PSYOP and the Starfish

One of the regular contributors to the Blog recommended that I read “The Starfish and the Spider” by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom. (You can find a good summary at: http://ugnchicago.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/Starfish-and-Spider-Ori-Brafman-Summary.pdf)

The premise of the book is that decentralized organizations have neither head nor formal infrastructure – just like the starfish is able to regenerate from a severed leg. One of the beginning vignettes is on how the Spanish Army could easily conquer the Aztecs, but the Apaches got the best of them for 200 years.

The messages for MISO/PSYOP professionals are actually pretty clear. Historically major conflicts have been force on force. Formal military organizations faced each other and the MISO battle was fairly straight forward. It was as I like to call it the “Surrender now and avoid the rush.” Campaign centered on getting the opposing force to surrender. This is no longer the case and the traditional, centralized, military Command and Control of influence operations needs to evolve to deal with ‘starfish’ type enemies.

When Al Qaeda surfaced as a principle enemy after 9/11 the influence war was turned on its head. While we had dealt with non-traditional forces such as the Viet Cong, the notion of a global, decentralized enemy was a new one. While military leaders are ensconced in a formal hierarchy, terrorist organizations such as AQ were a mass of amorphous decentralized cells.

The book proposes three strategies for defeating starfish:

1. Changing Ideology

Life is hopeless vs. there is hope, I can make my life better

2. Centralize them

Change from no hierarchy to some form of top down. Provides resources to the formerly resource poor leaders so that they become more fixated on using the resources for reward, etc.

3. Decentralize yourself – if you can’t beat’em join’em

Just how relevant are these suggestions to PSYOP/MISO?

For one thing PSYOP must work hand in glove with the Embassy Team and Civil Affairs to help eliminate or minimize the root causes that are stimulating the opposing force. By eliminating or reducing the root causes, the effect is to change the environment and with it the ideology driving the starfish.

Secondly, I believe MISO needs to be as decentralized as possible to be able to tailor the influence approach to the target at hand. However, we need to empower MISO soldiers with the resources needed to do the job whether this is a robust ‘reachback’ or cultural and linguistic resources or support of local credible spokespeople.

As we ponder which organization will be the Branch Proponent we need to take a serious look a doctrine and learn how to deal with the starfish and what other creatures come up.

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.

Half-Hearted White House Poses PSYOP Problem

The US “strategy” in Libya can best be termed bizarre. The Obama White House dawdled at the prospect of military support to the rebels (perhaps with good reason since nobody really seems to know who they are), then committed US air power before bowing out of the lead and now plans on engaging Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) (see http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15024270,00.html which is also the photo source).

This kind of wishy washy approach plays havoc with PSYOP/MISO. A core PSYOP principle is that effective PSYOP is based on truth. This leads to the parenting principle about threats and punishment. Don’t threaten a punishment unless you can and are willing to carry it out. As the Obama administration tries to convince the world, itself and the American public that Iraq is over and Afghanistan is turning the corner, they now need to justify another Billion or two in the face of one of the worst budget crises in our history.

Should the President decided to commit ground troops (which is not very prudent in my opinion at this point), Senator McCain notwithstanding), will AFRICOM have the resources to orchestrate a credible influence campaign? Where will the MISO troops come from and how long can they support the operation? Is the country prepared for another min-Iraq or worse yet a hybrid of Afghanistan and Somalia should the Qadaffi government crumble?

We are always accused of being ready to fight the last war. Libya appears to be the next one, and perhaps the model for one or two thereafter – let’s consider all the effects and be ready ahead of time for just once!

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.