CSC Welcomes Prof. Norman Vasu
by Steven R. Corman The CSC welcomes Prof. Norman Vasu, a Fulbright Visiting Scholar from the S. Rajaratnam School of Internationl Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. At RSIS, he is an Assistant Professor and Deputy Head of the Centre of...
U.S. Public Diplomacy Increasing Domestic Outreach
by Steven R. Corman I have been following developments in public diplomacy for close to twelve years now. Lately I have noticed something new: Messages in my inbox from Tara Sonenshine, the new Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs (whose...
Public Diplomacy: Books, Articles, Websites #62
by Bruce Gregory* Sean Aday, Henry Farrell, Marc Lynch, John Sides, and Dean Freelon, New Media and Conflict After the Arab Spring: Blogs and Bullets II. United States Institute of Peace, Peaceworks No. 80, July 2012. Aday, Farrell, Lynch, Sides (George Washington...
Bud Goodall, R.I.P.
by Steven R. Corman The CSC mourns the passing of our friend and colleague Bud Goodall, who died yesterday after a 16 month battle with pancreatic cancer. Bud was instrumental in founding the CSC and contributed to numerous publications and grant projects that can be...
Islamists Exploit Burmese Rohingya Conflict
by Chris Lundry Another case of Muslim minority persecution, this time in Burma, has gotten attention in the last several weeks. Islamist extremists are using the incident to incite jihad, stoke religious violence, and criticize the Indonesian government. For the past...
Noordin Top: Martyr or Murderer?
by Chris Lundry Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist Noordin M. Top, who was responsible for multiple bombings in Indonesia and who is thought to have played a role in the 2002 Bali Bombings, is back in the news. He was killed almost three years ago in Central Java by Densus...
The Latest Grossly Exaggerated Taliban Casualty Figures
By Chris Lundry Once again, the Taliban has released comically inflated casualty reports from the conflict in Afghanistan. The latest post (which I accessed through Indonesian extremist site ar Rahmah) claims that 1114 ISAF “crusaders” were killed and 584 wounded in...
NATO Admiral Says the Future of Global Security is Strategic Communication
by Scott W. Ruston The title of this post is my interpretation of what ADM James Stavridis, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) and Commander of United States European Command (USEUCOM), says in a new TED Talk. To be fair, what he actually says is that...
Taliban Casualty Inflation Getting Comical
by Chris Lundry In a blog post last month, I noted how the Taliban have been inflating their counts of American casualties to a ridiculous degree. This month it approaches comedy. As reported by Indonesian extremist site ar Rahmah, in the period May 24 to June 23, the...
Narratives Behind the False Pyramid Destruction Story
by Jeffry R. Halverson For the second time this year, remnants of the pro-Mubarak media in Egypt have caused a major stir in the international press and blogosphere by spreading false stories about alleged Islamist plans for Egypt. The latest claim is that the...
A Different Take on the ICG Indonesia Report
by Mark Woodward This ICG report recently reviewed by Chris Lundry is another example of that organization doing what it does best, providing detailed information about the activities of extremist groups linked to Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) in some way. But in my view the...
ICG Report on Regrouping of Indonesian Extremists
by Chris Lundry The International Crisis Group has released another outstanding report on Indonesian extremism (available here) that reflects their in-depth approach, extensive connections, and long reaching background into the topic. This report focuses on extremist...
Qur’an Verses Study: A Response to Our Critics
By Jeffry Halverson, Bennett Furlow & Steven R. Corman Our study, entitled How Islamist Extremists Quote the Qur’an, released last week, seems to have touched a nerve in some and has generated some negative commentary. To date, we have received no criticism from...
CSC Quran Verses Study Covered by CNN
Today CNN posted a story covering the CSC's study of Quran Verses.
New CSC White Paper: How Islamist Extremists Quote the Qur’an
by Steven R. Corman The CSC has released a new white paper, entitled How Islamist Extremists Quote the Qur'an. The study is based on of over 1500 verse citations from over 2000 items of extremist propaganda collected as part of our extremist narrative project. The...
New Blog on Behavioral Conflict
by Steven R. Corman Late last year, we reported that Steve Tatham and colleagues had published a new book entitled Behavioural Confict. Now they have created a new blog to go with the book. Both book and blog pound on the theme that changing attitudes is nice, but...
Mali Extremists Blunder, But Who Can Capitalize?
By Bennett Furlow and Jeffry Halverson Over the past week a militant Islamist group operating in Mali called Ansar Dine has destroyed a number of Sufi mausoleums and the legendary gate of a 600-year-old mosque in the fabled city of Timbuktu. Many news reports have...
CSC Changing Name & Web Location
by Steven R. Corman Since 2004, CSC has stood for the Consortium for Strategic Communication, with a web home at comops.org. Earlier this year we became the Center for Strategic Communication at Arizona State University and this week we are also moving to a new web...
NATO Strategic Comm and Narrative in Afghanistan
by Steven R. Corman I am currently in Izmir, Turkey attending the 5th NATO SHAPE Conference on Strategic Communication. Narrative has been an important theme at the conference. Gen. John Allen, commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in...
Taliban Threatens to End Polio Vaccinations in Pakistan
By Chris Lundry According to a CNN report Monday, the Taliban in Pakistan released a statement threatening to cut off all polio vaccinations for children in the North Waziristan region if the US continues drone strikes there. From the Taliban statement: Almost every...
