Occupy Wall Street As A PSYOP Laboratory

I find the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement to be a fascinating sociological phenomenon. For one thing it spans multiple geographic areas simultaneously. For another, it doesn’t seem to have a hierarchy nor a stated specific purpose. OWS is unlike the classic protests of the 1960s and 70s which were formed to protest the war in Viet Nam or even the popular movements called the Arab Spring which were focused protesting government rule and in my view may be indicative of future activities.

(Photo Source: CDC, Atlanta, GA www.cdc.gov)

The noted former Presidential Advisor, Richard Clarke once said “The future will not be like the past.” To me the Arab Spring and the OWS are perhaps a window into the future and as such are worthy of detailed study by PSYOP/MISO professionals. Both are mass movements involving significant amounts of people. Both have provoked kinetic and non-kinetic government responses and both have managed to put a spotlight on how governments react.

In previous postings I addressed the combination of physical and cyber action and used the San Francisco based protests of Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) actions as examples. Recently there were some reports indicating that Anonymous was going to add another dimension to their activities by attacking the broadcast media. See:

http://geraldcelentechannel.blogspot.com/2011/11/anonymous-to-occupy-the-airwaves.html#.TsMDTh6QFKM.facebook

http://blogs.computerworld.com/19278/occupy_the_airwaves_will_anonymous_hijack_tv_and_radio_stations?source=rss_blogs

Going back to the laboratory concept for a moment, overseas PSYOP/MISO could find itself in a precarious position – having to not only defend the government’s actions, but to counter PSYOP of organized protest groups and disaffected individuals.

This kind of counter-campaign will require incredible creativity and resiliency at the Team level. It will require NCOs in particular who have diplomatic and cultural skills as well as the pre-requisite multi-media and face to face influence skills.

Given the tenor and the tone of many of the comments I have received over the past several weeks, I don’t doubt that we have the individuals up to the task. The question I raise is do we have the doctrine, TTP and resources to back them up? Furthermore, have we really solidified the link-up between DOD and the Department of State so that MISO is reinforcing the messages promulgated by the Ambassador and the Country team?

The PSYOP of Protests - Occupy Wall Street Applied

There has been much ado about the “Occupy Wall Street” Movement here in the US during September and October of 2011. The late night news on 12 September had extensive coverage of how the ‘movement’ was spreading throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.

As it turns out, I was attending the 1^st San Jose Cyber Security Summit at the San Jose, CA City Hall. After watching the news last night I was more than curious to see the extent of the protest live. I took the photo in today’s posting using my iPhone, so I can assure you it was not retouched in any way. It turns out to be a ‘long shot’ with the tent accommodations of some of the protestors in the foreground and a bunch of ‘protestors’ about 75 feet away near Santa Clara Street, the main thoroughfare near the City Hall.

If the effect makes the entire effort look sparse – it’s because it was! This is in stark contrast to the tight shots being used on TV last night which gave the viewer the impression that there were quite a bit more protestors than in reality.

What’s all mean? Gatherings of crowds can serve useful purposes of anyone who is astute enough to photograph them in a way that supports their case. Magnifying the size and scope of a gathering serves to amplify the message. This amplification can serve to stimulate recruitment, increase media coverage, provide useful ‘background roll” for later use or all of the above.

Merely showing a group of people protesting doesn’t prove anything by itself. Analysts would have to look at the objective size of the crowd, their demographics, trends in the previous days or weeks and compare this analysis with other similar situations.

For influence professionals it’s a gift! Images of various demographic groups, particularly individuals whose image clearly portrays a specific group can be very effective in promoting one’s cause. Counter propaganda analysts need to not only perform the objective analysis , but determine the potential uses our enemy could make of the images and recommend what the best counter messages might be.

In the Internet age the local protest can turn into the strategic message very quickly.

MISO and the Generation Gap

For the past week I have been attending an elite information security conference (www.COSAC.net) in Ireland. Unlike most cyber security conferences which are mired in technical details, this one explores higher level issues.

Photo Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/455111587/#/photos/joi/455111587/lightbox/

One of the more interesting topics was the nature of personal privacy or the lack thereof on the Internet. A key side bar was the fact that the younger generation has little or no concerns and is given to texting and social networks for even the most intimate communications.

There are a number of important PSYOP principles that flow from these trends. First of all, as Sun Tzu would advise - know your target. This means campaigns addressed to younger audiences probably should be crafted by that age group.

A second observation is that lack of expected privacy opens up a significant opportunity for the potential use of deception in the IO campaign.

Thirdly, denial of electronic communications can mean infliction of a high level of stress and anxiety.

Consequently, campaigns targeting any age specific population group should employ a collaborative environment that includes people within the target age categories in addition to appropriate linguistic and cultural knowledge. If such a mix is not available, then it is highly recommended that rigorous pretesting be employed prior to launching the campaign.

Hactivists and the Internet: Lessons For PSYOP/MISO

The 8/26/2011 issue of netgov (http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20110826_6276.php) had an article “Analysts say online ‘hactivism’ is becoming a preferred tool of protests”. The article proposes that Computer Network Attack (CNA) has emerged as a powerful force for protesters. The article talks about the protests against the San Francisco centered Bay Area Rapid Transit System which appear to be organized by the group Anonymous.

That group has innovated in its TTP (tactics, techniques and procedures) by combing CNA with on ground activity. The attack vectors are dependent on the desired result. If the group is looking to harm a target whose actions it opposes, it has turned to cyber attack as in the case of attacking Visa because it decided to stop accepting donations to Wikileaks.

Where the goal is more traditional – say blocking traffic, protesting on subway platforms or interfering with the daily commute the organization will demonstrate physically. They shield their identities in a number of ways with the Guy Fawkes mask featured in the movie “V for Vendetta” being a common means.

When dealing with urban AOs today’s MISO needs to be at least as flexible and techno savvy as our adversaries and enemies. We must appropriately employing digital influence and digital PSYACTs. Unlike non-state actors, military organizations must play by the rules. Unfortunately, in the case of the digital world the laws, rules, and doctrine have not kept pace with the battle. Computer Network Operations (CNO) are still pretty much behind the 21^st century ‘green door’ and tactical MISO soldiers are not likely to have the CNO tools and authority.

MISO is often marked by innovation on the ground, SWC and the MISO chains of command need to support digital influence in a big way. Perhaps the new MISG can establish a joint ‘center of excellence’ with the other PSYOP Groups to develop doctrine, and TTP. This Digital MISO Center of Excellence should be located at the Naval Post Graduate School so that it could benefit from the latest in IO thought leadership. Fort Hunter Liggett should be considered as a proving ground where the technique could be honed in relative isolation and supported by both Active and Reserve personnel.

Information Support Operations An Afterthought At Best for Homeland Security

On May 21 & 22, 2011 I was an evaluator for an exercise which took place in a major city. The city is the hub of an 8 city Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI). Federal government grant money paid most of the bills and sponsors took care of most of the rest.

The exercise involved 4 Emergency Operation Centers scattered over the area and was a series of ‘lanes’ designed to test Police SWAT (Special Weapons & Tactics), Fire, Urban Search & Rescue (USR), Emergency Ordinance Disposal (EOD), Emergency Medical Services (EMS). Each lane was coordinated by one agency and evaluators came from far and wide.

By design, the event is overall very low key, although there was an initial press conference attended by the city’s mayor and other dignitaries which resulted in some coverage prior to the event.

Media access was limited during the exercise and there were scant posters or other indications of locations or tactical lanes. In short it was akin to a military operation where the name of the game is to keep the public out of the way to minimize interference with the operation and maximize Operational Security (OPSEC).

While I can understand this posture in terms of external information support, I felt I was in a time warp when it came to the exercise play. There was absolutely no attention to the potential negative effect of information operations either intentional or accidental. Just as in my early Army exercise (PRC-6 anyone?) days, guidance was put out that communications are not to be interfered with because it was hard enough to communicate during the height of battle without someone messing with you.

More importantly the notions of misinformation, hostile crowds and pesky reporters were not considered at all. As for presence, there was only a single Public Affairs Officer at the central EOC with a few of the agency PAOs training their principals, but not actively involved in the exercise.

On the Command information side, EOC communications were via a chat like software package called WebEOC. No video and not very much contemporaneous reporting from other sources contributed to the CDR’s situational awareness.

Given the 24 hour news cycle, the persistence of paparazzi, and the ubiquity of cell phone video cameras – this is a mistake. Our enemies are clearly not stupid and are likely surveilling soft targets as you are reading this. The inability to provide information support operations in homeland security is a vulnerability that is open to exploitation by our enemies. DOD and DHS need to take the initiative and incorporate the informational aspects of homeland security into their efforts and as key elements in the Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP) and a key factor in determining if the government got its money’s worth for its grant funding.

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.

Blog Entry, 30 June 09 – PSYOP Skating to the Puck

I’m generally much of a sports fan, but I do follow, rodeo, football and hockey. And while I don’t often employ sports analogies, ‘skating to the puck’ is a good one. It implies that the player must anticipate where the puck is going and be at the right place at the right time to make the winning play.



Countries with the largest Muslim population as of 2008:
Indonesia 204 Million
Pakistan 164 Million
India 154 Million
Bangladesh 128 Million
Turkey 76 Million
Egypt 74 Million
Nigeria 73 Million
Iran 65 Million
Morocco 34 Million
Algeria 33 Million
Afghanistan 32 Million
Saudi Arabia 28 Million
Sudan 28 Million
China 27 Million
Egypt 27 Million
Iraq 27 Million
Ethiopia 27 Million

Source: http://islam.about.com/od/muslimcountries/a/population.htm
In my view skating to the puck means employing Strategic PSYOP to addre
ss audiences in Indonesia, Turkey, Nigeria, Morocco, and Algeria because while only Algeria has been in the news with respect to Al Qaeda (e.g. Washington Post @ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/29/AR2007052901967.html) the other nations are critical to global long term peace and prosperity.

Indonesia should be at the top of the list because it has the largest Islamic population and because it is a keystone of Asia and a symbol to the rest of the world. According to the CIA Factbook “Indonesia's first free parliamentary election after decades of repressive rule took place in 1999. Indonesia is now the world's third-largest democracy, …. and home to the world's largest Muslim population. Current issues include: alleviating poverty, improving education, preventing terrorism, consolidating democracy after four decades of authoritarianism, implementing economic and financial reforms, stemming corruption, holding the military and police accountable for past human rights violations, addressing climate change, and controlling avian influenza.” (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ID.html)

Indonesia faces a myriad of issues and the USG clearly should have messaging that addresses many of them. Furthermore Indonesia’s role in Asia will become more pivotal as China’s political, economic and military influence continues to grow. Indonesia must receive significant strategic communications attention as a prophylaxis to alleviate potentially serious issues in the future.

USG strategic communications will of necessity combine Department of State and Department of Defense information engagement efforts. As a core principle of democracy, the Executive Branch’s civilians drive Strategic Communications under the direction of the Ambassador in line with guidance from the President and Secretary of State Clinton.

Admiral Timothy J. Keating, Commander of the Pacific Command has a number of informational resources at his disposal as does the Commander of the US Special Operations Command. These DOD resources ought to be ‘de-conflicted’ so that they are additive in effect. After all marketing is cumulative. These efforts will likely include traditional media and the Internet. Given the burgeoning growth of mobile phones in Asia, campaigns employing Text Messages, e-mails and social networking are also appropriate especially to reach the young adult population which is a very large chunk of the overall population.

Time in the posting does not permit an analysis of other countries and their potential for strategic communications. Suffice it to say that Turkey is critical the US and global security so that it should be singled out for special attention as well.

PSYOP and Iran

I believe that the US should stay out of the melee in Iran, however, the events unfolding there can be harnessed for great effect in other theaters to convey some very important and powerful messages:

1. Fundamentalist dictatorships will never acquiesce to their people’s wishes.

2. Support of fundamentalist regimes can lead to violence against citizens who dare to oppose them.

3. In times of stress Fundamentalist dictatorships will do all they can to limit communications. State media will often be the only ‘authorized’ media covering events. Those seeking to let the outside world know the truth will have to rely on technology and creativity to get their messages out and wills subject to personal peril.

There are some observations which ought to be noted as well:

1. The Internet and amateurs may be one of the few ways to transmit messages and images from forbidden/denied areas and incidents.

2. Covert cameras need to be employed during incidents to reduce the chances of the communicator being singled out of a crowd.

3. Even the most repressive of governments (North Korea perhaps being an exception) cannot keep a total lid on negative images and communications flowing out of their countries.

From a military PSYOP perspective harnessing the images and Internet exploitation of them should take several directions. A trans-regional campaign is in order to inform moderate Islamic audiences of the events unfolding in Iran and transmitting the messages I’ve noted above and others as appropriate. Tactical PSYOP production units should accumulate file footage (often called b-roll or background roll) to be used as needed later on.

Training institutions such as SWC should develop case studies to be used in future PSYOP training and/or exercises based on two alternative scenarios. One scenario is that PSYOP forces are inside the country where the events are taking place and the other is that PSYOP forces are outside the country. The second scenario would pose questions as to how or if these images and news stories coming out of Iran should be used elsewhere and if so how.

Consideration should also be given in the use of covert cameras during hostile situations so that local images may be captured for subsequent use as well. This training should be provided out of DINFOS as well as SWC and other appropriate training venues.

I would also recommend that PSYOP Groups assign an informal project team to keep track of the events in Iran and to search out, store and categorize the images and stories as they unfold.

Source of Photo: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,528133,00.html

PSYOP Lessons Learned From Gaza

There have been a couple of very good articles on PSYOP in Gaza published in the last few weeks. USA Today ran “Cellphones Put to 'Unnerving' Use in Gaza” (http://www.usatoday.com/tech/wireless/2009-01-13-gazaphones_N.htm) The photo is by Abdalrahem Khateb, AP . The article addressed how both sides were employing cell phones, SMS and land lines in an effort to influence their opposition. A similar article, “The unreported battle with Hamas: psychological warfare” was published by Haaretz (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1054916.html).

The third article the Economist, “A war of words and images” (http://www.economist.com/world/mideastafrica/displaystory.cfm?STORY_ID=12953839) claims that Israel had lost the propaganda war at the time of its publishing, 15 January 2009.

What can US PSYOP forces learn from the Gaza conflict that might serve them well in Afghanistan, Iraq and beyond?

Lesson 1 – Be Realistic On Expectations – At least in your own mind.

I don’t have any inside knowledge as to the goals of Israeli PSYOP in Gaza. However I think It is it fair to say that the Israeli PSYOP target was as much the popular opinion in the West as the residents of Gaza. I frankly don’t believe it is reasonable to assume that a cell phone call or a text message will convince anyone to betray their neighbor. In fact I’m doubtful that tactical PSYOP campaigns aimed at civilians during kinetic actions will serve any purpose except to provide information for civilians on how to avoid being killed or injured. The horrific nature of urban close combat and the disruption of the civilian infrastructure are likely to be too big of an obstacle to overcome. Furthermore, the vehemence of beliefs was cemented long before the IDF rolled into Gaza.

Lesson 2 – Technology to Suit The Target

A useful lesson is that media must be varied to suit the target. While I don’t recall if any of the articles mentioned the age of the PSYOP targets, I suspect that the most fruitful target would be those engaged in active combat, smuggling, rocket firing or other acts of or in support of terrorism. This is likely to mean an audience between the ages of 13 and 40. Mobile phones and texting is the medium of choice and must be exploited. However, the product must be credible and appear to be correct in terms of jargon, style and content. Failure to understand the linguistic and local cultural nuances of the messages will instantly destroy their effectiveness.

Lesson 3 – There Are No Secrets

Sooner or later the true sources of all PSYOP will come out. PSYOP planners need to understand this principle up front. Exposure of sources can be OK if the time value of that source has expired, if the source and the medium in question are destined for long term use, than a very prudent perspective – should be employed. The arguments here will likely mirror the arguments used in the intelligence community where one side wants to employ the intelligence and the other does not because it would expose the source and render it useless in the future.

Every conflict yields lessons, let’s hope we learn some of them.