Influencing and Information Operations

[Ken White]

This thread has been initiated at the suggestion of Red Rat in the Post just above. To start the thread, these two links have some background information:

Information Operations in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom – What Went Wrong? (.pdf).

Air University Cyberspace and Information Operations Study Center.

Here are links to previous Blog Posts or Threads on the topic from the SWJ Archives:

Here are links to earlier Threads on the topic that are in the Council Archives:

Who's Running the information War.

DoD Strategic Communication Plan for Afghanistan.

Winning the Ground Battles but Losing the Information War

Pentagon Reviewing Strategic Information Operations.

Newest evolution of FM 3-13, Information.

Consider the posts of Wilf, Red Rat and I above and then share your thoughts on coalition ability or lack thereof. Comments from practicing FA 30 and other IO types welcome...

[Bob's World]

If one doesn't understand the role of ideology in insurgency, then they are not likely to understand how to employ information in support of the counterinsurgent either.

Consider:

http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/jou...p/46-jones.pdf

[Ken White]

I question whether my subject / title just above isn't an oxymoron. To use the vernacular, Ain't sure you can get there from here. More correctly, I'm unsure the US can get there...

If one doesn't understand the role of ideology in insurgency, then they are not likely to understand how to employ information in support of the counterinsurgent either...

At that link, you list five points to which I provide five counterpoints :

1. Insurgent ideology is largely disposable, and any particular message is useful only so long as it binds the populace to the cause, and the counterinsurgent is also either unwilling or unable to co-opt it.

True. However, a third party has little to no leverage in countering the insurgent message for numerous reasons.

2. The insurgent only has to tell the populace what they want to hear, the counterinsurgent must actually perform in providing the populace what they need.

Again true; again a third party has little sway in providing the populace of the host nation goods or services or forcing host nation performance.

3. There are two steps to an effective counter-ideology program:
-- Compete a superior ideology with the populace in the marketplace of ideas, and
-- Assess the populace, and co-opt or agree with the insurgent where logical.

Again true, my comments above apply.

4. Actions speak louder than words. Ones major operations are their true Strategic Communications, and any official messages to describe those actions will either lend or take credibility based upon their consistency with the public’s perception of the nature of those operations.

Ah, at last we get to the thread topic, information operations. Again I agree that you are correct -- and one more time, I cite the fact that an intervenor can suggest, assist and provide support of all sorts -- but is unlikely to be able to do the things you suggest.

Specifically, an intervenor will be unable perform actions -- or provide information -- rapidly enough if for no other reason due to the coordination required with the host government.

My question of you, then, is how does an intervening nation arrive at the point of being able to influence the population of the host nation by using the counter actions you list?

5. U.S. ideology holds that when government fails, insurgency is both the right and the duty of the populace.

That may be correct in the eyes of some in the US, others may not agree. Regardless, I'm unsure that it has anything to do with Information Operations or is the policy of the US Government...

I do not disagree with the thrust of your linked paper. However, I do not see how the counters you suggest, the examples you provide, apply to our current efforts in Afghanistan. We could apply them if we had a domestic insurgency but we cannot apply them to the insurgencies of others. While I understand the linkage of information operations to counter ideology, I do not understand how the US can apply your prescriptions elsewhere in the world, particularly in nations with significant economic and structural problems.

Further, I question how we, as large, cumbersome and bureaucratic as we are, can ever be expected to succeed in besting a lighter, more decentralized and agile opponent in many facets of information operations. We can certainly outperform many opponents (including the current crew) in some aspects but in the defeat of an ideology, I'm curious to know how you would address our lack flexibility and speed issues?

[Bob's World]

Further, I question how we, as large, cumbersome and bureaucratic as we are, can ever be expected to succeed in besting a lighter, more decentralized and agile opponent in many facets of information operations. We can certainly outperform many opponents (including the current crew) in some aspects but in the defeat of an ideology, I'm curious to know how you would address our lack flexibility and speed issues?

We need to quit chasing the ball, position ourselves wisely, and allow our opponents to do the majority of the running around. If I am "countering" I am always chasing my opponent. If I am "competing" I am playing my own game, and making him come to me.

[Ken White]

resolutely opposed to the expenditure of ergs, that makes sense. As OpSec is a component of Information Warfare, I guess we don't need to go into exhaustive detail about ways to do that.

However, there are two non violating questions I'll ask.

How do we balance the need for PsyOps and Info coloration with the need for legitimacy, honesty and more clarity in news releases for both domestic and international consumption?

How do we provide better institutional agility to impede the opponents flexibility advantage?

[Dayuhan]

How do we balance the need for PsyOps and Info coloration with the need for legitimacy, honesty and more clarity in news releases for both domestic and international consumption?

One of the problems we have with things like "info coloration" in disordered environments is that we tend to work through official media, which people in these environments have for the most part ceased to trust. They trust their own networks, variants of the old bush telegraph, and we've little capacity to influence that.

Our info ops often shoot themselves in the proverbial foot by vastly underestimating the sophistication, access to information, and ability to detect BS that prevail among the populace. It's harder to fool people than we sometimes seem to think. I once read a comment (on OEF/Philippines) from an American offcier to the effect that we needed to conduct information ops so that the populace of Basilan would know how cruel the Abu Sayyaf are. That was a bit of a laugh out lou moment: the citizens of Basilan already know all there is to know about the Abu Sayyaf. Many of them know more about the Abu Sayyaf than the CIA does. It's not a big island, and word gets around.

Again re the Philippines, another point from the referenced article that could use clarification... and another example of how our interpretation of information ops can vary with perception.

Recognizing that actions speak louder than words, the current Western message is dominated by our operations in Iraq. One of the most notable aspects of U.S. actions in Operation Enduring Freedom – Philippines, is that because the operations there are so clearly consistent with the West’s message, that it not only sends a powerful Strategic Communication throughout South East Asia, it has also proven to be quite resilient to regular attacks by various Muslim and Philippine media. Applying what is termed the “Indirect Approach,” no U.S. actions are done unilaterally, no U.S. bases have been built, and most importantly, nationalist insurgents are recognized as distinct from terrorist organizations, and all actions, be they counterterrorist or counterinsurgency, are done by, through and with the forces of the government of the Philippines.

The picture is a bit more complex than that. Attacks on the US presence from the mainstream (Manila-based) media and intelligentsia are dominated by the left, which has little popular credibility; they're loud, but nobody listens. The broader populace in the Christian north views the Muslim populace as an uncontrollable and irretrievably violent blight that needs to be brought under control by the harshest available methods ("it's the only language they understand". This audience is happy to get any possible help and if anything thinks we haven't gone far enough: many would be perfectly delighted to see the US go in en masse and put the boot down.

On the other side, the US presence in Basilan in particular has won widespread approval from the Muslim populace, not because of projects and funds but because of a near universal recognition that Philippine forces are far less abusive when Americans are around. It is fairly ironic that with all the talk of protecting the populace from the insurgents, we have in this case won over much of the populace by protecting them from our allies.

[Ken White]

... They trust their own networks, variants of the old bush telegraph, and we've little capacity to influence that.

That's been my observation -- here and abroad. Or domestically and internationally -- cell phones are neat gadgets.

Our info ops often shoot themselves in the proverbial foot by vastly underestimating the sophistication, access to information, and ability to detect BS that prevail among the populace. It's harder to fool people than we sometimes seem to think.

Yep. I've seen that self inflicted wound bit many times in many places. A lot of Americans tend to forget others have been playing their own variations of information games a lot longer than we have. We often come across like marketers or used car sales people, tripping every BS meter for miles around...

They're generally better at our version as well.

It is fairly ironic that with all the talk of protecting the populace from the insurgents, we have in this case won over much of the populace by protecting them from our allies.

Not ironic, sad. Basilan is not the first place that's occurred.

[Dayuhan]

If one doesn't understand the role of ideology in insurgency, then they are not likely to understand how to employ information in support of the counterinsurgent either.

Consider:

http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/jou...p/46-jones.pdf

I'm not quite sure how this fits with the insurgencies we're actually trying to manage today:

Bin Laden, on the other hand, is no Messiah. He uses an ideology infused with religious overtones to rally the populace to rise up for political change for the same reason so many leaders who have gone before him have: it works. The question then for the counterinsurgent, is how to defuse that message without affronting the valid religious beliefs of the very populace whose support, as the true center of gravity in any insurgency, we are battling for.

I can't see that Bin Laden's ideology has ever inspired any populace anywhere to "rise up for political change". It has inspired small numbers of people to commit and directly support acts of violence, but that's a very differnet thing. The "insurgencies" in Iraq and Afghanistan were not about Bin Laden's message rallying populaces to rise up for political change. They were driven by local narratives and local issues; bin Laden may have used them for his own ends but he and his ideology are beneficiaries, not the cause, of those insurgencies. What message are we actually fighting in Afghanistan? Is it "establish an Islamic caliphate dominated by Wahhabi and/or Deobandi beliefs" or is it "drive the foreigners out of Afghanistan"?

To some extent there is certainly an ideological component to insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan and Iraq, but the US has no duty, right, or capacity to launch competing ideologies into the local marketplaces of ideas.

In Afghanistan I suspect the core of the ideological battle lies in the struggle to frame the conflict. The US is trying to frame the war as an insurgency, the Taliban fighting to overthrow the Karzai Government with the US "doing FID" in support of the Karzai Government's COIN. The Taliban want to frame the conflict not as an insurgency, but as resistance to foreign occupation: Taliban vs the invaders, us vs them. I'm not at all sure we're winning that particular fight.