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I am currently investigating the concept of 'fighting ideas with ideas' as part of multi-dimensional manoevre. I am trying to find a systematic framework to organise such a campaign and this lead me to memtics. Has anybody applied memetics to military operations and is it a valid concept? Alternatively, are there any other deisciplines that may be applicable. Given the importance of countering dangerous beleifs I am surprised by the lack on information in this area.
JD
Hi JD,
I haven't come across anything directly related to the military, but you might find Mutation, Selection, And Vertical Transmission Of Theistic Memes In Religious Canons by John D. Gottsch useful. I've applied memetics in a couple of areas and, on the whole, it can be valid but it is not that predictive. In order to get predictive validity, you need an incredible amount of environmental information. The Journal of Memetics (now defunct) is still the best general site. Their links page is excellent.
If you have anything written, I would be happy to look at it ;).
Marc
Hi JD and welcome to the forum !Quote:
Originally Posted by JD
I found your post extremely interesting and so here I am :)
Sorry for condensing your post, but just wanted a little clarification regarding the last sentence.
I've worked in 3rd world countries for most of my 23-year Army career. I managed to get along with almost everybody by trying to comprehend the other's beliefs and manurisms, then using that understanding while performing my missions. One of my former bosses thought that was a gift I had at my finger tips. Perhaps it was/is.
However, I've never tried to counter said beliefs. Would countering an individual's deep rooted beliefs be beneficial ? If so, in what way ?
Marc, please feel free to step on in :D
Regards, Stan
Hi Stan,
Well, if I'm reading JDs intent correctly, then he's not talking about stompin' other peoples' beliefs so much as, hmm how to phrase this? - ah - "encouraging them to select a memetic complex that, while part of their culture, is more amenable to western concepts" :D.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stan
Seriously, memetics isn't really cultural engineering, although it can be used that way (poorly!). Basically, it's looking at specific memes and meme complexes that create effects and replacing them with others that create other effects. BTW, "meme" a self-replicating piece of information; "meme complex" a collection of memes that is symbiotically related and mutually reinforcing.
JD, part of the reason why using memetics in a military setting would, IMO, be so hard is that it requires a certain amount of "immunization" on the part of the users and the military have heir own, very strong, meme complexes. The process of immunization has a tendency to dislodge many current memes as well as protect against further "infections" (yeah, I'm using he mind virus model here). This can be very counter productive to the military, although I think that if any military environment can accept it, it would be a COIN fight.
Marc
Thanks Marc. Did a quick read on memes before once again introducing my total ignorance :DQuote:
Originally Posted by marct
In my experience, I've tried to stay away from directly selling Western culture or ideologies. Take the Africans for example. Although they basically hated us, they really hated the French. As long as I didn't push too much 'West' and blamed nearly everything on the French, I was gold..Got everything I wanted and as you put it so well, didn't have to stomp on their pride (a slap in the face if you will).
Memetics may have its applications, but seems to me a stone age psycological way of solving problems typically encountered with any other culture.
We can sell the 'West' relatively easy, so long as the recipient is receptive. But, if he/she is a on a camel, hot, PO'd and unstable, you may want to consult RTK and keep the semantics at home :D
Thanks, Stan
Thanks for your replies and I agree with both of you but I am going to keep going with this a little further. Thanks also to Marc for the offer of ready some work and I may just take you up on that. And thanks to Stan for your insights on operations. I wholly agree that trying to force western culture down eastern throats appears to be counter productive and expecting foreign cultures to like the collective ‘us’ is also asking too much. The thing I like about memetics is that it can explain why this is so and, more importantly, predict why this is so. Allow me to explain…
My primary concern is the way we currently plan for and execute campaigns. The Dutch have a great saying that you can only have peace as long as your neighbour wills it, Sun Tzu advocated winning without fighting and Michael Creighton acknowledged that ‘wars are won in the will’. Multidimensional Manoeuvre holds as its central tenet that changing the will of the enemy is paramount yet planning and execution of actions and effects in the physical domain are linked only tenuously through the information domain to the cognitive domain where we seek to generate decisive effects.
As so many luminaries have stated ‘we must fight ideas with ideas’ but at the outset of the campaign do we sit down and say ‘what are the enemy’s most dangerous ideas, are they vulnerable and how do we counter them?’ or, as I suggest is more likely, do we just get into planning troop numbers and logistic support. Recently, we are getting more sophisticated and try nation building but what are the thoughts we are trying to generate? Do we want them to like us or should we simply go for what Dave Kilcullen calls ‘enlightened self interest’. Do we build a school and then undo the good work by demanding half the students are girls or do we accept the local view that girls should not be educated? What are the thoughts we want to generate and how do we achieve them?
Since the early 20th century people have spoken of ‘munitions of the mind’. Any other munition would be systematically dissected and appropriately countered. But what about thoughts and cultural norms? What is a thought, how is it spread and why is one preferred over another? What ideas are we trying to spread and how do we spread them? What is their science? After some investigation, the best answer I have found is memetics.
Memetics, in its essence is very simple (I think). At its core is the concept of ‘universal Darwinism’ where entities are in competition and one is selected over the other for whatever reason. Take two species of motor cars: the Mazda Mediocre is in competition with the Chrysler Chickmagnet. One will be preferred and selected for more sales and will therefore survive and prosper. The other will eventually become extinct. The same goes for elements of culture and thoughts in competition with each other noting that the thoughts and cultural norms already resident in the mind will affect the process or the selective pressures in the environment.
The other critical element of memetics is the success or resilience of a thought or elements of culture (a meme) can reasonably be predicted on the basis of three things: fidelity (the ability of the meme to be copied accurately), fecundity (to what extent the idea is out there) and longevity (how engrained or how much history the idea has).
Using this information it should be possible to create a framework for uninitiated military planners to asses the process by which they can begin to assess exactly how they will bring about the changes to the enemies mindset in a coordinated manner across multiple dimensions and domains. I am not going for a precise science, only disciplined thought about effects based operations linked from the physical through the information to the cognitive domain rather than simply going straight for kinetics, logistics or policing. Let’s think about thoughts and how to bring them about and what is achievable. After all, ‘they’ are unlikely ever to like us so perhaps we should set meaningful objectives for the cognitive domain from the outset of the campaign rather than eventually being disappointed and dealing with the resultant publicity and morale.
It is a big topic which is exactly why I am after external input.
Thanks.
JD
JD, here is a link to a campaign strategy website that might interest you. A lot of good and free information here. It talks a great about campagin frameworks and gives many real life examples. Hope it helps.
http://www.campaignstrategy.org/index.html
JD,
Sounds like you are interested in this a Logical Line of Operation in a broader campaign. The USAWC has a great Campaign Planning Primer that may be useful. While going to the JPs (at the Joint Electronic Library) is also good, the primer has it all in a nice slim package.
I'm interested in how this turns out for you. IO seems to have many facets, particularly if considered at the different levels (Tactical/Operational/Strategic). Logical LOOs seem to lend themselves better to EBO, and if we're talking Joint campaign planning you need to go with Joint effects based doctrine anyway. If you can, come up with rubrics for your MOPs and MOEs that tie in well with your concepts for using memetics. I'd also suggest you lay out some of the adverse effects with some indicators as part of the MOEs so you can switch course.
You might run some kind of PMESII parallel LLOOs & LOOs that shows how they compliment each other and can be synchronized, etc.
Best Regards, Rob
Thanks to all and particularly Rob.
I am only starting to formulate ideas at the moment but I think I am going to straddle IO and more traditional planning models making sure everything is linked back to bringing 'cognitive effects' for want of a better term. Perhaps the hardest thing is going to be convincing people that IO/psyops may not be the supporting element but the lead element with every other action in support. Wish me luck. I may contact you all directly with a personal message when I have something more concrete if that is OK.
JD
Hey JD,
I'd like to hear your thoughts on the following, using memetics !Quote:
Originally Posted by JD
Scenario: Troop reductions are all over the news, even LTG Odierno reported overall reductions in deaths, violence and IEDs, further justifying a drawdown from surge levels.
The insurgency with its thick mindset (those pesky memes) thus far has only one goal -- Our immediate destruction and withdrawl.
Will they upon hearing and believing the news that we are decreasing forces, increase their attacks or, back off and provide Congress and the military with false impressions to support full troop withdrawls ?
My opinion is they will increase their activities taking advantage of the reductions. Very typical 3rd world mindset - kick 'em while they're down.
So, are their mindsets or memes at a point of no return, and if not, what would we then do to preclude them from thinking they were loosing/lost the war as we depart declaring victory ?
Regards, Stan
Stan,
You've hit on what I think is the biggest problem for EBO. When you are talking about what people will do in an action - reaction sort of thing, its hard to predict when they (really talking about the commited) see life much differently then you (cultural values), when the the thing you'd like them to do is perceived as being worse then death or suffering. This can cost you a great deal of resources if your plan is contingent on a desired effect, and worse if you don't have the ability to go back and fix it the old fashioned way. Some enemy are just "hard headed" and need to be killed.Quote:
The insurgency with its thick mindset (those pesky memes) thus far has only one goal -- Our immediate destruction and withdrawl.
Will they upon hearing and believing the news that we are decreasing forces, increase their attacks or, back off and provide Congress and the military with false impressions to support full troop withdrawls ?
My opinion is they will increase their activities taking advantage of the reductions. Very typical 3rd world mindset - kick 'em while they're down.
So, are their mindsets or memes at a point of no return, and if not, what would we then do to preclude them from thinking they were loosing/lost the war as we depart declaring victory ?
EBO gets its formal roots at least back to WWII where the studies were done on the ball bearings that ruined the Axis. It was not the theory that sold it to Eisenhower though - it was the fact that if bombers went deep then the Luftwaffe would have to come up and try and intercept - when that happened we would continue to destroy planes and pilots faster then Germany could replace them, and exhaust the Luftwaffe's capactity to interdict the landing forces, or to support German units repositioning to destroy our beach heads. However, I think the general feel in the Army is we've been doing EBO since birth, we just never gave it its own spot on the shelf - reading Grant's memoirs - he talks about Winfield Scott conducting what smells like EBO to me as part of his campaign plan against Mexico.
The best example I've heard to consider the limitations of EBO is Hitler's aerial bombardment of the Britons - did Churchill throw in the towel?:D
Having said all that, I do think EBO can be useful in reaching those not totally commited to the fight (for whatever reasons), for shaping the perceptions of those not directly in the fight, but whose support or lack of support could make a difference, and also when the circumstance don't yet, or will not permit more lethal and final ways to be used. There are certainly those who are using it to good effect. It seems to work best when there is some kind of carrot attached.
Marc, and regional/national/tribal/ethnic/religious specialists like Marc who have spent their lives thinking about people and why people do what people do (or don't do) are probably bested sutied to look across the targeted PMESII (Political, Military, Economic, Social, Information and Infrastructure) environment and give us a few posible reactions to consider before we marry ourselves to an effect.
Hey Rob !
EBO IMO only rarely works when the opposition has more to loose. If our enemy is content with death as a final result, there’s little ‘effect’ going on. You’re right, old fashioned it is. Hopefully, we have but one or possibly two generations to deal with before the third gets fanatically unstable and we have yet another million to deal with. I would hope that the munitions would run out prior to the third fanatical generation gearing up against the Yankees.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rob Thornton
Damn ! I thought it was that famous Chinese dude Sun Tzu :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Rob Thornton
One of my favorite books to date is WWII America at War, 1941-1945 by Norman Polmar and Thomas Allen. “General Eisenhower grew to be the indispensable coalition General, a peerless coordinator and command of the Allied operations”. Eisenhower back then was correct in his line of thinking, as we had nearly destroyed Hitler’s war machine. The overall morale of his troops vanished with lack of ammo and food. Pretty basic Bravo Sierra aye ? However, we knew where all his stuff was, so destroying it and his machine was no real strategy. We just had to get there, dump ordnance and head home for fuel.
I think Winston got a raw deal. After all, he was only 35 or 36 when he reached ‘cabinet rank’. I know folks to this day in their 50s who can’t put the M4 back together without their eyes. Churchill didn’t throw in the towel, but he did realize that Britain would never win without US involvement. Hence the deal ‘destroyers for bases’.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rob Thornton
I like that approach, but just how many of the estimated 5 million are unwilling to fight ? What sort of carrots are we talking about :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Rob Thornton
I also like asking Marc questions…It’s his answers that worry me most :eek:
Regards, Stan
Stan,
Thanks again for your reply.
I really believe that the analysis of memes or thoughts / beliefs should be the starting point for anything. First one needs to analyze what each party believes its final objectives are in the physical realm the decide what beliefs and thoughts will bring about that reality e.g. we want peace therefore the enemy must believe it is in their best interests to stop fighting. The next step is how to decide which ideas are beneficial, which are harmful and get to fighting ideas with ideas through a campaign linked between the physical and cognitive domains through the information domain.
The first problem: do the violence does believe the withdrawal of troops is going to be hastened by peace or increased violence (firstly identify what they believe). Second problem: is troop withdrawal in their interests? Thirdly: what is their ultimate objective? Once you know the answer to these problems for each group you can start to be predictive. This is also where the fundamentals of memetics can be used to tailor a campaign to shape the battle space across the domains in an advantageous way.
The question you have asked is what I think will happen not how I would use memetics so I will try to answer your question. The problem with Iraq is there are so many different groups and what advantages one will disadvantage another. A decrease in violence from one may show an increase in violence from another. My personal belief is that there will be increased peace until the troops withdrawal has gone to the point of no return and then everybody will come out of the woodwork trying to out-do each other trying to show that they were the ones to kick out the superpower and use this as a way of gaining support or influence. This is where the battle of ideas will really hot up and the allied IO will need to be on the job if there are not be global repercussions in terms of what extremists or potential radical recruits believe the truth to be.
I make the point here that I don’t think the real battleground is the irredeemably radicalized – rather I think it is the uncommitted. The truly extreme may need to be killed or captured but that is less preferred than a change of heart. A useful illustration of this is the Firqats of Oman.
I will however close with what may best be described as the 'battle of the bulge' analogy. The battle of the bulge in ww2 appeared to show a resurgent Nazi Germany. It was not and was in fact the last desperate throw of a dwindling enemy. I think that a decrease in violence may not always be an indicator of success if the enemy is beginning to control territory and become a viable alternate government. Similarly, an increase in violence may show that the enemy has given up all pretexts of being a viable government and can only act as a destructive and destabilizing influence. Again, fighting ideas with ideas is important, not only in the immediate theatre of conflict but on the home front where audience is either given too much or too little credit for understanding complex issues.
Fighting ideas with ideas has to be the way to go and again, I think memetics will not have the answer but can certainly provide the framework for disciplined thought.
Thanks for your input and I hope this made sense.
JD
JD,
I like the idea as a starting point – sort of get to know your enemy or neighbor. But we do have quite a bit more than just say one or two tribes to analyze. It also sounds like one is dealing with rational folks, and many of them are not. Would an interdisciplinary study such as cognitive science pay dividends when your subjects are say irrational (read centuries of brainwashing or just plum crazy)?Quote:
Originally Posted by JD
I think that this line of thinking will gain about 50% of the population, but the other 50% have not only objectives but also objections. I doubt that even the slightest smell of failure is an option. That’s why I feel troop reductions will result in an increase in attacks. The sad truth there is yet another surge. Is there a means of figuring that scenario out and subsequently countering it?Quote:
Originally Posted by JD
I’m no stranger to such problems working in Sub-Sahara with 400 tribes. Getting one or two to the table was hard, but the others seem to fall in line accordingly. However, that country still has no peace and factions are constantly battling each other. It’s been nearly two decades. I’m afraid we’ll see the same with Iraq, but the only difference being that they are not content to stay home and destroy things, rather travel around.Quote:
Originally Posted by JD
I believe that Oman enjoyed several positive factors we don’t currently have in Iraq. That is, an effective local government with sufficient external support and more importantly - local support. Even still, something to consider in the overall equation.Quote:
Originally Posted by JD
Thanks for the interesting posts !
Regards, Stan
Stan,
I am interested in your comments on the rationality of individuals and groups. I personally have a tendency to assume that anyone whose motives I can't understand is irrational but I am increasingly getting the uncomfortable feeling that the problem is my inability to grasp a foreign thought process not the irrationality of the other perspective. I think it is possible to simultaneously be sane, rational and incomprehensible to others, just as I feel the west is to the East at times. A rational view can still be logically flawed or based on faith, culture or emotion. Any faith system can be challenged by logic without assuming the beiever is irrational or insane. It then gets down to a matter of degrees and subjective judgement to the point at which irrationality sets in.
My further concern is that if we dismiss too many ideas as irrational we lose the IO campaign / battle of ideas by failing to contest it in the most vital areas. Again, I go back to finding a disciplined apporach to analysing thoughts and cultural norms to ensure we don't impose our own emotions, norms or ethnocentricities on our chosen courses of action.
Your thoughts?
JD
JD, at the website I posted under resources there are some interesting articles on semiotics (the use of symbols to influence) close to the idea of memetics. Although it is based on how to run a political campaign it largely deals with information operations and how to handle them. Especially the 12 step program they recommend. Couple of points from the 12 step program, don't teach or educate people but learn how to motivate them to take the action you want. Also recommends using pictures instead of words where possible over all it has a lot of good simple steps to take to make the campaign a success. If you get time to read any of it let me know what you think about it.
JD,Quote:
I am interested in your comments on the rationality of individuals and groups. I personally have a tendency to assume that anyone whose motives I can't understand is irrational but I am increasingly getting the uncomfortable feeling that the problem is my inability to grasp a foreign thought process not the irrationality of the other perspective. I think it is possible to simultaneously be sane, rational and incomprehensible to others, just as I feel the west is to the East at times. A rational view can still be logically flawed or based on faith, culture or emotion. Any faith system can be challenged by logic without assuming the beiever is irrational or insane. It then gets down to a matter of degrees and subjective judgement to the point at which irrationality sets in.
What is sane is much influenced by culture, language, and social pressures. This is in my experience the number one culture gap in understanding and it is one that never goes away. The moment you fully understand that alien view, you have probably shape-shifted and become one with them, leaving you divorced from your own cultural roots.
Many folks used to say Saddam was crazy. He was not; he was perfectly sane in the peculiar world that he built around himself. The JFCOM Iraqi Perspectives report is most valuable in seeing how the US leadership and Saddam's regime miscommunicated over decades. This is not a new phenomenon; cultural miscommunications play a role in every conflict.
best
Tom
that a huge part of that miscommunication is as a result of who talks to whom. An academic, writer, business man or woman or a media person -- A soldier, for that matter -- traveling in the ME (or elsewhere) is most likely to spend the majority of their time talking to similar people in the nation(s) visited. Many of those will have western education to one degree or another. They are comfortable talking western values.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Odom
In much of the world, the polite thing is to tell your guests what one thinks the guest wants to hear and thus, the perception among the movers and shakers grows that "we're all alike." We aren't. Not by a long shot.
The media and the academy are not helpful in this regard; while some do get it right, most do not. They are captive of what they are told, all to frequently in English (when entirely different things are said by many in their own language) by, again western educated peers, who probably have if not an agenda, certainly a defense mechanism to protect the tribe, clan, region or nation of their birth.
Unless one truly speaks the language and is willing to sit in the bars (amazing number of them in Islamic nations...), bazaars and ghave or chaikhane for hours on end and truly listen, it is easy to be lulled into the belief that the cultural differences are 'minor.' They aren't. They never are.
Our last three largest wars are proof of that. :(
Ken,Quote:
Unless one truly speaks the language and is willing to sit in the bars (amazing number of them in Islamic nations...), bazaars and ghave or chaikhane for hours on end and truly listen, it is easy to be lulled into the belief that the cultural differences are 'minor.' They aren't. They never are.
One of my earlier formative experiences as a FAO was in a bar over the course of several evenings talking to Egyptians, at least one of whom was their security services because he pitched me before we were all said and done. Notable among the discussions was the legitimate need for female circumcision to control those insatiable Egyptian women....:eek:
Best
Tom
PS
A follow up thought: in the aftermath of Goma, I went to Rwanda and Stan was still in Kinshasa when a senior diplomat insisted on coming out to do a site visit which included a gorilla walk in the middle of a war zone. Yours truly got to arrange that one; but the diplomat came with his spouse. He was a political appointee and she was his self-appointed advisor. Anyway we took them to Goma as part of the visit and another friend of Stan and I met them to give an orientation of the camps. Our friend was explaining the reality of Goma (with 70K dead) when the spouse said some to the effect, "it's all soooooo exciting. it's like an election." Point being, even when language and nationality are not cross-wise, cultural differences still rear their homely heads.
To Slapout9,
thanks for the link - it's excellent and good food for thought.
To Tom,
My understanding of what you say is that it is not possible to feel comfortable in a culture unless you hold its values and it is not possible to simultaneously adhere to contradictory values. This may well be true but the next question is: is it possible to understand a society without adhering to its values in the same way that it is possible to predict a criminal mind without being a criminal?
For everyone,
A general question: do we now need cultural advisors in Joint HQ with the same level of recogniton as politcal and other advisors? Would it be possible to find one without an agenda of his/her own? And if so, would they not be there merely to provide an insight into the mind of those to be influenced - in other words should there not be another element interpreting the cultural advice to turn it into psyops?
I am going to talk about the three domains of the physical, informational and cognitive. We have Sea / Air / Land / Space because because each part of the physical domain has its own challenges and requires a certain skillset and culture to deal with these challenges. Increasingly, there ae communications / IO specialists to deal with the information domain either with information as media or message. There are, however, few, if any, experts on the cognitive domain where the ultimate effects will be wrought. Do we need to create cognitive experts in line with Sea / Air / Land experts? And should a cognitive effects based approach be the lead of operations with physical effects in support?
Big questions I know - maybe I should start a new thread?
JD