and tentative on the descents. I had to limit him to no more than 6 miles because, while Luna communicated her limits, Teddy was eager to push too far.

I’ve done Ironman triathlons (8), a dozen or so ultramarathons (the longest was 70 miles, the median happened to be around 40 miles), a couple of dozen marathons (not sure, I stopped counting), maybe two 10k’s, and, I think, four 5k’s. I enjoyed more 3-mile ocean swim races in Southern California than the combined number of 10k and 5k running races I’ve done. I also guided a blind triathlete for two seasons, including through the Alcatraz Triathlon. Nearer to the turn of the millennium than the present, I coached triathletes, was an assistant swim coach at UCLA Masters, and coached fund-raising marathoners (Team in Training). I previously held coaching certificates from USA Cycling (Level 2), USA Triathlon, USA Track & Field, and US Masters Swimming.

A partial list of my publications, podcast appearances, video presentations, video chats, and my testimony before Congress can be found here.