Advancements in communications and technology have served as a nurturing womb for the birth and subsequent growth of the modern media. Although fledgling in comparison to the environment in which it exists, this being is exerting significant influence on a powerful and patriarchal institution: the U.S. Government. This institution, itself born out of revolution and a quest for liberty and freedom, has traditionally formulated and executed policy with relative independence of action, answering primarily and often exclusively to the people it governs. The people, accepting an attenuated level of knowledge and understanding about governmental and global affairs, assumed a role in the activities of government by using the power of the democratic vote to shape and focus the direction of policy. With faith and confidence in the institution, the people obediently answered the government's call time after time, often meaning enduring the sacrifice of sending sons and daughters onto foreign battlefields. However, as the modem media grew and matured, it too assumed an unforeseen role. This role was one of educating the people and the world to events occurring within the global environment, events often initiated or guided by government policy. Moreover, the media became a critical influence in the development of policy, both foreign and domestic, as government and military leaders sought to balance the consequence of action with the potential retribution of an educated public that demanded answers to questions as quickly as the real-time media coverage delivering the news to their homes. Such coverage led the public to question traditional faith and confidence in government, and in some cases resulted in the media becoming the recipient of this honor. This coverage, and apparent influence, also may lead today's military leaders to ask whether or not a new approach is needed to assessing and focusing on the media. Such is the power of the media, and its potential for defining success or failure of military operations seems endless. It continues to grow, feeding on an expansion of communications technology that exposes virtually every action of government, and every perceived contradiction to the desires and mandates of the people. A study of the media and its influence on foreign and military policy is thus a study in the many faces of the media, and the means it employs to shape an often precarious union between the policymakers and the people. This study will examine the media from such a perspective, focusing on the ways and means the media uses to directly and indirectly influence policy. Accepting that foreign policy often requires employment of the military arm, this paper will propose potential outcomes for media presence, intentional or unintentional, that may have positive as well as negative implications for the future of the military. Recent history can serve as a starting point for analysis of this issue, understanding that the media is itself not static but dynamic, and as adaptive as the government, people, and military to sustaining growth in the years ahead.

ADA 357762 Approved for public release; Distribution is unlimited. The opinions and conclusions expressed herein are those of the student-authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College or any other governmental agency. (References to these studies should include the foregoing statement.)