After Afghanistan Where Does PSYOP Go Next And How Do You Train For It?

OBL is dead and Congress is clamoring for a re-evaluation of the strategy in Afghanistan. While I’m clearly not an expert on that theater, and once I again I disclose that I’ve never been there, it strikes me that killing one guy, even one very important guy, should not call for a re-make of a strategy if the strategy was any good in the first place. Having said that – what’s next after OBL and Afghanistan?

(Photo Source: http://www.trafficsign.us/w24.html)

I believe that demand for contractors can be seen as a leading edge intelligence indicator of US involvement. I picked a well known contractor at random and tallied the total of openings by location: Iraq 42, Afghanistan 39, Kuwait 10, Africa 9, Balkans 5, and Latin America 2. Let me stress that these are not PSYOP/MISO openings, but general openings.

What does all this mean? I believe it means a couple of things. First of all, even with the end of ‘conflict’ in Iraq there is still a great demand for American support. While the number of troops might decline overall, there will be a constant need for Military Information Support Operations to inform and influence the population. The numbers in Kuwait and Africa portend that, like the Balkans, any one of a number of countries can go to crap in a New York minute.

For one reason or another we don’t seem to be training foreign forces on PSYOP/MISO which means that “we” have to do it.

Given that Reserves will bear the brunt of any support effort to the Big Army, or General Purpose Force, it follows that a major US military commitment any where will more than likely call for Reserve PSYOP participation sooner or later.

Can you train as you fight if you have no idea where you are going? In certain things I believe you can. Personal conditioning, marksmanship, combat driving and survival skills are paramount. The nuances of climate may have to depend on best guess, but it wouldn’t be crazy to train for extreme heat or cold and high altitudes.

From a technical perspective, Internet PSYOP as well as TV will be employed in selected AOs and it is possible to train on editing, composing, etc. As for being ready to go anywhere at any time, given the amount of potential locations and the language/culture variations, I think this may be difficult. Having said that perhaps learning about historically disadvantaged locations such as Africa and keeping up to date on the latest regimes in Latin American and perhaps ‘the stans’ and their brethren may make good sense. Comments invited.

Put Down The Loudspeaker And Pick Up The Cell Phone

Today’s crazy optempo doesn’t allow a moment to think much about the future. The April 9^th, 2011, Economist featured an article: “Mobile telecoms in Africa” – Digital Revolution. (See http://www.economist.com/node/18529875?story_id=18529875) which is also the photo source.

I’ve mentioned the need to be on the look out for future locations where PSYOP/MISO missions will be played out and I’ve also pointed out that Africa is an area where scant attention has been paid – Libya and the Middle East countries are an exception of course. The article noted the implementation of 3 submarine cables to Africa and a corresponding price reduction of 90%.

At the moment basic handsets dominate with Nokia the dominate player. Other product notes include that a $90 Android operating system smartphone made by China’s Huawei “sold out in several African countries in less than a month”.

There are strategic and tactical aspects for PSYOP to consider. On the one hand it would be nice to get on the inside track of the mobile provider and be able to easily send mass messages of all types: voice, SMS, Twitter, etc. On the other there is a need to send targeted messages to selected devices.

Most likely the mobile phone campaign would be supplementing other effort, yet total reliance on a single device as may be the case with some targets makes dominating that communications medium critical. This leads to a couple of questions: what organizational level should have the capability to employ the mobile media of today and the more complex devices of tomorrow and what equipment and support will be needed?

At this point I don’t have any particular answers, but I thought it was important to raise the question and reference the article.

The Reality of an Influence Strategy in Afghanistan

The more I read about the situation in Afghanistan, the more I stand by my previous analysis of the bottoms up rural nature of the country. The Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA) the ‘trade association’ for the Signal Corps and IT in general has an electronic newsletter called NightWatch. Their December 8 edition had a particularly good analysis of Afghanistan which I commend to your reading at: http://nightwatch.afcea.org/NightWatch_20091208.htm

Photo by Bruce Hoffman and Seth G. Jones, NationalInterest.org (http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.nationalinterest.org/uploadedImages/Public_Articles/2008_-_May_-_June/Hoffman/hoff10small.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx%3Fid%3D17916&usg=__JgGIPj5yXf7Z3U4xDyL1gh5WqgI=&h=315&w=420&sz=82&hl=en&start=7&itbs=1&tbnid=RcOK5E1PX87cpM:&tbnh=94&tbnw=125&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dafghanistan%2Bvillage%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den

“Winning” in Afghanistan needs to be defined as establishing a secure enough environment that the country would no longer be a safe haven for Al Qaeda and other enemies of the United States. Our goal is not and should not be for Afghanistan to become a modern, democratic state. That being said, the key mission is to bolster local governments at the village level to the point that the Taliban are no longer to establish their dominance nor are Al Qaeda or other foreign enemies be able to exploit the country or its people.

We must recognize that a Taliban lead insurgency is a chronic condition much like a disease. However, the major of Taliban are not militants and are probably not ‘anti-American’ by nature as much as they are anti- stranger and anti-occupier. Consequently there are a number of key messages that must be transmitted:

1. Local Governments Have The Integrity & Wisdom Needed to Govern and Provide Honest Justice
This mission means key villages must be identified and local governments installed that can offer a viable alternative to the Taliban shadow governments. It means that these governments must be corruption free (in a relative sense because a certain level of corruption seems endemic to Afghanistan) and able to provide the quick justice Afghans have found so appealing in the Taliban shadow governments.

2. The Taliban Way is Not the Afghani Way
This would reassert the need for a people oriented justice system rather than the Sharia law or law based on the Quran. History has shown that the people of Afghanistan are fiercely independent and have no taste for these draconian legal systems.

3. NATO and the US are Not Occupiers
The ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) is there to help the people of Afghanistan restore security and peace. The mission of ISAF is to train Afghani’s to handle their own security and law enforcement and will leave once the mission is accomplished.

These messages need to be transmitted at the local level more than any other. This will require the entire force to be cognizant of how to work with the local villages and require the Department of State to cajole or catalyze the Karzai government into the same mode. It is clearer than ever before that the only way to succeed in Afghanistan is from the Bottom Up. As a former precinct organizer, let’s hope that President Obama insures that this philosophy is core to our strategy and operations.

PSYOP By Walking Around

Many of you are familiar with the technique “Management By Walking Around”. Essentially it is a style of leadership where the manager learns ground truth through conversation and observation by walking among his workers. I was having a bit of trouble figuring out what to post this week while I’m up here in Idaho grandchild and grand dog sitting.

After delivering my charges to their various assignments this morning, I decided that a little PT (Physical Training) was a good start. Since my knees no longer allow me to run very much I figured a walk to ‘town’ for breakfast was in order. I’ve never clocked the distance, but I think it’s about 1 ½ miles each way.
While I’m no mentalist, I am able to observe and analyze what I see. On my way the first item of interest was that the school crossing guard at the elementary school was a Native American – not common in Silicon Valley, but certainly so up here. Next I noticed that even this little town (population 4,000) has a 9 hole golf course even though the season must be relatively short.

When I arrived at my usual breakfast spot I noticed a couple of groups of Caucasians (or as we used to say in New York, coffee klatches). One group had about 8 ladies in their 50s – 70s, a second was about 10 men ranging in ages from late 50s up. Yesterday I learned that the local soda fountain (yes it really is a soda fountain) has sociologically assigned seats in the morning as well. Apparently the breakfast group is a local institution.

On my way back from breakfast I stopped into a Panderia where the signs were only in Spanish. I’m a bread and pastry lover so it made sense for me to explore. Bread and cookies are baked daily (bought 2 for my guests) and viernes is sale day with 3 cookies or bread items (except jalapeño rolls) for the price of two. I also noticed a woman in her early 40s holding a Neflix envelope.

My point in the travelogue is that there is no substitute for being on the ground. Direct communication to local groups is a critical tactical PSYOP task/skill. In this case my limited walkabout would have yielded information about when and where to meet a number of groups almost simultaneously. It also gave me some insight into language (I had to remember what day of the week is sale day), ethnicticities, and media .

This type of analysis is relevant whether in a rural village or a city block and is the foundation of building confidence with the local population.

Afghan Poppy PSYOP

The Associated Press ran a story on 30 March “US launches new fight against Afghan drug trade”,




Photo Source: Daily Mail, October 13, 2008

see(http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hCUxKbunroDLpz-QKfiKnqI0iAWQD978J8OG0).

The latest approach to negating the flow of money to the Taliban and Al Qaida is much like the DEA’s similar campaigns in Latin America. In addition to attacking the supply of opium and driving up its price, the strategy will also concentrate on drug dealer money laundering.

At first glance this appears to be a win – win situation. Not only do you reduce the amount of drugs in circulation, but you strangle the money faucet to terrorist organizations. Success in Latin America is cited as the model outcome.

I’m not convinced it is as cut and dry as it appears. The crux of my discontent is my continuing crusade for a bottom up information engagement campaign. In this case the bottom of the pile is the farmer. The AP story begs the question of the farmer and concentrates on the Obama Administration’s strategy’s emphasizing the supply and money chains.

Long term problems with drugs will persist as long as there is big money to be paid for drugs and the culture and economic well being of the farmer are dependent on opium. The Department of Agriculture needs to be energized to develop a systematic crop replacement for opium. This replacement needs to be cognizant of the growing environment in Afghanistan and the world demand for whatever the replacement crop needs to be. In addition the crop should mirror growing seasons and be highly adaptive to the climate and soil conditions where poppies are currently cultivated.

The program should also include short term financial support and/or supply of food and other items that would be needed by the farmers while the new crop is growing and the system to harvest and market it matures.

From an information view point a classic marketing ‘teaser’ campaign where pictures of a future secure and prosperous life without the terrorists, Taliban or even unwelcome outsiders of any kind controlling the farmer’s destiny. The messages would stress the increased welfare of the farmers and the positives attributes of the new crop such as positive growing characteristics and a higher income potential.

Unless there is research needs to confirm that there is value to messages concerning the reduction of suffering by elimination of the drug trade, I would not employ these messages, not even in passing.

In short the combination of agricultural insight, micro-financing and tribally tuned information engagement is the right way to deal with the Afghan opium supply and a strategy that has a far better chance of long term success.

Can You “PSYOP” An Individual?

PSYOP is generally employed by a military force against a group target in a defined geographic AO. The use of PSYOP against individuals is rare and reserved only for very high value targets where the stakes are quite high. The world of fiction has portrayed PSYOP against individuals in a number of ways. Among my favorites was the original Mission Impossible TV series which employed specially selected people with particular talents, not to mention disguises, drugs, theater, electronics and whatever else was required to alter the perception and decision making of the target.

In some ways it worked like CSI in reverse. Instead of starting with a dead body and figuring out what happened prior to the victim’s death, the Team started with the desired results in mind and performed the backwards planning to orchestrate the scenario to get to the desired results.

There was one episode where the evil doer de jure was convinced that a nuclear holocaust had just occurred. The MI Team built a mock-up of a wasteland around the periscope that the target used to observe what was going on outside. While I don’t exactly remember the outcome, I do remember thinking that was pretty cool.

Moving into the 21st Century – is it possible to “PSYOP” an individual by altering his perception of his environment and events around him to the point where his behavior moves in the desired direction or his decision making capability is severely hampered?

In thinking about the problem, one would have to consider the information and influence environment around the target, as much as the target itself. Given that the target’s actions are a function of the sum of all influences, it is important to determine what influences can be realistically altered or influenced and those that cannot.

For example, it would be difficult to subvert a target in a rural environment where communication is strictly via trusted messenger.

Alternatively, urban targets are typically inundated by information – face to face, television, radio, Internet, news papers, magazines, etc. PSYOP could be performed by controlling what is received by altering the genuine or providing false broadcasts or publications. However, would it be possible to exert enough control to get the desired results?

Another dimension of individual PSYOP in today’s world is the cyber dimension. In this case cyber means the information technology (IT) infrastructure used by the target as well as the Internet itself. CNO might prove effective in altering the effectiveness of decisions by changing the nature of ‘facts’ and information available to the target. CNE operations could be designed to employ computer crime techniques such as salami slicing to alter data in such a way to change the framework upon which decisions would be made. Drastic CNO could be employed perhaps in conjunction with EW to denigrate the information technology (IT) used by the target to the point where it is useless.

Regardless of the target it should be obvious from even this short posting that “PSYOPing” individuals require meticulous planning and significant resources. It also requires an in depth understanding of the target and its environment and an opera