Of Course The Taliban Are PSYOP Experts! They Don’t Have Much Competition!

 

I ran across an MSN article dated June 22, 2021. “The Taliban Are Winning the War of Words in Afghanistan as morale falters” (see: https://bit.ly/3qmDhQt). The article began:

“As Afghanistan’s armed forces cede and regain ground in the searing summer offensive against the Taliban, they are losing a propaganda war that is affecting the morale of a fearful population waiting for reassurance that the insurgents won’t overrun their country.”

 

Just for fun I decided to do a Google Search on “Taliban war of words”.

And, what do you know, I came across another article “Taliban Propaganda: Winning the War of Words?” (See: https://bit.ly/35Kv7Ic), This one was written by the well respected International Crisis Group and published on 24 July 2008. It begins:

“The Taliban has created a sophisticated communications apparatus that projects an increasingly confident movement. Using the full range of media, it is successfully tapping into strains of Afghan nationalism and exploiting policy failures by the Kabul government and its international backers. The result is weakening public support for nation-building, even though few actively support the Taliban. The Karzai government and its allies must make greater efforts, through word and deed, to address sources of alienation exploited in Taliban propaganda, particularly by ending arbitrary detentions and curtailing civilian casualties from aerial bombing.”

The Taliban dominance of influence operations should come as a surprise to no one.

The fact that the media is latching on to their dominance in June 2021 should also not be a surprise.

The Marine Corps Intelligence Activity commissioned the Rand Corporation to produce an analysis of “U.S. Military Information Operations in Afghanistan; Effectiveness of Psychological Operations 2001 – 2010”, which was published in 2012.

While the reported covered both successful and unsuccessful information operations, their general conclusion was:

“If the overall IO mission in Afghanistan is defined as convincing most residents of contested areas to side decisively with the Afghan government and its foreign allies against the Taliban insurgency, this has not been achieved.” (see: https://bit.ly/2TW4mhs, which is also a photo source).

On April 14, 2021, President Biden spoke from the Roosevelt – the Treaty Room in The White House where he said “We cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan, hoping to create ideal conditions for the withdrawal, and expecting a different result. 
I’m now the fourth United States President to preside over American troop presence in Afghanistan: two Republicans, two Democrats.  I will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth.”

(See: https://bit.ly/3xGJFEC

There should be no surprises here. Recapping some reasons why:

1.     The Taliban have always had a more streamlined approval cycle.

2.     There was no real unity of command of influence operations.

3.     There was neither an overarching communications strategy, nor a practical plan.

4.     The Afghan government was barely able to govern, let alone develop and execute a communications strategy.

5.     The Taliban have done a marvelous job of exploiting their home field advantage.

6.     The US withdrawal will undoubtedly lead to more Taliban military victories which they will no doubt exploit.

7.     The tribal nature of Afghanistan does not lend itself to high tech social media efforts while the global stage is great fodder for them.

Many of us were trained using “Leadership Reaction Drills” where unit leadership rotated among the members of a group. At one point we were asked the question we all dreaded “What now Lieutenant?”

I’d ask President Biden, Secretary Blinken and Secretary Austin the same question ‘What now’?

Photo Source of President Biden & President Roosevelt: https://abc3340.com/news/connect-to-congress/gallery/biden-hails-house-passage-of-19t-virus-bill-now-to-senate