Information wars

The Pentagon's idea of effective "information wars": look, the Marines spend most of their time helping little native children paint their houses!

Col. Dennis Murphy (Professor of Information in Warfare, US Army War College) and Lt. Col. James White write in the Autumn 2007 Parameters on Propaganda: Can a Word Decide a War? They argue:

But this analysis [about "diplomacy of deeds" in the National Strategy for Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication] doesn't answer the dilemma of the need for the United States to fight and win in the information environment and its inherent aversion to the "propaganda" such a fight entails. The answer lies in both the process and culture supported by a nation’s leadership. A US governmental organization selling articles (under Iraqi pseudonyms) directly to Iraqi newspapers, regardless of the legality, is asking for trouble in today’s information environment. Supporting the government of Iraq in an effort to tell its own story is a much better strategy. Leading from the rear in the information war still gets the message told while avoiding any direct confrontation with democratic ideals. On the other hand, the Office of Strategic Influence had the potential to provide focus, resources, and potentially significant results in the information war, but a few misguided articles in the mainstream press was all it took to bring about its quick demise. And so, ultimately, countering American angst over the effective use of propaganda will require strong stewardship. National leaders need to admit that the United States actually does want to (truthfully) influence foreign audiences. To do anything less abrogates the information battlespace to America's adversaries. Attempts to influence foreign audiences, however, will almost certainly produce some bleedover to American audiences. That needs to be accepted and, with knowledge of forethought, preparations can be made to proactively educate the media with regard to these information efforts and any potential backlash. The recent initiatives to incorporate strategic communication into the policy development process are encouraging in this regard. (my emphasis)

If the argument seems a bit turgid, it's because they are being circumspect. What they are saying is that the military ought to be free to plant propaganda stories in the American media, at least via planting stories in foreign media that the US will then pick up. All that stuff about "aversion to the 'propaganda' such a fight entails" means that not only is it illegal for the federal government to overtly produce propaganda to be used on the American public, but also that those pesky voters sometimes have the idea that our own military shouldn't just be making s**t up and using it to deceive the public about important public policy measure.

There are two things going on here that aren't spelled out explicitly in the article. One is that they are arguing for virtually unlimited freedom for the military to create fake stories and feed them to the American press to bamboozle the public. The other is that they are elaborating an alibi for the military's own failures in the Iraq War, arguing that ideology, propaganda and The Media are the key elements in winning and we shouldn't blame the military because the wretched public and Congress tied their hands in that effort.

Here's how that is translated into military theory:

The National Strategy for Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication is a positive step in permitting the United States to compete against propaganda and proactively tell its story. Defeating an enemy whose center of gravity is extremist ideology requires nothing less than an all-out effort in this regard. But changing perceptions, attitudes, and ultimately beliefs is a generational endeavor. It remains to be seen whether processes can be instituted that endure beyond political cycles or if the nation’s leadership is capable of changing the current culture of reticence related to the application of information as power. Only then can the information battlefield be leveled and the battle of ideas won. (my emphasis)

The real fly in the ointment here is their definition of the "center of gravity" in the global war on terrorism (GWOT). To be more precise, though, they actually talk about "war" in the abstract, not the GWOT in particular, which I find interesting in itself.

I've posted at more length before about the uses and misuses of "center of gravity" in military theory. It was originally a concept identified with the Prussian (German) military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, which focused on the essential point in a conventional military operation that a given side had to defend, the most critical point for victory or defeat, in other words.

After the Vietnam War, a number of American military theorists extended the notion of "center of gravity", essentially by analogy, to the broader politics of war, building on the stab-in-the-back explanation of the American loss in the Vietnam War.

The reasoning goes something like this. The US military won the war in Vietnam. But the gutless Congress and the dirty hippie protesters back home pulled defeat from the jaws of victory. Therefore, the "center of gravity" in that war was American public opinion. And, since the American military under the leadership of our infallible generals can never be militarily defeated by any enemy, the "center of gravity" for all American wars is now American public opinion.

In the end, this is a rhetorical scam that serves the two purposes mentioned above: (1) providing an all-purpose stab-in-the-back excuse for all US military failures; and, (2) justifying all-out efforts by the military to manipulate American public opinion by propaganda methods.

Since the argument is normally made in a less than explicit, deceptive form, I want to clarify that I'm not saying the position taken by Murphy and White is some kind of "slippery slope". Once you define American public opinion as the military "center of gravity" in a war, then the key to military success becomes successfully manipulating public opinion.

One of the problems of having the military be responsible for propaganda generally, much less propaganda aimed at American public opinion, is that military propagandists almost inevitably tend to view propaganda in much the same way a corporation views advertising. Communicating facts is a strictly secondary consideration. Communicating factual material that might contradict the public posture of the military, or that might embarrass our infallible generals, plays no role whatsoever.

For a good idea of the military's idea of effective propaganda, check out the happy-face news at CENTCOM or the Air Force "news" page. Newsflash! Navy does great job in Iraq! Marines help little kiddies in Djibouti paint their houses!