The Taliban, and almost all other insurgent groups, behave like any other heterogenous group of individuals fighting for a common cause. Their leaders do not always see eye-to-eye, they often bicker and fight, and they have even killed each other in order to advocate stance.

These divisions in insurgent leadership often become more pronounced when their military efforts are not successful. Finger pointing starts and the blame game consumes insurgent operational planning and execution.

This offers an excellent opportunity for coalition forces to implement strategic and tactical messaging campaigns designed to further agitate these splits within insurgent leadership. This would serve the goal of not only limiting the operational effectiveness of insurgent groups, but also to foster subversion and distrust within the inner circles of these groups. The former would serve our tactical and operational interests while the latter would be a great foundation for a strategic victory over each of these insurgent groups.

While this is but one piece of an overall integrated strategy for counterinsurgency (COIN), it is an important one at that--even if only for its prospect as a low-cost, low risk, and possible high-benefit strategy.

Does anyone have any relevant, theater experience where directed messaging/strategic communication operations were used to agitate insurgent leadership or exploit the divisions described above?

Other comments and questions are welcome as well.