America's Two-Front War: The American Media Assault On Our Center of Gravity - Sustaining Public Support for Military Operations and War, Turning Public Against Military, Vietnam, Iraq, Terrorism

Professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction, this unique book examines the role of the American media in shaping coverage of military operations and wars. The Vietnam War demonstrated how critical American public support is to sustaining successful military operations. Empowered by their experience and effect on the American public during the Vietnam War, America's media has maintained a "second-front" against the U.S. military by targeting its center of gravity, attempting to influence American public support against military operations. As a result, the military has been forced to fight a "two-front" war. In addition to its battlefield strategy, the military must fight to protect its center of gravity—America public support. The thesis of this paper is that the U.S. military must reduce the vulnerability of its center of gravity to U.S. media assaults by operating in a manner consistent with public expectations of the military and by ensuring the American public understands military goals and operations. In short, if the public understands the military's mission, how the military has accomplished that mission, and the behavior of its forces, public support should be strong enough to withstand the media's assault.

This paper begins with an analysis of the relationship between the military and the media and its effects on the American public. It provides a deeper look at how and why the American public is targeted by both the military and the media. Following that analysis, the paper examines public support for major military conflicts from Vietnam to the Global War on Terrorism (GWoT). This examination is not designed to document military-media relations as much as it is to show how the military has protected or lost its center of gravity. Since the conflict between the military and the media is unlikely to change, this paper concludes by addressing the means by which the military can ensure its behavior is consistent with public expectations and how to better articulate its goals and operations to the American public in order to secure its center of gravity and maintain public support.