Strategic Assessment

The relationship between governments at war and the media has always been complex. The government’s instinct to disclose details of military-related activities only selectively and its desire to garner public support for these activities often conflict with the media’s drive to air an entire story, even if the resulting coverage is critical as well as factual. Pivotal points in the history of military coverage were the war in Vietnam, when television brought the war back home so dramatically and almost in real time, and the 1991 Gulf War, when battlefield coverage was instant, incessant, yet tightly controlled by the both the Allies and the Iraqis.