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CHAP TE R 3
The CNN Effect and War
Prussian military thinker Carl Von Clausewitz is considered the father
of modern strategy, based on his 1832 posthumous publication,
On War (Vom Kriege). In this classic text, he described war as a
remarkable and paradoxical trinity based on three components: popular
passions, operational instruments, and political objectives. The first of
these relates primarily to the people, the second to the military, and
the third to the government. There is debate in the strategy literature
on the interpretation of the trinity and the relationship of these three
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elements. Although some thinkers such as Villacres and Bassford sug-
gest that the trinity refers to the different forces within a military cam-
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paign, others such as Summers Jr. and Van Creveld claim that it
describes the actors that constitute the social structure of war. This
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study adopts the latter interpretation of the Clausewitzian trinity. In
war, all three domains—the people, the military, and the government—
are critical to the success of a campaign and the outcome of each area
will have profound implications for the others.
In the context of war, the CNN effect can allegedly influence
all three domains of the trinity. Regarding the people, change
from media would appear in public opinion; in the military sector,
impact should be seen in the tactics and strategy employed in a
war; with the government, influence is likely to be present in diplo-
macy and foreign policy. This chapter reviews the relationship
between the CNN effect and each of these factors in the context of
war. The government and its foreign policy, however, are reviewed
last and in the greatest detail because this is the area that is deemed
to be of most importance for three reasons. First, the vast majority
of the CNN-effect literature focuses on the domain of foreign
policy. By revisiting this sphere, it is possible to reexamine the litera-
ture and potentially add theoretical insights to it. Second, the key
issues that this book sets out in the introduction can be addressed
most effectively through a detailed review of foreign policy, in