OK so this is a few days old already, but I’ve been busy eating.
The Defense Strategic Board report "Stratetic Communication" (pdf file) is now on their website. It was discussed a few days ago in the NYTimes, where the focus was on how the US is "failing in its efforts to explain the nation’s diplomatic and military actions to the Muslim world," but it also drew distinct differences between the current conflict against radical Islamist ideology and the Cold War:
"In stark contrast to the cold war, the United States today is not seeking to contain a threatening state empire, but rather seeking to convert a broad movement within Islamic civilization to accept the value structure of Western Modernity – an agenda hidden within the official rubric of a ‘War on Terrorism,’ " the report states.
"Today we reflexively compare Muslim ‘masses’ to those oppressed under Soviet rule," the report adds. "This is a strategic mistake. There is no yearning-to-be-liberated-by-the-U.S. groundswell among Muslim societies – except to be liberated perhaps from what they see as apostate tyrannies that the U.S. so determinedly promotes and defends."
The report says that "Muslims do not ‘hate our freedom,’ but rather they hate our policies," adding that "when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy." (emphasis mine)