tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1841819670822716434.post8142913166624695050..comments2023-11-29T16:57:15.811-08:00Comments on PSYOP Regimental Blog: USA Today Slams ‘Info ops’ as Dubious and CostlyLawrence Dietzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04048092221343162724noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1841819670822716434.post-56259293967518234772012-03-11T20:06:39.672-07:002012-03-11T20:06:39.672-07:00I agree with everything you bring up in your artic...I agree with everything you bring up in your article,and what the other commentators had to say. <br />Not only is there no systematic attempt at monitoring and evaluating progress, but such a program is counter to the interests of contractors. Due to the nature of continuous unit and personnel turn-overs, and the way OERs incentivize easily measured, short-term, self chosen, and compartmentalized accomplishments. There's really no incentive to get at any reality that could hurt the careers of those involved. It's a sad reality, but anyone that's operated at higher command levels have seen how politically, careerist motives usually out way the welfare of troops or the success of a mission. <br />Even when unit managers are ethically motivated professionals, which is often the case, they rarely have any training or experience in how to evaluate competing reports. Unless they have advanced degrees in a social science, they aren't gonna question the methods contractors use, or even ask them how things were done. I was trained to keep all briefs simple, fast, and to the point. They're busy people, under a lot of stress, and are used to making fast & decisive decisions with incomplete information. This reality has created a culture where contractors and GS researchers have learned that BS is rarely questioned, and if anyone does dig into how a study is done the people who did it or the commanding unit will already be gone and off to other things. There's no incentive to do things differently. Mistakes and fraud are only looked for if something newsworthy goes wrong, and by that time OERs, and GS & contractor evals are already written. Everyone moves on to a new contract, mission or job, and these new jobs aren't evaluated with past performance included. So, it would require an investigation showing evidence that willful malfeasance or incompetence was involved. That's hard to prove in the best of circumstances, but when you add the fact that proving it would hurt the people that gave contractors positive evals in the past, the ones that awarded current contracts guilty parties, and especially the people whose jobs are tied to the program that the contractors are working under. <br /><br />Another big problem is the explosion of isolated experts studying these structural problems, and offering solutions. So, anything they report is subject to the same competing interests vying for power within commands (within a command & between the same staff elements at different levels), between military and civilian elements, and between coalition elements. <br /><br />There's a line of thought in medicine, and the sciences that one shouldn't test or measure something if they don't know what to do with that test. With elements operating downrange the opposite approach is usually taken. The assumption is that measuring or testing something is a good in itself, and will somehow have a positive effect after the information is gathered. There's no thought into how this would actually happen, or attempt to align and incentivize competing elements to take predetermined courses of action depending on what a study concludes. Plus, these studies need independent peer reviewing to made sure researchers aren't just telling their customers what they want to hear; which is something that happens more often than not.Jacknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1841819670822716434.post-50441169952419220462012-03-02T02:06:46.894-08:002012-03-02T02:06:46.894-08:00This is what happens when behavior manipulation is...This is what happens when behavior manipulation is replaced with information engagement. Information does not yield an attitudinal or behavioral shift.<br /><br />That being said, when a Quran is altered, as the burned ones were, it is no longer considered the unaltered word of god, therefore it is not technically a Quran anymore. <br /><br />Despite this, any PSYOP soldier worth his or her salt, operating in an Islamic country, should have known that burial is the proper method of disposal. <br /><br />Our job is not to simply put out fires, but to prevent boneheaded moves like this in the first place.<br /><br />But, given the lack of training, and the lack of serious effort behind building a successful and effective regiment, it doesnt surprise me that this happened.Voodoonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1841819670822716434.post-19425467743412839812012-03-01T19:39:43.402-08:002012-03-01T19:39:43.402-08:00Is there room for improvement? Of course, though t...Is there room for improvement? Of course, though the brother-sister duo is more an indictment of the DOD contracting system than anything else. Unless its a sole-source contract, the who the contract goes to is often out of the hands of the practitioners.<br /><br />Furthermore, stories like the USA Today article make the amount spent on influence seem shocking by leaving out comparative information to place the expenditures in context. In the context of total expenditures for OIF and OEF, this amount was nothing. One estimate for air conditioning is pegged at 20 billion a year, and the total authorizations for OIF and OEF from 9/11 to March 2011 was 1.25 trillion.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com