Gen. David Petraeus - Is managing American public opinion part of his "battlespace"?Two recent articles on counterinsurgency (COIN) raise the issue of "information operations" in the broader sense of managing public perceptions in war via the various news media: Neo-Classical Insurgency? by Frank Hoffman Parameters Summer 2007 and New Paradigms for 21st Century Conflict by David Kilcullen eJournal (US State Department) May 2007. I quote some of the key passages below.
"Information operations" were traditionally aimed at enemy armed forces or enemy populations, from messages to mislead the enemy about troop movements to propaganda leaflets and broadcasts directly to the enemy country's citizens. But especially in insurgency situations, information operations is taken to include influencing broader audiences, including the American public.
Military discussions about "information operations" as they related to American opinion have to be evaluated in the context of a particular view of the Vietnam War widely held among military officers, the Christian Right and various Republican ideologues. In this view the US military won the Vietnam War. But the gutless civilians, hippie protesters and weak-kneed Congress lost the war by refusing to support an open-ended commitment to continuing American participation in the war. And chief blame for that loss of political Will is placed on "the media".
Refighting the Vietnam media "war"
I've posted a number of times on the problems of that analysis of the Vietnam War and I won't recap them here. But the prevalence of that view, flawed though it is, means that whatever the views of particular writers on "information operations", much of their audience is going to process their work from the viewpoint of this the-military-won-the-Vietnam-War framework. Which means they are likely to view management of American public opinion as a key military task. And that they are likely to understand that as being primarily a function of manipulating media coverage of the war and the military.
That has led in practice to the military managing to repeat in the Iraq War their basic mistakes in their public communications during the Vietnam War.
The basic problem can be seen in this statement from Gen. Richard Myers, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in April 2005: "I think we are winning. Okay? I think we're definitely winning. I think we've been winning for some time."
It doesn't matter how favorable the attitude of the press is, when military spokespeople keep repeating happy-face assurances like that in a war like the one in Iraq that has gone on longer than US participation in the Second World War with no happy ending (or no ending at all!) in sight, people stop believing it. It's the opposite of the proverbial "crying wolf". When the generals constantly cry "no wolf" by promising progress, tipping points, turning points and victory, when the situation is obviously a terrible mess, after a while most people won't believe it even if events change to make the smiley-face predictions closer to reality.
Nobody expects military spokespeople to go out and badmouth an ongoing war effort. But they should at least be realistic about what happens to the military's public credibility when the pep-rally pronouncements keep crashing and burning.
Members of Congress as well as most voters can and do distinguish between the credibility of generals and military spokespeople, on the one hand, and the success of a war policy, on the other. Our generals could reduce the damage to their own credibility from a bad war policy by learning some basic lessons from the experience of the Iraq War.
One is to report casualties as realistically as possible, on both the American side and the enemy's side, including civilian casualties. Another is to avoid bone-headed stunts like the Jessica Lynch rescue action-video. And downright sleazy acts like lying to Pat Tillman's family about his "friendly-fire" death. Things like that convey a sense that the military leadership doesn't respect its own soldiers and their families, much less the public.
There's also a distinction, to use business terms, between marketing as a broad concept and advertising in the more narrow sense. Even the best product needs good advertising. But even the best advertising can't make up for a bad product. In the war context, even ugly war-crimes incidents like Haditha don't necessarily damage the military's credibility among the public, provided the chain of command follows the law and their own rules and prosecutes them. Doing so consistently could even produce a net increase in the military's public credibility in the short run.
The best advertising won't save a bad product
On the other hand, when the military is intimately associated with a "product" like the Cheney-Bush torture policy as practiced in Guantanamo, Abu Ghuraib, Baghram and other locations, nothing can stop that from damaging the military's credibility in a serious way. That kind of thing is going to become public, often sooner rather than later, and no amount of PR spin is going to make it look like a good thing to most people. And the failures of the chain of command in the case of the torture policy in particular will continue to have practical, political and legal repercussions for a long time. If military leaders don't want their credibility damaged by that sort of thing, they just need to stick to the law and not involve themselves in the systematic practice of torture.
Military leaders enjoy a great deal of public and Congressional deference on military matters. At times that may be because people don't know what the generals are talking about. But that trust and respect for military opinion on military matters is widespread.
The military shouldn't allow people like the Christian General Jerry Boykin to squander that reserve of credibility it by going out in public and talking about how our God's bigger than the other side's God. Or by allowing Gen. Myers, the nation's most senior military officer (JCS Chairman) at the time, to go to an American Legion national convention as he did in 2005 and tell them, "Resolve or will is ultimately what will decide whether we defeat ... extremism and terrorism or whether we give in." This at the same convention where the Legion's "national commander" Thomas Cadmus told the delegates that antiwar protesters were trying to "demoralize our troops, or worse, endanger their lives by encouraging terrorists to continue their cowardly attacks against freedom-loving peoples." Cadmus called for an end to "public protests" and "media events" opposing the Iraq War, and Editor & Publisher reported, The delegates voted to use whatever means necessary to 'ensure the united backing of the American people to support our troops and the global war on terrorism'." It's hard to read that as other than encouraging violence against antiwar demonstrators. I don't recall hearing of octogenarian Legionaires actually doing so. But the chief military official of a democracy should not be attending such a convention and encouraging such sentiments. Especially if he wants to have credibility among anyone but drooling-at-the-mouth authoritarians.
There's also the fact, as noted in the paper The Impact of Religious and Political Affiliation on Strategic Military Decisions and Policy Recommendations by Lt. Col. William Millonig (USAF) 03/15/06, that the officer corps is overwhelmingly Republican and disproportionately conservative-Christian in religious terms. Most of the public are neither. That means that military spokespeople and those designing public communications strategies should make extra effort to understand where people are coming from, and not assume that what they hear from Bill O'Reilley or John Hagee or Rush Limbaugh about what "the liberals" think and say bears any relation to reality.
Military leaders should recognize that their own capacity to rally public support for a war is actually limited. American public opinion is not the "center of gravity" in a war. And it's not the military's job to mobilize it. That's the job of political leaders.
There seems to be an irresistible tendency for military leaders to conceive of public-communications functions in terms of censorship and manipulation. So you get things like the Pat Tillman attempted cover-up, which the generals should have known was likely to fall apart fairly quickly, and which is also the kind of thing that would almost make even a Rush Limbaugh "dittohead" angry.
But no amount of manipulation can make a deeply flawed policy popular in a situation like the Iraq War, whatever portion of that bad policy is or isn't the military's own fault. The Soviet Union had far more extensive censorship capabilities than the US military does. But even they couldn't prevent their Afghanistan War from being deeply unpopular and become a serious political problem for the leadership.
Should we rely on Osama bin Laden as a military authority?
I don't know whether the two authors I mentioned in the first paragraph share the particular view of the Vietnam War that I described. But much of their audience will view their arguments through that lens. Hoffman writes:
The sophisticated use of modern information technology can generate significant support for one's cause throughout the international system or more directly through a network of sympathizers and supporters. It is a force multiplier for the side capable of creating a compelling narrative in the effort to gain and sustain an advantage. The [Army counterinsurgency] manual notes the importance of such narratives but then inexplicably defines the information domain as a potential "virtual sanctuary" to the adversary, instead of identifying the virtual dimension as a crucial zone within the expanded battlespace.Hoffman is writing at a general enough level that nothing blatantly objectionable stands out in the wording just quoted. He doesn't, for example, explicitly describe American public opinion as part of the "virtual battlespace".
While irregular wars are quintessentially won or lost in the minds of men (and women), the US government and the Pentagon have yet to master modern information operations. The decision to withdraw the Marines from Fallujah in April of 2004 highlights the powerful effect that modern communications can have on local, regional, and global audiences.
... Like the French levée en masse, the evolving character of communications is altering the patterns of popular mobilization, and having profound implications on why and how people will fight. The availability of modern media in all its many forms has radically changed the manner by which adversaries acquire and disseminate strategic intelligence, recruit, rehearse, and promote their cause.
Current antagonists seem to understand this, perhaps better than America’s strategists and policymakers. In a letter written by bin Laden to Emir Al-Momineed, he stated, "It is obvious that the media war in this century is one of the strongest methods; in fact its ratio may reach 90 percent of the total preparation for the battles." (my emphasis)
But here's where the audience perception comes in. If military leaders and planners define American public opinion as part of the "battlespace", then it becomes one more part of the spectrum of battle over which they need to exercise "full-spectrum dominance". Conceived of as a "battlespace", the military will inevitably assume that exerting control via censorship, manipulation and propaganda to be the necessary approach. Even if they have people with the talent of a Frank Capra or Steven Spielberg designed the PR strategy - as opposed to the bright lights who came up with the Jessica Lynch "reality-TV" show or the Pat Tillman cover-up - they will wind up creating a new credibility gap with every war that last longer than a month or two.
The other problem is that military spokespeople often seem to equate the proper public "narrative" (to use Hoffman's term) with some vague psychological notion of Will. For instance, he writes, "The decision to withdraw the Marines from Fallujah in April of 2004 highlights the powerful effect that modern communications can have on local, regional, and global audiences." He doesn't expand on that point, so it could even be read to mean that the short-term solution that produced the withdrawal from Fallujah in April 2004 was a good image for the US to project. But given the nature of the commentary I've seen on that, I'm confident that most readers will take that to say it was an insufficient show of determination and Will.
In classic Clauswitzian terms, destroying the opposing army's will to fight is the goal of military operations. But the notion of demonstrating Will as used by most Republican politicians in the US is a much more general, vague notion of not backing down. It's usually used to project the image of courage, toughness, backbone, etc., for the politician (or pundit) posturing about the need to show Will and to paint the advocates of restraint as lacking in martial manliness.
And this may be one area in which the heavily Republican political leanings of the officer corps may lead to a risky form of groupthink. Breaking the enemy army's will to fight is one thing. Assuming that demonstrations of Will in the sense Republican politicians and FOX News commentators use it is key to winning the support of the American public for a particular war is a very different thing.
A final comment on the Hoffman quote: It's become common for writers and politicians to illustrate their points with brief quotes from Osama Bin Laden. Hoffman quotes him as saying, "It is obvious that the media war in this century is one of the strongest methods; in fact its ratio may reach 90 percent of the total preparation for the battles."
But is Bin Laden really a reliable authority on such matters? Yes, he's been successful terrorist leader and jihadist agitator. But the guy is hiding in cave or a hut somewhere in the Pakistani badlands or some other godforsaken corner of the world. He lives in a world where God communicates to him and his followers through dreams and visions. He defines every real existing Muslim government of the world as unbelievers. He pursues what to most Muslims is a very extreme Salafist view of Islam. Do we even know what he means when he said something like "the media war" is 90% or so of "total preparation for the battles"?
After all, for all the anger in the Muslim world toward the US, we don't see massive numbers of Muslims flocking to set up Bin Laden as the caliph of all the world's Muslims. Even in Iraq, the hardcore Sunni guerrillas who have been so tenacious in fighting the Americans are also killing adherents of "Al Qaida in Mesopotamia". How successful is Bin Laden's approach to information operations really?
That particular quote is taken from Steven Corman and Jill Schiefelbein, Communication and Media Strategy in the Jihadi War of Ideas Report #0601, Consortium for Strategic Communication, Arizona State Univ., April 20, 2006. The full English text is found at the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at West Point's Web site, Document #: AFGP-2002-600321 Full Translation Date: June 5, 2002. The Emir Al-Momineed to whom that letter was addressed is better known as Mullah Mohammed ‘Omar, head of the Taliban government in Afghanistan that was overthrown by the Northern Alliance with American leadership and assistance in late 2001.
It's not even entirely clear that Bin Laden intended that statement to be some kind of blanket principle of insurgent warfare, as opposed to addressing a more particular goal at a point in time. It seems doubtful that it was meant as a principle of insurgent warfare as such at all. The document is shown as having been translated as of 06/05/2002 but the CTC identifies it as "date unknown". The content refers to events prior to the overthrow of Mullah Omar's Taliban government, focusing on the need to organize jihad actions in the "Islamic Republics region" of Central Asia, in part to divert American and Russian hostility to the Taliban regime. The second major theme of his letter is the importance of Saudi Arabia to the jihadist cause:
The existence of the Ka’abah [in Mecca] and the Prophet’s mosque [in Medina] -The existence of 75% of the world’s oil in the gulf region; and whoever controls the oil controls the world’s economy. -This explains the wide international interest in this matter. It also explains clearly the tenacity of the American forces and others to staying over the land of the two Holy Mosques, and their bragging that they will not leave and abandon their interests in these areas. -Many international media agencies corresponded with us requesting an interview with us. We believe this is a good opportunity to make Muslims aware of what is taking place over the land of the two Holy Mosques as well as of what is happening here in Afghanistan of establishing and strengthen the religion, and applying Sheri'a (Islamic laws). -It is obvious that the media war in this century is one of the strongest methods; in fact, its ratio may reach 90% of the total preparation for the battles. These matters and others of Moslems interests which we wish with Allah’s assistance to get together and consult about; hoping for His guidance to accomplish our goals. Peace, mercy and blessings of Allah upon you. (my emphasis in bold; quote selected by Hoffman in italics)Another of Bin Laden's statements, this one addressing specifically the war in Iraq, does not give the impression that Bin Laden thinks that actual insurgent warfare is 90% public relations. This is from an audiotape broadcast on Al Jazeera 01/04/2004, included in Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden (2005), Bruce Lawrence, ed., "Resist the New Rome". Lawrence in his introductory note to this text says that it "was bin Laden's most outspoken attack on the rulers of the Arabian peninsula". Bin Laden said in that message:
Therefore the advocates of reform should know that reforming and uniting the nation under Islam cannot be achieved through lectures and books only, but through a practical plan involving the entire nation, each according to his own capabilities, beginning with prayer to God and ending with fighting in the cause of God, for fighting in the cause of God is an indivisible part of our religion. In fact, it is the pinnacle of religion. So, how can religion survive without its apex? It is a pressing need for our nation's life, glory, and survival. Although our enemy lies, our religion tells the truth when it stipulates: You fight, so you exist. This is what they teach their children, but they tell us the contrary. Moreover, fighting comes about through the big powers' need for survival. Just read history if you want — including the history of America, which has ignited dozens of wars throughout only six decades. This is because this was one of its most pressing needs. When the United States makes a sincere decision to stop wars in the world, it knows before anyone else that that day will mark the beginning of its collapse and the disintegration of its states. This day is coming, God willing. So, beware of any call for laying down arms on the pretext of achieving peace. This is because this will be a call to humiliate us. Only a hypocrite or an ignorant person can promote such calls.My point on this is that brief, isolated quotations from Bin Laden can be misleading because he is operating from a very different set of conceptions than that of most Americans and from that of most Muslims in the world. And, while Bin Laden is a successful practitioner of the "propaganda of the deed" with his terrorist attacks, it's a huge leap to assume that his maxims are somehow definitive statements on the functioning of insurgencies like the complex one going on in Iraq right now. And another huge leap to assume that some kind of mirror-image assumption makes since as a counterinsurgency approach.
Before concluding, I urge the Muslim youths to carry out jihad, particularly in Palestine and Iraq. I also call on them to be patient and pious, and to weaken the enemy by inflicting wounds on it, along with protecting Muslims during these actions. They also should be careful not to expand on applying the law regarding the use of human shields, for this should be left to their honest ulctiiii on a case-by-case basis. We beseech God to grant us victory through patience and piety. May God make us patient and pious. (my emphasis)
Kilcullen on information-operations strategy
David Kilcullen is one of the leading contemporary authorities on counterinsurgency. In the article cited above, he writes on "strategic information warfare":
Al-Qaida is highly skilled at exploiting multiple, diverse actions by individuals and groups, by framing them in a propaganda narrative to manipulate local and global audiences. Al-Qaida maintains a network that collects information about the debate in the West and feeds this, along with an assessment of the effectiveness of al-Qaida's propaganda, to its leaders. They use physical operations (bombings, insurgent activity, beheadings) as supporting material for an integrated "armed propaganda" campaign. The "information" side of al-Qaida's operation is primary; the physical is merely the tool to achieve a propaganda result. The Taliban, GSPC (previously, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, now known as al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb), and some other al-Qaida-aligned groups, as well as Hezbollah, adopt similar approaches.As Anthony Cordesman observes, "political legitimacy in counterinsurgency is measured in local terms and not in terms of American ideology." (A Poisoned Chalice? The Flaws in the FY2008 Defense Program Center for Strategic and International Studies 07/03/07). So targeting media information operations at American public opinion may be directly counterproductive to the political goals of the COIN effort.
Contrast this with our approach: We typically design physical operations first, then craft supporting information operations to explain our actions. This is the reverse of al-Qaida's approach. For all our professionalism, compared to the enemy's, our public information is an afterthought. In military terms, for al-Qaida the "main effort" is information; for us, information is a "supporting effort." As noted, there are 1.68 million people in the U.S. military, and what they do speaks louder than what our public information professionals (who number in the hundreds) say. Thus, to combat extremist propaganda, we need a capacity for strategic information warfare — an integrating function that draws together all components of what we say and what we do to send strategic messages that support our overall policy.
At present, the military has a well-developed information operations doctrine, but other agencies do not, and they are often rightly wary of military methods. Militarizing information operations would be a severe mistake that would confuse a part (military operations) with the whole (U.S. national strategy) and so undermine our overall policy. Lacking a whole-of-government doctrine and the capability to fight strategic information warfare limits our effectiveness and creates message dissonance, in which different elements of the U.S. government send out different messages or work to differing information agendas.
We need an interagency effort, with leadership from the very top in the executive and legislative branches of government, to create capabilities, organizations, and doctrine for a national-level strategic information campaign. Building such a capability is perhaps the most important of our many capability challenges in this new era of information-driven conflict. (my emphasis)
There are no foolproof formulas in such things. But the current fad of pressing on-duty servicepeople into reflecting the political line of the Cheney-Bush administration in public appearances or even "news" videos that are really propaganda pieces is an unhealthy development. The idea that the Chief Executive would go before the nation the way Bush does and say that he's simply going to do whatever the generals ask him to do is ridiculous. It's not true, for one thing. But it also reinforces the pressure on those in uniform to promote the political positions of the administration.
Again, there are no hard-and-fast lines that can be drawn, especially in COIN operations when the "purely" military and the political often blur together more than in conventional wars.
But somehow, our political culture needs to find a way to back away from this notion of justifying policy decisions on wars by insisting that it reflects the judgment of military leaders. And our military leaders and strategists need to back off the notion that its their business to manage American public opinion as an integral part of warfighting.
Tags: al qaida, counterinsurgency, david kilcullen, frank hoffman, militarism, osama bin laden
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