U.S. Army Strategic Narrative

What is it?

The US Army Strategic Narrative encompasses a history, culture, and positive vision of the future that presents a strong representation of what the Army and its people stand for as an organization. The active management of the Strategic Narrative is the foundation of message development and communication in support of activities in key focus areas related to competition, conflict, crisis and change. The strength of the Army’s Strategic Narrative comes from ability to monitor the information environment at all levels and ensure trends in perception match the true intent and purpose of actions across time.

The Army’s Strategic Narrative supports the National Defense Strategy, the Army Campaign Plan, senior leader priorities and ultimately the Army’s mission to deploy, fight and win wars and to provide ready, prompt and sustained land dominance in coordination with the Joint Force.

The narrative is the voice to the action, ensuring all critical audiences understand the appropriate Army priorities, intent and capabilities.

What are the current and past efforts of the Army?

Due to communication challenges and the potential for the spread of mis-and disinformation during the novel Coronavirus 19 pandemic, the Army established the Strategic Narrative Operational Planning team (OPT) in March 2020. The OPT served to:

• Identify communication gaps in global Army COVID-19 messaging
• Determine actionable solutions
• Implement changes in current Public Affairs Guidance and messaging strategies

What continued efforts does the Army have planned?

The Strategic Narrative OPT expanded in scope to highlight gaps and and provide solutions to ensure Army communications:

• Positively impact and support Army activities
• Support leader credibility
• Increase clarity in the Army Strategic Narrative

Additional efforts include:

• Increase Army Enterprise cooperation in the information space
• Development and implementation of Media Awareness Training to build cognitive resilience in Soldiers
• Development and implementation of Influence Awareness Training to increase the Total Force awareness of influence activities.
• Review and alignment of tools to identify and mitigate malign mis/disinformation impact to the Total Force.
• Army wide # Think, Type, Post messaging. The purpose of this messaging effort is to increase the Total Force capability to execute responsible social media engagements and reduce online misconduct.
• Development of social media notifications which educate the Force on adversary efforts to target service members

Why is this important to the Army?

The Army’s mission is communicated by highlighting the people, modernization and readiness priorities. Active, timely and factual Army communication is imperative to retain the trust and the confidence of the American people. Creating a strong Strategic Narrative helps to effectively counter misinformation and provide an avenue to share context essential to a clear understanding of the Army’s purpose.

Resources:

• Army Vision

Related documents:

• National Defense Strategy
• Army Strategy

Related STAND-TO!:

• The Army Strategy
• The Army Vision