Historical Case Studies of Information Operations
in Large-Scale Combat Operations
Edited by Col. Mark D. Vertuli and Lt. Col. Bradley S. Loudon
LARGE-SCALE COMBAT
OPERATIONS SERIES
Army University Press
Cover image: The illustration incorporates words associated with Information
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in Kirkuk Province, Iraq. Photo by Sta Sergeant (USAF) Samuel Bendet.
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i
This book is part of The US Army Large-Scale
Combat Operations Series, which includes:
Weaving the Tangled Web: Military Deception
in Large-Scale Combat Operations
Bringing Order to Chaos: Historical Case Studies
of Combined Arms Maneuver
in Large-Scale Combat Operations
Lethal and Non-Lethal Fires: Historical Case
Studies of Converging Cross-Domain Fires
in Large-Scale Combat Operations
The Long Haul: Historical Case Studies
of Sustainment in Large-Scale Combat Operations
Deep Maneuver: Historical Case Studies of Maneuver
in Large-Scale Combat Operations
Into the Breach: Historical Case Studies of Mobility
Operations in Large-Scale Combat Operations
Perceptions Are Reality: Historical Case Studies
of Information Operations
in Large-Scale Combat Operations
ii
Perceptions Are Reality
Edited by
Colonel Mark D. Vertuli and
Lieutenant Colonel Bradley S. Loudon
Army University Press
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
Historical Case Studies
of Information Operations
in Large-Scale
Combat Operations
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Vertuli, Mark D., 1973- editor. | Loudon, Bradley S., 1974-
editor. | Army University Press (U.S.), issuing body.
Title: Perceptions are reality : historical case studies of information
operations in large-scale combat operations / edited by Mark D. Vertuli
and Bradley S. Loudon.
Description: Fort Leavenworth, Kansas : Army University Press, 2018. |
Series: US Army large-scale combat operations series | Includes
bibliographical references.
Identiers: LCCN 2018036198 (print) | LCCN 2018039418 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781940804521 (ebook) | ISBN 9781940804521
Subjects: LCSH: Information warfare--History. | Information warfare--
Case studies. | Operational art (Military science)
Classication: LCC U163 (ebook) | LCC U163 .P47 2018 (print) | DDC
355.3/43--dc23 | SUDOC D 110.20:7
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018036198
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Editor
Lynne M. Chandler Garcia
iv
v
Foreword
Since the Soviet Union’s fall in 1989, the specter of large-scale ground
combat against a peer adversary was remote. During the years following,
the US Army found itself increasingly called upon to lead multinational op
-
erations in the lower to middle tiers of the range of military operations and
conict continuum. The events of 11 September 2001 led to more than 15
years of intense focus on counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, and stability
operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. An entire generation of Army leaders
and Soldiers were culturally imprinted by this experience. We emerged as
an Army more capable in limited contingency operations than at any time
in our nation’s history, but the geopolitical landscape continues to shift and
the risk of great power conict is no longer a remote possibility.
While our Army focused on limited contingency operations in the
Middle East and Southwest Asia, other regional and peer adversaries scru-
tinized US military processes and methods and adapted their own accord-
ingly. As technology has proliferated and become accessible in even the
most remote corners of the world, the US military’s competitive advantage
is being challenged across all of the warghting domains. In the last de-
cade, we have witnessed an emergent China, a revanchist and aggressive
Russia, a menacing North Korea, and a cavalier Iranian regime. Each of
these adversaries seeks to change the world order in their favor and contest
US strategic interests abroad. The chance for war against a peer or region-
al near-peer adversary has increased exponentially, and we must rapidly
shift our focus to successfully compete in all domains and across the full
range of military operations.
Over the last two years, the US Army has rapidly shifted the focus of
its doctrine, training, education, and leader development to increase read-
iness and capabilities to prevail in large-scale ground combat operations
against peer and near-peer threats. Our new doctrine, Field Manual (FM)
3-0, Operations, dictates that the Army provide the joint force four unique
strategic roles: shaping the security environment, preventing conict, pre-
vailing in large-scale combat operations, and consolidating gains to make
temporary success permanent.
To enable this shift of focus, the Army is now attempting to change
its culture shaped by over 15 years of persistent limited-contingency op-
erations. Leaders must recognize that the hard-won wisdom of the Iraq
and Afghanistan wars is important to retain but does not fully square with
the exponential lethality, hyperactive chaos, and accelerated tempo of the
multi-domain battleeld when facing a peer or near-peer adversary.
To emphasize the importance of the Army’s continued preparation for
large-scale combat operations, the US Army Combined Arms Center has
published these volumes of The US Army Large-Scale Combat Operations
Series book set. The intent is to expand the knowledge and understand-
ing of the contemporary issues the US Army faces by tapping our orga-
nizational memory to illuminate the future. The reader should reect on
these case studies to analyze each situation, identify the doctrines at play,
evaluate leaders’ actions, and determine what dierentiated success from
failure. Use them as a mechanism for discussion, debate, and intellectual
examination of lessons of the past and their application to today’s doctrine,
organization, and training to best prepare the Army for large-scale combat.
Relevant answers and tangible reminders of what makes us the world’s
greatest land power await in the stories of these volumes.
Prepared for War!
Michael D. Lundy
Lieutenant General, US Army
Commanding General
US Army Combined Arms Center
vi
vii
Contents
Foreword ................................................................................................... v
Illustrations .............................................................................................. ix
Introduction .............................................................................................. xi
Chapter 1—The Logic of Information Operations (IO) in Large-Scale
Combat Operations
by Colonel Christopher W. Lowe .............................................................. 1
Chapter 2—US Information Operations in Large-Scale Combat
Operations: Challenges and Implications for the Future Force
by Major Justin B. Gorkowski ................................................................ 17
Chapter 3—The Fog of Russian Information Warfare
by Lionel M. Beehner, Colonel Liam S. Collins, and Robert T. Person
.. 31
Chapter 4—Operation Starkey: The Invasion that Never Was
by Colonel Michael R. Taylor Jr. ............................................................ 51
Chapter 5—The 1948 War For Palestine: “What Kind of War Was This?”
by Sergeant First Class Brandon S. Riley, Michael E. Kitchens,
and Colonel Matthew J. Yandura ............................................................ 71
Chapter 6—Leaets and Loudspeakers: The Role of Psychological
Operations (PSYOP) in Large-Scale Combat Operations
by Lieutenant Colonel Andrew D. Whiskeyman .................................... 91
Chapter 7—Gulf War—Infowar
Dorothy E. Denning with Introduction and Notes by Robert M. Hill .. 107
Chapter 8—Information Operations in Large-Scale Combat Operations—
Operation Iraqi Freedom I
by Colonel (Retired) Carmine Cicalese ................................................ 133
Chapter 9—The Cyber Crucible: Eastern Europe, Russia, and the
Development of Modern Warfare
by Wesley P. White .............................................................................. 151
Chapter 10—Botnet Evolution during Modern-Day Large-Scale
Combat Operations
by Lieutenant Colonel Rick A. Galeano, Katrin Galeano, Samer
Al-Khateeb, Nitin Agarwal, and Lieutenant Colonel James N. Turner
.. 163
ix
Illustrations
Figure 5.1. Majority Report from United Nations Resolution 181. ........ 73
Figure 5.2. Large-Scale Combat Operations Lessons Learned #1 .......... 76
Figure 5.3. “Balfour Declaration” Letter ................................................ 77
Figure 5.4. Large-Scale Combat Operations Lessons Learned #2 .......... 79
Figure 5.5. Large-Scale Combat Operations Lessons Learned #3 .......... 80
Figure 5.6. Large-Scale Combat Operations Lessons Learned #4 .......... 82
Figure 5.7. Survey of Major Radio Programs in Palestine 1948–1950 .. 83
Figure 5.8. Survey of Major Print Programs in Palestine 1909–1950 .... 84
Figure 10.1. Data Searches Related to 2014 Ukrainian Water Crisis ... 167
Figure 10.2. Sub-networks Observed with Girvan-Newman
Clustering Algorithm ............................................................................ 168
Figure 10.3. Real Person Network Connected to Broker Bots ............. 169
x
xi
Introduction
Colonel Mark D. Vertuli
All war is inherently about changing human behavior, with each
side trying to alter the behavior of the other by force of arms.
Success requires the ability to outthink an opponent and ruthless-
ly exploit the opportunities that come from positions of relative
advantage. The side that best understands an operational envi-
ronment learns and adapts more rapidly and decides to act more
quickly in conditions of uncertainty is most likely to win.
1
—Army Doctrine Reference Publication (ADRP) 3-0, Operations
Arguably information operations (IO) is one of the most misunder-
stood and misused terms in Army doctrine—to the point it has largely be-
come a ubiquitous term of reference that lacks the necessary clarity of pur-
pose and application for the majority of the Army. I am sure that if several
Army leaders and Soldiers were asked to dene information operations
in their own words, one would receive several diering—and often con-
icting—interpretations. Multiple changes to Army doctrine concerning
information operations after it emerged as a concept from Command and
Control Warfare (C2W) more than 25 years ago have contributed to this
confusion. The denition of IO has changed three times in the last 11 years
alone: from a focus on ve core capabilities to information engagement
(2007), to inform and inuence activities (2011), to its current incarnation
focusing on information-related capabilities (2016). As the Army shifts its
doctrinal focus to large-scale combat operations (LSCO) against peer and
near-peer adversaries, the purpose of this volume is to help leaders and
Soldiers visualize and understand information operations through the lens
of historical case studies.
In both Joint and Army doctrine, information operations is dened as
“the integrated employment, during military operations, of information-re-
lated capabilities in concert with other lines of operation to inuence, dis-
rupt, corrupt, or usurp the decision-making of adversaries and potential
adversaries while protecting our own.”
2
In more general terms, informa-
tion operations support the commander’s ability to achieve a position of
relative advantage through activities in the information environment (the
physical, informational, and cognitive dimensions) to inuence the adver-
sary’s will to ght; disrupt, corrupt, or usurp its capabilities to collect, pro-
cess, and disseminate information; and ultimately manipulate (deceive) or
disrupt an adversary decision-maker’s understanding of the operational
xii
environment. Field Manual (FM) 3-0, Operations does a very good job
describing the broad scope of possible information-related capabilities and
eects in the information environment. However, over the course of the
last 17 years of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations, infor-
mation operations has become synonymous in many minds with themes
and messages, psychological operations (PSYOP)/military information
support operations (MISO), or strategic communications/ communica-
tions strategy and its larger purpose has become lost. Three lessons—dare
I say themes—are interwoven throughout the historical case studies of
information operations during large-scale combat operations: (1) the focus
is the information regardless of the capabilities employed to eect it; (2)
successful information operations are operations—integrated, synchro-
nized, resourced and commander-led from inception to execution; and (3)
information operations are, at their core, adversary/enemy-focused opera-
tions conducted to gain a relative advantage for friendly decision-makers.
“It Is All about the Information”
The title of this volume in The US Army Large-Scale Combat Opera-
tions Series is Perceptions Are Reality. Although this could be a hackneyed
phrase, its meaning has great signicance to the application of information
operations in LSCO. Leaders visualize and understand the operational en-
vironment through information. As an element of combat power, infor-
mation enables decision-making, and its transmission aids decisive oper-
ations. Today, modern technology has signicantly increased the speed,
volume, and access to information. Concurrently, technology has enabled
signicant means to disrupt, manipulate, distort, and deny information—
technology that adversaries have already demonstrated a willingness to
use with great eect.
In the book Dark Territory, author Fred Kaplan recounts an anecdote
from then-Rear Admiral Mike McConnell. While watching the movie
Sneakers in 1992, the intelligence chief experienced the revelation that
“it is all about the information;” that whoever controlled the information
could dominate competition and conict.
3
In LSCO, this remains as true
as ever. Leaders direct resources toward intelligence collection in order to
develop the situation and gain the sucient information required to make
a timely and informed decision. Just as importantly, measures must be put
into place to protect friendly information while simultaneously developing
and executing means in all domains to attack the adversary’s ability to
access, process and disseminate information. In this way information op-
erations enable an accurate understanding of the operational environment
while disrupting or manipulating that of the adversary. Through informa-
xiii
tion operations, the adversary/enemy decision-maker’s reality should be
that which best supports achieving a position of relative advantage. The
doctrinal denition change away from the rather limiting ve core capa-
bilities (Operations Security, Military Deception, PSYOP, Electronic War-
fare, and Computer Network Operations) to the current more wide-rang-
ing denition focused on eects is a move in the right direction. That said,
more needs to be done to fully garner the true potential of information as
an element of combat power in a LSCO context. Common sense dictates
that information absent accompanying action does not resonate cognitive-
ly in the same way when both are present and complementary. The duality
of the relationship between action and information must become a con-
stant theme of operations in the “Information Age” of the 21st Century.
However, the perception of information operations as an enabler to ma-
neuver or operations remains.
Information Operations Are Operations
When addressing the idea of conict in space, the current United States
Strategic Command commander, General (USAF) John Hyten, comments
that there is no such thing as space war or cyber war, for that matter; just
war. Similarly, I had a recent conversation with a senior leader who re-
marked that if information operations planners had their way, everything
would be considered information operations. I would like to ip that on its
head. During LSCO, maneuver in and through the information environment
must be given the same attention as has been historically given to traditional
maneuver on the land domain. Maneuver is maneuver and whatever form of
maneuver is employed it is done through the operational process.
Recent changes to joint doctrine are beginning to account for the rec-
ognition of information’s importance in conict. Just last year, the Secre-
tary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Sta approved a rapid
joint doctrine modication to make information a joint function. More
recently, the joint sta issued a directive for operations in the informa-
tion environment- titled as such to emphasize the activity as operations
while avoiding the polarizing term information operations. This empha-
sis comes after observing adversaries wielding information powerfully on
and o the battleeld to achieve decisive tactical to strategic outcomes.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, the Taliban and al Qaeda staged countless
engagements against United States and its partners, less for the physical
eects in the immediate operational environment, but rather to gain an
informational advantage around the world. Videotaped improvised explo-
sive device attacks, while devastating, worked well to promote an image
xiv
of organizational credibility, bolster adherents’ will to ght, radicalize
vulnerable populations, and increase nancial support. More importantly
with respect to LSCO, Russian information confrontation activity preced-
ing, during, and following its illegal annexation of Crimea and invasion
of eastern Ukraine demonstrates the power of integrated operations in the
information environment, in this case more appropriately term informa-
tion warfare. Russia successfully sowed disinformation causing the inter-
national community to distrust the information it was receiving while also
crippling the Ukrainian response through cyberspace operations, electron-
ic warfare, and psychological operations. The confusion and misdirection
caused by Russian information warfare had a paralytic eect on Western
decision-makers—so much so that Russia was able to achieve its strategic
and political objectives before the Western leaders could mount a credible
response.
Adversary-Focused
There is one nal lesson or theme that runs through the case stud-
ies of LSCO: information operations are, at their core, adversary-focused.
The 17 years of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations gave
rise to a population-centric focus for information operations while almost
completely subsuming the adversary command and control elements of
the doctrine. Only recently—really as a result of adversary successes—
has this begun to change. Unied land operations occur in an operational
environment dominated by civilians; their presence cannot be ignored or
bypassed. However, rst, the adversary must be defeated.
Warfare is a human endeavor; it is a contest of wills. The focus of
information operations during LSCO must be on defeating the adversary’s
will. This can be accomplished directly, as during Operation Desert Storm
where combined bombing and psychological operations dispirited thou-
sands of Iraqi troops causing their surrender. Or more indirectly, during
Operation Iraqi Freedom, US and Allied application of deception, elec-
tronic warfare, physical destruction, and cyberspace operations disrupted
Iraqi command and control causing an absolute lack of situational under-
standing and inability to coordinate a defense by Iraqi leadership. As the
quote at the beginning of the introduction states: “The side that best un-
derstands an operational environment learns and adapts more rapidly and
decides to act more quickly in conditions of uncertainty is most likely to
win.”
xv
The Book
Perceptions Are Reality is composed of 11 chapters. The rst 10 chap-
ters explore historical case studies of information operations during LSCO
while the nal chapter considers the future implications of information
operations for LSCO. While many information-related capabilities are
explored in the case studies, by no means do they present the denitive
accounting. Some of the more technical or sensitive capabilities are not
treated in as much depth as I would prefer due to considerations of secu-
rity and classication. The case studies cover LSCO from World War II
through recent conicts in Georgia and Ukraine. While the United States
is prominent in most of the case studies, other nations’ operations in the
information environment are explored as well, particularly those of the
Russian Federation.
In “The Logic of Information Operations in Large Scale Combat Op-
erations,” Christopher Lowe explores the evolution of US Army informa-
tion operations doctrine from its command and control warfare roots to
today’s commonly held (mis)perception that information operations are a
means to inuence civilian populations. Colonel Lowe attributes the or-
igin of the United States IO to Cold War Soviet radioelectronic combat
doctrine developments. The United States recognized that it needed sim-
ilar doctrine, organization, training, material, leadership, personnel, and
facilities (DOTMLPF) solutions to counter the Soviet’s development and
an o-set strategy to dominate on the modern battleeld through informa-
tion. Over the course of several years of peacekeeping, counterinsurgency,
and counterterrorism operations, the Army shifted focus from a command
and control emphasis to a more population-centric, “hearts and minds”
approach. The second chapter continues along a similar narrative.
While Lowe explores IO’s past, Justin Gorkowski reects upon the
current state of Army IO in “US Information Operations in Large-Scale
Combat Operations: Challenges and Implications for the Future Force.”
In his chapter, Major Gorkowski details internal structural challenges to
Army IO in doctrine, organization, and leadership in juxtaposition to ad-
versarial advancements in the employment information warfare in com-
petition with the United States. While Major Gorkowski’s assessment is
not positive, it is not without hope for the future. He concludes his chapter
with several recommendations to address the imbalance.
xvi
The third chapter provides a more in-depth analysis of Russian infor-
mation warfare. US Military Academy professors Lionel Beehner, Col-
onel Liam Collins, and Robert Person combine rst-hand accounts with
secondary research to explore recent historical case studies of Russia’s
systemic strategic use of information warfare—focusing on the evolution
of its military doctrine, from the Russia-Georgia War of 2008 to the on-
going Russia-backed campaign in Ukraine’s Donbass Region. This look
at Russian strategy of information confrontation oers stark lessons for
future large-scale combat operations and the integration of operations in
the informational environment to achieve strategic eects.
Taking the approach that one can learn as much from failure as from
success, Michael Taylor analyzes one of the lesser-known Allied decep-
tion operations from World War II. In “Operation Starkey: The Invasion
that Never Was,” Taylor explores the reasons for the deception plan’s fail-
ure to convince German leadership of Allied intentions to invade in 1943
in order to keep German forces in the West and thus relieve pressure on the
allied Russian forces in the East. In the following chapter, Branden Riley,
Michael Kitchens, and Matthew Yandura use the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
to illuminate ways in which information was honed into a weapon by the
belligerents and their supporters to achieve desired military, political and
social outcomes within the context of large-scale combat operations. In
this war, the employment of strategic master narratives to guide operation-
al and tactical maneuver in the information environment proved decisive.
In Chapter 6, Andrew Whiskeyman focuses on the use of Psycholog-
ical Operations (PSYOP) during the Vietnam War. After a brief explora-
tion of the doctrinal, leadership, intelligence, and organization underpin-
nings of Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV), Whiskeyman
details PSYOP employment during the largest ground (Operation Cedar
Falls) and airborne (Operation Junction City) operations of the war. While
PSYOP achieved some success during these operations, signicant chal-
lenges impeded widespread support and operational integration. Many of
these challenges continue to exist today.
Turning to more recent operations, the next two chapters examine
IO during Operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom. First, Robert Hill
updates the rst chapter of Dorothy Denning’s 1992 book, Information
Warfare and Security. Hill adds a contemporary approach and makes the
information relevant to today’s operational environment by using editorial
comments throughout the text of Denning’s exploration of what is consid-
ered the rst true information war: Desert Storm. In the following chapter,
Carmine Cicalese provides the only rst-hand account in this volume. As
xvii
the Combined Force Land Component Commander (CFLCC) IO planner
from April to July 2002, then-Major Cicalese played an instrumental role
in the design of information operations to support the CFLCC operational
intent. This chapter oers tremendous insight and lessons learned related
to planning and executing information operations in LSCO at the highest
operational levels.
The nal two historical case studies explore elements of cyberspace
operations during recent conicts in Eastern Europe. While Chapter 3 of
this volume examines Russian Federation information warfare from a
strategic perspective, Wesley White documents Russian operational and
tactical integration of cyberspace eects in Georgia, Estonia, and Ukraine.
White argues that these conicts served as test beds—the cyber crucible—
for Russian forces to fully integrate cyberspace operations into multi-do-
main battle. In Chapter 10, Lieutenant Colonel Rick Galeano, Katrin Ga-
leano, Samer Al-Khateeb, Nitin Agarwal, and Lieutenant Colonel James
Turner focus on the employment of social botnets in support of military
operations. Through detailed analysis of botnet use in Ukraine and the
Baltics, they argue social botnet can be used to promote narratives, alter
perceptions of viewpoint popularity, and ultimately trigger behavior sup-
portive to military end states.
The volume concludes with a look to the future. In the nal chapter,
Major General James Mingus and Colonel Christopher Reichart explore
the implications of the future information environment across the range
of military operations during both competition and conict. They oer
several important recommendations touching elements of Army training,
organization, doctrine, and leadership in order to enable commanders the
informational capability and capacity to gain and maintain a position of
relative advantage in the future operational environment.
The intent of this volume is to employ history to stimulate discussion
and analysis of the implications of IO in future LSCO by exploring past
actions, recognizing and understanding successes and failures, and oer-
ing some lessons learned from each author’s perspective. I leave it you,
the reader, to determine its success. I want to thank all the authors for
volunteering their time and research to support this eort. Brad Loudon
provided tremendous advice and editorial support; I could not have com-
pleted this without his assistance. Finally, I want to oer my most heartfelt
thanks to the leaders at the Army Combined Arms Center and Army Uni-
versity Press for entrusting me with this project.
xviii
Notes
1. Department of the Army, Army Doctrine Reference Publication (ADRP)
3-0, Operations (Washington, DC: 2017), 1-4.
2. Department of the Army, Field Manual (FM) 3-13, Information Opera-
tions (Washington, DC: 2016), 1-2.
3. Fred Kaplan, Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War (New
York: Simon and Schuster, 2016), 31.
1
Chapter 1
The Logic of Information Operations (IO) in Large-Scale
Combat Operations
Colonel Christopher W. Lowe
During the late Cold War, both the United States and the Soviet Union
developed sophisticated doctrines in response to their increased reliance
on computers, radios, sensors, and other electronic devices for command
and control. Known to the Soviets as Radioelectronic Combat (REC), and
ultimately, to the Americans, as information operations, these doctrines
made the ow and processing of battleeld information an object of war
alongside logistics, res, and maneuver. The cybernetic logic that led to
the development of these doctrines—now largely obscured, after decades
of irregular war—should once again inform our thinking about large-scale
combat operations.
The story of information operations’ development begins, not with
Sun Tzu or Clausewitz, but with a comparatively recent development in
the history of warfare: the “electronic battleeld.” In a 1969 address, then
Chief of Sta of the Army, General William C. Westmoreland, heralded
its coming:
On the battleeld of the future, enemy forces will be located,
tracked, and targeted almost instantaneously, through the use of
data links, computer-assisted intelligence evaluation, and auto-
mated re control. With rst round kill probabilities approach-
ing certainty, and with surveillance devices that can continually
track the enemy, the need for large forces to x the enemy will
be less
important.
1
Apolitical, sterile, errorless, frictionless, devoid of large forces and
high casualty rates, Westmoreland’s battleeld reads as a vision of ev-
erything that Vietnam was not—as the setting for an altogether dierent,
more pleasant, kind of war. In point of fact, Westmoreland’s vision was
unfolding in Vietnam, and it had already left its mark on battle command
during the war. Eective decision making and troop control was, at every
echelon, mediated through a host of interconnected and often interdepen-
dent, electronic technologies, to include unattended sensors, computers,
and radio communications.
Three years earlier, with Westmoreland as senior US commander in
Vietnam, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara directed the develop-
2
ment of a system to identify and interdict North Vietnamese Army (NVA)
movements along the Ho Chi Minh trail.
2
The project, later known as
the McNamara line, employed some $670 million in unattended seismic,
chemical, and electromagnetic sensors.
3
The sensors transmitted data to
overying aircraft, which in turn relayed this information to an opera-
tions center in Nakhon Phanom, Thailand. There, raw sensor data was
processed, displayed, turned into targeting data, and furnished to attack
aircraft, which could engage and destroy enemy forces in the eld.
4
Ground forces quickly discovered unattended sensors’ tactical utility.
In 1968, before the McNamara line’s completion, the NVA attacked the
nearby Marine Corps rebase at Khe Sanh. Westmoreland diverted un-
installed sensors there, a move that, according to one ocer, may have
reduced US casualties by half.
5
Soon thereafter, units in Vietnam tactically
deployed sensors along road networks and around installations.
6
Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) also relied exten-
sively on computers for intelligence analysis. Under Major General Jo-
seph A. McChristian’s direction, the MACV intelligence sta transformed
into “a computerized, automated intelligence processing organization” in
which over a thousand US and Republic of Vietnam intelligence work-
ers interrogated, exploited, or analyzed enemy prisoners, weapons, docu-
ments and other materiel.
7
This “futuristic intelligence system” included
the databasing of every captured belligerent.
8
At the same time, computer systems were showing promise for the
purposes of battle command. Under the auspices of the US Army Automat-
ic Data Field Systems Command, formed in 1965, the Tactical Operations
System (TOS) was developed and elded for trial with the US Seventh
Army in Germany.
9
Its developers intended that TOS provide the “eld
Army commander and his sta with relevant and timely information in se-
lected functions of intelligence, operations, and re support coordination
by utilizing an on-line near real-time automatic data processing system.”
10
The use of radio communications also exploded during this time. By
1971, the standard Army brigade maintained 539 radio sets, a massive
increase in elded radios, per brigade, since 1943.
11
In the Korean War,
the division headquarters maintained eight channels, in Vietnam, 32—a
three-fold increase.
12
Very High Frequency (VHF) radio sets provided re-
liable communications at lower tactical echelons, enabling units to operate
outside of visual range in disruptive terrain.
13
Furthermore, the American
Army in Vietnam, for “the rst time in history” enjoyed both “voice en-
cryption at the tactical level” and a “fully automated telephone system”
3
for intra-theater communication.
14
To support the massive communi-
cations eort, one of out every ve soldiers at the division level was a
radio operator.
15
Maintenance gures further underscore how communications inten-
sive American warghting had grown. Signal units serviced communi-
cations devices at 150 maintenance sites in South Vietnam, where over
500,000 stockpiled communications parts were installed.
16
The criticality
of voice communications to modern war was most aptly summed up by
General Westmoreland himself, who noted that “on the battleeld no plan
of operation is given serious consideration without assured communica-
tions. Compare this with the shooting and moving of the mob which has
no communication—no control.”
17
During the same period, the Soviet military also increased its depen-
dency on communications and computer networks for command and con-
trol. Writing in 1964, Soviet Major General Ivan Kurnosov, chair of the
communications department at the Frunze Military Academy, noted that
“It is dicult to nd a means of combat whose eectiveness to some de-
gree is not dependent upon radio-electronics.”
18
Frunze Academy Depu-
ty Chief, Lieutenant General Vasily Gerasimovich Reznichenko assessed
that the combination of high mobility platforms and reliable communica-
tions would expand, accelerate, and intensify combat operations. Battle,
Reznichenko surmised, would be, “characterized by vast spatial range,
high dynamism and uidity, quick changes from one form of combat ac-
tion to another” and “intensication of critical situations.”
19
Overall, the Soviets appeared to understand the dilemma posed by the
electronic battleeld: although information ows increased, commanders
enjoyed “less and less time to collect, process, and communicate it.”
20
One theoretical option to resolve this problem would be to increase the
number of controlling nodes on the battleeld, thereby lessening the span
of control. However, as one Soviet ocer noted, given the army’s size,
“this would require an enormous number of sta personnel which, in turn,
would greatly complicate the management of such agencies.”
21
In other
words, from the Soviet perspective, attempts to put more humans in the
loop would merely add more complexity.
This complexity, characterized in the Soviet literature as a problem
of “troop control” was manageable only with the assistance of computer
systems.
22
However, as with any battleeld instrument, communications
and computer networks would be vulnerable to enemy attack and the fric-
tion of combat. This was signicant, as it constituted a vulnerability to the
4
command and control function itself. In a 1963 ARMY article, titled “Com-
mand Control and Cybernetics,” US Army Lieutenant Colonel Charles J.
Davis illustrated precisely this point, describing modern command and
control as a nervous system, vulnerable to paralysis and death:
Picture this “machine-man” on the battleeld. It senses the many
events in this environment through the delicate mechanism of
sound, light, electromagnetic radiation, and pressure. Myriads of
sensory signals, quantitized and at various repetition rates, move
down the ne network of “adherent nerve bers” to reex centers
where they stimulate the rst of the reex arcs. Insucient pro-
cessing has taken place to result in intelligent instructions to the
eectors of muscles of the system. So the “data” enter the cen-
tral transmission system—the spinal cord and its amazing trunk
of communication lines – on its way to the master processor, the
brain. Here, masses of information are sorted, correlated, rejected,
and arranged in an orderly array of instructions—orders, if you
will—to be sent out over the eerent nerve network to the prop-
er eector elements: hands, legs, arms, feet, eyelids, ngers—the
soldiers of the battleeld. Some days the system is sick—pain
within, or damage to brain or central nervous system and all re-
sponse ceases. The thing must be protected—or it dies.
23
To fully grasp the meaning and implication of Davis’ “machine-man”
analogy, it’s important to better understand “cybernetics,” described by its
founder as the science of “communication and control.” Growing out of
his experience in World Word II, Norbert Wiener derived the term cyber-
netics “from the Greek word kubernetes, or ‘steersman,’ the same Greek
word from which we eventually derive our word governor.”
24
The wartime
challenge that led Wiener to problems of communication and control was
the improvement of antiaircraft technology, which aviation technology
had lately outpaced.
25
Increasing aircraft altitude and faster performance meant that air de-
fenders were often unable to visually acquire and engage enemy aircraft
passing overhead.
26
Wiener employed the idea of the servomechanism,
or feedback loop system, to design a machine that could “predict an air-
plane’s trajectory by making use of information about its previous trajec-
tories.”
27
Wiener and colleagues would continue to look to the idea of the
servomechanism, or feedback loop system, as a prototype for intelli-
gent
machines.
28
5
The feedback loop is a circular cause-eect process, by which infor-
mational feedback regulates “outputs.” A classic example of a negative (or
self-regulating) feedback loop is the thermostat. The thermostat “senses”
temperature information from the environment, causing it to either raise
or lower the output of hot or cool air; a new temperature reading results,
causing the thermostat to adjust its output again. This process of feedback
and response occurs indenitely, so long as the thermostat continues to
“sense” its environment (in terms of temperature) and can send messages
or commands to increase or decrease the ow of heat.
In Wiener’s estimation, the “behavior” of the thermostat is little dier-
ent from the individual human’s process of homeostasis:
[If] our bodily temperature rises or sinks one degree from its nor-
mal level of 98.6 [degrees], we take notice of it, and if it rises or
sinks 10 degrees, we are all but sure to die. The oxygen and car-
bon dioxide and salt in our blood, the hormones owing through
our ductless glands, are all regulated by mechanisms, which tend
to resist any untoward changes in their levels. These mechanisms
constitute what is known as homeostasis, and are negative feed-
back mechanisms of a type that we may nd exemplied in me-
chanical automata.
29
With colleagues Arturo Rosenblueth and Julian Bigelow, Wiener de-
scribed the “behavior” of negative feedback systems, whether man or ma-
chine, as purposeful.
30
The common goal of all negative feedback systems,
to include mechanical automata as well as living beings, argued the cyber-
neticists, is to prevent entropy. However, as the thermo-stat and homeo-
stasis examples show, cybernetic systems require an uninterrupted ow of
information to balance against entropy. Without continuous information
ows, a cybernetic system could neither “sense” the environment appro-
priately, nor could it command new behaviors.
As Davis expressed it, and as Colonel John Boyd would later (and
more famously) describe with his Orient, Observe, Decide, Act (OODA)
loop, military forces are information processing systems that continually
sense and adapt: “the mission is stated, an estimate of the situation is made,
alternative courses of action are considered, a course of action is chosen;
orders are issued; the progress of the battle is monitored; and adjustments
to the orders are made as time passes.”
31
The success of the adaptive cy-
cle—and the outcome of battle, even of the war itself—is determined by
the degree to which a force’s communications system ensures the ow of
6
information and thereby, staves o entropy. “Progress is fed back through
the area communications system and its complex network of transmission
media and switching centers. Using the control information and new bat-
tleeld information, another cycle starts—and so on until time is called by
defeat of the opposing force or agreement between the national powers.”
32
The Soviets had long viewed military forces in precisely these cyber-
netic terms. As Slava Gerovitch contends, Soviet thinkers such as Aleksei
Liapunov—one of the Soviet Union’s earliest and most prolic cybernetic
proponents—saw “weapon systems, including both machines and the peo-
ple who operate them as cybernetic systems.”
33
For Liapunov, the military
was analogous to an organism, the brain of which was the commander.
As Russia scholar and former Deputy Director of the US Army School
of Advance Military Studies, Jacob Kipp, relates, according to Irina Gre-
kova, “one of the leading Soviet specialists in applied mathematics and
a long-time professor at the Zhukovsky Academy,” the Soviets were dis-
cussing cybernetics as early as 1952, only four years following Wiener’s
publication of Cybernetics or Control and Communications in the Animal
World and the Machine.
34
In 1953, Soviet Admiral A. I. Berg, the newly
appointed Deputy Defense Minister, was given responsibility to develop
Soviet radio electronics and cybernetics. By 1958, the Soviets had trans-
lated Wiener’s Cybernetics into Russian, and a year later, “the Frunze
Academy organized a faculty of military cybernetics.”
35
In the 1960s, after witnessing the successful employment of Electron-
ic Countermeasures (ECM) against Soviet equipment in the Vietnam and
1973 Arab-Israeli wars, the Soviets started integrating various approaches
to attack their battleeld opponent’s communications network—that is,
to wage a decidedly oensive counter command and control doctrine.
36
The Soviets termed this approach radioelektonnaya bor’ba, or in English,
radioelectronic combat (REC).
37
After a period of internal debate concern-
ing REC’s “proper nature,” Soviet Major General A.I. Paliy, whom David
Chizum refers to as “the Grand old man of Soviet electronic warfare,”
published Radioelectronic Combat, thereby galvanizing Soviet doctrinal
consensus on the topic.
38
According to Commander (USN) Floyd D. Kennedy, a 1978 US Army
study described REC as combining “signal intelligence, direction nding,
intensive jamming, deception, and suppressive res to attack enemy orga-
nizations and systems throughout their means of control.”
39
This combi-
nation of elements would “limit, delay, or nullify the enemy’s use of his
command and control systems” while simultaneously protecting Soviet
7
systems.
40
REC’s most salient feature was its emphasis on integration, en-
tailing the simultaneous combination of multiple protective and disruptive
means into a “greater than the sum of its parts” whole, in support of the
ground scheme of maneuver.
41
In time, American doctrines would appro-
priate REC’s integrating precept, and it remains today a denitional fea-
ture of information operations.
As if the Soviet’s sophisticated REC doctrine wasn’t threatening
enough, the US was woefully outnumbered in raw combat power. Soviet
expenditures in military equipment had outpaced US investment by $240
billion in the previous decade, and the principle challenge, evident since
the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, was how to ght outnumbered and win. Un-
dersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, William Perry’s
approach was to “counteract a numerical disadvantage in military equip-
ment” through a technological “oset.”
42
The “oset” technologies pur-
sued by the Department of Defense under Perry’s strategy included “sur-
veillance systems,” data communication systems, “positioning systems,”
and missile “guidance systems”—all dependent, in some fashion, on the
electromagnetic spectrum.
43
The Department of Defense and US Air Force conducted several stud-
ies between 1975 and 1978 in light of US plans to invest more heavi-
ly in electronic communication technologies that REC doctrine aimed to
exploit.
44
These eorts ultimately forged an American version of REC,
dubbed Command, Control, and Communications Countermeasures
(C3CM), which similarly entailed the integration of Electronic Warfare
(EW), Operations Security (OPSEC), Military Deception (MILDEC), and
Physical Destruction.
One of the immediate challenges associated with C3CM implemen-
tation was the alignment of service doctrine to ensure, in the potential of
war, a unied and self-reinforcing C3CM eort across the battle space. To
meet this challenge, the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command (TRA-
DOC) and the Air Force’s Tactical Air Command (TAC) published TRA-
DOC Pamphlet 525-7, Joint Operational Concept for Command, Control,
and Communications Countermeasures (C3CM) in December 1981. The
Joint Operational Concept for C3CM would remain in service for a period
of almost ten years, until it was superseded by the Army’s Field Manual
90-24, Multi-Service Procedures for Command, Control, and Communi-
cations Countermeasures, in May of 1991.
The C3CM concept would debut in large-scale combat operations,
not on the steppes of Europe, but in the Kuwaiti desert. In August 1990,
8
Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi Army invaded and occupied its neighboring king-
dom. The ensuing Gulf War, in which an American-led coalition expelled
the Iraqi army from Kuwait and liberated its population, demonstrated
the fruit of the US military’s technological, doctrinal, and training renais-
sance of the previous decade. Some also hailed Desert Storm as a proof
of concept for a new kind of war, in which information and knowledge
played the denitive, if not decisive role. As retired Air Force Colonel and
information warfare scholar, Alan Campen wrote, shortly following the
war, “knowledge came to rival weapons and tactics in importance, giving
credence to the notion that an enemy might be brought to its knees prin-
cipally through destruction and disruption of the means for command and
control.”
45
Indeed, the US military did a great deal to destroy Iraqi com-
mand and control during the Gulf War, “utilizing a deadly combination of
hard and soft kill.”
46
The destruction or disruption of radar sites, air defense systems, com-
mand and control centers, electric power nodes, and communications
relays eectively severed vital Iraqi information ows, leading many to
employ the metaphors of decapitation, blindness, paralysis, and shock in
describing the eects of US targeting against the Iraqi Army. For instance,
during the war General Colin Powell characterized the “battle plan” as
“rst to destroy the Iraqis’ air defense system and their command, control,
and communications to render the enemy deaf, dumb, and blind.” Powell
noted in a press conference that, “Our strategy is . . . very simple . . . First
we are going to cut it o, and then we are going to kill it.”
47
In 1993, an
Air Force First Lieutenant similarly reected, “The vulnerability of C2
systems to destruction by air power was demonstrated by the highly cen-
tralized Iraqi system. The mixture of Soviet and Western equipment and
doctrine was blinded, then paralyzed, then largely destroyed by coalition
air attack.”
48
However, it was not only US dominance of the electromagnetic spec-
trum, whether through physical destruction or electronic warfare, that con-
tributed to Iraqi paralysis. Nearly some 87,000 Iraqi soldiers surrendered
as US Psychological Operations (PSYOP) forces targeted Iraqi units with
leaets, loudspeaker scripts, and radio broadcasts.
49
Widespread Iraqi sur-
render and desertion undoubtedly disabled Iraqi command and control
(C2), as it robbed Iraqi high command of its “eyes and ears,” contribut-
ed to poor morale, and lowered tactical responsiveness. PSYOP appeals
provided Iraqi soldiers with the instructions on how to surrender, even if
American bombing provided the motivation.
9
The Gulf War seemed to validate the logic of viewing military forces
as cybernetic systems, dependent on information ows for command and
control. As the futurist pair, Alvin and Heidi Toer expressed in their
inuential book, War and Anti-War; Survival at the Dawn of the 20th Cen-
tury, “The Iraqi forces, especially after most of their radar and surveillance
were excised, were a conventional ‘military machine’ . . . By contrast, the
allied force was not a machine, but a system with far greater internal feed-
back, communication, and self-regulatory adjustment capability. It was, in
fact, in part at least . . . a ‘thinking system.’”
50
That the US led alliance achieved this relative advantage was, as Alan
Campen, noted, “ironic,” as “the Soviet Union—Iraq’s prime mentor—
was the rst to advance the belief that the balance in war might be tipped
by attacking the opponent’s control structure.”
51
A further irony was that
the Soviet Union’s political control structure was itself dissolving, virtu-
ally concurrent with the American-led takedown of the Iraqi command
structure. These two events, the near total military success of American
forces during the Gulf War and the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact (and
with it, the Cold War) would lead to signicant reevaluation of threats,
opportunities, and doctrine.
Prior to the Gulf War, the Oce of Net Assessment (ONA) launched
an assessment into the claim, long maintained by the Soviet Union, that a
military-technical revolution was causing “a major shift in the character of
military competitions.”
52
The assessment, titled Military Technical Revo-
lution: A Preliminary Assessment, interpreted the “overwhelming US vic-
tory in the Gulf War” as evidence that the revolution had, in fact, arrived.
53
However, the assessment also emphasized that the United States was at the
“beginning of the revolution.”
54
While the United States possessed import-
ant technologies, such as precision-guided weapons and information and
simulations systems, it was only able to capitalize on “a fraction of their
combat potential.”
55
This was because “the United States did not come
close to its potential to move the most useful information rapidly to those
who needed it most.”
56
Introducing language that would later nd its way to doctrine, the re-
port asserted, “information dominance could well be the sine qua non for
eective military operations in future conicts,” and “information supe-
riority could be the decisive operation in future conicts.”
57
Furthermore,
the report speculated that, since belligerents also understand the decisive
nature of information dominance—especially after witnessing the Gulf
War—a zero-sum-game phenomenon would likely ensue. To allow en-
10
emy exploitation of information networks during peacetime would risk
enemy information dominance, “which would quickly lead to the progres-
sive inability of friendly forces to execute the highly integrated, informa-
tion-intensive military operations that will be crucial to success in war.”
58
In essence, if the United States failed to maintain continuous informa-
tion dominance, it would lose the deterrent and coercive power of its
military force.
The report asserted that during war the United States would likely
achieve information dominance through a “full-dimensional operation.”
59
“Strategic strikes (to include so called ‘electronic strikes’ and special op-
erations forces strikes) against an adversary’s terrestrial information net-
works would ideally be carried out simultaneously with space control op-
erations.”
60
As with Soviet REC and C3CM, dominance comes from the
destruction of command and control systems.
On the heels of the Gulf War and the ONA’s Military Technical Rev-
olution report, the Toers advanced the inuential thesis, based on their
earlier work Third Wave, and fully elaborated in War and Anti-War, that
“the way we make wealth is the way we make war, and the way we make
anti-war must reect the way we make war.”
61
According to the Toers,
history has been characterized by “waves” in which wealth generation and
war-making accorded to specic forms.
The rst of these waves, beginning in antiquity and largely terminat-
ing with the Industrial Revolution, was agrarian. Agrarian war was sea-
sonal, intermittent, unprofessional, and technologically unsophisticated.
The Second Wave, brought on by economic industrialization, epitomized
mass-production, high lethality, and mechanization. The Third Wave, only
emergent at the time of War and Anti-War, came with the increasing use of
computer technology within the society and the economy. “Knowledge,”
the Toers claimed, “is now the central resource of destructivity, just as it
is the central resource of productivity.”
62
This thesis served as a lens through which the Army would view the
Military Technical Revolution proposed by the ONA’s report. The Toers
already enjoyed considerable inuence within the Army. In 1982, the
Toers established contacts with a group of inuential Army ocers, to
include the Chief of TRADOC, Commanding General Donn Starry.
63
At
the time, Starry was instituting massive doctrinal and educational reforms,
to include the development of AirLand Battle and the establishment of the
School for Advanced Military Studies (SAMS), both of which later helped
to account for the Army’s success in the Gulf War. The Toers now saw
11
the Gulf War as the opening campaign of the Third Wave: “Something oc-
curred in the night skies and desert sands of the Middle East in 1991 that
the world had not seen for three hundred years—the arrival of a new form
of warfare that closely mirrors a new form of wealth creation.”
64
To better understand the ramications of the Third Wave, the Army
turned to the Toers directly, inviting Alvin Toer to deliver a keynote
address at the US Army War College’s conference, “The Revolution in
Military Aairs: Dening an Army for the 21st Century.”
65
Furthermore,
no less than the Chief of Sta of the Army, General Gordon R. Sullivan,
drew on Toer’s insights in developing internal documents, such as War
in the Information Age.
66
War in the Information Age championed Toer’s idea that knowl-
edge—translated by the Army as “information”—was becoming the cen-
tral resource of war. In so doing, its authors reiterated the underlying logic
of General Westmoreland’s “Electronic Battleeld” and William Perry’s
Oset Strategy—namely, that more perfect information collection and
sharing, enabled by the integration of electronic technologies, would pro-
vide a marked advantage over larger Armies.
In the early 1990s, with talk of the Military Technical Revolution,
Revolution in Military Aairs, Information Revolution, and Third Wave
warfare, the Department of Defense went about updating its now venera-
ble and battle tested C3CM doctrine. By the middle of the decade, the Joint
Sta released Joint Publication (JP) 3-13.1, Joint Doctrine for Command
and Control Warfare (C2W), which held promise “to shape the adversary
commander’s estimate of the situation in the theater of operations” and
enable the Joint Force Commander (JFC) “to process information through
the C2 decision cycle faster than an adversary commander,” thereby con-
tributing to Joint Force Information Superiority.
67
In part, as acknowledge-
ment of the contribution that surrender appeals made to the blinding of
adversary decision makers in the Gulf War, C2W added PSYOP to the ele-
ments formerly associated with C3CM, including EW, OPSEC, MILDEC
and Physical Destruction.
However, a new term—information operations—would soon eclipse
Joint C2W doctrine. In August 1995, less than a year before C2W’s publi-
cation, the Army released TRADOC Pamphlet 525-69, Concept for Infor-
mation Operations.
68
In keeping with the Third Wave and RMA discourse,
the information operations concept announced revolutionary change. In
the pamphlet’s forward, General William Hartzog, then TRADOC Com-
12
mander proclaimed, “The information age paradigm will . . . change the
way wars are fought.”
69
Revolutionary proclamations aside, the information operations con-
cept both conrmed and programmatically endorsed the logic underlying
Soviet REC, C3CM, and C2W. In language that sounds remarkably similar
to Westmoreland’s vision of an electronic battleeld, the information op-
erations concept described the upside of digitization and electronic com-
munications: “Digitization will also assist in combat identication and en-
hance situational awareness through precise friendly and threat signature
denition and updating of weapon system recognition software programs.
The direct connection between the global grid of communications and the
digitized battleeld will allow precision strike operations against high-val-
ue targets.”
70
However, the functioning of that same “future C2 system”
the concept recognized, “is predicated upon our exercising electromagnet-
ic spectrum supremacy or superiority.”
71
In August 1996, a year following the introduction of TRADOC’s con-
cept, and ve months following JP 3-13.1, the Army published Field Man-
ual (FM) 100-6, Information Operations. In keeping with the concept, the
new doctrine included Public Aairs (PA) and Civil Aairs (CA) as com-
plementary information operations elements. As with the earlier inclu-
sion of PSYOP within C2W, the addition of PA to information operations
seems rooted in the broadly accepted lessons of the Gulf War, particularly
with regard to the ow of information not only across but beyond the bat-
tleeld. The war demonstrated the ubiquity and power of media, which
reached global audiences, principally via English language satellite news.
This, the doctrine recognized, “can dramatically aect strategic direction
and the range of military operations.”
72
Similarly, CA was deemed important to information operations be-
cause “of its ability to interface with key organizations and individuals in
the GIE [Global Information Environment]; for example, CA’s traditional
relationship with NGOs and PVOs such as the International Committee
of the Red Cross.”
73
Furthermore, CA’s access to international actors and
civilian populations meant that it could serve to both preserve and shape
information ows in both the international and local, public communica-
tions environments.
During the Bosnia and Kosovo peacekeeping operations, and in the
counterinsurgencies of Iraq and Afghanistan, Army forces would look to
this expanded information operations doctrine to provide an advantage.
However, in these operations, enemy forces, ghting in what Rupert Smith
13
has termed a “war amongst the people,” would largely adopt deliberate
strategies that tested the very applicability of information operations’ foun-
dational, cybernetic logic. Insurgents, terrorists, and criminal elements,
operating in small, decentralized networks, below the so-called “threshold
of discrimination,” and with low-cunning rather than high technology, ren-
dered the disruption of adversary battle-command somewhat irrelevant, if
not impossible.
74
At the same time, these same asymmetric enemies posed
little if any threat to joint forces command and control. In this context,
winning “hearts and minds” has been, for the last two decades, the infor-
mation task, par excellence.
Unsurprisingly, commanders and information operations practitioners
have heavily relied on the integration of the doctrine’s newest elements,
each of which is essentially a public communication means: PSYOP, PA
and CA. This has almost certainly led to the doctrine’s tacit reinterpreta-
tion. Those with rst-hand experience of the irregular wars in Afghani-
stan and Iraq are especially likely to understand information operations in
terms of public relations and strategic communications, despite the doc-
trine’s cybernetic design and its clear adversary focus.
To be sure, public communications have an important role in modern
operations. However, large-scale combat operations of the future will al-
most certainly require commanders at every echelon to ght for superior
decision making and better command and control, especially at decisive
moments. In light of their dependence on computers, radios, sensors, and
other electronic devices, Cold War era specialists answered this very re-
quirement. Their judgment—the basic idea that a positive command and
control dierential is necessary and achievable, through the integration of
various means, to include physical destruction, operations security, mili-
tary deception, electronic warfare, and others—should once again dene
our understanding of and approach to information operations.
14
Notes
1. General William C. Westmoreland, “Addresses by General W.C. Westmo-
reland, Chief of Sta, United States Army, Volume IV, 3 July 1969–16 December
1969,” (Washington DC, 1973), 96.
2. Thomas G. Mahnken, Technology and the American Way of War (New
York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 108.
3. Mahnken, 109.
4. Mahnken, 110.
5. Mahnken, 112.
6. Mahnken, 112.
7. Lloyd Norman, “Westmoreland’s J2,” Army 17 no. 5, May 1967, 24.
8. Norman, 23.
9. R.H. Scherer, “Data Communications and Field Data Information Han-
dling Systems,” Signal 23, no. 5, January 1969, 8.
10. Scherer, 8.
11. Martin Van Creveld, Command in War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1985), 238.
12. Van Creveld, 238.
13. Van Creveld, 238.
14.
General William C. Westmoreland, “The Military Uses of Communica-
tions-Electronics,” Signal, August 1969, 73; Van Creveld, 239.
15. Van Creveld, 239.
16. Van Creveld, 239.
17.
Westmoreland, “The Military Uses of Communications-Electronics,” 30
.
18. Ivan Kurnosov, “Development of Radioelectronic Means of Troop
Control and Methods of Their Application,” Voyennaya mysl’, no. 9, September
1964, reprinted in “Selected Readings From Military Thought, 1963–1973,”
selected and compiled by Joseph D. Douglas Jr. and Amoretta M. Hoeber, Stud-
ies in Communist Aairs, 5, Part 1 (Washington, DC: US Government Printing
Oce, 1982), 1.
19. Kurnosov, 1.
20. V. Reznichenko “Modern Weapons and Troop Control,” Soviet Military
Review, December 1978, 11.
21. Reznichenko, 13.
22. V. Kulikov, review of “Idea, Algorithm, Decision,” Soviet Military
Review, April 1974, 56.
23. Lieutenant Colonel Charles J. Davis, “Command Control and Cybernet-
ics,” Army 13, no. 6, January 1963, 55.
24. Norbert Wiener, “The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and
Society, Da Capo Series in Science” (1954; reprint, Boston: De Capo Series in
Science, 1998), 1.
25. Peter Gallison, “The Ontology of the Enemy: Norbert Wiener and the
Cybernetic Vision,” Critical Inquiry 21, no.1, Autumn 1994, 234.
15
26. Antoine Bousquet, The Scientic Way of Warfare: Order and Chaos on
the Battleelds of Modernity (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 25.
27. Jennifer Light, From Warfare to Welfare: Defense Intellectuals and Ur-
ban Problems in Cold War America (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 2003), 37.
28. Gallison, “The Ontology of the Enemy,” 229.
29. Wiener, “The Human Use of Human Beings,” 96.
30. Arturo Rosenblueth, Norbert Wiener, and Julian Bigelow, “Behavior,
Purpose and Teleology,” Philosophy of Science 10, no. 1, January 1943, 19.
31. Davis, “Command Control and Cybernetics,” 53.
32. Davis, 54.
33. Slava Gerovitch, From Newspeak to Cyberspeak (Cambridge, MA: The
MIT Press, 2002), 265.
34. Jacob Kipp, From Foresight to Forecasting: The Russian and Soviet
Military Experience (College Station, TX: Center for Strategic Technology,
Texas A&M University, 1988), 178.
35. Kipp, 178.
36. Commander (USN Reserve) Floyd D. Kennedy, “The Evolution of
Soviet Thought on ‘Warfare in the Fourth Dimension,’” Naval War College Re-
view, March–April 1982, 42; David G. Chizum, Soviet Radioelectronic Combat
(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1985), 20–21.
37. Chizum, 3.
38. Chizum, 24.
39. Kennedy, “The Evolution of Soviet Thought on Warfare in the Fourth
Dimension,” 42.
40. Department of the Army, Field Manual (FM) 100-2-1, The Soviet Army,
Operations and Tactics (Washington DC: 16 July 1984), 5-81.
41. Chizum, Soviet Radioelectronic Combat, 4.
42. Chizum, 9.
43. Chizum 1.
44. Charles F. Smith, “Command, Control and Countermeasures (C3CM),”
Military Review 63, no. 1, January 1983, 68.
45. Alan D. Campen, Contributing Editor, The First Information War: the
Story of Communications, Computers, and Intelligence Systems in the Persian
Gulf War (Virginia: AFCEA Press, 1992), x.
46. Campen, xiv.
47. Colin Powell and Joseph Perisco, My American Journey (New York:
Ballantine Books, 2003), 509–510.
48.
First Lieutenant (USAF) Gary A. Vincent, “A New Approach to Com-
mand and Control: The Cybernetic Design,” Airpower Journal, Summer 1993, 27.
49. Kathy J. Perry, “The Use of Psychological Operations as a Strategic
Tool,” Research Project, (Carlisle: US Army War College, April 2000), 7.
50. Alvin Toer and Heidi Toer, War and AntiWar: Survival at the Dawn
of the 21st Century (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1993), 80.
16
51. Campen, The First Information War, 173.
52. Andrew F. Krepinivich Jr., The Military-Technical Revolution: A Prelim-
inary Assessment (Washington DC: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assess-
ments, 2002): iii.
53. Krepinevich, 8.
54. Krepinevich, 8.
55. Krepinevich, 8.
56. Krepinevich, 8.
57. Krepinevich, 22–23.
58. Krepinevich, 23.
59. Krepinevich, 22.
60. Krepinevich, 22.
61. Alvin Toer and Heidi Toer, War and AntiWar, 3.
62. Toer and Toer, 71.
63. Ian Curtis, “Misinformed About Information War? The Three-Wave
Theory is Under Fire,” Defense and Foreign Aairs Strategic Policy, March
1996, 4.
64. Toer and Toer, War and AntiWar, 64.
65. Robert J. Bunker, “The Toerian Paradox,” Military Review 75, no. 3,
May–June 1995, 99.
66. Bunker, 99.
67. Joint Chiefs of Sta, Joint Publication (JP) 3-13.1, Joint Doctrine for
Command and Control Warfare (Washington DC: 7 February, 1996): v–vi.
68. Department of the Army, Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC)
Pamphlet 525-69, Concept for Information Operations (Washington, DC: 1
August 1995).
69. TRADOC Pamphlet 525-69, 4.
70. TRADOC Pamphlet 525-69, 12.
71. TRADOC Pamphlet 525-69, 10.
72. Department of the Army, Field Manual (FM) 100-6, Information Opera-
tions (Washington DC: August, 1996), 1-3.
73. Department of the Army, FM 100-6, 3-10.
74. Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World
(New York: First Vintage Books, 2007), 19.
17
Chapter 2
US Information Operations in Large-Scale Combat
Operations: Challenges and Implications for the Future Force
Major Justin B. Gorkowski
Anyone who has participated in a Decisive Action Training Environ-
ment (DATE) rotation will be quick to say that assured communications,
navigation, and air superiority over the past two decades have spoiled the
force. The information environment of future large-scale combat opera-
tions (LSCO) will be contested at best. Providers of Information-Related
Capabilities (IRCs) will conduct preparatory res on a multidimensional
battleeld months or years ahead of the physical deployment of forces.
IRCs will evolve to include all elements that have the ability to penetrate
the information domain, shape physical combat activity, and maximize
potential for expeditionary operations. Information supremacy will be
marked by windows of opportunity, which mandates redundancy through
analog or commercial o-the-shelf systems. A revolution in military infor-
mation aairs in the face of adversarial advances in technology and appli-
cation will prepare and enable the Department of Defense for the unied
application of IRCs to ensure success.
This chapter reects the study of the current state of information op-
erations in the US Army, adversary information warfare posture, and the
anticipated future state of the information environment. These points are
applied specically in consideration of the ability to address major adver-
saries in future LSCO. Individually, US IRCs perform new and innova-
tive functions every day. They are managed by agile leaders who adapt
to the changing information environment and think creatively to develop
unprecedented applications for constantly changing technology. However,
they largely remain insulated from the other IRCs and thus, the utility of
the collective power of information warfare is not maximized. The chal-
lenge of integrating capabilities into combined arms warfare is not new for
the US Army. Lessons from warfare throughout history serve to inform the
US military in terms of preparation for future major combat. Such a chal-
lenge will require substantial change from a mindset, doctrinal, and per-
sonnel standpoint. The remainder of this chapter will unpack these points.
The rst section will address endogenous variables of concern, which
are comprised primarily of organizational structure challenges. The fol-
lowing section elaborates on historical examples of similar challenges in
the US military. Next, an analysis of adversary information warfare proves
indicative of adversary intent in terms of costly signals and commitments.
18
The next section provides a hypothetical glimpse into the future informa-
tion environment LSCOs would operate within. Finally, this chapter will
conclude with summary implications and recommendations for change
needed to address future large-scale combat operations. Ultimately, the
challenges the United States faces in terms of the eective employment
of information operations in LSCO are familiar—they are structural and
consist of close coordination, integration, and realistic training. The US
Army has addressed such challenges before and the same solutions apply
in this context.
Where Do We Stand? Endogenous Challenges and Limitations
Perceptions of what information operations are and the eects they
are intended to achieve vary considerably across the US Army, and even
more so across the joint force and interagency world. There are examples
of tactics and strategies that have worked well in counterinsurgencies that
may not translate to LSCO. Ask ve dierent maneuver battalion or bri-
gade commanders what information operations (IO) are and how IO can
help them, and you will get ve dierent answers and a lot of confused
looks. This is the state of IO in the US Army today. The most dicult task
of an IO practitioner is to demonstrate to the operations ocer and com-
mander the ability of IO to be a combat multiplier without the possession
of any signicant assets or sta. This description may seem harsh, but it
represents a reality that is actually much more supportive of IO than just
ve years ago. This section will outline key aspects of the current doctrine
of IO in the US Army and structural challenges with integration and inter-
agency eorts.
A discussion of the role of IO must rst begin with a baseline under-
standing of where IO stands currently as a eld. US doctrine denes infor-
mation operations as the integrated employment of IRCs.
1
IRCs consist of
a laundry list of capabilities that have the potential to inuence the infor-
mation environment, such as Cyber Electro-Magnetic Activities (CEMA),
Military Information Support Operations (MISO) or psychological opera-
tions (PSYOP), civil aairs (CA), Combat Camera (COMCAM), Human
Terrain Teams (HTTs), space operations, special technical operations and
deception, Soldier and Leader Engagements (SLEs or meetings), and oth-
ers.
2
It is important to note these are capabilities over which dedicated IO
personnel typically have no direct control. Trained IO ocers (there are
no non-commissioned ocers) now reside at the division level and above.
The current structure of IO personnel throughout the force serves as a
hindrance to the integrated employment of IRCs, as will be made clear
throughout this chapter.
19
Up until 2015, the Army employed trained IO ocers at the brigade
level to assist with coordinating and employing IRCs. Although challeng-
es regarding access to IRCs existed, dedicated IO ocers at the brigade
level at least had the ability to request assets and integrate eects. Unfortu-
nately, recent doctrinal changes resulted in retaining trained IO personnel
at the division level and above, with CEMA, CA and MISO personnel
now falling directly under the operations ocer at the brigade level. IRCs
at all levels are now the most stovepiped and least integrated doctrinally
in the history of the IO functional area. This reality is exacerbated by the
adversary, as David Kilcullen’s ndings highlight below:
We typically design physical operations rst, then craft supporting
information operations to explain our actions. This is the reverse
of Al Qaeda’s approach. For all our professionalism, compared to
the enemy’s, our public information is an afterthought. In military
terms, for Al Qaeda the main eort is information; for us, infor-
mation is a supporting eort.
3
The information warfare doctrine of major state-level adversaries in-
creasingly reects the approach of Al Qaeda mentioned above. Fortunate-
ly, some US leaders have empowered IO personnel to task organize in
a more integrated fashion to address the current and anticipated future
information environment. This was evidenced most recently by the 4th
Infantry Division (ID) during their participation in Operation Atlantic
Resolve, where the division sta organized into an ad hoc Information
Related Capabilities cell to maximize resources and synchronize capabil-
ities.
4
Key IRCs were task organized under a single ocer in charge with
commensurate rank of other senior division sta ocers, which maxi-
mized information sharing and unity of control. Unsurprisingly, such task
organization by 4th ID was successful. Individually, IRCs are proven to
provide valuable eects. However, when IRCs are synchronized, the syn-
ergy that develops can be incredibly powerful. There are recent examples
in Afghanistan of tactically integrated information operations, such as the
delivery of MISO messages transmitted through electronic warfare ground
and aerial systems intended to deceive the enemy through his handheld
radio receiver. Integration is powerful if properly resourced.
Although it is not reected so much in doctrine, it is worth noting
there is a strong tendency in the US to equate IO with marketing or ad-
vertising, especially in counterinsurgency warfare. The “war of the story”
and “control of the narrative” are now common phrases in the IO lexicon.
The US Army IO qualication course includes blocks of instruction on
marketing principles, and training with industry opportunities are typically
20
associated with marketing or advertising rms. Marketing and advertising
are certainly useful as a thought process in many ways, but from a tactical
standpoint, it is important to focus on changing behavior rather than atti-
tudes. In LSCO, time will be of the essence, and information operations
will need to target specic audiences for behavioral change in order to
multiply combat eects. Should an army patrol care if the local population
likes them as long as they are not detonating improvised explosive devices
(IEDs)? Research beginning in the 1930s demonstrates that, “attitudes are
very poor predictors of behavior.”
5
Conversely, once behavior changes,
attitudes are likely to follow. Retired UK Major General Andrew Mack-
ay and Royal Navy Commander Steve Tatham have written extensively
on this topic. In a 2012 report for the Defence Academy of the United
Kingdom, they argued the RAND’s ndings on US information opera-
tions in Afghanistan were fundamentally wrong and overly reliant upon
marketing and advertising principles.
6
In LSCO, the US Army should be
concerned little with the business of advertising. Information operations
eorts should instead be focused on inuencing what the adversary does
or does not do (behavior). In order to eectively target adversary behavior,
US IO elements need to perform detailed Target Audience Analysis (TAA)
well ahead of LSCO. This point will be expanded upon later.
Finally, another challenge with the current state of IO is scale and in-
teragency coordination. Given the expansiveness and instant nature of the
information environment, very little discretion is aorded for the tactical
employment of IO. With advances in technology, the gap between the stra-
tegic level and the tactical level is narrowed considerably. This results in
risk aversion by the US State Department and other interagency partners
who seek to control US credibility and the overarching narrative. In the
event a tactical need arises for the employment of IO, approval authority
is often held at too high a level to achieve prompt eects on the ground.
This lag will delay or potentially negate the utility of IO in future LSCO.
As evidenced above, the primary limiting factors in the employment
of information operations in future large-scale combat operations are
structural. When the need arises and key personnel are empowered by a
dynamic commander, the Army has demonstrated the ability to task orga-
nize to defeat the threat. However, US doctrine and personnel allocations
currently prohibit the ability to maximize utility. These issues are com-
pounded by interagency approval authorities and discretion delegated to
the tactical level. As noted in the next section, these types of challenges
are not new.
21
Examples from Yom Kippur: Same Problem, Dierent Capabilities
What are some historical examples of stovepiping or integration prob-
lems in the military? One example is the Yom Kippur War, which was
foundational to the establishment of US AirLand Battle doctrine. Two of
the most signicant lessons of the Yom Kippur War, as noted by the inau-
gural commander of US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRA-
DOC) General William DePuy, were the close operational coordination
between the air and ground forces and the importance of combined arms
teamwork, which required employment in realistic training.
7
The US has learned many lessons in terms of combined arms ma-
neuver through the nearly two decades of recent conict. There are two
important considerations with regard to the US operations in information
environment since 2001: the information environment has evolved and
expanded rapidly, thereby generating new means for warfare; and US op-
erations within the information environment have been relatively uncon-
tested. As a result, the US has not been forced to learn the hard lessons on
how to employ information operations as an element of combined arms
maneuver. So how does the United States adapt to defeat the enemy in a
contested information environment? A revolution in military information
aairs is needed.
A Look at the Adversarial Approach: Exogenous Concerns
Major adversaries have wasted no time exploiting the information
environment and signaling intent. Russia’s doctrine of New Generation
Warfare is primarily a strategy of inuence.
8
The objective of Russian in-
formation warfare is to control information in whatever form it takes—
information is the object of operations, not the platform through which it
ows.
9
Similarly, China’s goal with information warfare is to secure in-
formation dominance through technology and psychological operations.
10
With the control of information, one can control what the adversary hears
or sees in the information domain, which results in ambiguity increas-
ing or decreasing in support of kinetic operations. In other words, control
of information can lead an adversary to think what they are hearing and
seeing is truth when it may just be part of a broader deception or manip-
ulation. Other than the mindset, which holds information as the object of
operations, adversary information warfare diers from that of the United
States in a few important ways: structural integration, phases of employ-
ment, and data collection. These points are summarized below.
22
Structural Integration
The Russian model for information warfare is comprehensive and ho-
listic. All of what the United States considers IRCs are unied under the
Russian structure, which falls under the leadership of the Russian General
Sta.
11
Propaganda, deception, cyber, political, and economic warfare ca-
pabilities are all part of unied information operations. The Russian incur-
sion into Georgia in 2008 was the country’s rst experiment with integrat-
ed information and kinetic warfare. Specic deciencies were identied
following major operations that fell into two categories: information-tech-
nical and information-psychological.
12
This perceived shortfall led to calls
for specic “information troops”:
The personnel of the Information Troops should be composed of
diplomats, experts, journalists, writers, publicists, translators, op-
erators, communications personnel, web designers, hackers, and
others. . . . To construct information countermeasures, it is neces-
sary to develop a center for the determination of critically import-
ant information entities of the enemy, including how to eliminate
them physically, and how to conduct electronic warfare, psycho-
logical warfare, systemic counterpropaganda, and net operations
to include hacker training.
13
Russian incursion into Crimea in March 2014 presented another op-
portunity to test information warfare. In this case, Russia established phys-
ical control over the telecommunications infrastructure to isolate Crimea
from news from the outside world.
14
Russian special forces were able to
simultaneously interface kinetic and information operations to manipulate
information received by internal and external target audiences. In the case
of Crimea, this resulted in confusion and a lack of signicant escalation
or hostile action. The employment of information warfare in Crimea was
viewed much more favorably.
The Grey Zone and Phases of Employment
Adversaries the US military are most likely to face in LSCO do not
distinguish between peacetime and wartime from an information warfare
standpoint. Eorts are ongoing to seize the initiative in anticipation of
future conict. This point is solidied below in an excerpt from 2010 Rus-
sian military doctrine:
Features of modern military conicts include the prior imple-
mentation of measures of information warfare in order to achieve
political objectives without the utilization of military force and,
23
subsequently, in the interest of shaping a favorable response from
the world community to the utilization of military force.
15
The Russian concept of information operations, or more appropriately
information warfare, applies to times of peace and conict. The informa-
tion realm is one in which adversaries are comfortable operating without
signicant fear of reprisal or overt US military response. China operates
along the same lines, as indicated by a publication by the Chinese Acade-
my of Military Science below:
It is necessary in peacetime to undertake information warfare in
the political, economic, technical, and military realms, as only
then can one scientically establish operational plans, appropri-
ately calculate gains and losses in a conict, appropriately control
the level of attack, precisely strike predetermined targets, and seek
the best strategic interest and long-term benet.
16
There are no conict specic rules of engagement; Russian and Chi-
nese information operations preparatory res have already commenced.
Unfortunately, such operations in the grey zone fall below the threshold of
overt US military response.
17
Adversaries continue to exploit this reality.
Data Collection
A critical component of grey zone operations for adversaries includes
data collection. This is done in a number of ways, but signicant eort is
attributed to social media. US Soldiers participating in Operation Atlan-
tic Resolve in 2015 were targeted in this regard. Social media data was
collected on individual ocers visiting Kiev and mixed with allegations
of child rape on Russian-backed media outlets.
18
Russia has demonstrat-
ed eectiveness in mixing seemingly reliable information with credible
sources to disseminate fake news. Western reliance on social media and
cellular communications present a critical vulnerability. The implications
of examples like this on US participation in LSCO are immense and well
summarized by Keil Giles:
In time of crisis, if the defense forces of a frontline state decided to
mobilize in response to a direct and immediate threat from Russia, it
might nd that its personnel—and government ocials more broad-
ly—receive apparently trustworthy instructions to remain at home
and oer no resistance.
19
Russian intelligence collection on data that can be used to target in-
dividuals or groups through the information environment in conjunction
with other operations is well underway. The same can be safely assumed
24
for China with one example being their massive data breach of the US
Oce of Personnel Management (OPM).
20
In summary, the exogenous challenges to information operations by
key adversaries outlined above should inform how the US approaches in-
formation operations in LSCO. The information environment for such a
conict is already being exploited for adversarial advantage. The next sec-
tion outlines a hypothetical scenario where an adversary initiates LSCO
while maximizing the utility of information warfare.
Setting the Stage: A Hypothetical Glimpse of the Information
Environment in LSCO
The information environment for LSCO includes the environment
currently being exploited by adversaries. Such an environment is much
more representative of what Clausewitz considers total war, comprising
at least two elements of the trinity. Primary information warfare objec-
tives will focus on data collection and manipulation with secondary ef-
forts focused on contextual, phased dissemination in conjunction with
supported operations. Eects will include deception, diversion, character
assassination, and economic shock and will seek to widen cleavages and
invoke emotion. Political active measures and economic warfare will be
of primary concern to adversaries. Active measures will be employed to
inuence political outcomes.
21
Adversaries will pursue character assassi-
nation through emotion invoking or volatile issues such as claims of sex-
ual assault, race, or sex scandals. Economically, adversaries manipulate
the transportation infrastructure by imposing a minor tax on the system to
slow the distribution of goods while activating sleeper cell devices such as
ZTE phones to passively or actively collect insider information.
22
Russian
hacktivists and patronage networks tapped by the Russian Business Net-
work (RBN) are activated to add complexity and generate revenue.
23
As
chaos ensues under the radar, all channels for information dissemination
to specic target audiences indicate normal operations. Meanwhile, the
adversary military mobilizes under a specically woven camouage of
information concealment.
Militarily, US regional defense forces are informed through qua-
si-ocial channels to remain in place. Adversary hackers target USAA
and empty Soldiers’ bank accounts as they begin to mobilize. The enemy
dumps large quantities of fake news on WikiLeaks and other outlets to
mislead and deceive US military decision makers while simultaneously
forcing US ocials to disprove the allegations. Tactical Electro-Magnetic
Pulse devices are strategically employed around the globe and Position-
25
ing, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) devices are knocked out in predeter-
mined sequence. Once the US military nally begins to mobilize, initiative
has already been seized and the US government has to operate within the
constraints of democratic and institutional norms.
The crude vignette outlined above is perhaps not much of a depar-
ture from reality. If a major adversary initiates LSCO, they would be hard
pressed to avoid exploiting some of the vulnerabilities presented here.
While actual events in LSCO would be much more nuanced and dynamic,
the vignette is helpful in framing implications and recommendations.
Summary Implications and Recommendations
Given the international status quo and stabilizing factors such as inter-
national institutions, the US is not likely to initiate major war. Therefore,
US participation in LSCO will likely be reactive and consist of an initial
loss of ally held terrain. In such a scenario, the US has already come to
terms with the fact that reactive mobilization will prove timely and cost-
ly.
24
Critiques of US forces positioned in Eastern Europe have been re-
ferred to as “speedbumps” or “tripwires,” but as alluded to by Thomas
Schelling during the Cold War, these forces are in position as a deter-
rent, not to defend Europe.
25
Such positioning serves as a costly signal to
demonstrate to adversaries that any aggression implicating these forces
means the United States is automatically committed to the conict. The
implications and recommendations outlined below are in summarized in
terms of deterrence and compellence.
Deterrence
The positioning of troops in Eastern Europe serves as a useful exam-
ple of a costly signal. The same logic should be applied to the informa-
tion environment for future LSCO. Costly information signals need to be
employed in the information environment as tripwires that automatically
commit the US to military action. If such costly signals are not clearly
communicated, adversaries will continue to manipulate the information
environment in their favor to maximize advantage during the outbreak
of major conict. This is clearly not just an Army problem, but the Army
must advocate as a part of strategic change. The US has struggled consid-
erably in the political realm to establish regulations for fear of imposing
on private corporations or industry and damaging the domestic economy.
Similarly, international regulations remain lax and clouded in uncertainty.
Meanwhile, state aggressors like Russia and China exploit the information
environment to their benet. This must change for deterrence in the in-
26
formation environment to take root. Recommendations for addressing the
challenges of deterring adversaries through information warfare in LSCO
are listed below:
• Emplace Costly Signals. Major adversaries are not going to change
current behavior unless the United States clearly communicates costly
signals. The United States and allies must emplace “tripwires” in the in-
formation environment that credibly commit the United States to action
if terms are violated. A lack of costly signals will result in continued ex-
ploitation of the information environment and signicant disadvantage in
the event of LSCO.
• Institutionalize Western Information Operations. The United States
needs to lead the development, manning, and exercise of international in-
stitutions, such as the NATO Strategic Communications Center of Excel-
lence in Latvia with the goal of developing practices and sharing lessons
learned. Meaningful participation by the United States again demonstrates
a credible commitment to state aggressors. Such institutions should be
heavily involved in regional exercises.
• Embrace the Grey Zone. The distinction between peace and conict
is blurred. The United States is currently limited in the types of autho-
rized operations during times of “peace.” The adversary is exploiting this
fact. Phase zero began long ago and this will require a certain amount
of
catching up on the part of the United States In March 2016, General
Joseph Dunford commented that most combatant commanders believe
the adversary is operating in Phase 2 or 2.5 where they are seizing the
initiative. In order for the United States to set conditions for successful
shaping operations and regain the initiative for LSCO, signicant TAA
is needed. Such TAA should consist of all elements of adversary national
power, to include soft power. Perhaps the Pentagon should reconsider
programs similar to Project Camelot to conduct detailed ethnographic
research.
26
Such eorts
are intelligence heavy and should be driven by
information operations objectives.
Compellence
Once deterrence fails, the US Army needs the assets and resources
to compel adversary action. In May 2018, a joint group of senior rank-
ing military ocers met at Quantico to discuss the challenges of integrat-
ing multi-domain operations. The key theme reported out of the meeting
was regarding challenges due to integration across domains.
27
There were
many similarities and even graphical references to AirLand Battle. A key
point that needs clarication with the current concept of Multi-Domain
27
Battle (MDB) is how information is viewed and operationalized. The Rus-
sians would view information as a stand-alone domain, through which ca-
pabilities like CEMA operate. The platforms or IRCs operate to inuence
the object of operations, which is information. The challenges outlined
in MDB concept released in December 2017 are indicative of the chal-
lenges involved with the US operationalization of information warfare.
28
Integration of capabilities across domains with precision and maximum
utility is incredibly dicult, especially when faced with a peer or superior
adversary. In terms of information operations, the rst step toward maxi-
mizing utility from a compellence standpoint is to clearly dene and unify
the concept of information operations across the joint force. Recommen-
dations for addressing the challenges of compelling adversaries through
information warfare in LSCO are listed below:
• Commission a Study. This may seem cliché, but necessary. Individu-
al services and agencies have developed their own denitions of informa-
tion operations. The services are not even in agreement on the phrase (i.e.
information operations vs. information warfare). A comprehensive study
should include experts from the Department of Defense, interagency, and
academia. The study should consider the current information environ-
ment, capabilities and doctrine of the United States and allies, adversary
capabilities and doctrine, and anticipated future threats. The ndings of
the study should inform key decision makers of changes needed to address
emerging information operations challenges.
29
• Empower the Information Dominance Force. Considerable doctrine
and personnel changes are needed within the Information Dominance
ca-
reer eld to maximize utility in LSCO. Information Dominance profes-
sionals need to be “cross pollinated” to reduce barriers to integration
and enhance knowledge of synergistic eects. Opportunities for upward
mobility and proponency at the highest levels of command are need-
ed eect change that matters. Field grade information operations o-
cers and opportunities for non-commissioned Information Dominance
integrators are needed at the tactical level. Doctrine and qualication
courses need to reect combat requirements for adversarial behavioral
change. The creation of comprehensive Information Warfare brigades
comprised of all IRCs (including economic, political and legal advisors)
that can be task organized to support all levels of command may help
address these challenges.
• Enhance Joint and Interagency Partnerships. In order to maximize
utility, joint and interagency partners need to operate from the same play-
book. If an adversary applies information warfare in a specic area, the
28
entire force needs to equally understand the potential implications. In the
information environment, the gap between the strategic and tactical lev-
els is minimized. LSCO will require strategic assets and discretion at the
tactical level in near real time. This will only happen if structural changes
are made to place information warfare personnel strategically throughout
the joint and interagency structure in positions where decisions are made.
• Build Redundant and Analog Information Capabilities. Informa-
tion dissemination in contested information environments, as expected in
LSCO, will be vulnerable to constant disruption and manipulation by the
adversary. Periods of digital information blackout will be sporadic. Infor-
mation warfare intent must be clearly communicated and empowered at
the lowest levels for eective employment. Redundant systems should be
in place in the event of information failure.
In the end, we come full circle back to the lessons learned by General
DePuy and his sta at TRADOC after the Yom Kippur War that led to
the creation of the National Training Center. There is no substitute for
intense, realistic combined arms training. In order for this type of training
to be successful in the current information environment, all non-lethal en-
ablers or IRCs need to have the proper authority and be placed appropri-
ately throughout the formation. The new Information Dominance category
needs proponency with a voice and with options for upward mobility in
all of the respective IRCs. Such personnel should be placed at all levels of
command and include noncommissioned ocers.
We are already operating in the information environment in which
future large-scale combat operations will occur. The challenges presented
in the information environment have a largely structural solution. The in-
dividual IRCs in the US military are incredible and improving every day
with advances in technology. The US military should approach this chal-
lenge from a functional standpoint to atten stovepipes that have emerged
through advances in technology. Empowering leaders who can bridge the
gaps that currently exist between the IRCs through a restructuring of the
US military approach to information warfare is the only way the increas-
ingly powerful capabilities of cyber, electronic warfare, deception and
collective information operations can seamlessly merge with kinetic oper-
ations to defeat major adversaries in LSCO. Signicant opportunity exists
for the US to regain the initiative.
29
Notes
1. See Joint Chiefs of Sta, Joint Publication (JP) 3-13, Information Oper-
ations (Washington, DC: 27 November 2012) and Department of the Army Field
Manual 3-13, Information Operations (Washington, D.C.: December 2016) for a
more detailed denition.
2. Department of the Army, FM 3-13, 1-3.
3. Andrew Mackay and Steve Tatham, Behavioral Conict: Why Under-
standing People and Their Motivations Will Prove Decisive in Future Conict
(Essex: Military Studies Press, 2011), 135.
4. Matthew Sheier, “US Army Information Operations and Cyber-Electro-
magnetic Activities: Lessons from Atlantic Resolve,” 19 March 2018, accessed
2 June 2018, http://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/On-
line-Exclusive/2018-OLE/Mar/Army-Info-Ops/.
5. Andrew Mackay, Steve Tatham, and Lee Rowland, “The Eectiveness
of US Military Information Operations in Afghanistan 2001–2010: Why RAND
Missed the Point,” Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, Central Asia
Series, 2012, 5.
6. Mackay, Tatham, and Rowland, i.
7.
Saul Bronfeld, “Fighting Outnumbered: The Impact of the Yom Kippur War
on the US Army,” The Journal of Military History 71, no 2, (April 2007): 477.
8. Center for Strategic and International Studies, “The Kremlin Playbook:
Understanding Russian Inuence in Central and Eastern Europe,” October 2016,
accessed 2 June 2018, https://www.csis.org/analysis/kremlin-playbook.
9. Keir Giles, “The Next Phase of Russian Information Warfare,” NATO
Strategic Communications Center of Excellence, 4, accessed 2 June 2018,
https://www.stratcomcoe.org/next-phase-russian-information-warfare-keir-giles.
10. Dean Cheng, “Winning Without Fighting: The Chinese Psychological
Warfare Challenge,” The Heritage Foundation, 11 July 11 2013, accessed 2 June
2018, https://www.heritage.org/global-politics/report/winning-without-ght-
ing-the-chinese-psychological-warfare-challenge.
11. Oleg Odnokolenko, “Shoygu Orders Information Troops to Take Oen-
sive,” Nezavisimaya Gazeta Online, 27 February 2017, accessed 2 June 2018,
http://www.ng.ru/armies/2017-02-27/2_6936_shoigu.html.
12. Keir Giles, “Information Troops—A Russian Cyber Command?” 3rd
International Conference on Cyber Conict, 2011, accessed 2 June 2018, https://
pdfs.semanticscholar.org/7b93/b0b24c10aa0e009b41059e86de054df1711f.pdf.
13. Giles, “Information Troops,” 52.
14.
Giles, “The Next Phase of Russian Information Warfare,” 12.
15. “The Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation,” 5 February 2010,
accessed 2 June 2018, https://carnegieendowment.org/les/2010russia_mili-
tary_doctrine.pdf.
16.
Cheng, “Winning Without Fighting: The Chinese Psychological War-
fare Challenge.”
30
17.
Paul Scharre, “American Strategy and the Six Phases of Grief,” War
on the Rocks, 6 October 2016, accessed 2 June 2018, https://warontherocks.
com/2016/10/american-strategy-and-the-six-phases-of-grief/.
18. Giles, “The Next Phase of Russian Information Warfare,” 14.
19. Giles, 14.
20. Ellen Nakashima, “Chinese breach data of 4 million federal workers,”
The Washington Post, 4 June 2015, accessed 2 June 2018, https://www.wash-
ingtonpost.com/world/national-security/chinese-hackers-breach-federal-govern-
ments-personnel-oce/2015/06/04/889c0e52-0af7-11e5-95fd-d580f1c5d44e_
story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.e943c37fe800.
21. Central Intelligence Agency, “Soviet Active Measures: Forgery, Dis-
information, Political Operations,” Special Report No. 88, October 1981,
accessed 2 June 2018, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP-
84B00049R001303150031-0.pdf.
22. Sherisse Pham, “US hits major Chinese tech rm with export ban,”
CNN, 17 April 2018, accessed 2 June 2018, http://money.cnn.com/2018/04/17/
technology/zte-china-us-phones-ban/index.html.
23. Timothy Thomas, “Russia’s Information Warfare Strategy: Can the
Nation Cope in Future Conicts?” Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 27, 2014,
101–130.
24. Sydney Freedberg Jr., “Generals Worry US May Lose In Start Of Next
War: Is Multi-Domain The Answer?” Breaking Defense, 14 May 2018, accessed
2 June 2018, https://breakingdefense.com/2018/05/generals-worry-us-may-lose-
in-start-of-next-war-is-multi-domain-the-answer/.
25. Thomas Schelling, Arms and Inuence (New Haven, CT: Yale Universi-
ty Press, 1966), 47.
26. George Packer, “Knowing the Enemy: Can social scientists redene
the war on terror?” The New Yorker, 18 December 2006, accessed 2 June 2018,
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/12/18/knowing-the-enemy.
27. Freedberg, “Generals Worry Us May Lose In Start of Next War.”
28. US Army Training and Doctrine Command, “Multi-Domain Battle:
Evolution of Combined Arms for the 21st Century, 2025–2040,” Version 1.0,
December 2017, accessed 2 June 2018, http://www.tradoc.army.mil/multi-
domainbattle/docs/MDB_Evolutionfor21st.pdf.
29. Such a study should at a minimum include Keir Giles, Heather Conley,
Andrew Mackay, Steve Tatham, and Maxell Thibodeaux.
31
Chapter 3
The Fog of Russian Information Warfare
Lionel M. Beehner, Colonel Liam S. Collins, and Robert T. Person
“This is an arms race,” Facebook Chief Executive Ocer Mark Zuck-
erberg told a recent congressional panel in reference to the Russian Fed-
eration’s use of social media to conduct information warfare. “They’re
going to keep getting better.”
1
The tools and tactics of Russian information
warfare may have changed over the decades, but as many analysts have
noted, the ends remain largely unchanged since Soviet times: to compli-
cate, contain, and constrain the projection of US strategic power and those
of its allies, predominantly in Eurasia but also in the Middle East. It is an
entirely rational way of shaping the strategic environment to gain advan-
tage, given the quantitative and qualitative asymmetries between Russia
and the West in conventional capabilities.
With the US Army shifting its doctrinal focus from counterinsurgen-
cy to large-scale combat operations, peer and near-peer competitors such
as China, Iran, and Russia are taking on renewed importance.
2
But that
does not necessarily imply a complete doctrinal shift toward large-scale
conventional operations, given all the types of warfare these states prefer
to wage. After all, so-called “contactless war,” as the Russians dene it, is
meant to negate their military disadvantage by avoiding any direct contact
with Western forces, whether by demonstrating re discipline or deploy-
ing “little green men” in places like Crimea.
3
Russia has shown a remark-
able ability and willingness, with fairly straightforward means, to disrupt
democratic institutions, undermine social cohesion, and sow confusion,
doubt, and distrust among Western allies and their publics. Social media
has only accelerated the pace of information warfare (IW) advancement.
We should be clear by what is meant by Russian information war-
fare, or informatsionnaya voyna. Information warfare is not simply a tool
to achieve some kind of limited tactical objective or advantage during
wartime, typically in the initial phase of hostilities. Rather, information
warfare should be considered more broadly. Calculated and systematic,
it consists of operations aimed at degrading the enemy’s ability to control
the information space, deny it the technical capability to retaliate via cy-
berspace means, and defend a narrative of Russian nationalism to glorify
its role on the world stage—a manipulative form of Russian “soft power.”
Russian information warfare comprises a bounty of tactical innovations,
from traditional psychological operations (psy-ops) and strategic com-
32
munications aimed at controlling the narrative, to the sophisticated de-
ploy
ment of decentralized trolls and bots across social media and other
online
platforms.
4
Russian information warfare—informatsionnaya voyna—consists of
three pillars. First, and most benignly, it aims to put the best spin it can on
ordinary news. It does this through state-controlled outlets like RT (for-
merly “Russia Today”), Russian-language radio (“Sputnik”), as well as
through television outlets that cater to the Russian-speaking population of
the former Soviet states. This spin generally paints Russia as a viable and
preferred alternative and counter to US greed and aggression.”
5
Second, it
uses disinformation to create enough ambiguity to confuse people, both at
home and abroad, about its current operations, whether in Ukraine, Syria,
or elsewhere, all with the aim of providing a decoy and contributing to the
proverbial “fog of war.” Third, it outright lies when given true informa-
tion and claims it is falsied. This last strategy has several objectives: to
degrade trust in institutions across the world; push populations currently
undergoing conict to simply accept the status quo of the conict and not
push for resolution; and nally, it prevents countries in its desired sphere
of “privileged interest” from Western alliances like NATO by keeping
these areas in perpetual conict.
Interestingly, while Western technology rms point to an arms race
with peer competitors like the Russian Federation and the People’s Re-
public of China, the US government does not consider itself at war. This
naivety is a strategic mistake, we argue. In this chapter, we examine how
Russian information warfare operates and how it should be conceptual-
ized at the strategic level. How does information operations (IO) t into
Russia’s larger strategic aims? What are its primary methods? And nally,
and perhaps most importantly, how can the US military eectively combat
Russian information warfare, while staying true to its values and simulta-
neously preventing conict escalation? In this chapter, we advance three
central arguments:
• First, Russia’s leadership does not apply information warfare solely
to support its military objectives—as a way to soften up the enemy or prep
the battleeld, as it were—but rather vice versa. Its military operations
in places like Ukraine or Syria are often ancillary to Russia’s more im-
mediate strategic objective: to challenge US interests wherever possible
and undermine America’s ability to advance unhindered its own strategic
objectives. As such, it can be considered a form of post-Cold War strate-
gic balancing by Moscow that involves political, economic, cyberspace,
and—most formidably—information means to contain and constrain US
33
activities globally. In this sense, IW should not be seen as simply a tool
in Russia’s military toolkit. While Russian IW has certainly been used as
part of military operations, it is often applied in pursuit of Russian political
objectives where military objectives may be absent. Thus, when observ-
ers see evidence of Russian IW, they should not immediately jump to the
conclusion that they are part of a military strategy to formally seize more
land in Ukraine’s east or send a column of tanks into the Baltics. Regard-
ing Russia’s IW eorts, the ends are to challenge American interests and
undermine the foundations of Western democratic institutions; by sowing
uncertainty, discord, and division in the United States and its allies, IW
tactics are a particularly cheap, ambiguous, and eective means of achiev-
ing those strategic ends. To the degree that information warfare goes hand
in hand with Russian conventional military operations, recent experience
demonstrates that the latter are in some respect sideshows to the former,
not the other way around.
• Second, while information warfare is frequently applied for non-
military political ends, Russia nonetheless considers itself at war with the
West and brings such a mentality to its operations. Moscow thus conducts
information warfare primarily preemptively to weaken its enemy—the
United States and Europe. Information warfare was formally incorporated
into Russian military doctrine in 2010, and dates further back to the height
of the Cold War, but it was been exponentially expanded on since. To date,
Russia has seen itself as able to achieve “information dominance” —that
is, the ability to penetrate the American information environment, from
planting stories in the media to hacking the emails of politicians and their
operatives, and inuence political outcomes.
6
• Third,
when it comes to Russian aggression in the information realm,
we are at war. Though it may be “political warfare,” to borrow George
Kennan’s term from a 1948 Policy Planning Sta memo, it is warfare none-
theless.
7
To counteract Russian malicious activity, one must “ght re with
re.” US conventional deterrence in the region has primarily consisted of
stationing several battalions in NATO partners like Poland and the Baltics.
Yet, a recent RAND report found that Russia would overrun NATO forces
in a matter of hours.
8
The imbalance is even more severe in the informa-
tional realm: there is neither a sucient deterrent to prevent Russian IW
attacks, nor a punitive mechanism to enact retaliatory measures beyond
issuing statements condemning such acts. We recognize that attribution is
an issue in this space, as is the risk of conict escalation. However, the
current defensive position of the United States is not working. To quote one
congressman, “[W]hy not go on the oense to release information expos-
34
ing corruption at the Kremlin?”
9
Without looser rules of engagement and a
more oensive strategy, we can expect Russia and its agents to continue its
concerted information operations unabated as the United States continues
to cede the strategic initiative in the information environment.
This chapter proceeds as follows: First we provide some background
of Russian IW, dene several key concepts, and identify the main methods
Russia uses and the challenges they pose. Next, we lay out the larger stra-
tegic aims of Russian IW, both against the West and against Ukraine and
other former Soviet states. Then we detail its IW methods by examining
the case study of Ukraine. We conclude by outlining a list of recommenda-
tions for the US military to eectively combat Russia’s IW eorts.
Information Operations 101
Clausewitz correctly noted that the nature of warfare never changes,
only its character. He would have recognized the character of information
warfare as a distinct and eective form of warfare to accomplish one’s po-
litical ends, given that an enemy’s center of gravity is shifting. The United
States’ greatest strength is paradoxically also its greatest weakness: that
is, our freedom of speech and press. Here the Russians are practicing a
playbook straight out of Clausewitz: attack the enemy where they are
most vulnerable. The US military denes information operations as “the
integrated employment, during military operations, of information-relat-
ed capabilities in concert with other lines of operation to inuence, dis-
rupt, corrupt, or usurp the decision-making of adversaries and potential
adversaries while protecting our own.”
10
Further, it denes information
warfare as “a threat’s orchestrated use of information activities (such as
cyberspace operations, electronic warfare, and psychological operations)
to gain an advantage in the information environment.” In other words, IO
refers to friendly actions in the information environment, while IW is used
to describe threat-based activities.
In keeping with our argument about Russian IW as a form of political
warfare, it is important to note that the denition above is overly restrictive
in dening information warfare as residing strictly within the connes of
military operations. Thus, we nd it useful to employ a “holistic concept
[of information warfare] that includes computer network operations, elec-
tronic warfare, psychological operations, and information operations.”
11
Information warfare—sometimes called “inuence operations”—refer
broadly to the practice of collecting information about an enemy as well as
the dissemination of disinformation and propaganda to seek an advantage
over one’s adversary, whether in peacetime or wartime.
35
Russian information warfare is carried out through ve main methods,
ranging from psychological to technical: the manipulation of information
(fake news), espionage (intelligence), political interference, military de-
ception (plausible deniability), and cyberspace-based capabilities (social
media). The latter is the only item that is really new and innovative, as
it allows for increased speed and allows for further distance. We outline
these methods below.
First, Russia has mastered the use of fake news and other disinforma-
tion to confuse or persuade media consumers, both in Russia and the West.
The purpose of this eort is to erode public support and condence in
Western democratic institutions, to create and amplify public and a politi-
cal discord, to create confusion in order to delay Western decision-makers
at the highest levels, and to intensify the security competition in areas of
strategic importance to both the West and to Russia. This is especially
true in Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus along the fault line be-
tween NATO and the countries that once orbited within the Soviet Union’s
sphere of inuence: the Baltic states, Georgia, and Ukraine. Intensifying
the competition serves to rattle Russia’s adversaries, provoke them, and
inuence their risk-averse publics to disapprove of taking any kind of seri-
ous retaliatory measures. Another byproduct of this use of IW is to support
both directly and indirectly anti-establishment groups, parties, and poli-
ticians in the West—many of them right-wing or hyper-nationalist—as a
way to provide them with a veneer of legitimacy and disrupt the democrat-
ic process. “Russia’s new propaganda is not now about selling a particular
worldview,” as Alexei Levinson argues. “It is about trying to distort infor-
mation ows and fuel nervousness among European audiences.”
12
Second, Russian IW includes the work of traditional Cold War-style
espionage, like stealing compromising materials and information on one’s
enemy, known in Russian as kompromat.
13
During the Soviet era, this kind
of information warfare was referred to as “reexive control,” a theory with
deep roots in the Soviet Ministry of Defense’s research into psychology
and cybernetics that mapped how enemies formed decisions and framed
problems.
14
“In the context of warfare,” as Maria Snegovaya notes, “the
actor that is most capable of predicting and mimicking the reasoning and
actions of its opponent has the highest probability of success.”
15
During the Cold War, the primary foot soldiers on this front were KGB
intelligence ocers, including a young KGB ocer in Dresden by the
name of Vladimir Putin. Today Russia relies on “information troops,” who
act as guns for hire in the propaganda realm—contractors, former crim-
inals, and other cyberwarfare actors and middlemen.
16
They are kept at
36
arm’s length from Moscow, to provide the Kremlin with plausible deni-
ability if caught. The aim of these mercenaries is manifold: to disrupt the
enemy’s telecommunications or data-storage systems; to interfere in and
undermine democratic elections in the West, whether by releasing sensi-
tive information, trolling, posting fake news, or other tactics it deems will
undermine democracy.
Meddling in foreign elections is not a new tactic. Nor is it a technique
unique to Russia or its Soviet predecessor. According to Dov Levin, “Be-
tween 1946 and 2000, the United States and the USSR/Russia intervened
[to manipulate foreign elections] 117 times, or, put another way, in about
one of every nine competitive national-level executive elections during
this period.”
17
What has changed, however, is the technological sophis-
tication, the use of proxies operating on the behalf of nation states, and
the ability to leverage the speed of social media. In February 2017, for
example, the special prosecutor Robert Mueller charged thirteen Russians
and three Russian companies for interfering in the 2016 US presidential
election. Among the companies charged was Internet Research Agency, a
“Russian troll farm,” with the “strategic goal to sow discord in the US po-
litical system.”
18
In his book, War in 140 Characters, David Patrikarakos
proles entire oce buildings in Siberia devoted to creating fake news
stories to inuence voter behavior in Western elections.
19
The fourth component of Russia’s IW is to add to the fog of war
and deny the presence of Russian military forces—specically its use of
spetsnaz forces in places like Ukraine. This is to distract and obfuscate
the existence of an extensive military campaign—what the Soviets used
to call maskirovka—that might trigger a more robust Western response
or worse a backlash at home were the full facts of the operations, includ-
ing death tolls, to be made public.
20
The Russian government always de-
nies any use of this kind of warfare and instead attributes these attacks to
Russian “patriots” operating on their own behalf, with no guidance from
Moscow. This kind of disinformation campaign is hardly the work of a
decentralized network of pro-Russia grassroots activists improvising on
their own but rather is a heavily-structured, national-level eort to facil-
itate the accomplishment of Russia’s strategic objectives. According to
former KGB defector, Ion Mihai, this kind of campaign has three prongs:
deny involvement, minimize damage, and if truth comes out, blame it on
one’s enemies.
21
Finally, in addition to information brigades, election meddling, and
deception, Russia employs digital technologies to inuence social media
and add greater speed and sophistication to its IW campaigns. This in-
37
cludes, as Keir Giles notes, “a complex blend of hacking, public disclo-
sures of private emails, and use of bots, trolls, and targeted advertising
on social media designed to interfere in political processes and heighten
societal tensions.”
22
Malicious actors can harvest the personal data of un-
suspecting users of social media such as browsing history and consumer
spending data, which allows them to target groups and individuals by their
political views, their income bracket, and their location. They can then
plant contradictory messages in news stories that already expose ideolog-
ical fault lines. A case in point was Russia-linked bots and trolls push-
ing divisive stories and hashtags on social media that fueled the National
Football League national anthem controversy. Russian hackers also plant
false reports in mainstream media outlets. In May 2017, Qatari state media
published false remarks made by the emir of Qatar praising Iran, creating
an uproar among its Gulf neighbors.
23
Russian Objectives
This section examines Russian objectives and how IW ts into Mos-
cow’s larger strategic aims. Russia is often said to be determined to un-
dermine democracy as an end, and to rewrite the rules of the international
order. On this point, Russia is actually quite agnostic to the normative
value placed on democracy or liberalism. If the United States were a total-
itarian dictatorship marching its forces across the globe, Russia might sur-
mise that playing to people’s liberal side might benet its ability to resist
American domination. Russia, in this role, is playing the foil to the United
States. In this respect, Russia’s grand strategy is non-ideological in its mo-
tivation: its target is not democratic institutions per se, rather the target is
the political institutions of an adversarial state. That those institutions hap-
pen to be democratic is—from an ideological standpoint—immaterial. But
from a practical standpoint, the openness of liberal democratic institutions
makes them more vulnerable to attack.
What many Western audiences fail to appreciate is the fact that Russia
believes itself to be ghting IO re with IW re. Moscow’s narrative of the
2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia, the 2005 Orange Revolution and 2014
Maidan Revolution in Ukraine, and the 2011-2012 mass protests in Russia
is one of a West intent on interfering in its own elections those of countries
where Moscow has strong interests. Thus, the Kremlin’s view is that its
own schemes are simply tit for tat, a game of cat and mouse played against
the world’s dominant superpower. In seeking to challenge, constrain, and
contain American interests, Russia seeks a more multipolar world where
it is accorded a seat among the great powers beyond that which it already
enjoys with a permanent veto-wielding Security Council position. In Mos-
38
cow’s vision of a multipolar world, great powers like Russia should have
a right to spheres of privileged interest, and a free hand to pursue their
interests within their sphere unimpeded. The only way to achieve such a
world is to roll back American inuence. It should also be said that Russia
is also a declining economic power playing a weak hand—politically, eco-
nomically, and militarily. To counter American interests, it relies on IW as
a cost-eective, less risky means of warfare.
But this logic requires unpacking. First, Russian information warfare
is often treated as just one part of its larger military strategy, which in-
cludes a number of other uses of force. However, this diminishes IW’s
signicance, and treats it as just one of several non-kinetic means—a bas-
ket of options sometimes referred to as “new generation warfare”—Russia
employs in conjunction with kinetic means in pursuit of military objec-
tives.
24
But as argued previously, Russia’s objectives are often political
in nature rather than military. In fact, IW in pursuit of political ends is
appealing for its low cost, low risk, and its relative simplicity. Russia fan-
cies itself as the “great disrupter,” to disrupt requires no further end goal
than the mere process of destabilizing Western democracy—including its
norms, procedures, institutions. Sowing the seeds of chaos is, often times,
the primary objective. To be sure, one might argue this is part of a grand
design to tilt the rules of the game in its favor by throwing out any rule-
book. As Edward Lucas and Ben Nimmo write, “Russia’s approach, unlike
Nazi Germany’s ethnic and ideological one, is deeply nihilistic.”
25
Yet it
should be emphasized that nihilism is not the ends but rather the means.
The ends is to contain and constrain American inuence across the globe.
When it comes to the bounds of acceptable behavior to achieve this ends,
Russia will not follow any rules. As noted in the Tallinn Manual 2.0 on
cyberwarfare, “The Russians are masters at playing the ‘gray area’ in the
law, as they know that this will make it dicult to claim they are violating
international law and justifying responses such as countermeasures.”
26
Conceptually speaking, Russia’s IW campaign is seen by many West-
erners as defensive and in line with what Russia did during the Cold War.
But Russia’s information warfare activities should be seen as oensive,
given that a large part of the eectiveness of IW as a means is its element
of surprise. To reiterate, Russia considers itself to be “at war” (or more
precisely, “at political war”) with the West, yet the West does not consider
itself “at war” with Russia. A popular theory among neorealists known as
“oense-defense theory” oers insights into the challenge at hand. The
theory posits that in cases where the oensive measures enhance a state’s
security more eciently than defensive measures, and where a state’s
39
intentions—whether oensive or defensive—are indistinguishable, then
the threat of war and instability is greater.
27
The logic is that this kind of
setting favors a rst-mover advantage and allows for preemptive attacks.
This principle also applies to the use of information warfare. There is an
element of surprise built in, as well as one of asymmetry. These opera-
tions are oensive—even if non-kinetic—by design. According to Maria
Snegovaya, “On the tactical level, information warfare allows Russia to
achieve surprise in the time or manner of an attack. Russia thereby gains
time and eciency against the enemy’s ground forces . . . Informational
cover provides more exibility and eciency to the military, as well as im-
proves speed of maneuverability and the speed of battleeld responses.”
28
Nonetheless, part of the confusion (and thus the utility from the Rus-
sian perspective) of IW is that it can be applied to political ends simulta-
neously with military ends. In such contexts it can be dicult to determine
a priori what the objectives of some information operations are. This is
the situation that we nd in Ukraine, where political and military objec-
tives are both part of the conict’s logic. It should be stated that Russia’s
strategy in Ukraine is complicated yet also haphazard. The objective of
Russia’s military operations in Ukraine is not simply to acquire territory—
if it wanted to, Russia could have easily annexed militarily the Donbas,
the conict zone in eastern Ukraine, by now—but rather to keep Ukraine
down, sow confusion among its public, and prevent Ukraine from joining
Western institutions. Russia seeks to undermine the foundational princi-
ples of the very institutions that Ukraine seeks to join. In this regard, IW
does not serve its military goals of controlling or annexing territory, but
rather the other way around: its military strategy supports its IW. Ukraine
in this regard is just one piece of Russia’s larger grand puzzle—an im-
portant piece, to be sure, given their close historical ties. Russian military
operations in Ukraine are but one component to weaken the West and by
extension make the world more multipolar.
IW at the Tactical Level in Ukraine
Russia’s information warfare in Ukraine dates back decades, but
during the most recent campaign it began in earnest around the time of
the Maidan Revolution in November 2013. Russia employed IW against
Ukrainian institutions with several objectives in mind: to undermine sup-
port for the protesters and pro-western factions in Ukraine, to elicit fear
among Ukraine’s Russian-speaking and pro-Russian populations in its
east and south, and to deny facts on the ground during operations to seize
Crimea and interfere in the war in Ukraine’s east. To accomplish these
40
objectives, Russia has employed a number of IW tactics, often in combina-
tion with cyber warfare, to inuence enemy combatants, local populations,
and allies.
First and foremost, the Kremlin sought to control the narrative in
Ukraine through a number of eorts targeted at fence-sitters in the region.
These eorts include referring to Ukraine in its media or press releases as
a “failed” or “fascist” state; releasing forged documents from RAND cor-
poration or the Ukrainian military to paint the latter as corrupt and the for-
mer as conspiratorial; citing hoax experts to push fake narratives; manip-
ulating the titles of articles it publishes; amplifying the threat of Europe’s
disintegration and warning of the West’s declining support for Ukraine
(so-called “Ukraine fatigue”), a consequence of a pending refugee crisis
from Ukraine.
Second, Russia has consolidated its control over all Russian media
covering the conict in Ukraine. Ukrainian-language broadcast media in
the east was eectively neutralized, leaving state-controlled RT as the sole
source television-based information available to local Ukrainians.
29
Be-
cause Russian servers hosted the dominant Russian-language social media
platforms—Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki—the authorities were able to ef-
fectively block any pages with a pro-Maidan bent. It also allowed the Rus-
sian government to monitor sympathizers of the post-Maidan Ukrainian
government, as well as recruit foot soldiers for its pro-separatist prox-
ies. Second, the Kremlin put considerable spin on its portrayal of events
in Ukraine, from the 2013-2014 Maidan Revolution, to the takeover of
Crimea, to the ongoing war in the East. It portrayed Crimea as being land
that historically belonged to Russia. It exaggerated the inuence played by
Ukrainian nationalists and neo-Nazis among the Maidan protestors, and
later those ghting in the Donbas region in order to stoke fear among eth-
nic Russians and Russian-speaking Ukrainians. By demonizing the ene-
my, this was tactically important for its proxies, enabling the use of greater
violence against their fellow citizens. Finally, the Kremlin-controlled Rus-
sian media ignored the presence of Russian soldiers and spetsnaz forces in
Ukraine, and downplayed the illegality of Russia’s land grab of Crimea.
Conversely, Russia vastly overstated the role played by the United States
in controlling the protests on Maidan and inuencing events in the east.
Furthermore, Russian operatives sought to shape the battleeld by di-
rectly targeting and manipulating the minds of Ukrainian troops through
subversive forms of propaganda and disinformation. In 2017, the Russian
authorities created so-called “information operation troops,” whose re-
mit, according to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu, was to spread
41
“clever and ecient propaganda.”
30
The aim of these troops encompasses
a mix of strategic communications, psychological operations, and inu-
ence activities. They should not be treated as a separate cyberspace-based
command, as their means go beyond just conducting cyberwarfare to dis-
rupt networks but also include manipulating the media and planting coun-
terpropaganda in order to control and distort the enemy’s cognitive under-
standing of what is real and what is false. They involve planting fake news
stories to stoke irredentist violence. A case in point is the steady stream of
disinformation among Russian-language news broadcasts in the south and
east of Ukraine threatening locals that Kiev would rescind their right to
speak the Russian language. On Kolika Square in 2014, the journalist Da-
vid Patrikarakos documented how a group of masked men armed with bats
and clubs were told that a group of Ukrainian nationalists called Pravy
Sektor (“Right Sector”) was coming “to burn down our tents at 4:00 a.m.”
Much of the disinformation plays on people’s traditional moral values. In
2014, it was also falsely reported by Russian media that Ukrainian soldiers
had crucied a small boy.
31
Another popular meme circulated on Russian
social media was that of an LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender)
activist on the Maidan who harassed a straight passerby to the point of him
bludgeoning her to death. The aim of such eorts is to paint the protestors
with a broad brush stroke as LGBT activists, a way to sow distrust among
rural and more conservative segments of Ukrainian society.
32
The target of these IW eorts were also the members of the Ukrainian
military ghting on the frontline. Shortly after the ghting started in east-
ern Ukraine in 2014, for example, soldiers deployed to the combat re-
gion started receiving “fake texts.” The texts were often meant to threaten
and demoralize troops in a “grinding” conict with some texts reading:
“Ukrainian soldiers, they’ll nd your bodies when the snow melts;”
“Leave and you will live;” “Nobody needs your kids to become orphans;”
“Ukrainian soldier, it’s better to retreat alive than to stay here and die;”
and “You will not regain Donbas back. Further bloodshed is pointless.”
33
Other texts were aimed to undermine unit cohesion and morale. Texts,
often appearing to come from follow soldiers, have claimed the command-
er had deserted or that Ukrainian forces were being decimated and that
“We should run away.” Nancy Snow, a professor of public diplomacy at
the Kyoto University of Foreign Studies, described this as “pinpoint pro-
paganda.” In previous conicts, leaets dropped by air or radio messages
could easily be ignored—by refusing to pick up and read the leaet or by
tuning to another radio station—but it is nearly impossible to avoid read-
ing text messages sent to one’s phone.
34
42
Russia combines its IW with kinetic operations, starting with a text
message to a soldier, telling him he is “surrounded and abandoned.” Ten
minutes later, the soldier’s family receives (recent contacts) a text message
stating, “You son is killed in action.” The friends and family likely call the
soldier to see if the news is true. Seventeen minutes after the initial text
message, the soldier receives another message telling him to “retreat and
live” with an artillery strike following shortly thereafter to the location
where the large group of targeted cell phones are detected. Thus, in one
coordinated action, they use IW to target the soldier and his family and
friends and combine it with electronic warfare, cyber electronic warfare,
and artillery to produce both kinetic and psychological eects.
35
This is a
technique that the Russian operatives are likely to employ in large-scale
combat operations as well—blurring the geographical boundaries between
the front line and the home front in new and potentially frightening ways.
Likewise, the soldiers of potential allies are not immune to Russian
IW. NATO troops deployed in the Baltics and Poland as part of the deter-
rence mission have also been targeted. Instead of “pinpoint propaganda,”
soldiers have had their Facebook accounts hacked, data erased, or received
messages stating “Someone is trying to access your iPhone” with a map
appearing in the text with Moscow at the center of the map. One com-
mander believes the intent of the IW is to intimidate the soldiers and to
let them know that Russian intelligence forces are tracking them and their
data is at risk.
36
Russia has also targeted the US military, employing IW in an attempt
to decrease its military readiness and that of its NATO allies. Russian me-
dia outlets have been known to reach out to the mayors of towns outside
of the Hohenfels training area in Germany, asking them if the noise from
military training is disruptive to the local population. This is a clear at-
tempt to sow discord between the populations and the US base, with the
intent of inuencing the German government to put restrictions on mili-
tary training.
37
Finally, Russian IW in Ukraine has included attempts of technological
interference in political institutions via cyberspace means, with mixed de-
grees of success. Ukraine provided a laboratory of sorts for Russian hack-
ers who would later interfere more boldly in elections in the United States
and in Western Europe.
38
The concept of “weaponized information” was
honed in Ukraine to undermine its edgling institutions and erode pub-
lic trust. In addition to targeting critical infrastructure—Ukraine’s electric
grid, government websites, and banks—Russian operatives were active in
planting fake news stories. The eectiveness of such operations, however,
43
are questionable. Examining the eects of Russian propaganda vis-à-vis
Russian state-controlled TV in Ukraine, the political scientists Leonid Pei-
sakhin and Arturas Rozenas found the eects to be uneven:
Ukrainians who were already predisposed in Russia’s favor found
its media message persuasive. Pro-Russian Ukrainians who
watched Russian TV were more likely to vote for pro-Russian
candidates in the 2014 presidential and parliamentary elections
than were anti-Russian Ukrainians who watched the same pro-
gramming. Those with anti-Russian views were dissuaded by
the Russian media message and became more likely to vote for
pro-Western politicians. Individuals with no strong political priors
seem not to have been swayed in either direction.
39
The authors argue that the current erosion of credibility as a result of
Russian IW poses not only a threat to Western democracies but also to
Russia. Should Russia nd itself in a protracted war, not unlike the current
proxy conict it faces in the Donbas, it may face an inection point where
the eectiveness of its propaganda increasingly wanes. This may result in
its targeted audiences doubting even the false narratives put out by Rus-
sia’s bots, hackers, and other spin-masters. Building on previous research,
the authors also posit that Russian propaganda does not change minds but
rather pushes voters to adapt more extreme points of view and increases
political polarization, itself a factor that undermines democracy and liberal
norms. Whether this is intended or not, the tactical eect of Russian IW
in Ukraine is not to change minds but rather to push people toward the ex-
treme and crowd out the middle. The middle is where democracy thrives,
the polar extremes are where it withers and dies.
Conclusion & Countermeasures
The following includes a list of recommended countermeasures the
United States and its allies should implement to counteract or deter Rus-
sia’s use of information warfare.
• As it did during the Cold War, the United States must contest the IO
Battlespace. The US was heavily invested in IO during the Cold War and
the battle of ideas—the idea that capitalism and liberal democracy was
superior to communism as an economic and political system—contributed
signicantly to the victory. But with the end of the Cold War, the United
States cashed in its peace dividend and divested itself of national-level
institutions, such as the United States Information Agency, that were de-
signed to eectively coordinate and integrate strategic eorts and respons-
es to threats. As a result, the United States has largely ceded the strategic
44
initiative to peer and near-peer actors by default. The United States must
reinvest in strategic institutions, and arm those institutions with the man-
date and authorities needed, to enable the United States to regain the ini-
tiative in the information environment. As the world’s superpower, other
nations follow the lead of the United States and if the United States elevat-
ed the importance of IO, other nations will follow.
• Relax Rules of Engagement to Counteract Russian IW with IO. The
United States has done little to actually retaliate against Russia. The 2012
Magnitsky Act demonstrates the eectiveness such measures can have to
pressure Moscow and “shame” powerful Russian individuals.
40
Congress
has incorporated counter-propaganda funding into its most recent National
Defense Authorization Act, in addition to proposed reforms to the Foreign
Agent Registration Act and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the
United States. However, these acts of legislation do not go far enough.
The National Security Council, in its 2017 strategy, calls it “information
statecraft.”
41
But the United States is limited in its ability to engage in this
type of warfare. As one senior NSC staer put it, “we are not going to
have an RT. The Russians do. The Iranians do.”
42
Still, more innovative,
less overt countermeasures are needed to deter, prevent, and punish future
Russian aggression in this space, including a more sophisticated and tar-
geted version of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America
for the Facebook era.
• Establish credible deterrence against IW. Deterrence is premised on
the threat of inicting pain on an adversary in order to prevent them from
taking an undesirable action. Importantly, the threatened pain must be suf-
cient to alter the cost-benet analysis of the target state such that they
alter their preferences: a successfully coerced adversary must prefer to
avoid pain by complying rather than ignoring the threat and accepting the
consequences. Thus, a successful coercive—or deterrent—threat depends
on the capabilities to inict pain and the willingness to do so. It remains to
be seen whether the United States has the means to inict sucient pain
on Russia as retaliation for its IW against our political system. But there
should be no doubt as to our willingness to do so. If we are to have any
hope of deterring future Russian interference in our democratic processes
and institutions, we must make full use of the political and economic tools
at our disposal, including sanctions and other forms of nancial warfare,
to establish a credible threat of pain. Furthermore, it should be clear to
all—Moscow especially—that punitive measures are punishment for spe-
cic actions against American institutions. This requires shining a bright
and very public light on those actions when doing so does not threaten re-
45
vealing intelligence sources and very publicly declaring the consequences
of such actions. Only by regularly and visibly demonstrating to Moscow
the cause and eect relationship between IW and punitive measures can
we hope to establish a credible deterrent.
• Provide IO Assistance to Allies. The United States provides $50
billion in foreign assistance, yet almost none of this goes to support IO
eorts.
43
Despite four years of being targeted by Russian IW, Ukraine is
on the defensive and seems to have no response to Russian IW eorts.
Ukraine should improve its defensive measures to prevent “pinpoint pro-
paganda” and better counter Russia’s “fake news.” But it cannot do so
without signicant assistance and outside expertise. While the United
States must improve its own capabilities, the United States has the capaci-
ty, in terms of expertise and funds, to help Ukraine and other allies.
• Gather & Analyze More Data on IW. The United States should cat-
alog all attacks and take an evidence-based approach to identify sources
and quantify their eectiveness as a way to track their own progress in
deterring attacks and measure variation over time and space. For example,
current eorts by the Ukrainian military to broadcast Ukrainian-language
radio (Army FM) to the Donbas do not even track the number of listeners,
much less the eect such positive messaging has on public attitudes. In the
United States, to our knowledge, there is no database yet that tracks this
sort of thing.
• “Protect against Fake News.” Emilio Iasiello, a cyber analyst, rec-
ommends “leveraging cutting-edge technology to help identify the fabri-
cations as soon as they emerge. Articial intelligence and data analytics
can be used to detect words or word patterns that might indicate deceitful
stories.”
44
The United States must do more than simply correct the record.
By nature, corrections to the record or fact checks are reactive and are not
eective to counter the eects of proactive fake news and Russian pro-
paganda. In the battle of perception, the race to shape the early narrative
is often times the decisive ght. Readers rarely care or read corrections,
much less disclaimers, especially in an era of social media. To be eective,
as Giles recommends, “Countermeasures should focus not on fact-check-
ing but on the deceit—emphasizing that people were conned—and, like
the original disinformation, should appeal to readers’ emotions rather than
their rationality.”
45
This is tricky, given that Western governments are sup-
portive of free speech, and so they cannot blanketly restrict news, even if
it is false, coming from one country or its citizens.
46
• Create a Robust Task Force. In March 2015, the EU created a Strat-
Com Task Force, whose purpose is to correct disinformation coming from
Russian media. This kind of task force should be strengthened, and per-
haps be bolstered with the addition of economic sanctions. A similar task
force should be created in the United States and properly resourced and
given teeth.
• Establish Stronger Normative Framework for IO much like the Tal-
linn Manual did for cyberspace. The trouble with propaganda in the digital
age is there are no agreed-upon rules or norms, as there were during the
height of the Soviet Union. Also the actors and perpetrators have been
decentralized, making attribution more dicult, but also the adherence
to norms or rules more problematic. Even though Russia will not abide
by covenants agreed to by other states and international bodies, this can
at least assist the West to determine the rules for the road for a post-Putin
Russia that may determine that IO and the undermining of American inu-
ence is not in its best interest.
• Strengthen retention rates among our allies. Ukraine is a country
teeming with information technology (IT) expertise. Yet, the government
and its military have a hard time retaining expertise in this realm, due
to higher salaries provided in the private sector. US assistance should be
targeted to not only train our partners but be sure they retain their ghters.
• Strengthen civil society. Many of the most innovative and eective
eorts made to target Russian disinformation and propaganda are coming
from civil society groups like InformNapalm, which relies on open-source
intelligence and employs volunteer hackers to discredit Russian narratives,
or StopFake, which puts out media content to counteract Russian propa-
ganda. These groups have been eective, given recent polls that show that
a majority of Ukrainians now say that Russian propaganda constitutes a
real threat.
• Educate service members and their families of Russian IW prac-
tices. American service members and their families must be warned of
Russian IW practices and eorts so they are not discovering it for the rst
time when they are receiving a threatening text message—this will greatly
reduce or eliminate the desired eect.
It is worth reassessing the threat of Russian information warfare giv-
en the recent doctrinal shift toward large-scale combat operations against
peer and near-peer adversaries, which includes a wide spectrum of the
use of force. Though it may be tempting to lament the threat that Russian
IW poses to American interests and institutions in the 21st century, not to
47
mention those of our friends and allies, it is important to remember that we
have been here before. As noted earlier, the legendary diplomat and schol-
ar George Kennan was entirely familiar with the threat we face today, even
if the technologies have changed. But what is important to recognize in
his 1948 memorandum on political warfare is not the assessment of such a
threat posed by our adversaries. Rather, it is the recognition that the Unit-
ed States must be willing and able to ght political wars just as we were
willing to ght conventional wars to secure our interests. Kennan writes:
Political warfare is the logical application of Clausewitz’s doctrine
in time of peace. In broadest denition, political warfare is the em
-
ployment of all the means at a nation’s command, short of war,
to achieve its national objectives. Such operations are both overt
and covert. They range from such overt actions as political allianc
-
es, economic measures (as ERP [the Marshall Plan]), and “white’
propaganda to such covert operations as clandestine support of
“friendly” foreign elements, “black” psychological warfare and
even encouragement of underground resistance in hostile states.
46
Kennan’s prescription remains just as valid as it did 70 years ago. It
is time to recognize the threat that Russian IW poses to America’s core
interests and respond accordingly.
48
Notes
1. “Zuckerberg: Facebook is in ‘arms race’ with Russia,” BBC News, 11
April 2018, accessed 2 May 2018, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-cana-
da-43719784.
2. See Mike Lundy, Rich Creed, “The Return of US Army Field Manual
3-0, Operations,” Military Review, November–December 2017.
3. Morgan Chalfant, “Former CIA Director: Don’t call Russian Election
Hacking ‘Act of War,’” The Hill, 11 April 2018, accessed 20 June 2018, http://
thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/328344-former-cia-director-dont-call-rus-
sian-election-hacking-act-of-war.
4. Keir Giles, “Handbook of Russian Information Warfare,” NATO Defense
College, November 2016.
5. Edward Lucas and Ben Nimmo, “Information Warfare: What is it and
How to Win It?” Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) Infowar Paper
No. 1, November 2015, 3–4.
6. Andrew Blake, “Michael Hayden, former CIA head, of Russia: ‘We took
our eye o the ball,’” Washington Times, 1 May 2018.
7. George Kennan, “George F. Kennan on Organizing Political Warfare,”
Wilson Center Digital Archive, 30 April 1948, accessed 13 June 2018, https://
digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/114320.pdf.
8. Gabriel Samuels, “NATO puts 300,000 Ground Troops on ‘High Alert’ as
Tensions with Russia Mount,” The Independent, 7 November 2016.
9. Greg Keeley, “Combatting Russian information warfare—in the Baltics,”
The Hill, 9 April 2018.
10. Joint Chiefs of Sta, Joint Publication (JP) 3-13, Information Opera-
tions (Washington, DC: 27 November 2012), GL-3.
11. Sophia Porotsky, “Cold War 2.0: Russian Information Warfare,” Global
Security Review, 8 February 2018, accessed 20 June 2018, https://globalsecuri-
tyreview.com/cold-war-2-0-russian-information-warfare/.
12. Quoted by Anne Vandermey, “Gaining Followers: The Internet and Cold
War-style Propaganda in the Former Soviet Republics, Wilson Quarterly, Fall
2016, accessed 20 June 2018, https://wilsonquarterly.com/quarterly/the-lasting-
legacy-of-the-cold-war/gaining-followers-the-internet-and-cold-war-style-propa-
ganda-in-the-former-soviet-republic/.
13. Bruce McClintock, “Russian Information Warfare: A Reality that Needs
a Response,” RAND Blog, 21 July 2017, accessed 20 June 2018, https://www.
rand.org/blog/2017/07/russian-information-warfare-a-reality-that-needs-a.html.
14. Peter Mattis, “Contrasting China’s and Russia’s Inuence Operations,”
War on the Rocks, 16 January 2018.
15. Maria Snegovaya, “Putin’s Information Warfare in Ukraine: Soviet
Origins of Russia’s Hybrid Warfare,” Institute for the Study of War, September
2015, 10.
16. Vladimir Isachenkov, “Russia announces new branch of military to
focus on information warfare amid hacking allegations,” The Independent, 22
February 2017.
49
17. Dov H. Levin, “When the Great Power Gets a Vote: The Eects of
Great Power Electoral Interventions on Election Results,” International Studies
Quarterly 60, no. 2, 2016, 189–202.
18. Dustin Volz, “US grand jury indicts 13 Russian nationals in election
meddling probe,” Reuters, 16 February 2018.
19. David Patrikarakos, War in 140 Characters: How Social Media is
Reshaping Conict in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Basic Books, 2017),
131–151.
20. J.B. Vowell, “Maskirovka: From Russia, With Deception,” Real-
ClearDefense, 30 October 2016.
21. Snegovaya, “Putin’s Information Warfare in Ukraine.”
22. Keir Giles, “Countering Russian Information Operations in the Age of
Social Media,” Council on Foreign Relations Report, 21 November 2017.
23. Giles, “Countering Russian Information Operations.”
24. Phillip Karber, Joshua Thibeault, “Russia New Generation Warfare,”
AUSA, 20 May 2016, accessed 14 June 2018, https://www.ausa.org/articles/rus-
sia%E2%80%99s-new-generation-warfare.
25. Lucas, “Information Warfare.”
26. McClintock, “Russian Information Warfare.”
27. Robert Jervis, “Cooperation under the Security Dilemma,” World Poli-
tics 30, no. 2, 1978, 167–214.
28. Snegovaya, “Putin’s Information Warfare in Ukraine.”
29. Michael Kofman, et al., “Lessons from Russia’s Operations in Crimea
and Eastern Ukraine,” RAND, 2017.
30. Damien Sharkov, “Russia Announces Information Operations Troops
with Counter Propaganda Remit.” Newsweek, 22 February 2017.
31. Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Cen-
tury (New York: Duggan Books, 2017), 97.
32. Patrikarakos, War in 140 Characters, 161.
33. Raphael Satter and Dmytro Vlasov, “Ukraine soldiers bombarded by
‘pinpoint propaganda’ texts,” Associated Press, 11 May 2017, accessed 14 June
2018, https://apnews.com/9a564a5f64e847d1a50938035ea64b8f Oleksandar
Golovko, “Ukrainian Frontline: Cyber + EW + Psyops” PowerPoint brief (Kyiv,
Ukraine: General Sta of the Armed Forces, 2018).
34. Satter and Vlasov, “Ukraine soldiers bombarded by ‘pinpoint propagan-
da’ texts.”
35. Golovko, “Ukrainian Frontline.”
36. Thomas Grove, Julia E. Barnes and Drew Hinshaw, “Russia Tar-
gets NATO Soldier Smartphones, Western Ocials Say,” The Wall Street
Journal, 4 October 2017, accessed 10 May 2018, accessed 14 June 2018,
https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-targets-soldier-smartphones-western-o-
cials-say-1507109402.
37. Interview with military ocials in Hohenfels, Germany, on 8 May 2018.
38. Andy Greenberg, “How an Entire Nation Became Russia’s Test Lab for
Cyberwar,” Wired, June 2017.
50
39. Leonid Peisakhin, Arturas Rozenas, “When Does Russian Propaganda
Work—and When Does it Backre? Here’s What We Found,” Washington Post,
3 April 2018.
40. The 2012 Magnitsky Act, named after Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian
tax accountant who died in prison under mysterious circumstances, punishes
Russian ocials believed responsible for his death.
41. Peter Grier and Harry Bruinius, “With National Security Strate-
gy, Trump ushers new era of Statecraft,” Christian Science Monitor, 18
December 2017, accessed 20 June 2018, https://www.csmonitor.com/
USA/Politics/2017/1218/With-National-Security-Strategy-Trump-ush-
ers-new-era-of-statecraft.
42. Nadia Schadlow, “Building National Security Strategy,” Speech given
to Modern War Institute at the US Military Academy at West Point, 2 Febru-
ary 2018, accessed 20 June 2018, https://mwi.usma.edu/event/writing-presi-
dent-trumps-national-security-strategy-dr-nadia-schadlow/.
43. The US spent $49 billion in 2015; see James McBride, “How Does
the US Spend Its Foreign Aid,” Council on Foreign Relations, 11 April 2017,
accessed 14 June 2018, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/how-does-us-spend-
its-foreign-aid.
44. Emilio J. Iasiello, “Russia’s Improved Information Operations: From
Georgia to Crimea,” Parameters 47, no. 2, 2017, 62–63.
45. Giles, “Handbook of Russian Information Warfare.”
46. George Kennan, “George F. Kennan on Organizing Political Warfare,”
Wilson Center Digital Archive, 30 April 1948, accessed 10 May 2018, https://
digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/114320.pdf.
51
Chapter 4
Operation Starkey: The Invasion that Never Was
Colonel Michael R. Taylor, Jr.
Warfare is the art (tao) of deceit.
—Sun-Tzu
In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attend-
ed by a bodyguard of lies.
—Winston S. Churchill
Operation Starkey was an Allied military deception (MILDEC) con-
ducted in Western Europe during the summer of 1943 that included a false
invasion armada targeting the Pas de Calais. This operation was part of
a larger deception shaping eort across multiple theaters to gain a posi-
tion of relative advantage for the invasion of Italy.
1
Starkey failed while
Operation Fortitude South, a similar deception conducted in 1944 to set
conditions for D-Day’s Operation Overlord, succeeded.
2
Why did Starkey
fail while Fortitude South succeeded? Can any contemporary lessons be
derived for application in future Large-Scale Combat Operations (LSCO)?
Was failure linked to limited resources, a awed plan, Allied internal poli-
tics, lack of unity of eort, the vacancy of the Supreme Allied Command-
er’s position, or possibly an entrenched opinion by Adolf Hitler and the
German High Command? These possibilities will be explored in search
of a plausible theory as to why Operation Starkey failed while looking for
insights into future LSCO application.
Military Deception and its Value
Deception, dened by the US military in 1947, is “the art of causing
the enemy to derive and accept a particular pre-determined appreciation
of friendly dispositions, capabilities, and intentions with the mission of
causing him to react in a pre-selected manner disadvantageous to the en-
emy and advantageous to our own forces.”
3
More than 70 years later, this
denition remains largely unchanged in US Army and Joint Doctrine with
the fundamental idea to mislead a military decision maker to take action(s)
that gain an advantage for the commander.
4
Military deception can be described in two variations—ambiguity
increasing and, the opposite and more complex, ambiguity decreasing.
5
Ambiguity increasing confuses the military decision maker as to what is
truly occurring and can lead to actions such as delaying commitment of
52
forces or spreading thin to cover multiple dilemmas. The opposite, am-
biguity decreasing, focuses the military decision maker on one incorrect
threat leading to actions to reinforce or counter, thereby weakening in
other areas. Daniel and Herbig noted these two variants of MILDEC are
best viewed as a continuum with utter confusion (ambiguity increasing) at
one end and convinced misdirection (ambiguity decreasing) at the other—
most deceptions blend the two over time.
6
Widespread use of military deception by nation states was revealed in
Sherwin and Whaley’s analysis of 93 cases of Western strategic military
operations from 1914–1973 which found that 82 percent showed clear ev-
idence that deception was employed—the US and Russia accounting for
41 percent.
7
Their analysis also provided insight into the value of military
deception with the probability of achieving victory, given surprise, at 93
percent while without surprise, dropping to 50 percent. The analysis also
referenced William R. Harris’s monograph that examined an older version
of the same data and drew the tentative conclusion that all things being
equal, “a country not using deceptive ploys was at a strategic disadvantage
against a country that did.”
8
Nicholas Rankin aptly reinforces the value
by stating: “Deception or deceitfulness in ordinary life is wrong because
it corrodes trust, the basic glue of human relationships, but deceiving your
enemy in wartime is common sense.”
9
Emergence in Allied Operations
The British expanded Allied military deception during World War II
from simply achieving surprise over your enemy to a complex art of de-
ceiving the enemy decision maker on a grand scale through calculated
manipulation. The British planners persuaded enemy decision makers into
taking action, based upon an altered theater-wide or cross-theater reality,
enabling the deceiver to gain an advantage for their commander.
10
Beginning with General Sir Archibald Wavell in the Middle East in
1940 and encouraged by Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the British
built their military deception capability from the tactical to the strategic
level out of necessity to counter German strength and compensate for
weakness.
11
The air for deception possessed by both leaders dated back
to World War I but with widely diering experiences. General Wavell’s
motivation for deception found its genesis at the tactical level during the
1915 Ypres attack where he was wounded while losing two-thirds of his
brigade due to continuous German artillery re—impressing the need for
new ways of waging war including deception to avoid mass slaughter.
12
Winston Churchill’s roots as a deception proponent was established in
53
1914 at the strategic level as the First Lord of the Admiralty where he
directed creation of a dummy eet to mislead the Germans.
13
Daniel and
Herbig aptly described the British motivation for expanding deception
during World War II: “When outcomes are critical, adversaries are encour-
aged to make use of every capability, every advantage, to insure victory or
stave o defeat.”
14
Leading up to 1943, the British successfully employed deception in
the Middle East and most recently in coordination with the US during
Operation Torch in North Africa. The US and British recognized the need
for continuous deception operations across multiple theaters and agreed to
geographically split responsibilities. The US would be responsible for the
Pacic theater led by the Joint Security Control (JSC) and the British for
the Mediterranean and European theaters led by the London Controlling
Section (LCS)—both organizations would collaborate and synchronize
deception eorts going forward. The Allies would now focus their de-
ception eorts in 1943 on Western Europe to gain a position of relative
advantage over the Germans in the subsequent battles for southern and
eastern Europe.
15
The Strategic Situation and Creation of COSSAC
January 1943 opened with the Allied oensive in North Africa con-
tinuing, the Russians battling the Wehrmacht on a colossal scale on the
Eastern Front, and the British and American forces slowly massing in En-
gland preparing for a future cross-Channel invasion.
16
In January, President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill, and the Combined
Chiefs of Sta attended the Casablanca Conference where they designated
the invasion of Sicily as the year’s priority.
17
Allied leadership discussed
the importance of minimizing the ability of the Germans to reinforce in It-
aly and Russia, as well as a future cross-Channel invasion. The conference
ended with the summary that: “plans should be produced for a return to the
Continent in the event of German weakening or collapse and for deceptive
operations to be conducted during 1943 . . . and it was recognized that the
full-scale, cross-channel attack could not take place before 1944.”
18
The Casablanca Conference required a new headquarters to plan for a
return to the European continent and for deception operations in support of
that objective. Major General Sir Frederick E. Morgan was designated as
the Chief of Sta to lead this new headquarters, pending the appointment
of a Supreme Commander in 1944.
19
The deception guidance issued at
Casablanca later transformed into Operation Starkey, planned and con-
54
ducted by the new headquarters titled Chief of Sta, Supreme Allied Com-
mander (COSSAC).
COSSAC formed in April 1943 as a planning sta with the intent to
transform into an operational command once a Supreme Commander was
designated. Major General Morgan led COSSAC as the Chief of Sta but
did not possess command authority over component commanders, each of
whom were charged with specic missions.
20
Major General Morgan rec-
ognized this weakness and pursued gaining command authority, through
the British Chiefs of Sta, to transform COSSAC’s orders from recom-
mendations into actual directives and eectively arbitrate disagreements
on implementation.
21
As COSSAC formed, Major General Morgan created OPS B, a secre-
tive sta section led by Lieutenant Colonel John J. Read, to plan and car-
ry out deception planning and operations.
22
OPS B collaborated with the
intelligence community and the LCS, led by Colonel John Bevan, which
supported and coordinated the Allied deception eorts across the Euro-
pean and Mediterranean theaters to mislead the German High Command,
Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW), and ultimately Germany’s pri-
mary military decision maker, Adolf Hitler.
23
The LCS passed disinfor-
mation through a British controlled network of double-agents in England
also called “special means,” which was guided by feedback from OKW’s
communications broken by the Ultra signals intelligence (SIGINT). This
close coordination between deception planning, operations, and the intel-
ligence community would pay dividends during deception operations in
1943–44.
24
Starkey on Paper
Military deception plans in World War II consisted of three basic com-
ponents: a mission statement, the deception story, and the means of imple-
mentation. The mission statement described what the commander wanted
the enemy decision maker and target to do, the deception story detailed
what the deception planners wanted the enemy to think was reality, and
the means of implementation (physical, signals, double agents, etc.) were
what the enemy would see to make the story plausible, and ultimately
lead to the deception target taking an action (or series of actions) disad-
vantageous to the enemy and advantageous to the commander. Operation
Starkey included all three components.
25
Cockade was an umbrella plan, with Operation Starkey as the main
eort of three deception operations in 1943.
26
This plan was intended to
accomplish the Chiefs of Sta directive to plan for: “an elaborate cam-
55
ouage and deception scheme extending over the whole summer with a
view to pinning the enemy in the West and keeping alive the expectation of
large-scale cross Channel operations in 1943. This would include at least
one amphibious feint with the object of bringing on an air battle employ-
ing the Metropolitan Royal Air Force and the US 8th Air Force.”
27
Central
to the entire plan was persuading Hitler, the military decision maker and
deception target, and the OKW, who ltered his intelligence, that the Al-
lies would conduct a cross-Channel operation in the summer of 1943. Plan
Cockade would create a story consisting of both real and ctitious means
of implementation leading Hitler to choose to keep forces in Western Eu-
rope as a hedge against this threat while committing the German Air Force
(or Luftwae) to battle—shaping at the strategic level across multiple the-
aters to relieve pressure o the Russians while creating a position of rela-
tive advantage for the invasion of Sicily and Italy.
The rst of Plan Cockade’s three operations was Starkey, consisting of
an actual “amphibious feint to force the Luftwae to engage in intensive
ghting over a period of about 14 days, by building up a threat of an im-
minent large-scale British landing in the Pas de Calais area” culminating
between 8 and 14 September.
28
The second operation, Wadham, persuad-
ed the Germans that a large-scale American invasion of Brittany from both
England and the US would follow Starkey in late September.
29
This opera-
tion, per the deception story, would later be postponed until November and
then cancelled, to better emphasize Starkey to the OKW. The nal opera-
tion, Tindall, would x German forces in Norway by threating an invasion
of Stavanger in mid to late September.
30
This operation would also be
cancelled to support the deception story of an Allied focus on supporting
Starkey and Wadham. Each operation employed ctitious divisions—Star-
key commanded 14 British and Canadian, Wadham ve US, and Tindall
ve Scottish.
31
Starkey was the only operation that employed actual forces
and key to the success of the overall Allied deception plan in 1943.
Operation Starkey was commanded by Air Marshal Sir Traord
Leigh-Mallory, Commander-in-Chief, Fighter Command in coordination
with Major General Ira C. Eaker, Commanding General, US 8th Air Force
along with the Naval and Army commanders designated by the Command-
er-in-Chief Portsmouth and the Commander-in-Chief Home Forces, re-
spectively.
32
Tindall and Wadham were commanded by a combination of
Army, Navy, and Air Force leaders with COSSAC having overall respon-
sibility for Cockade, as the coordinating headquarters.
33
The COSSAC planners chose the Pas de Calais as the target for Star-
key’s amphibious attack—providing the “greatest advantage” to Allied
56
ghters to engage the Luftwae.
34
The Pas de Calais was considered “the
most heavily fortied . . . sector of the whole coast of France” and COS-
SAC determined that “no assault against it could be attempted without
considerable prior bombardment both from the air and from the sea.”
35
The air and sea bombardment was deemed by COSSAC planners as crit-
ical observable means that would provide indications to OKW of an im-
pending attack. COSSAC planned to gradually conduct air, land, and sea
observable means consistent with amphibious preparations to persuade
OKW that the Allies would invade, forcing commitment of the Luftwae
to battle.
The Starkey air plan massed 45 British and 15 American ghter squad-
rons opposite the Pas de Calais supporting the invasion and Luftwae bat-
tle.
36
The plan also gradually diverted air activity, including bombing and
reconnaissance, to the Pas de Calais and secondary to Brittany beginning
on 15 June.
37
Fourteen days prior to the ctitious invasion, the plan di-
verted 3,000 US day heavy bombing missions and the same number of
British night heavy bombing missions to targets that created the pattern of
an impending invasion as the rst critical observable. The heavy bombing
missions were determined by the COSSAC planners to be: “the minimum
amount of aerial activity needed to convince the enemy that a genuine
invasion was in prospect.”
38
This is an example of deceptive res being
employed as observable means to reinforce the deception story.
The naval plan assembled landing craft in the Channel by 1 Septem-
ber and interrupted the coastal convoy program fourteen days prior to the
invasion to: “simulate a concentration of shipping in ports prior to the
launching of a large-scale attack.”
39
The planners determined that mass-
ing 450 landing craft would serve as a second critical observable means
to convince the Germans that the invasion was more than just another
small Dieppe raid, conducted by the Canadians against France in August
1942.
40
The shipping concentration in ports would consist of no less than
130 ships to simulate a break in the convoys.
41
Additional naval actions included British Commando raids portraying
coastal reconnaissance and massing “essential naval escorts and mine-
sweeping otillas along with two ‘R’ Class battleships for bombardment
of long-range German coast artillery in coordination with air attacks.”
42
COSSAC indicated that the presence of the two battleships would act as
“cheese in the mousetrap” to draw the Luftwae into battle and serve as a
third critical observable for the deception plan.
43
The naval invasion forces
would consist of two battleships, 12 destroyers, 29 minesweepers, 59 oth-
er ships, and various landing craft.
44
57
Starkey’s land forces consisted of fourteen ctitious British and Cana-
dian divisions—the fourth and nal critical observable means that would
indicate a future attack.
45
Actual land forces committed amounted to less
than two divisions including the Royal Marine Division, ve commandos,
a parachute brigade, an air-landing brigade, and various smaller Canadi-
an units.
46
COSSAC determined that the available land forces in England
would not be capable of convincing the Germans of an impending inva-
sion, so they devised a plan to mislead the OKW into increasing their
assessment of the Allied Order of Battle.
47
The LCS began preparing for
this requirement in January by feeding disinformation to the Germans
through double-agents such as GARBO, a collection of German spies that
had been turned—either coercively or willingly—by British Military In-
telligence.
48
COSSAC would create two ctitious Army Corps—the VIII
and the XII—consisting of 60,000 non-existent men through observable
means such as false camps and dummy vehicles, unit markings, signals
trac that replicated units, and the LCS eorts.
49
To protect operations
security (OPSEC) the British government would enact strict security mea-
sures in southeastern England beginning on 1 August for six weeks to
portray heightened readiness in preparation for an invasion.
50
Foreshadowing Starkey’s Demise
Deception planning began in January with the LCS and transitioned to
OPS B in April—a critical month for the future of Starkey.
51
On 14 April,
General Morgan met with Major General’s Sir Leslie Hollis, Secretary
to the Chiefs of Sta Committee, and Sir Hastings Ismay, Military Dep-
uty Secretary to the War Cabinet, to discuss preventing command level
conicts due to competing priorities of invasion training, the Combined
Bomber Oensive against Germany, and Allied deception operations—
exacerbated by the lack of a Supreme Commander.
52
The meeting min-
utes
recorded:
Deception plans would be drawn up by COSSAC, but they would
have to be implemented by senior Service commanders who might
be reluctant to give them priority over operational or training re-
quirements. In order to convince those commanders of the impor-
tance of deception he [Hollis] suggested that the situation should
be explained to them at a Chiefs of Sta Conference, perhaps with
the Prime Minister in the Chair.
53
On 17 April, Major General Morgan addressed his sta at the rst
meeting of COSSAC with: “In spite of the fact that it is quite clear that
neither I nor you have by denition any executive authority, my idea is that
58
we shall regard ourselves in the rst instance as primarily a coordinating
body.”
54
Major General Hollis published a letter on 22 April to the Chiefs
of Sta stating: “It is the second phase, namely, the execution of the decep-
tion which is complicated. The executive orders for troops to march and
for troops and aircraft or Air Force personnel to move for deception pur-
poses, must come from the Naval, Army, and Air Commanders-in-Chiefs
concerned.”
55
Later in the same letter, Hollis echoed his 14 April minutes
by proposing a meeting of all Commanders-in-Chiefs, possibly under the
chairmanship of the Prime Minister, to explain that eective deception
may interfere with training and movement of forces.
56
The Chiefs of Sta responded on 27 April and, for unknown reasons,
declined to support a combined Prime Minister and Commanders’ confer-
ence; instead ordered COSSAC to request the commanders cooperate in
the preparation and invite them “to take the necessary executive action”
which would preserve the current chain-of-command.
57
This Allied deci-
sion would begin the demise of Operation Starkey.
On 19 May, Hitler, the deception target, held a Situation Conference
with his generals, a week after the last Axis forces surrendered in North
Africa, and stated that: “Nothing is going to happen in the west; I’m fully
convinced of that. If they want to attack somewhere, then they’ll only
attack in Italy, and in the Balkans, naturally.”
58
This opinion was a stark
change from the past two years focused on Western Europe invasion fears
and would color future German reporting and analysis of Starkey prepara-
tions and ultimately Hitler’s reaction, or lack thereof—all but sealing the
fate of the Allied operation.
The Execution of Operation Starkey
The implementation of Starkey began in May with LCS double-agents
passing calculated disinformation reports as observable means to the Ger-
mans consisting of invasion preparation rumors, large-scale cross-Chan-
nel bomber attacks, observations of oensive troop concentrations, and
government announcements supporting the three deception operations
under Plan Cockade.
59
Also in May, COSSAC determined that the lack of
landing craft was not “sucient to give an air of realism to the invasion
preparations” causing alarm and discussions of abandoning the amphibi-
ous feint, but in the end compensated by the employment of 175 dummy
landing-craft.
60
On 3 June, Operation Starkey was issued as part of Plan Cockade to
the Chiefs of Sta.
61
The date of the invasion was set between the 8th and
59
the 14th of September and timed with Operation Avalanche, the invasion
of Italy.
62
On 7 June, Major General Eaker, Commanding General, US 8th Air
Force sent a memo to Lieutenant General Jacob L. Devers, Commander
European Theater of Operations, US Army (ETOUSA) arguing against
supporting Starkey.
63
Major General Eaker wrote that: “the Combined
Chiefs of Sta have given this Air Force a Directive against industrial tar-
gets” and the diversion of 3,000 heavy bomber missions for 14 days would
force abandonment of the Combined Bomber Oensive.
64
On 10 June, Brigadier General R. W. Barker, the ETOUSA G-5, wrote
to Lieutenant General Devers outlining the US commitments to Cock-
ade and impact on the Combined Bomber Oensive.
65
He wrote that: “It
should be determined which of these two operations take priority, realizing
that if it is Cockade, the Combined Bomber eort is practically suspended
for a period of 14 days, and at the same time realizing if it is not suspend-
ed, Operation Cockade will probably fail to accomplish its objective.”
66
Major General Eaker would get his way and the Combined Bomber Of-
fensive remained the priority. The US 8th Air Force would support Starkey
with only training units and missions diverted due to weather highlighting
the need for COSSAC command authority or a supreme commander to
determine priorities.
67
On 15 June the Allies began shifting bombing and
air reconnaissance to the Pas de Calais and Brittany.
68
Also in June, First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Dudley Pound objected to
the use of the two “R” class battleships and argued that they “should not
be endangered in a fake operation” and could not reduce coastal artillery.
69
He invoked past memories of the loss of two capital ships to Japanese air
attack in December 1941 to reinforce the point that if sunk, the German
victory could impact British morale. Vice-Admiral Lord Louis Mountbat-
ten, Chief of Combined Operations argued that battleships were essential,
and Major General Morgan claimed that the Luftwae would not take the
bait unless included in the invasion force.
70
The battleships were ulti-
mate
ly removed.
On 11 July, the OKW informed Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt,
Commander-in-Chief West (OB West), the Allied focal point on mainland
Europe was in the Mediterranean.
71
Nine days later, von Rundstedt report-
ed that the removal of German formations from Western Europe provide
incentive for an Allied invasion; the Allies have sucient air and naval
forces to invade.
72
60
British Commandos planned 14 raids on the French Channel coast for
July and August called Operation Forfar.
73
Only eight were conducted, and
none were detected by the Germans resulting in no discernable counter-
actions from German decision makers. In mid-August the British institut-
ed OPSEC measures in southern England to portray heightened readiness
levels.
74
The Allies also conducted supply drops to French resistance forc-
es and carefully provided instruction via British Broadcasting Corporation
(BBC) radio to only take action when specically instructed by London,
sparing loss of credibility and lives key to the actual invasion in 1944.
75
On 9 August, COSSAC reported that Starkey was gathering momen-
tum, and by mid-August that the enemy displayed signs of beginning to
react to reconnaissance and bombing activities.
76
On 23 August COSSAC
assessed that German preliminary reactions to Starkey were as great as
could be expected.
77
On 24 August, the Commander-in-Chief, Bomber Command, Air
Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris received the Starkey bombing plan from
the Air Ministry and replied angrily over “receiving peremptory orders”
diverting British bombers and that Fighter Command (overall responsible
for Starkey) assumes “the right to call on Bomber Command aircraft at
will”—highlighting the personality conict between ghter and bomber
community leadership and the need for a supreme commander to arbitrate
and determine priorities.
78
The Vice Chief of the Air Sta pointed out that
Starkey would interfere with the Combined Bomber Oensive which was
the highest priority.
79
Bomber Command would support Starkey with only
training units and Wellington squadrons, and surge up to 200 sorties on the
nal night of the operation.
80
False Invasion
On 25 August, Allied bombing began to increase in the Pas de Calais
and Brittany areas—nearly doubling leading up to 8 September but almost
half of the missions were cancelled due to weather which would contin-
ue to cause challenges.
81
Also, on 25 August COSSAC cancelled Tindall
preparations per the deception story to focus OKW’s attention on Starkey.
Allied landing craft began to mass in points along the Channel in
preparation for the invasion convoy. Weather also disrupted minesweep-
ing operations—only three otillas cleared the passage across the channel
and received a small amount of gunre.
82
Major General Morgan reported
on 2 September to the Chiefs of Sta that weather has disrupted plans for
air and minesweeping operations and given the limited German reaction,
61
recommended cancelling the invasion convoy.
83
The Chiefs of Sta did
not agree and instructed Starkey to continue as planned.
In early September, von Rundstedt’s sta questioned the observed
invasion preparations and whether they are intended to: “entice German
reserves there and to pin them down.”
84
On 5 September, the LCS agent
GARBO passed through his network to the Germans that the invasion
will begin on 8 September.
85
A day later von Rundstedt admitted that: “it
could not be laid down with certainty” that a major attack across the Chan-
nel was imminent; he noted that all necessary measures have been taken
to meet it.
86
On 8 September, GARBO reported that Allied troops were
conducting nal preparations and landing craft were massing.
87
The -
nal preparations and loading were part of Operation Harlequin, an actual
major exercise involving British and Canadian divisions embarking onto
transports to support the deception operation; units disembarked before
the invasion convoy sailed.
88
The morning of 9 September, the invasion began with a convoy of 30
vessels sailing to within 10 miles of the French coast, and then returning
under a smoke screen.
89
A second convoy of landing craft sailed eastward,
replicating a landing force, and then returned three hours later. The Ger-
man defenses on the Pas de Calais were fully alerted but the movement
of the invasion eet was not reported as signicant. Operation Avalanche,
the invasion of Salerno, Italy commenced on 9 September, and most likely
diverted the attention of OKW.
90
Following the return of the convoys, the
Chiefs of Sta issued a general statement to the British media regarding
the invasion preparations and Starkey, describing the event as only an ex-
ercise.
91
GARBO reported to the OKW that troops have disembarked and
“it appears that the operation has been suspended.”
92
Post-operation Analysis
With the completion of Starkey, Air Marshal Sir Traord Leigh-Mal-
lory, who commanded the operation, reported that the air and naval actions
did not produce a physical reaction by the Germans; only the minesweep-
ing provoked a response.
93
He further noted the desired air battle with the
Luftwae never materialized. COSSAC Intelligence reported there was no
evidence of any military defensive moves in France:
On the contrary, the movement of troops from France to Italy had
not been interrupted, and the German forces had not therefore
been pinned down away from the active fronts. Apparently the en-
emy had realized that the Allies were in no position to undertake
62
extensive operations in northwest Europe at the same time as they
were engaged so fully in the south. [emphasis added]
94
German divisions in Western Europe were steadily reduced from 45 in
May to 35 in September.
95
Operation Starkey did not achieve the desired
actions by Hitler and the OKW to keep forces in Western Europe while
drawing the Luftwae into battle—what contributed to this failure?
A plausible theory for Operation Starkey’s failure can be attributed to
two overarching factors—lack of COSSAC’s command authority com-
bined with a vacant Supreme Allied Commander’s position and, more im-
portantly, an entrenched opinion by Adolf Hitler and OKW. Both of these
factors created cascading second and third order eects that would further
diminish chances of deception success.
First, Major General Morgan’s lack of command authority as COS-
SAC and the larger issue of the vacant Supreme Commander’s position
opened the door for internal Allied politics, personality, and prioritiza-
tion conicts amongst the various commanders supporting the deception.
COSSAC was designated only as a planning and coordinating headquar-
ters responsible for Cockade while execution of each deception operation
was delegated to a Commander-in-Chief, but with only the authority to ask
and coordinate with peers; not to task and enforce support. Major General
Morgan acknowledged the Supreme Commander would not be designated
until late 1943 and recognized the challenges resulting from his lack of
command authority early in the planning process. He attempted to address
the issue through the Chiefs of Sta by asking for a meeting with all of
the commanders, potentially chaired by the Prime Minister, to convey the
importance of supporting the deception operation. Major General Morgan
was rebued by the Chiefs of Sta and informed that COSSAC should
“invite them to take action” and the commanders must provide the or-
ders.
96
The lack of an empowered COSSAC led to independent component
commander decisions which on their own were correct but in aggregate
would be detrimental to a unied Allied deception eort.
Command of Operation Starkey was, in name only, given to the Com-
mander-in-Chief Fighter Command and coordinated with Commanding
General US 8th Air Force and the Naval and Army Commanders-in-Chief
respectively—all equals with none given authority to resolve disagree-
ments or determine priorities and each charged with independent missions.
This created friction and prioritization conicts between commanders on
whether to support Operation Starkey, the Combined Bomber Oensive,
individual training eorts, or to protect key naval forces for future op-
63
erations. For example, Major General Eaker, US Commanding General,
8th Air Force identied the conict between supporting Starkey and the
Combined Bomber Oensive and chose to appeal to Lieutenant Gener-
al Devers, senior US commander, instead of through Fighter Command
and COSSAC to resolve—US bombers would remain focused on the
combined oensive knowing the decision would doom Starkey. Similar
conicts emerged with the British bombers and battleship support. Each
of these conicts were addressed by the individual commanders, leaving
COSSAC’s Plan Cockade and the main eort, Operation Starkey, a hollow
plan—reducing critical observable means such as US and British bombing
missions required to build a plausible deception story.
A COSSAC empowered with command authority or designation of a
Supreme Commander would have established unity of command and led
to priority of support decisions for the components to implement—ulti-
mately holding commanders accountable for resourcing the deception op-
eration while ensuring Allied unity of eort. This point was evidenced in
the later Fortitude deception plan issued on 26 February 1944 stating that
the Allied air, naval and land force commanders “will be responsible to
the Supreme Commander for . . . they will also be responsible for making
preparations . . . [and] they will adhere to the broad design of Plan Forti-
tude.”
97
This document was clearly directive in nature and backed by the
authority of the Supreme Commander—the antithesis of COSSAC’s Plan
Cockade and Operation Starkey. Even with an empowered COSSAC en-
suring implementation of critical observables required to build a plausible
story there is no guarantee that Starkey would have achieved its desired
eects—especially if Hitler, the deception target, discounted intelligence
reporting that did not agree with his opinion of future Allied actions.
The second overarching factor contributing to Starkey’s failure was,
unbeknownst to COSSAC, Adolf Hitler and the OKW had changed their
opinion in May that an invasion of Western Europe would not occur in
1943. This predisposition was formed after losing North Africa, and now
faced with predicting the location of the next Allied attack either in Italy,
the Balkans, or Western Europe—Hitler chose Italy and the Balkans.
Given that Operation Starkey was fundamentally an ambiguity-de-
creasing deception, the Allies’ lack of knowledge of Hitler’s opinion and
predisposition in May 1943 proved fatal. The lack of understanding of the
deception target’s bias, tendencies, and predispositions ultimately led to
an operation that was doomed from the start. Daniel and Herbig highlight
that deceivers would have a higher chance of success going with the grain
or predisposition of the decision maker than against—altering predisposi-
64
tions are the exception not the norm. Operation Starkey would most likely
have failed even with a fully supported series of critical observable means
including: an enlarged Order of Battle sucient to conduct an attack, cre-
ating a bombing pattern matching an impending invasion which was an
indicator tracked by OKW in 1944, employing expected naval battleship
bombardment support, and massing enough landing craft to enable an am-
phibious assault in force.
98
One additional factor for consideration was the impact of weather both
in terms of the diversion of Allied eort, and the simultaneous impact it
had on Germany’s ability to detect and report on observables. Over half of
the limited bombing missions conducted in the Pas de Calais and Brittany
areas over 14 days leading up to the “invasion” were cancelled due to
weather. Minesweeping operations across the channel were also limited
in sorties due to weather—resulting in minimal detection and reporting
from the Germans. Weather negatively impacted implementation of these
few observables, reduced ability of the Germans to detect and report, and
likely added to the growing challenge to success.
Given the overall failure, Operation Starkey was successful in set-
ting conditions for the 1944 deception—Operation Fortitude South under
Plan Bodyguard. The COSSAC history notes that Starkey was: “useful
as a rehearsal to improve coordination and support by air, naval, army,
and civil authorities in advance of Overlord.”
99
The means and methods
used by OPS B and LCS in coordination with the intelligence communi-
ty and Ultra were tested for 1944. This included building up the double
agent GARBO network’s credibility with OKW and establishing a proven
channel to Hitler for deception which would be exploited over the com-
ing years.
100
Also the ctitious Allied Order of Battle was increased to 43
divisions in October, according to the OKW assessment, even though the
actual strength was only 17 divisions.
101
In addition to a rehearsal, on 7
September Major General Morgan received executive authority from the
Chiefs of Sta, too late for Operation Starkey, but would allow COSSAC
to become directive with the Fortitude deception planning and implemen-
tation; continuing with General Eisenhower after his arrival in January
1944. These individual successes would ultimately combine and pay divi-
dends during the “shaping” Operation Fortitude that would set conditions
for the “decisive” Operation Overlord and the Allies return to continental
Europe in 1944.
65
Contemporary Lessons for Large-Scale Combat Operations
The 1943 Operation Starkey provides four useful military deception
lessons for contemporary leaders to consider in planning and conducting
future Large-Scale Combat Operations. These insights are: employing
MILDEC increases chances of victory during LSCO; the commander is
key to eectively incorporating into plans and operations; importance of
sta and intelligence community collaboration in understanding the deci-
sion maker’s predispositions to build a plausible deception; and the need
for Services to invest and train in the employment of MILDEC observ-
ables to reinforce future deceptions.
First, employing MILDEC increases chances of victory during Large-
Scale Combat Operations. Historically a nation that does not employ de-
ception will be at a disadvantage against those that do. We can anticipate
our future adversaries will employ deception given historical widespread
use to counter our strength and compensate for weakness. US forces,
barring unforeseen overmatch, will need to employ MILDEC to do the
same to gain a position of relative advantage against a future peer and win
during Large-Scale Combat Operations—it is common sense in warfare.
Second, the commander has a key role in identifying, in the early stag-
es of planning, what he wants the adversary military decision maker to do
that provides a position of relative advantage for decisive operations—the
commander’s deception mission statement. This statement drives incorpo-
ration of deception into the organization’s planning and operations and fo-
cuses subordinate commander’s and sta eorts to prioritize and support.
A commander’s emphasis is key to sta and intelligence collaboration,
resource allocation, and overall deception success—gaining a critical ad-
vantage against a future peer adversary during LSCO.
Third, the sta and intelligence community must collaborate to iden-
tify the military decision maker’s predispositions and then determine how
best to achieve the commander’s deception mission. As evidenced with
Starkey, the deception target’s opinions, biases, and predispositions are
critical and must be illuminated to build a plausible deception story for
implementation. The deception sta’s collaboration with the intelligence
sta and community begin with gaining shared understanding during
initial planning and continues through execution, ensuring feedback and
adjustment to the story over time via observable means, and leading to
accomplishing the deception mission.
66
Finally, there is a need for Services to invest and train in the em-
ployment of MILDEC observables to reinforce deception given utility in
LSCO. The Allies created stas and organizations to conduct deception
operations and create observables such as false camps, dummy vehicles,
ships, and planes, and signals trac replicating ctitious units. These ob-
servables supported deception operations at the tactical level and applied
to larger strategic eorts like Starkey. In the contemporary environment
there is utility in creating observables—physical and virtual—to deceive
adversary collection eorts and support deception. Services should ex-
plore utility of creating observables that can be employed from tactical
to strategic level to deceive future adversaries including their intelligence
collection capabilities and then integrate into training to ensure eective
application in future Large-Scale Combat Operations.
As we look to future LSCO, our motivation for employing deception
should mirror that of the British in 1943: “When outcomes are critical, ad-
versaries are encouraged to make use of every capability, every advantage,
to insure victory or stave o defeat.”
102
Operation Starkey should be rec-
ognized not for its failure but instead for its service as a training opportuni-
ty allowing the deceivers to hone their skills and identify lessons learned.
Operation Starkey failed to achieve its objectives but served as a stepping
stone for the successful Fortitude South deception in 1944 and, more than
70 years later, insights on how to leverage MILDEC to win against a peer
during large-scale combat operations.
67
Notes
1. Michael Howard, Strategic Deception in the Second World War (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 75.
2. Roger Hesketh, Fortitude: The D-Day Deception Campaign (New York:
Overlook Press, 2000), 379.
3. US National War College, Presentation on Measures to Deceive the
Enemy (Bolling Air Force Base: Air Force Historical Studies Oce, 1947), 5;
emphasis added.
4. Department of the Army, Field Manual (FM) 3-0, Operations (Washing-
ton, DC: 2017), 2-28.
5. Department of the Army, Field Manual (FM) 6-0 Change 1, Commander
and Sta Organization and Operations, (Washington, DC: 2015), 11-3.
6. Donald C. Daniel and Katherine L. Herbig, Strategic Military Deception
(New York: Pergamon Press, 1982), 7.
7. Daniel and Herbig, 185.
8. Daniel and Herbig, 185.
9. Nicholas Rankin, Churchill’s Wizards: The British Genius for Deception,
1914–1945, (London: Faber and Faber, 2008), 420; emphasis added.
10. Howard, Strategic Deception in the Second World War, ix.
11. US National War College, Presentation on measures to deceive the
enemy, 1.
12. Nicholas Rankin, Churchill’s Wizards, 50.
13. Rankin, xiii.
14. Daniel and Herbig, Strategic Military Deception, 12.
15. Howard, Strategic Deception in the Second World War, 71.
16. Howard, 61.
17. Nicholas Rankin, Churchill’s Wizards, 373.
18. Historical Subsection, Oce of Secretary, General Sta, Supreme
Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force, History of COSSAC, (Bolling Air
Force Base: Air Force Historical Studies Oce, 1944), 1; emphasis added.
19. Historical Subsection, History of COSSAC, 1.
20. Historical Subsection, History of COSSAC, 6.
21. Howard, Strategic Deception in the Second World War, 74.
22. Hesketh, Fortitude, ix.
23. Howard, Strategic Deception in the Second World War, 72.
24. Hesketh, Fortitude, ix.
25. US National War College, Presentation on measures to deceive the
enemy, 5.
26. Howard, Strategic Deception in the Second World War, 75.
27. Chief of Sta, Supreme Allied Commander, Plan Cockade, (Bolling Air
Force Base: Air Force Historical Studies Oce, 1943) 1; emphasis added.
28. Howard, Strategic Deception in the Second World War, 75.
29. Howard, 75.
30. Howard, 75.
68
31. Howard, 75.
32. Chief of Sta, Supreme Allied Commander, Plan Cockade, 2.
33. Chief of Sta, Supreme Allied Commander, 2.
34. Chief of Sta, Supreme Allied Commander, 6.
35. Chief of Sta, Supreme Allied Commander, 2.
36. Charles Cruickshank, Deception in World War II (Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1979) 62.
37. Chief of Sta, Supreme Allied Commander, Plan Cockade, 3.
38. Cruickshank, Deception in World War II, 62.
39. Chief of Sta, Supreme Allied Commander, Plan Cockade, 3.
40. Cruickshank, Deception in World War II, 68.
41. Chief of Sta, Supreme Allied Commander, Plan Cockade, 3.
42. Chief of Sta, Supreme Allied Commander, 3.
43. Historical Subsection, History of COSSAC, 18.
44. Cruickshank, Deception in World War II, 62.
45. Howard, Strategic Deception in the Second World War, 75.
46. Cruickshank, Deception in World War II, 62.
47. Howard, Strategic Deception in the Second World War, 75.
48. Howard, 75.
49. Cruickshank, Deception in World War II, 62.
50. Chief of Sta, Supreme Allied Commander, Plan Cockade, 3.
51. Hesketh, Fortitude, xvi.
52. Howard, Strategic Deception in the Second World War, 74.
53. Howard, 74.
54. Historical Subsection, History of COSSAC, 2.
55. Howard, Strategic Deception in the Second World War, 74.
56. Howard, 74.
57. Howard, 74.
58. David Kahn, Hitler’s Spies: German Military Intelligence in World War
II (New York: MacMillan Publishing Company, 1978), 480.
59. Howard, Strategic Deception in the Second World War, 77.
60. Historical Subsection, History of COSSAC, 19.
61. Chief of Sta, Supreme Allied Commander, Plan Cockade, 1.
62. Chief of Sta, Supreme Allied Commander, 1.
63. “Ira C. Eaker Letter to Lt Gen Jacob L. Devers, CG ETOUSA concern-
ing Cockade,” Air Force Historical Studies Oce, 1943, 1.
64. “Ira C. Eaker Letter to Lt Gen Jacob L. Devers,” 1.
65. R.W. Barker, US Commitments to Operation Cockade (Bolling Air
Force Base: Air Force Historical Studies Oce, 1943) 1.
66. Barker, US Commitments to Operation Cockade, 2.
67. Cruickshank, Deception in World War II, 63.
68. Chief of Sta, Supreme Allied Commander, Plan Cockade, 3.
69. Cruickshank, Deception in World War II, 62.
70. Cruickshank, 62.
71. Howard, Strategic Deception in the Second World War, 79.
69
72. Howard, 79.
73. Thaddeus Holt, The Deceivers: Allied Military Deception in the Second
World War (New York: Scribner, 2004) 486.
74. Chief of Sta, Supreme Allied Commander, Plan Cockade, 3.
75. Holt, The Deceivers, 97.
76. Historical Subsection, History of COSSAC, 19.
77. Historical Subsection, 19.
78. Cruickshank, Deception in World War II, 63.
79. Historical Subsection, History of COSSAC, 18.
80. Historical Subsection, 18.
81. Historical Subsection, 19.
82. Historical Subsection, 19.
83. Historical Subsection, 19.
84. Howard, Strategic Deception in the Second World War, 80.
85. Howard, 78.
86. Historical Subsection, History of COSSAC, 19.
87. Historical Subsection, 78.
88. Cruickshank, Deception in World War II, 67.
89. Howard, Strategic Deception in the Second World War, 79.
90. Cruickshank, Deception in World War II, 72.
91. Historical Subsection, History of COSSAC, 20.
92. Howard, Strategic Deception in the Second World War, 78.
93. Historical Subsection, History of COSSAC, 21.
94. Historical Subsection, 21.
95. Howard, Strategic Deception in the Second World War, 79.
96. Howard, 74.
97. Hesketh, Fortitude, 379.
98. Kahn, Hitler’s Spies, 498.
99. Historical Subsection, History of COSSAC, 21.
100. Public Record Oce, Garbo: The Spy Who Saved D-Day, (Public
Record Oce Publications, 2000) 146.
101. Howard, Strategic Deception in the Second World War, 76.
102. Daniel and Herbig, Strategic Military Deception, 12.
70
71
Chapter 5
The 1948 War For Palestine: “What Kind of War Was This?”
Sergeant First Class Brandon S. Riley, Michael E. Kitchens,
and Colonel Matthew J. Yandura
In our democracy, where the government is truly an agent of the
popular will, military policy is dependent on public opinion, and
an organization for war will be good or bad as the public is well
informed or badly informed regarding the factors that bear on
the
subject.
1
—General George C. Marshall,
1939 Address to the Washington Historical Society
At its heart . . . the conict has remained the same: a struggle
between the original Palestinian majority of Arabs to retain their
status and land against waves of immigrant Jews laying a claim
to their biblical heritage.
2
—Donald Ne, Author of Fallen Pillars
The question of Palestine, the tiny, seemingly insignicant slice of
land the size of New Jersey that borders three continents, has confounded
experts of international aairs for a 120-plus years and involved no less
than 21 consecutive US presidents. The 1948 War for Palestine occurred
on the heels of World War II—the former claiming approximately 19,900
lives (approximately 13,500 Arab and 6,400 Israeli). The “1948” War for
Palestine actually began on 29 November 1947, with United Nations (UN)
Resolution 181, an act that partitioned Palestine in two. The war ended
on 20 July 1949, with the completion of individual Armistice agreements
among the new state of Israel and the participating Arab nations. In com-
parison to the Second World War, a large-scale conict that claimed 60
million lives, military operations in Palestine seem a relatively modest
aair. After all, World War II was a total war in terms of proportion, par-
ticipants, cost, and global impact. However, as author Efraim Karsh put it,
“If anything, the Palestine War demonstrates that there is more to armed
conict than the size of the armies engaged in combat operations or the
nature of their equipment.”
3
To be sure, the War for Palestine was a large-
scale war—but of a type and myriad complexity that dees single-narra-
tive description.
At once, the War for Palestine was a British proxy war covered in the
ngerprints of Britain’s messy colonial-economic policies. It was an ideo-
72
logical war dened by the Zionist movement seeking a homeland for the
Jews in Palestine. It was a theistic war informed by the Torah and the Bible
that, according to God, “from the Negev wilderness in the south to the
Lebanon mountains in the North, from the Euphrates River in the East to
the Mediterranean Sea,” it was promised to the descendants of Abraham.
4
It was an aspirational war for European Jewry seeking a land of their own
after Nazi Germany and their collaborators murdered six million Europe-
an Jews as part of a systematic plan of genocide—the Holocaust. For Arab
League states it was a war of national self-interest deceptively cloaked
under a banner of pan-Arabism. For devout Muslims committed to the
defense of the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem it was a holy war. When the
UN declared Israel a state on 29 November 1947 at the expense of the Pal-
estinians who had been the majority for the previous 500 years, it became
a civil war. This was also an information war of competing historic, politi-
cal, social, and religious narratives and propaganda. And last but not least,
the War for Palestine was a large-scale land war fought on the ground by
conventional and unconventional combatants.
5
Given such circumstances,
how could any military ocer involved in such a conict possibly un-
derstand the situation? Such was the state of aairs following the Battle
of Der Suneid in Palestine on 19 May 1947, that a canny Egyptian major
named Gamal Abdel Nasser remarked “What kind of war was this?”
6
When the ground war began in November 1947, six Arab Nations
committed a token force of approximately 20,000 largely symbolic Arab
troops to the “frontier” of Palestine with initial Jewish forces (regular and
irregular) numbering roughly 55,000.
7
As a combined force they were
poorly trained and equipped, lacked eective command and control, and
lacked unity of eort. While the combined domestic populations of the six
Arab countries near Palestine far outnumbered the sizeable Jewish Com-
munity now living in Palestine, the Arabs never mobilized and massed
their available military strength for war in Palestine like the Jews. But
why? Some scholars have suggested the Arab leaders cared less for the
Palestinians themselves and were more interested in their own territorial
ambitions. A 2010 New York Times Op-Ed by Professor Efraim Karsh of
King’s College of London stated:
The rst secretary-general of the Arab League, Abdel Rahman Az-
zam, once admitted to a British reporter, the goal of King Abdul-
lah of Transjordan “was to swallow up the central hill regions of
Palestine, with access to the Mediterranean at Gaza.” The Egyp-
tians would get the Negev. Galilee would go to Syria, except that
the coastal part as far as Acre would be added to the Lebanon.
8
73
During the course of the war Israel gained statehood via UN Resolu-
tion 181. Israel’s “right of return” immigration law facilitated a signi-
cant inux of fresh military-age citizens, with priority given to those with
combat training or experience from WWII. The Arabs never came close to
matching Israel in terms of troop strength even when factoring in irregular
forces of both sides. At its peak, approximate total number of combatants
for each side were 17,500 Jewish ghters and 51,100 Arab.
9
Sixty-nine
years later, the question of Palestine has not been resolved.
From the literature review, the majority of the available English-lan-
guage scholarship on the 1948 War for Palestine concentrates on precipi-
tating social-political-religious factors and major military oensives. Less
N
Syria
Mediterranean Sea
Izra
Trans-Jordan
Lebanon
Egypt
Palestine
Nawa
Tiberias
Tyre
Dera
Amman
Haifa
Tel Aviv
Nazareth
Hebron
Gaza
Beersheba
Rafah
Ma’an
Aqaba
El Arish
Petra
0 10 20 30 40 Miles
Majority Report from
UN Resolution 181
1947
Arab State/Palestine
Jewish State/Israel
Corpus Separatum/Jerusalem
River
Wadi
Gulf of
Aqaba
Bethelem
Jerusalem
Sea of
Galilee
Dead
Sea
Figure 5.1. Majority report from United Nations Resolution 181.
Map created by Army University Press.
74
represented in the available literature is scholarship dedicated to under-
standing the role of information in this conict. This chapter contributes to
the existing scholarship by exploring information as a function of national
power and military warfare as seen by: (1) a sampling of the war’s master
narratives, and (2) a selection of the information products and programs
used to inuence public behavior and opinion. Call-out boxes throughout
this chapter identify lessons learned to assist US military leaders in future
Large-Scale Combat Operations (LSCO) of similar complexity.
Master Narratives of The 1948 Palestine War
Halverson, Goodall, and Corman dene a master narrative as “A
trans-historical narrative that is deeply embedded in a particular culture.”
10
The War for Palestine was shaped, in part, by master narratives. These
stories of strategic importance were crafted and employed by both sides
and were used to rally key publics at home and abroad, foster unity-of-
eort, dierentiate friends from foes, and so on. But why should narratives
matter to military leaders responsible for prosecuting ground wars of large
scale? In his paper titled “The Military Application of Narrative: Solving
Army Warghting Challenge #2,” published in 2016, Major Robert Payne
III suggests, “The US Army has a problem. This problem is made evident
by 14 years of sustained combat and no victory in sight. The problem is
that the Army lacks any signicant means of engaging its enemy where
the enemy is ghting, namely, in the narrative space.”
11
He further states,
“The narrative space has always existed within warfare. The dierence to-
day is that western societies are adamantly opposed to the violence caused
by war since WWII and in representative governments the passion of the
people impact the conduct of the war.”
12
The following section will sample key master narratives put forth by
the Zionists and the Arabs in the War for Palestine while highlighting les-
sons learned for military leaders in LSCO.
At the beginning of this chapter, Major Nasser of Egypt was quoted as
asking “What kind of war was this?” The Zionist leaders and politicians
sought to answer such a question using master narrative language to play
on Jewish emotions, hopes, dreams, and fears. The concept of “total war”
and the perception of the Palestinian “home front as a war front” were
major elements of the Zionist narrative for the 1948 War.
13
While con-
ventional military scholars would agree that the war for Palestine does
not constitute a “Total War,” Zionists relied on such language for military
75
mobilization. Author Moshe Naor describes how key Jewish leaders mis-
represented the War for Palestine:
The political leaders who served this function were David
Ben-Gurion—the head of the Jewish Agency executive, and after
May 1948 the rst prime minister and minister of defense of the
State of Israel—and Eliezer Kaplan—the treasurer of the Jewish
Agency and the rst nance minister of the State of Israel—who
repeatedly used the concept of “total war” and the perception of
the home front as a war front. Ben-Gurion and Kaplan expressed
in the course of the war the importance that they, as the political
leadership, ascribed to the mobilization of society and the sup-
port of society in the war eort. Ben-Gurion and Kaplan strove
to stress as part of their mobilization rhetoric that the home front
and the economy were an additional front in the war, and that the
home front was no less important than the military front. Thus,
on 13 November 1948, Ben-Gurion explained that: “this year we
stood confronted by a total war. Everything was harnessed and
mobilized on behalf of the requisites of the war—manpower, arms,
capital, knowledge; because everything stood in jeopardy.”
14
In the beginning of the conict, the Arab master narrative was based
on notions of Pan-Arab strength and unity. The language evoked exagger-
ated notions of capability and intent. This narrative functioned as a strate-
gic deterrent-of-sorts through the idea of the inevitability of Arab victory
in any confrontation. As the actual conduct of the War for Palestine turned
sharply in favor of the Jews, the Arab narrative changed to reect a blame-
and-shame posture. This version of the Arab master narrative evoked be-
trayal by the British who reneged on the McMahon-Hussein agreement
and abandoned their mandate in Palestine. The Arabs cast the UN in a
shameful light for their decision to create the state of Israel. The blame-
and-shame narrative was a face-saving measure to cover the string of Arab
military defeats by Jewish forces. The Pan-Arab narrative explains why at
the outset of skirmishes in 1947 the Arab military actions were largely de-
fensive in nature. Their primary purpose early on was to protect local Pal-
estinians and Arab military personnel from the actions both from the Jew’s
conventional pre-state Army and Haganah irregular Jewish forces. Early
on, the average Arab soldier and ocer had every reason to be optimistic.
76
This passage from Major Gamal Nasser captures well the sentiment of the
Egyptian soldier and state in April 1948:
I myself was engaged in completing my studies at the Sta College.
But the worries and responsibilities of my work at the College could
not shut out the sound of the war-drums in Palestine. There was a
great deal of excitement among my colleagues and the morale, es-
pecially among the younger ocers, was high. . . . The morning
papers were full of news of what was happening in Palestine. At the
same time there were various forecasts and conicting reports as to
the ocial stand that the Egyptian government might take on the
subject. There was no specic indication in the papers as to what
this stand might be. But it was beginning to appear that there was a
possibility of our entering the Palestine war, and the general atmo
-
sphere in the country was overowing with excitement.
15
The optimism of the Egyptians was based on a false premise. Through
government control of their national media, Egypt and other Arab League
states attempted to conceal the military defeats that had occurred through-
out the conict and later polling suggest that 79 percent of the Egyptian
population believed Egypt had won the war.
16
From the sample analysis
of master narratives of the warring factions, one can see that the Israelis
and the Arabs had dierent and often conicting versions of actual events.
History shows that “memory becomes shorter, patience diminishes, and
propaganda competes successfully with historical knowledge.”
17
LSCO Lesson Learned #1
Identify the Master Narratives in play. Ensure you and
your staff understand the crucial role they can play in
achieving political and military objectives in LSCO.
Figure 5.2. Large-Scale Combat Operations Lesson Learned #1. Created by Army
University Press.
77
Figure 5.3. “Balfour Declaration” letter from Sir Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild.
Photo courtesy of the British Library.
78
Weaponizing Information: Key Documents and Radio in the
British Mandate
The 1948 War for Palestine was informed and inuenced by a range
of strategic and operational information products—propaganda to some.
Information Operations (IO) played a critical role in this war. This section
will focus on a sample of key documents and radio programs in the former
British Mandate to show how information was weaponized to meet Brit-
ish, Zionist, and Arab goals.
On 2 November 1917, British Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour sent
a letter to Lord Walter Rothschild, a wealthy British-Jewish banker and
nancier of the Jewish cause. The letter (Balfour Declaration) had no legal
binding but conveyed a message to the Zionist movement on behalf of the
British government. It was this letter that allowed the Zionist campaign
to claim that it was not just their hope and need for a Jewish state; now
publically Britain supported their goal.
The impact of this state-sponsored document had a strategic eect on
the League of Nations. On 24 July 1922, the Council of the League of Na-
tions formalized the British government’s role in Palestine. The preamble
stated the Principal Allied Powers agreed with the Balfour Declaration,
and that the British Mandate was responsible for putting into eect what
has become known as the Balfour Declaration of 1917. Article 2 echoed
the preamble and also required that the Mandatory: “be responsible for
placing the country under such political, administrative and economic
conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home
. . . and the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safe-
guarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine,
irrespective of race and religion.”
18
The formal Mandate gave Britain responsibility in seven areas. Article
3 gave instructions ensuring Jews would maintain a place to migrate to and
establish a national home. Article 5, limited the ability of a foreign gov-
ernment to take control; Articles 9, 13-16, aimed to ensure religious rights
and holy sites of all faiths were not restricted. Absent from the Mandate
was guidance to how the Arabs of Palestine should be treated or guaran-
teed a national home of their own. The British Mandate of Palestine was a
key moment for Jews and Arabs.
Nostalgia among the greater Jewish diaspora to return to its biblical
home had existed for ages. Hence, the Balfour Declaration was a form of
Strategic Information Operation made manifest. The Zionist-led cause for
a Jewish homeland had found a patron in the world’s leading power—
79
Britain. Thus the Balfour Declaration and subsequent policy action by the
League of Nations in 1922 gave formal impetus and motivation for the
creation of an Israeli state in Palestine. More important, this statement on
behalf of the British government served as a successful propaganda tool
in getting Jewish people from around the world to resettle, legally and
illegally, in Palestine. The proof is in the numbers: the Jewish population
was 70,000 in 1917 and 750,000 in 1948.
19
Statements on both Arab and Jewish sides were used to inuence their
publics toward or away from conict. On 11 October 1947, Abdel Rahman
Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League, gave an interview
in the Egyptian Arabic daily newspaper Akhbar al-Yom. His translated
statement from the interview reads, in part: “I personally wish that the
Jews would not work hard to push us to that war, because it will be a
genocidal war which will cause great destruction and a lot of killing. His-
tory will record it like the killing that occurred during the Tatar times and
the crusades.
”
20
Azzam was seeking to de-escalate notions of war by emphasizing its
terrible cost—this was clear in the original Arabic version. Azzam’s quote
was rst modied and distributed by Zionist proponents and Jewish sup-
porters in the press to resemble the following quote: “History will record
it like the killing that occurred during the Tatar times and the crusades. . . .
I am concerned about the coming bloody war. I can see its horrible battles;
I can imagine a lot of ghting, killing, and wounded.”
21
In early 1948, the Jewish Agency submitted a memorandum to the UN
Palestine Commission that signicantly changed General Azzam’s quote in
meaning and context. Their submission to the UN quoted Azzam as saying:
“This,” he said, “will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre
which will be spoken of like the Mongol massacres and the Crusades.”
22
LSCO Lesson Learned #2
Know the political terrain. Strategic public
correspondence, declarations, speeches, etc., can have
operational and tactical implications for the Warfighter.
To avoid operational surprise, stay informed about them.
Figure 5.4. Large-Scale Combat Operations Lesson Learned #2. Created by Army
University Press
.
80
Azzam’s quote was purposefully changed to discredit the Arabs and
generate support of the Zionist call for a UN decision favorable to the Jew-
ish people. What Azzam actually said was now irrelevant as the truth and
what some believed was the truth became blurred. This sigular informa-
tional eect propogated by the Jewish Agency had succeeded in damaging
the credibility of Azzam and the intentions of the Arabs with a few strokes
of the editor’s pen. This disinformation eort, that presented a false ac-
count of history, has had a lasting impact: Google lists 395 books that
include Azzam’s altered quote excerpt and another approximately 13,000
websites that refer to it.
23
The doctored quote became the perceived truth over time. The two
changes referenced above show how a non-state actor like the Jewish
Agency, using the power of information, can decisively change percep-
tions simply through the manipulation and usurpation of a rival narrative.
In eect, the Jewish Agency was successful in garnering sympathy for the
Jewish people and painting the Arab League as bloody-minded dervishes,
but at the expense of the facts at the time.
Clandestine and National Radio Inuences the Population
Though print news media was king in the early 20th Century, the 1920s
saw a rise in amateur and private radio stations. “Technical advancements
and an increased awareness of the ‘power of radio’ to reach and inuence
people had turned governments around the world into eager players, ready
to transform broadcasting into a vehicle for serving state objectives.”
24
When the British government began its plans to start a state-sponsored
radio service in its Palestinian mandate, they revoked local licenses and in
turn removed competition to their own “Palestine Broadcasting Service.”
LSCO Lesson Learned #3
Truth and deception are powerful weapons in war. Truth
can be rendered irrelevant by ones’ adversaries. Leaders
at all levels should be thoughtful and judicious in the use
of deception: for every deception, there are costs to
maintain it.
Figure 5.5. Large-Scale Combat Operations Lessons Learned #3. Created by
Army University Press
.
81
With dominance of the local airwaves in mind, the British established
the Palestinian Broadcasting Service (PBS) on 30 March 1936. PBS was
headquartered in Jerusalem with the main transmitter in Ramallah. Other
PBS transmitters were established at key locations areas across Palestine.
In response to this restriction, the Zionist movement made great eorts
to establish and produce its own clandestine radio operations. Lawrence
Soley, Communications Professor at Marquette University, dened clan-
destine radio operations thus: “Illegal political stations that advocate civ-
il war, revolution, or rebellion and provide misleading information as to
their sponsorship, transmitter location, or raison dêtre.”
25
During World
War II, the potential of radio and radio operations during warfare had been
fully realized. Just as it had in the Second World War, Radio operations
would become a key feature of the War for Palestine.
For Arab League nations like Egypt, national radio outlets were weap-
ons of informational power to be wielded in the battle for public opinion
preceding, during, and after during large-scale combat operations. Such
information operations targeted Egypt’s enemies as well as its own citizens
with the truth frequently being misrepresented to suit Egyptian national
objectives. The below excerpt from memoirs of Gamal Abdel Nasser, then
a major in the Egyptian Army and deployed to Palestine, underscores
this
point:
I followed the developments of the battle of Deir Suneid from
my position in Gaza, minute by minute. I could hear the boom of
the guns in the distance. Our wounded started arriving in batches
at Gaza Hospital. That night, the night of May 19, was the worst
in my life. I spent it at Gaza Military Hospital. The beds around
me were lled with our wounded from the battle of Deir Suneid,
which was still in progress. Meanwhile Cairo Radio was announc-
ing an ocial communique issued by General H.Q. [headquar-
ters] in which our forces were said to have occupied Deir Suneid,
which our infantry had stormed in a splendid manner. The com-
munique contained a painful lie, for our forces had not yet occu-
pied the settlement, though it was true that our infantry had carried
out a splendid attack.
26
When it became clear that the UN would recognize Israeli statehood
sometime in 1948, the British began retrograde operations from their
Mandate. The British plan for administrative continuity and uninterrupted
service of PBS fell apart as British forces departed the country leaving
powerful radio production and dissemination capability in the hands of the
82
two warring factions—Jews on one side and Arabs on the other. Regarding
the fate of PBS following British retrograde:
The station’s footprint remained: the buildings and transmitter were
still there and continued to broadcast on the same frequency, but the
station’s name, identity, and personnel changed. Physically, the sta
-
tion split: the broadcasting house, located in West Jerusalem, ended
up in Israeli hands; the Ramallah transmitter, which had been taken
by the Arab Legion, came under Jordanian control.
27
The Haganah, and the stream of legal and illegal Jewish immigrants
coming into Palestine, quickly assimilated this additional radio capability
into their existing radio arsenal to further their objectives and to counter the
relative advantage of neighboring Arab states national radio capabilities.
Under the British Mandate period from 1922–1948, unauthorized ra-
dio transmissions resulted in nes and punishment(s). Clandestine radio
stations of both Arabs and Israelis had to be mobile and moved without
notice. “Haganah Radio was the most extensive and well-organized of the
Jewish clandestine radio services.”
28
The utility of radio operation in Palestine in the War for Palestine was
also tactically expedient. In 1947, approximately 60 percent of Arabs in
Palestine were illiterate.
29
Radio was an ideal way to quickly reach a mass
audience. The Haganah also understood what motivated their Arab en-
emies: “Arabs . . . are highly conscious politically . . . and are greatly
swayed by editorials.”
30
The Haganah took advantage of this:
To this end, one tactic they used was to start a nightly Arabic news
broadcast at 8:45 p.m. The broadcast covered “information” about
individual Arab leaders, their “cor
ruption,” and “facts” about their
embezzlement of public funds. The station would broadcast warn
-
LSCO Lesson Learned #4
In LSCO, prioritize information operations early. Whoever
achieves and maintains relative information advantage
over their opponent gains a significant asymmetric edge.
Figure 5.6. Large-Scale Combat Operations Lesson Learned #4. Created by Army
University Press.
83
ings to individual Arabs (some of whom took these warnings very
seriously and escaped to Egypt), and gave “inside information” on
the situation “behind the Arab lines”—all designed to facilitate the
ultimate achievement of Zionist objectives in the War.
31
Figures 5.7 and 5.8 illustrate the extensive major radio and print pro-
grams in Palestine along with their attributable sources.
Figure 5.7. Survey of Major Radio Programs in Palestine 1948–1950. Created by
Army University Press.
32
Name Est. Owned Policy Circulation Significance/Audience
Palestine
Broadcasting
Service
1936–48 Mandate
103,090
sets in
Palestine
Sets were subsidized; Listening
licenses were $4 a year; Primary
source for news, opinion, cultural
influence approved by the British
Mandate; Broadcast in English,
Arabic, and Hebrew.
BBC
British
entertainment
Clear reception was attainable in
Palestine.
JCPA
British
Military Relayed
BBC news.
Near East
Broadcasting
Corporation
British
Foreign
Office Anti-Jewish
Composed of local Arabs
(educated in Beirut); 1–2
Egyptians; Broadcast in Arabic.
Voice of the
Revolution
Palestinian
Arab
These radio
stations operated
with the intent to
achieve their
supporters’
organizational
goals and vision
through the use
of radio.
All listed radio stations other than PBS, JCPA,
NEABC operated as clande
stine radio stations.
Voice of Palestine
Palestinian
Arab
Al-Inqaz
Radio/New Arab
“Secret” Radio
Arab
Liberation
Army
Azerbaijan
Democratic
Station
Azerbaijan
Democratic
Party Tudeh
Party
Haganah
Radio/Voice of
Israel/Voice of
Galilee
Haganah
Army
Voice of the
Jewish
Spearhead/Radio
of Fighters for the
Freedom of Israel
Stem Gang
(LEHI)
Voice of Fighting
Zion/Voice of
Freedom Irgun
Station of Arabic
Priso
ners of War Israeli Army
Free Jewish
Station
General
Zionist
Council
84
Figure 5.8. Survey of Major Print Programs in Palestine 1909–1950. Created by
Army University Press.
33
Name Est. Owned Policy Circulation Significance/Audience
Haheruth 1908–18 Hebrew 1st Palestinian Hebrew Daily
Moriah 1909–18 Hebrew
Falastin 1911 Christian Nationalist ̴ 20,000 Muslim and Christian Arabs
Haaretz 1918 Hebrew Pro-Zionist ̴ 17,000 in 1940,
Increased post-
WW II
Liberal
Official
Gazette
1919 Mandate Pro-British Published legal, municipal, and
civil service notices; Weekly
government publication.
Davar 1925 Hebrew Soc
ialist/
Labor
̴ 32,000;
-̴ 35,000
TA: Co-op, women, and male
working population.
Ad Difa’a 1932 Muslim Nationalist >10,000; ̴ 1,000 Muslim and Christian Arabs.
The Palestine
Post
1925,
1932
Jewish Pro-Zion Now The Jerusalem Post;
English, main story on the right
side in an “American Style;”
Opposed British immigration
restriction.
Palestine
Illustrated
News
1933 Jewish English, main story on the right in
a “Britis
h Style.”
Haboker 1935 Hebrew Right-Wing down to ̴ 13,500
by 1950
Two signers of Israeli Declaration
of Independence.
Esh-Shaab Muslim Muslim, backed by Mussa El
Alami (politician).
Al Wahdah Muslim Muslim, ed. Ishak Husseini (uncle
al-Husayni).
Various Hebrew daily papers: A revisionist, liberal farmer, two religious specific, and a German daily
paper for recent immigrants (Hebrew and German).
Immigrant
Specific
Two
German daily papers for those that did not learn Hebrew.
Gazetta
Polska
Refugee TA: Polish
refugees
Published by Polish refugees
who stayed after WW II.
London
Communist
Daily Worker
Communist Russian paper banned by the
Mandate government.
Forum
(English)
Early years of
WW II
Public
Information
Office
Pro-British Palestine Broadcast Service and
BBC programs; Literary,
Informational, and Poetry.
Hagalgal
(Hebr
ew)
Pro-British
Al Kafila
(Arabic)
Pro-British
85
Conclusion
In conclusion, the 1948 War for Palestine remains a fascinating aca-
demic subject with a complexity that belies its modest size and duration.
It also gives insight to the political realism of the day. For those ground
combat professionals seeking insights from historic LSCO, the War for
Palestine oers maneuver commanders and stas a useful framework for
understanding and employing information operations. Three critical im-
plications for the warghter are presented here.
First, informational power is power as seen in the examples of the
establishment of the Zionist movement in 1897, the Balfour Declaration
in 1917, and the UN Resolution 181 in 1947. Given this perspective, one
could deduce that the War for Palestine was a logical extension of these
three informational eorts. In such a war as this, how could any ground
commander fully appreciate the battleeld conditions without the context
of the Zionist movement’s objectives, the purpose of the Balfour Dec-
laration, or the implications of UN resolution 181? This is a teachable
moment for the modern day Army ocer: if the purpose of war is to make
conditions for a lasting peace, one must understand the pre-existing
historic, informational, anthropologic, and political factors bearing on
the military problem.
The second critical implication of this study contends that information
operations are a component of combined arms operations. This point is
illustrated in the example of the Jewish Agency and how it successfully
corrupted and usurped Abdel Rahman Azzam Pasha’s words, and subse-
quently, the Arab League’s narrative. Doctrinal terms matter here. Joint
Publication 3-0 denes an operation as “a sequence of tactical actions with
a common purpose or unifying theme.”
34
Joint Publication 3-13 denes
Information Operations as: “The integrated employment, during military
operations, of information-related capabilities in concert with other lines
of operation to inuence, disrupt, corrupt, or usurp the decision-making of
adversaries and potential adversaries while protecting our own.”
35
The Jewish Agency had a clear end-state in mind: to assist in securing
a future Jewish state by encouraging Jews throughout the world to help in
the development and settlement of Israel. The literature suggests the Jew-
ish Agency’s task and purpose was to exploit their political connections,
resources, and access to print and radio media to disseminate a false narra-
tive attributed to Azzam Pasha and the Arab League. The eectiveness of
the Jewish Agency’s political information operations highlights the power
that civil-society organizations can have on the context, conduct, and mo-
86
tive of and for armed conict. In this case, the Jewish Agency successfully
discredited Azzam Pasha and the Arab league in a masterstroke of planned
propaganda. So compelling was the Jewish Agency’s propaganda cam-
paign in 1948, that as of 2018, 395 books and 13,000 websites quote the
altered Jewish Agency language given to the UN and attributed to Azzam
Pasha as fact. While the Jewish Agency was successful in their eorts, this
“tactical” action serves as a cautionary tale of the strategic impacts of tac-
tical deception operations. It further underscores the need for LSCO to be
guided and informed by a higher deception plan that considers long-term
consequences of deception operations.
The third and nal implication of this study maintains that maneuver
in the information environment is maneuver as evidenced by Arab and
the Israeli Forces’ extensive print and radio operations. Joint Publication
3-0 Operations states that maneuver is “the employment of forces in the
operational area through movement in combination with res to achieve a
position of advantage in respect to the enemy.”
36
Consider the two illustra-
tions of major print and radio programs included in this study. That such
a relatively minor war could have been dened by such a contested infor-
mation environment is staggering when one considers what this means for
contemporary armed conict. In 1948, both sides vied for advantage of the
information terrain via information operations. Both sides used informa-
tion operations to generate combat power by synchronizing available in-
formation capabilities. Today, with the internet-of-things, mobile wireless
devices, instantaneous self-publishing software, drones, articial intelli-
gence programs, micro-satellite deployment, and big data operations, the
information environment has become exponentially more complicated.
Planning, coordinating, and synchronizing operations in the information
environment requires more than a Ranger Tab. IO requires committed in-
telligence support, a detailed appreciation of how human beings interact
within the information environment and with another; it calls for knowl-
edge of the full range and application of available information-related ca-
pabilities (IRCs); it also calls for uency in the operations process in order
to turn the raw potential of informational power into combat power. It is
likely that the next LCSO involving American troops will be every bit as
complex as the 1948 War for Palestine. Regardless of the type of war it is,
it will include, and quite possibly be dened by, a highly-contested battle
for the information environment as it was in the case of Palestine in 1948.
37
87
Notes
1. George Catlett Marshall, “The Time Factor: September 1–December
31, 1939,” in The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, We Cannot Delay, 1 July
1939–6 December 1941, eds. Clarence E. Wunderlin, Sharon R. Ritenour, and
Larry I. Bland, Vol. 2. (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1986), 123.
2. Donald Ne, “Preface: The Six Pillars of U.S. Policy, 1897–1995,” in
Fallen Pillars: U.S. Policy towards Palestine and Israel since 1945, ed. Eric
Hoogland. (Washington, DC: Institute for Palestine Studies, 2002), 1–2.
3. Efraim Karsh, “Perpetuating the Arab-Israeli Conict,” in The Arab-
Israeli Conict: The Palestine War 1948, ed. Robert O’Neill, (Oxford: Osprey,
2002), 87.
4. “Possessing the Land” in Holy Bible: New Living Translation, 3rd ed.,
(Tyndale House Publishers, 2007), 336.
5. “Timeline of Events: After 1945,” United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum, accessed 24 April 2018, https://www.ushmm.org/learn/timeline-of-
events/after-1945.
6. Gamal Abdel Nasser, “Nasser’s Memoirs of the First Palestine War,”
translated by Walid Khalidi. Journal of Palestine Studies 2, no. 2, Winter 1973,
12.
7. Central Intelligence Agency, “The Palestine Situation 1948,” 1–3,
accessed 14 April 2018, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-
rdp67-00059a000200200011-5.
8. Efraim Karsh, “The Palestinians, Alone,” Editorial, New York Times
(London), 1 August 2010, accessed 10 March 2018, https://www.nytimes.
com/2010/08/02/opinion/02karsh.html.
9. Avi Shlaim, “Israel and the Arab Coalition in 1948,” in War for Palestine:
Rewriting the History of 1948, eds. Avi Shlaim and Eugene L. Rogan. (Cam-
bridge, United Kingdom, Cambridge University Press, 2007), 79–103; Central
Intelligence Agency, “The Palestine Situation 1948.”
10. Jery R. Halverson, Steven R. Corman, and H.L Goodall Jr., “What Is
a Master Narrative?” in Master Narratives of Islamist Extremism (Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 14.
11. Robert D. Payne III, “The Military Application of Narrative: Solving
Army Warghting Challenge #2,” technical paper no. AD1020344, US Army
Command and General Sta College, 2016, accessed 23 April 2016, http://www.
dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/1020344.pdf, iv.
12. Payne, “The Military Application of Narrative.”
13. Moshe Naor, “Israel’s 1948 War of Independence as a Total War,” Jour-
nal of Contemporary History 43, no. 2, 1 April 2008, 242.
14. Moshe, “Israel’s 1948 War of Independence as a Total War.”
15. Nasser, “Nasser’s Memoirs of the First Palestine War.”
88
16. Yoav Gelber, “Israel Studies an Anthology: The Israeli-Arab War of
1948,” Jewish Virtual Library: A Project of AICE, July 2009, accessed 4 May
2018, http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/isdf/text/gelber.pdf.
17. Gelber, “Israel Studies an Anthology.”
18. Lillian Goldman Law Library, “The Avalon Project: The Palestine
Mandate,” The Avalon Project: The Palestine Mandate, 2008, accessed 27 March
2018, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/ 20th_century/palmanda.asp.
19. Leslie John Martin, “Press and Radio in Palestine under the British
Mandate,” Journalism Bulletin 26, no. 2, 1949, 186.
20. David Barnett and Efraim Karsh, “Azzam’s Genocidal Threat,” Middle
East Forum, 1 September 2011, accessed 15 May 2018, https://www.meforum.
org/articles/2011/azzam-s-genocidal-threat. Original newspaper article was
translated by a Command and General Sta College student and foreign ocer.
21. Barnett, “Azzam’s Genocidal Threat.”
22. Jewish Agency for Palestine, Memorandum on Acts of Arab Aggression
to Alter by Force the Settlement on the Future Government of Palestine Ap-
proved by the General Assembly of the United Nations: Submitted to the United
Nations Palestine Commission, Jewish Agency for Palestine, 1948, 3, accessed
27 March 2018, https://archive.org/stream/ MemorandumOnActsOfArabAg-
gressionSubmittedToTheUnitedNationsPalestine/ MAAA2#page/n19/mode/2up/
search/Pasha.
23. Tom Segev, “The Makings of History: The Blind Misleading the Blind,”
Haaretz.com, 11 January 2018, accessed 27 March 2018, https://www.haaretz.
com/1.5201895.
24. Andrea Stanton, “Jerusalem Calling: The Birth of the Palestine Broad-
casting Service,” Jerusalem Quarterly 26, no. 50, 2012; The Institute for
Palestine Studies, accessed 5 April 2018, http:// www.palestine-studies.org/jq/
fulltext/78483.
25. Lawrence C. Soley, Radio Warfare: OSS and CIA Subversive Propagan-
da. (New York: Praeger, 1987), 2.
26. Nasser, “Nasser’s Memoirs of the First Palestine War.”
27. Stanton, “Conclusion: The Multiple Afterlives of PBS.”
28. Douglas A. Boyd, “Hebrew-Language Clandestine Radio Broadcasting
During the British Palestine Mandate,” Journal of Radio Studies 6, no. 1, 1999,
102.
29. Martin, “Press and Radio in Palestine,” 187.
30. Martin, 192.
31. Martin, 192.
32. Lawrence C. Soley and John S. Nichols, Clandestine Radio Broadcast-
ing: A Study of Revolutionary and Counterrevolutionary Electronic Communi-
cation (New York: Praeger, 1987), 320; Martin, “Press and Radio in Palestine
under the British Mandate;” Douglas A. Boyd, “Hebrew-Language Clandestine
Radio Broadcasting During the British Palestine Mandate,” Journal of Radio
Studies 6, no. 1, 1999, 102.
33. Martin, “Press and Radio in Palestine,” 186.
89
34. Joint Chiefs of Sta, Joint Publication (JP) 3-0, Joint Personal Support
(Washington, DC: 2017), GL-13.
35. Joint Chiefs of Sta, Joint Publication (JP) 3-13, Information Opera-
tions (Washington, DC: 2012 w/ Chg 1 2014), GL-3.
36. Joint Chiefs of Sta, Joint Publication (JP) 3-03, Operations (Washing-
ton, DC: 2012), GL-12.
37. Major H.O. Lock, “Contents,” in The Conquerors of Palestine through
Forty Centuries, ed. V. London: R. Scott, 1920, accessed 14 March 2018,
https://archive.org/details/; Chaim Weizmann, Trial and Error: The Autobi-
ography of Chaim Weizmann (New York: Harper, 1949), 149; Ministry for
Culture and Heritage, “Palestine Campaign Map,” Map in The Oxford Com-
panion to New Zealand Military History, Oxford University Press, 2000,
accessed 21 March 2018, https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/photo/palestine-cam-
paign-map.
90
91
Chapter 6
Leaets and Loudspeakers: The Role of Psychological
Operations (PSYOP) in Large-Scale Combat Operations
Lieutenant Colonel Andrew D. Whiskeyman
To seduce the enemy’s soldiers from their allegiance and encour-
age them to surrender is of special service, for an adversary is
more hurt by desertion than by slaughter.
—Flavius Vegetius Renatus, c. 378 AD
“We are in an information war, and we’re losing that war,” is an
oft-repeated quote regarding the ght against Islamic extremists
.
1
While
it is not solely the responsibility of the US military to win this narrative,
it is certainly incumbent on the US military to use information to gain a
relative advantage over enemies in combat. The raison d’etre of the US
Army is to win the nation’s land wars. It should be obvious that this in-
cludes an element of information warfare because war is inherently a con-
test of will susceptible to psychological manipulation. This is especially
important because information is now a joint function, and the US Army
has recognized the growing importance of information on a multi-domain
battleeld through the creation of an Information Dominance career eld
inclusive of cyberspace operations (CO), electronic warfare (EW), and
information operations (IO) ocers.
2
The US military has struggled with grasping the nature of information
operations. This is evident in the confused language often heard as the
terms IO and Military Information Support Operations (MISO) are used
interchangeably. While the two specialties are intimately related, there are
key dierences between them. IO ocers integrate a broad range of in-
formation related capabilities, while PSYOP ocers specialized in the de-
velopment of messages designed to resonate with a given audience. MISO
focuses on the message and the most eective delivery method to create a
perception; IO focuses on the integration of the message with other activi-
ties. Additionally, information operations tend to be viewed as a necessary
evil. IO are not a readily accepted practice within the Army because the
perception that underhanded methods are employed is an anathema con-
cept to an Americans sense of values-based fair play.
According to Susan Gough, the use of “‘psychological tricks’ is ‘dirty’
and immoral,” and has been viewed as “something that only the ‘bad guys’
did: rst the Nazis, then the Soviets.”
3
This understanding of the nature of
92
information operations has often hindered an eective employment of the
craft.
4
Information operations do not come naturally to the Army’s stas
because it is not suciently emphasized within the Army’s Leader Devel-
opment, Education, and Training (LDT&E) processes that groom future
sta ocers and commanders. This appears to be evident in ongoing op-
erations where one could argue that the US military has been successful
in nearly every tactical engagement in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, but
cannot seem to gain the advantage in the psychological ght.
5
The enemy
holds on. He does not quit. He bides his time. This is not a new problem,
however. Recall that Napoleon—for all his acclaimed tactical brilliance—
fought all the way to Moscow but failed to convince the Russians to quit.
He lost the psychological war, and ultimately his tactical successes were
for naught. So, how does a commander establish the necessary operational
conditions to enable success in the IO ght?
Because it can be dicult to make assessments in the midst of action,
a study of history can be informative. By examining key case studies from
the past, one can draw out some universally applicable truths, which then
can be applied to the current (and future) situations in hope that one does
not repeat the mistakes of the past. The Vietnam War oers a fertile oppor-
tunity because to date, it was the largest use of psychological operations
in US history.
6
Because information operations as a term did not exist during the Viet-
nam War, this chapter will attempt to draw some conclusions by exam-
ining the use of psychological operations (PSYOP) (the term for MISO
during the Vietnam War) during large-scale combat operations (LSCO)
in Vietnam. The rst aspect this chapter will examine is at Military As-
sistance Command Vietnam (MACV) headquarters. The second and third
aspects to be examined occurred during the largest ground operation of the
war (Operation Cedar Falls) and during the largest airborne operation of
the war (Operation Junction City).
To conduct this analysis, this summary will briey examine US Army
doctrine on PSYOP during the period in question (1965–1967). Did the
US Army have a rm footing upon which to build its PSYOP program?
Next, each case study will be examined on three key criteria: command
emphasis, resourcing, and metrics. Finally, this chapter will make some
conclusions and recommendations for how the Army should conduct some
facets of information operations during future LSCO based on the lessons
learned from the employment of PSYOP during the Vietnam War.
93
Doctrinal Review
The US Army’s rst ocial doctrine dates from 1778—a time when
the Continental Army was poorly trained compared to its adversaries the
British Army and their Hessian mercenaries. Confronted with this dilem-
ma, General George Washington sought assistance from Major General
Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, who developed and published the Reg-
ulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States,
which became known as the “blue book.” The manual remained the Ar-
my’s ocial military guide until 1812.
From the time of the American Civil War on, the US Army developed
eld manuals (FMs) to cover specic aspects of warfare. The need for
a larger standing Army post-WWII necessitated a continual renement
of the doctrine required to support the elding, training, and equipping
an industrial-age warfare force. Modern US Army PSYOP doctrine is
rooted in WWII, with further renement coming through the Korean War
and the early years of the Cold War.
7
The result of that 25-year history of
maturation was that the American Army entered Vietnam with a well-de-
ned PSYOP doctrine.
8
While PSYOP doctrine was well-dened, it was
not well integrated with intelligence doctrine as this tended to xate on
order of battle and not on the sorts of intelligence required to produce
eective PSYOP.
9
MACV leadership recognized the challenges of the ght in Vietnam.
So, on 7 September 1965 it published Directive 525-3, “Minimizing
Non-Combatant Battle Casualties,” which built upon existing doctrine and
sought to clarify the need to include the psychological aspects of warfare
in ongoing and future operations.
10
The directive stated that “the use of
unnecessary force leading to noncombatant casualties in areas temporarily
controlled by the Viet Cong (VC) will embitter the population, drive them
into the arms of the VC, and make the long range goal of pacication more
dicult and more costly.”
11
Annex A to Directive 523-3 directed com-
manders to integrate tactical psychological operations with civic action
and combat operations. Commanders who failed to implement PSYOP
and civic action in coordination with combat operations were thus not only
ignoring doctrine, they were also ignoring General William Westmore-
land’s orders.
12
Unfortunately, ocers arriving in Vietnam had little to no
PSYOP training. The US Army’s yearlong command and general sta col-
lege (CGSC) focused on the tactics of re and maneuver and only taught
one hour of PSYOP curriculum during the entire year. Despite Westmo-
reland’s emphasis, the ocers arriving to Vietnam lacked the training on
94
how to execute his orders eectively. MACV had the requisite command
emphasis but did not have the training to put it into practice.
PSYOP at MACV
By mid-November 1966, this expanded command emphasis placed
a demand on PSYOP resources that outstripped capacity. So, the deci-
sion was made that the 6th PSYOP Battalion would be expanded to a
group and that stang levels within the MACV headquarters would be
increased.
13
Additionally, all maneuver battalions were also to be issued
hand-held loudspeakers based upon a suggestion of then Lieutenant Col-
onel Hal Moore, who had argued that each brigade should receive its own
loudspeaker team.
14
MACV continued to learn, adjust, and improve its
operations.
15
This was also true with intelligence operations where several assess-
ments led directly to changes in PSYOP tactics and messaging. Despite
not having well-integrated doctrine, MACV as a command learned from
ongoing operations and adjusted. Interrogation of enemy captives and Hoi
Chanh (rallier in Vietnamese) produced assessments that meager rice ra-
tions and inadequate medicinal supplies had eroded VC combat eective-
ness.
16
This analysis led to a focus on those themes in Chieu Hoi (open
arms in Vietnamese) messages, which demonstrated coordination between
the MACV J2 and the psychological operations community.
17
The Chieu
Hoi Program was designed to encourage insurgents to abandon the VC and
join in the building of South Vietnam as a nation. It also aimed to under-
mine community and family support for the insurgents by destroying the
belief that friends and family were obliged to support any relatives in the
insurgency.
18
It sought to accomplish these goals by providing job train-
ing, political indoctrination, and in some cases a basis for acceptance into
the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN).
19
The military intelligence
community published a detailed analysis of who the Hoi Chanh were and
their likely reasons for defection. The US recognized that each Hoi Chanh
was one less VC on the battleeld and that the costs of not embracing this
program would be signicant in terms of US lives lost.
20
One US estimate
calculated the cost of each Hoi Chanh at $127, while the cost to kill each
VC was $300,000.
21
So MACV had relatively sound doctrine, command emphasis from
General Westmoreland, and made resource allocations to support PSYOP.
The crucial elements seemed to be present for successful psychological
operations. The next aspect to be examined is how that framework was
executed during LSCO.
95
Cedar Falls
Operation Cedar Falls began on 8 January 1967 and ended on 28 Janu-
ary 1967. It was the largest US ground operation in Vietnam and included
the use of 30,000 US troops.
22
The operation’s purpose was to deny the enemy the use of the Iron
Triangle: an area to the northwest of Saigon that the National Liberation
Front (NLF) had used as an operations base since at least 1945. This area
was about 155 square kilometers and had grown along with the increase in
US troop commitment. By the time of Cedar Falls, the area was a “com-
plex of cement fortications, three-tier tunnel systems, ammunition de-
pots, munitions factories, hospitals, troop rest and recreation areas, and
communication centers.”
23
Additionally, MACV intelligence assessed that
signicant enemy forces were operating in the Iron Triangle. These forces
consisted of the NLF’s Military Region IV headquarters, the 272d regi-
ment, and ve battalions of the 165th VC regiment. A local force battalion
and three local force companies were also operating in the Iron Triangle.
24
Two days prior to the start of the ground operations, PSYOP conduct-
ed a shaping operation by dropping 215,000 leaets on the area that urged
the populace to “go to designated assembly points for evacuation before
the shooting started.”
25
The goal was clearly not surprise. Instead, com-
manders sought to minimize civilian casualties and destroy the NLF struc-
tures so that they would no longer be able to use the area.
The use of tactical PSYOP teams was very eective. As the operation
continued, the number of Chieu Hoi increased.
26
The PSYOP teams were
able to exploit opportunities rapidly because they had the ability to operate
at the lowest tactical level. They created “rapid reaction leaets,” which
were a very eective means of motivating enemy personnel to defect.
27
These leaets were often comprised of rst-hand testimonials from ene-
my prisoners. This was an example of a multi-domain battle long before
the phrase was coined. The Army and Air Force used combined arms to
x the enemy, while PSYOP used leaets and loudspeakers to target him
when he was most psychologically vulnerable. The result of this and other
eorts was that over 500 VC rallied, or turned themselves into the Viet-
namese government during Cedar Falls.
28
Post-strike reporting from B-52
strikes during Cedar Falls showed that the VC rallied due to the terror of
the bombings and the use of leaets and loudspeakers.
29
Interrogations
and enemy document exploitation revealed that from the VC perspective,
“psychologically speaking, the use of B-52’s by the enemy for bombing,
along with an extensive propaganda program considerably lowered the
96
morale of cadre and [the] mass[es].”
30
Additionally, many enemy units
largely avoided contact and withdrew across the border into Cambodia.
While this withdrawal cannot be directly attributed to PSYOP, it is like-
ly that the combination of overwhelming repower and the targeted use
of tactical PSYOP created the conditions where the enemy sought to
avoid contact.
Here again, the fundamental elements and conditions required for suc-
cess were in place. Commanders placed emphasis on PSYOP (it led the
operation), applied resources, and the eorts of PSYOP delivered results.
The next operation serves as our second case study.
Junction City
At the close of 1966, based on captured enemy documents and in-
terrogations of Hoi Chanh, the MACV J2, General Joseph McChristian,
assessed that seven North Vietnamese divisions subordinate to the Cen-
tral Oce for South Vietnam (COSVN) operated in Military Region 5.
31
Based on this intelligence, he approached Westmoreland with an interest-
ing proposition—that Westmoreland delay and signicantly change an op-
eration that was already set to commence. General Westmoreland trusted
McChristian, and acting on that trust Westmoreland agreed to delay and
change the planned operation.
32
Junction City was a three-phased operation that began on 22 February
1967 and lasted 82 days. US Army and Air Force units, along with the
support of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), fought against
forces of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army (NVA). This opera-
tion took place in the region known as War Zone C which was northwest
of Saigon and just beyond the Iron Triangle—the area previously cleared
during Cedar Falls.
33
Junction City covered an area of approximately 4,000
square kilometers about 45 miles northwest of Saigon and bordering Cam-
bodia.
34
This operation built upon the successes of Cedar Falls and was
designed to destroy the Central Oce of South Vietnam (COSVN), which
some analysts believed to be the VC equivalent of the Pentagon.
35
Junction City was a search-and-destroy operation, which used more
troops to cover a larger area than ever before and used more helicopters
than any previous operation in the US Army’s history. It was also the only
major airborne operation of the Vietnam War. The mission of the II Field
Force was to search and destroy COSVN and the 9th VC Division and
their installations.
36
The operation failed to nd COSVN but did lead to the capture and
destruction of a signicant amount of VC materiel. The operation had sig-
97
nicant short-term tactical success but failed to secure long-term strategic
results. That said, there were some notable PSYOP successes.
After the battle of Ap Bau Bang II, General John Hay, the 1st Infantry
Division commander, wrote to his counterpart in the 9th VC Division and
had the message printed and dropped into enemy areas. It stated that the
9th Division commander’s men had disgraced themselves not only by los-
ing the battle, but also by leaving their dead and wounded behind. General
Hay stated that the Americans were taking care of the wounded and had
buried the VC dead.
37
This command emphasis showed a willingness to
engage with the enemy psychologically.
Another success came on 28 February 1967, when the 173rd Brigade
operating northeast of Katum had a major nd: 120 reels of motion picture
lm, numerous still photos and pictures, and busts of communist leaders.
This discovery proved to be one of the major intelligence coups of the
war.
38
The Combined Document Exploitation Center (CDEC) processed
and analyzed the lm, and then combined the analysis into 65 reels of
varying lengths of ve to 30 minutes. This collection was an enormous
boon to the order of battle eort, as it provided visual identication of
individuals in the VC hierarchy. It also had psychological operations val-
ue, leading the MACV J2, in cooperation with the Joint US Public Aairs
Oce (JUSPAO), to compile ve of the lms into a 35-minute composite
with an English commentary.
39
Visually identifying individuals in the VC
hierarchy prevented them from continuing to hide among the population.
JUSPAO was also able to use some of the intelligence exploitation gener-
ated from operations such as Junction City, which could then be used to
bolster support for similar operations in the future. MACV intelligence
assessed that the identication of VC leaders demoralized their forces.
Junction City resulted in 139 Chieu Hoi. The lower results were as-
sessed because the 9th VC Division was made up of North Vietnamese
regulars and hardened VC, which meant the normal appeals to family sep-
aration were not as eective.
40
Junction City dropped 9,768,000 leaets,
and made 102 hours of aerial loudspeaker appeals, with most of the en-
gagements in March resulting in quick reaction leaets being created and
distributed to take advantage of the developing tactical situation.
41
As was the case in previous operations, the enemy avoided contact, and
Soldiers were astute enough to recognize that the capture and exploitation
of VC or VC propaganda presented a signicant intelligence advancement
in terms of identifying a previously faceless enemy. While there were not
as many ralliers as during Cedar Falls, there were still a company’s worth
98
of enemy combatants removed from the battleeld using PSYOP. As was
the case in Cedar Falls, Junction City PSYOP eorts benetted from com-
mand emphasis and resourcing which in the end produced results.
Conclusions
Cedar Falls and Junction City were the two largest ground operations
conducted by the US Army during the Vietnam War. If those keystone
operations were emblematic of MACV eorts, then one should have as-
sumed that the US would have won the psychological war in Vietnam.
MACV (and subordinate commands) had the key elements of success
present: they placed emphasis on PSYOP, allocated resources, and sought
to assess eects. Westmoreland briefed all incoming battalion and above
commanders of the need for PSYOP and their role as the primary PSYOP
ocers in their units. Despite the unprecedented command emphasis,
General Westmoreland only makes one mention of PYSOP in his autobi-
ography, A Soldier Reports:
Psychological warfare detachments operated throughout South
Vietnam, distributing leaets, broadcasting over loudspeakers,
trying in various ways to persuade the enemy to defect . . . Yet
despite a major and persistent eort, including bringing civilian
psychological warfare experts from the United States, results were
disappointing. Except for an occasional platoon-size group, most
defectors were individuals. Mass surrenders never developed de-
spite our intense psychological warfare eorts, which apparently
could not overcome the enemy’s intensive indoctrination.
42
Westmoreland was clearly disappointed with PSYOP’s performance.
He expected immediate results, and when they did not happen, he blamed
MACV for the ineective employment of PSYOP. Yet, even though West-
moreland took a personal interest in PSYOP, a survey of lessons learned
cited 17 of 21 battalion commanders that there was no requirement for
psychological warfare personnel at battalion level, and only four com-
manders felt that psychological warfare personnel should be included in
the battalion.
43
Additionally, the general attitude seemed to be that any-
one could write a leaet, which undermined the desire for the addition of
PSYOP teams. The expectation was that someone else would take care of
that ght—that real warriors used repower and not “dirty tricks.”
Many commanders interpreted MACV Directive 525-3 as if those
functions were compartmented, rather than complementary. Thus, some
units in Vietnam were also dividing the functions of PSYOP and Civil
Aairs as two unrelated activities; failing to see the linkage between deeds
99
and words. Commanders viewed leaet and loudspeakers as a type of res,
which could be measured, assessed, and would produce immediate results.
There were other instances where “commanders saw PSYOP as more
of a sideshow than a valuable combat multiplier.”
44
There is also the re-
mark of one commander “who boasted that his Chieu Hoi program con-
sisted of two 105mm howitzers—one of which was marked ‘Chieu’ and
the other ‘Hoi.’”
45
The intelligence community also had systemic challenges with PSYOP
support. While McChristian cited incidents of cooperation and support
from intelligence to PSYOP, the 7th PSYOP Group report from November
1967 was not so sanguine. PSYOP personnel did not have access to the
3M Reader Printers needed for CDEC use. Thus, they were unable to mine
that vein of intelligence.
46
Additionally, as late as mid-1967, both the 6th
PSYOP Battalion and 7th PSYOP Group requested that MACV J2 place
them on its distribution lists, but no action had been taken because the re-
quests were not relayed to the correct section of the MACV J2.
47
The study also found that PSYOP intelligence unit interrogators were
not being granted access to military interrogation facilities.
48
PSYOP spe-
cialists were required because J2 analysts were consumed with the col-
lection of order-of-battle information, and often either missed or ignored
intelligence of psychological value.
Despite the command emphasis, success was not forthcoming during
Vietnam. The largest use of psychological operations in US history had
failed to deliver the expected results. The failure does not seem to rest
at the tactical level, as units attempted to integrate PSYOP, learned les-
sons from ongoing operations, and adjusted tactics. The failure then is in
expectation management. General Westmoreland did not understand the
nature of psychological operations and placed the wrong sort of command
emphasis on those operations. He unrealistically expected instantaneous
results and believed that tactical level PSYOP could produce operational
and strategic level eects.
Lessons for Today
Commanders today face similar challenges with MISO (i.e. previ-
ously PSYOP) and more broadly with the integration of non-lethal res
into the ght. Too often commanders view non-lethal res writ large as a
mechanism to mitigate risk from the fallout of tactical operations instead
of viewing information warfare as the main point of conducting opera-
tions. Commanders are not expected to by MISO experts, but they should
100
have a solid grasp of how to integrate information related capabilities into
plans and operations.
The point of warfare is to get one’s enemy to capitulate. Unless the
enemy is dead, the only other way to do so is to win the information ght.
Yet, information operations is taught only as an elective at CGSC—not a
very helpful fact when we are engaged in ongoing struggles with adver-
saries who plan the IO-eect rst and then plan the tactical engagement.
This is true of the ghts with extremists as well as with the actions short of
armed conict with states such as Russia and China.
After all, the refrain of “we are losing the IO ght” still resonates
within many headquarters. So, what is to be done? First, commanders
must look inward to acknowledge, despite their experiences, they are not
IO experts. Commanders must embody the mission command spirit and
trust those that are experts to do their jobs.
Secondly, cultural barriers must be broken down that limit the optimal
eectiveness of information-related capabilities. This starts with estab-
lishing the leader development training and education (LDT&E) process-
es within professional military education (PME) that places value on the
employment of information related capabilities (IRC) in a multi-domain
battle context. The IRCs must be taught within PME as more than just
an elective—the core concepts must be infused in every lecture, reading,
and exercise. Additionally, IRCs must be resourced with personnel, equip-
ment, intelligence support, and oce space. IRCs planners should be in-
cluded in normal sta battle rhythm events and should be a priority when
it comes to boots on the ground (BOG) requirements. IRC personnel are
a vital part of the team and must be integrated within the commander’s
battle rhythm events.
Lethal and non-lethal res must be part of the same commander’s
decision-making cycle. Too often, these are viewed as separate events.
Further, intelligence must support IRCs. Most of the intelligence required
by MISO comes from non-traditional sources that are outside of normal
order-of-battle collection. Intelligence for IRCs must be prioritized. Fun-
damentally, the IO ght must be planned early. As seen during Cedar Falls,
IRCs can be used to shape an operation. The use of IRCs should be proac-
tive vice reactionary.
Finally, command emphasis is not a panacea. The commander must
understand the nature of psychological warfare. Tactical MISO is very
eective because the enemy is most vulnerable when he is faced with
a multi-domain dilemma—when he has nowhere to turn for escape and
101
has lost hope. MISO above the tactical level does not produce immediate
results. This is where the inclusion of MISO as part of information oper-
ations becomes vital. Those operations take time, are dicult to measure,
and require sustained commitment. MISO is more than leaet and loud-
speakers—or in today’s parlance more that tweets and Facebook posts.
There is no magic tweet that will cause mass defections. The campaign
must be well-planned, resourced, and sustained over time.
Warriors must heed the words of General Edward C. Meyer, former
Army Chief of Sta who stated, “The keystone of our contribution toward
peace is total competence in waging war. That expertise can only come
from an ardent study of tactics and strategy.”
49
Warriors must also rec-
ognize that the study of tactics and strategy must include the mind of the
enemy as key terrain.
102
Notes
1. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton while speaking before the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee on 2 March 2011, accessed 12 May 2018, https://
www.dailysignal.com/2011/03/08/clinton-to-congress-we-are-losing-the-infor-
mation-war/.
2. The Information Dominance branch was designated in April 2017. It in-
cludes cyber (17A), electronic warfare (EW) (FA29), and information operations
(FA30) ocers. As of October 2018, FA29 ocers will be redesignated 17B.
The EW eld is being incorporated in the cyberspace operations career eld.
3. Lieutenant Colonel Susan L. Gough, “The Evolution of Strategic Inu-
ence,” (Carlisle Barracks, PA: US Army War College, 2003), 2.
4. Paul E. Valley and Michael A. Aquino, “From PSYOP to MindWar: The
Psychology of Victory” (Headquarters, 7th Psychological Operations Group,
United States Army Reserve, Presidio of San Francisco, 1980), 1.
5. In the words of Yogi Berra, “It’s déjà vu all over again.” Scott Stump,
‘It’s deja vu all over again’: 27 of Yogi Berra’s most memorable ‘Yogi-isms’, 23
September 2015, accessed 20 May 2018, https://www.today.com/news/its-deja-
vu-all-over-again-27-yogi-berras-most-t45781.
6. Although propaganda has been in use since time immemorial, the US
eorts in Vietnam were at an unprecedented scale given the ability to produce
leaets, and radio and television broadcasts. See Project CHECO (Contemporary
Historical Examination of Current Operations), “Psychological Operations by
USAF/VNAF in SVN,” 16, and author’s unpublished dissertation, “The Learn-
ing Curve: MACV’s Grasp of Intelligence, PSYOP, and Their Coordination,
1965–1971,” 15 May 2015, 41. Military information support operations (MISO)
is the term now used by the Department of Defense instead of PSYOP.
7. For an excellent discussion of the development of PSYOP from WWII
through Vietnam, see Lieutenant Colonel Susan L. Gough, “The Evolution of
Strategic Inuence,” (Carlisle Barracks, PA: US Army War College, 2003.)
8. Michael G. Barger, “Psychological Operations Supporting Counterin-
surgency: 4th Psyop Group in Vietnam,” (Fort Belvoir, VA: Defense Technical
Information Center, 2007), 8.
9. This seemingly small dierence caused signicant problems in the
approach toward what intelligence was collected, processed, and disseminated.
See Andrew Whiskeyman, “The Learning Curve: MACV’s Grasp of Intelli-
gence, PSYOP, and Their Coordination, 1965–1971,” unpublished dissertation,
15 May 2015.
10. Military Assistance Command Vietnam, USMACV Directive 525-3,
“Minimizing Non-Combatant Battle Casualties,” 7 September 1965, Virtual
Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech, accessed 13 October 2014, https://www.viet-
nam.ttu.edu/reports/images.php?img=/images/024/0240301028.pdf.
103
11. Military Assistance Command Vietnam, Command History 1965, His-
torical Research Branch, Oce of the Secretary, Joint Sta; MACV, Command
History, United States Military Assistance Command Vietnam, 1965, Head-
quarters Department of the Army, Information Management Support Agency,
Alexandria, VA, 1966, 252.
12. General Westmoreland was not xated solely on repower as the
solution to the problems in South Vietnam. The battle of Binh Gia in December
1964 had shown him the conventional threat. Directive 525-3 proved he had not
forgotten about the unconventional one.
13. II Field Forces Vietnam, “Operational Report for Period Ending 31 Oc-
tober 1966,” Headquarters II Field Force Vietnam, 15 November 1966, 12, 558.
14. Mervyn Edwin Roberts, The Psychological War for Vietnam, 1960–1968
(Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas 2018) , 232.
15. Whiskeyman, “Learning Curve,” 457.
16. Hoi Chanh was the Vietnamese term meaning “rallier” or “one whom
returned to the righteous side” was the name given to those who rallied under
the Chieu Hoi Program.
17. Chieu Hoi means “Open Arms” in Vietnamese. Military Assistance
Command Vietnam, Command History 1966, 558.
18. Military Assistance Command Vietnam, Command History 1965, 452.
19. J.M. Carrier, and C.A.H. Thompson, Viet Cong Motivation and Morale:
The Special Case of Chieu Hoi (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1966), v.
20. The plan developed included more US support, the construction of
regional CHP centers in each corps, and changes to operational procedures.
Additionally, six United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
advisors and four US military liaisons would be assigned in support of the
program, and by the end of 1965, three of the USAID advisors were on the job.
The Government of Vietnam (GVN) agreed to construct a National Chieu Hoi
center with scheduled completion in early 1966. A lack of qualied contraction
bids delayed construction of the regional centers. Military Assistance Command
Vietnam, “Command History 1965,” 452.
21. Bob Considine,
“Pacication cadres,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 19 Sep-
tember 1967, cited in Frank L. Goldstein and Benjamin F. Findley, Psychologi-
cal Operations Principles and Case Studies (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air
University Press, 1996), 100.
22. Bernard W. Rogers, Cedar Falls-Junction City (Washington, DC: US
Government Printing Oce, 1974), US Army Heritage and Education Center
(AHEC) Collection.
23. Roberts, The Psychological War for Vietnam, 263 citing USIS Vietnam
Feature Service, Operation Cedar Falls . . . Out of the Iron Triangle, 1, TTVA,
DPC: Unit 2 – Military Operations, box 8, folder 7.
104
24. Rogers, Cedar Falls-Junction City, 19.
25. Roberts, The Psychological War for Vietnam, 263.
26. Rogers, Cedar Falls-Junction City, 56.
27. Typical of the leaets was one written by Le Van Sa, in which he called
out to his friends by name and gave them instructions on how to rally. Sa stated
that he was being treated well and that he had been lied to by the VC. The leaf-
lets written in Vietnamese (rather than being translated from English) were much
more eective. Rogers, Cedar Falls-Junction City, 57.
28. Rogers, 57.
29. Roberts, The Psychological War for Vietnam, 1960–1968, 279.
30. Roberts, 396; see also Project CHECO, “Psychological Operations by
USAF/VNAF in SVN,” 14.
31. This conservative estimate did not include the additional one possible
and one probable division-level units operating in the area. This brought the total
enemy forces available to COSVN at the end of 1966 to nine division headquar-
ters with personnel strength totaling 280,600. Military Region 5 was designated
by the DRV and included the provinces south of the DMZ to Khanh Hoa and
Darlac. See Ronald B. Frankum, Jr. Historical Dictionary of Vietnam (New
York: Scarecrow Press, 2011), 291.
32. Joseph McChristian, The Role of Military Intelligence (Washington, DC:
Department of the Army, 1974), 56.
33. Major G.S. Lorenz, et al., “Operation Junction City Vietnam Battle
Book,” Combat Studies Institute, 1983, 16.
34. Lorenz, 19–20.
35. COSVN was later referred to as the “Bamboo Pentagon” and was one
of the factors that led President Richard Nixon to authorize the invasion of
Cambodia. Some US military leaders were convinced that if COSVN HQ were
destroyed, it would crush the North Vietnamese (NVN) eorts in the south,
accessed 20 May 2018, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-myth-of-the-
bamboo-pentagon-the-fabled-viet-cong-headquarters-that-pushed-america-into-
cambodia. See also Lorenz, “Operation Junction City Vietnam Battle Book,”
19–20.
36. Lorenz, “Operation Junction City Vietnam Battle Book,” 16.
37. Rogers, Cedar Falls-Junction City, 135.
38. Rogers, 109.
39. McChristian, The Role of Military Intelligence 1965–1967, 55.
40. Rogers, Cedar Falls-Junction City, 151.
41. Rogers, 151.
42. William C. Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports (Garden City, NY: Double-
day, 1976), 282.
43. Evaluation of US Army Combat Operations in Vietnam (ARCOV),
Volume 5, Annex, D-3-8.
44. Michael G. Barger, “Psychological Operations Supporting Counterin-
surgency: 4th Psyop Group in Vietnam” (Fort Belvoir, VA: Defense Technical
105
Information Center, 2007), 1.
45. Terry F. Greene, “US Army Psychological Operations into the Year
2000,” DTIC Document, 1993, 5.
46. 7th Psychological Operations Group. “Report on Psychological Oper-
ations Intelligence in Vietnam,” Headquarters, 7th Psychological Operations
Group, Target Analysis Section, 15th PSYOP Det (STRAT), 7th PSYOP Group,
17 November 1967, 10.
47. 7th Psychological Operations Group, “Report on Psychological Opera-
tions Intelligence in Vietnam,” 1.
48. 6th PSYOP Battalion had two psychological operations interrogators
who were supposed to have access to the interrogation facilities (according to
DA PAM 33-1) but did not have ocial access to MACV J2 interrogation facil-
ities. 7th Psychological Operations Group, “Report on Psychological Operations
Intelligence in Vietnam,” 2, 10.
49. Harry G. Summers, On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War
(New York: Presidio Press, 2009), 91.
106
107
Chapter 7
Gulf War—Infowar
Dorothy E. Denning
with Introduction and Notes by Robert M. Hill
2018 Introduction
In 1990 and 1991, the United States fought the Gulf War, a large-scale
combat operation that pitted US and coalition forces against Iraq in order
to liberate Kuwait from Iraq’s annexation. Although the airland conict
(Desert Storm) was brief and, in hindsight, only moderately intense, the
Gulf War was large-scale in that nearly 300,000 US Soldiers participated
in the war, out of a total US force of more than one million—more than
participated in either Korea or Vietnam at their peaks. Another feature of
large-scale combat operations present during the Gulf War was the robust
presence of echelons above brigade. The US contingent alone consisted of
two Army corps, one Marine Expeditionary Force, seven Army divisions,
and two Marine divisions.
The Gulf War was the rst large-scale combat operation of the digital
era, opening new possibilities to inuence, deceive, manipulate, and shape
not only the decision making of the enemy but of all relevant actors and
audiences with a vested interest in the outcome of the conict. Even if in-
formation warfare has existed since humankind’s rst conict—largely in
the form of deception—the revolution in new technologies from the 1960s
on so dramatically changed the means and methods by which information
could be used to “wage war” that it has taken almost three decades for the
US military to fully embrace informational power as co-equal to physical
power in the conduct of operations. The bottom line is that operations in
any physical environment simultaneously occur in the information envi-
ronment, the eects of which are less directly controlled but, as a result,
must be carefully and deliberately planned.
In her seminal book, Information Warfare and Security, Dr. Dorothy
Denning, currently Emeritus Distinguished Professor at the Naval Post-
graduate School, provides an introduction to information warfare just as
the Dotcom bubble and other technological advancements were impacting
every facet of business, politics, social interaction, education, as well as
the nature of warfare.
*
In the rst chapter, excerpted here, Denning ex-
plored the role information warfare played in the Gulf War, the history and
nature of information warfare more broadly, and—from her 1998-vantage
point—the trends she envisioned would play out in future years in terms of
108
both technology and information warfare. Reading her work today, we see
just how prescient she was.
For clarity’s sake, Denning’s use of information warfare is specic
to her book and not intended to replace the currently approved doctri-
nal term information operations. As I am writing this introduction, there
remains much discussion about the best term to dene and describe op-
erations, activities, and actions US forces undertake in the information
environment to aect threat decision making, as well as inuence a range
of other audiences aected by military operations. Consensus seems to
be emerging around the term operations in the information environment
(OIE), cognizant of the fact that it is more encompassing of all that occurs
in the information environment beyond simply a win-lose calculus against
the threat or purely what IO forces and professionals do. For the purposes
of this article, information warfare (IW) and information operations (IO)
will be used interchangeably: IW is retained in Denning’s text, while IO
is used in my italicized 2018 notes, except in those select instances where
IW aptly applies.
Before diving into Denning’s rst chapter, there are a few truisms
about IO in large-scale combat operations to keep in mind that are sum-
marized here and reected in the notes that accompany Denning’s text:
• Information is an element of combat power. In 2017, the Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Sta approved adding information as a joint func-
tion. The Army is presently considering whether to add information as a
seventh warghting function. Whether it is added or not, information is
already an element of combat power but one often undervalued and un-
deremployed. Perhaps initially, information was simply viewed as shared
understanding. Shared understanding is critical to success but as an ele-
ment of combat power, information is far more expansive and potent. Units
and commanders who fail to integrate informational power with physical
power will fail at consolidating gains achieved during large-scale combat
operations, if not the combat operations themselves.
• Information is ubiquitous and IO always active. Tanks, maneuver
forces, and artillery do not continuously move, shoot, or otherwise create
eects in the operational environment; they do so only when an enemy is
declared and authorization granted. IO, however, is always “on” or ac-
tive; it does not rest or sleep.
109
• Information is integral to all operations but IO varies by the ca-
pabilities available to execute it. Because IO is always active, it supports
any form or type of operation, across all levels and phases and the conict
continuum. IO execution, however, is not static or applied in boilerplate
fashion. It is continually modulated to support other lines of operation or
eort (or become itself the main operation or eort), optimizing available
capabilities to create eects in the information environment necessary to
seize, exploit, and retain the initiative therein.
• There are limitations to IO that necessitate proactive and long
lead time planning, speed, precision, creativity, and a strong defensive
posture. The United States will face enemies and adversaries that employ
IO unconstrained by of the types of laws, policies, regulations, and ethical
mores that govern its use by US forces. This merely means US forces must
be far more proactive, innovate, nimble, and faster at applying lessons
learned in the planning and execution of IO. They must also place extra
emphasis on information protection to ensure unfettered decision making.
• Every Soldier is an information warrior. One of the limitations of
the terms IW and IO is that they tend to denote a function performed
by specialized experts. The sooner the Army trains every Soldier to be an
information warrior the better. This begins with the simple realization that
everything we do sends a message and we have a responsibility to align
what we say with what we do so that our message is consistent with and
reinforces the commander’s intent, as well as higher headquarters’ themes
and narrative. This mindset extends to the fact that every Soldier is a sen-
sor who must be able to report on indicators that show progress toward
accomplishment of IO objectives. These basic skills are equally applicable
to large-scale combat operations as they are to advise and assist or to
counterinsurgency missions.
The italicized notes that accompany Dr. Denning’s text seek to comple-
ment, expand, and update her observations and conclusions with current
and emerging Army thinking about operations in the information environ-
ment. Readers might opt initially to skip over the notes and read Denning’s
original text in its entirety. Doing so will provide a more contemporaneous
account of the Gulf War from a pre-counterinsurgency (COIN) operations
vantage point. They can then return to factor in the notes. The 2018 notes
are in italics throughout this chapter.
110
Gulf War—Infowar
To illustrate the scope and diversity of information warfare even
within a single area of conict, this chapter begins with a brief account
of information warfare incidents relating to the Persian Gulf War. It then
summarizes a theory of information warfare and trends arising from
new technologies.
The story starts with ve hackers from the Netherlands who, between
April 1990 and May 1991, penetrated computer systems at 34 American
military sites on the Internet, including sites that were directly supporting
Operation Desert Storm/Shield. They browsed through les and electronic
mail, searching for keywords such as nuclear, weapons, missile, Desert
Shield, and Desert Storm. They obtained information about the exact lo-
cations of US troops, the types of weapons they had, the capabilities of
the Patriot missile, and the movement of American warships in the Gulf
region. When they were done, they removed traces of their activity from
system logs to conceal their hacking spree.
1
Large-scale combat operations do not simply pit one nation or actor
against another; they involve multiple entities—state, nonstate, criminal,
and terrorist—each vying to ensure their vested interests predominate, are
advanced or, at the very least, are protected and preserved.
According to Jim Christy, program manager of computer crime in-
vestigations and information warfare at the Air Force Oce of Special
Investigations, the targets included military supply systems. “They didn’t,
but they could have, instead of sending bullets to the Gulf, they could
have sent toothbrushes,” he said.
2
Eugene Schultz, then manager of the
Department of Energy’s Computer Incident Advisory Capability, said that
the hackers had so much information that they lled up the disks on the
machines they used to launch the attacks. They also lled several oppy
disks. When they ran out of places to store their loot, they broke into com-
puters at Bowling Green University and the University of Chicago and
downloaded the information, guring they could transfer it somewhere
else later.
3
By some accounts, the Dutch hackers tried to sell their pilfered
information to Iraq during the Gulf conict. Schultz said he told the Brit-
ish Broadcasting Corporation that he had been informed through govern-
ment ocials that Saddam Hussein had been oered the data through an
intermediary working on behalf of the hackers. Schultz also reported that
Baghdad, fearing a trap, declined the oer.
4
As the example of the Dutch hackers reveals, the United States may
have to “ght” an array of third-party entities—whose objective is merely
111
to prove their moxie, make money or mischief, or have fun—simultaneously
with a declared enemy. IO must be planned and executed—across the whole
of government—to consider all relevant threats, actors, and audiences.
Even though the hackers were identied, the United States was power-
less to do anything about it, Schultz said. At the time, computer break-ins
were not illegal in the Netherlands. The Federal Bureau of Investigation
almost lured the lead attacker to the United States under the guise of an
interview with a major aerospace rm in Florida, but the hacker inadver-
tently was tipped o. Two of the ve eventually ended up in jail, but not
for the US military intrusions. They were convicted of credit card fraud.
5
Meanwhile, Baghdad had access to inside spies. In May 1991, Juergen
Mohhammed Gietler, a 42-year-old archivist for the German Foreign Min-
istry, was sentenced to ve years in prison for passing Western military
and political intelligence to Saddam Hussein on the eve of the Gulf War.
Threat espionage and many forms of sabotage are elements of IW as
these acts seek to gain an information advantage over the United States.
We must assume that anything and everything about us (i.e., the United
States and its partners) can and will be used against us. Not only will the
truth be weaponized against us but also the untruth.
Gietler gave Iraqi agents in Bonn hundreds of documents before his
arrest, including letters between President George Bush and Chancel-
lor Helmut Kohl about US military plans to move troops and weapons
through Germany, reports describing what Western intelligence agencies
knew about foreign companies helping Iraq build weapons of mass de-
struction, condential estimates on Iraq from the US State Department
and from NATO, German intelligence reports on Iraq’s missiles and maps
showing where they were located and likely targets in Israel, French sat-
ellite images showing Israeli missile sites, and a list of how many US
stealth bombers were being deployed to the Gulf region. In reaching its
guilty verdict, the Dusseldorf court ruled that the meaningful military in-
telligence brought Iraq “considerable advantages.”
6
After serving his ve-
year sentence, Gietler said on a CBS 60 Minutes segment that providing
allied secrets to Iraq was “permanent fun, ve days a week.” He said he
was paid for his spying but that money was not his motive. “I was on the
Iraqi side,” he told the news magazine. “I felt it was my duty.” He said that
after meeting Iraq’s military attaché, General Osmat Joudi Mohammad, by
chance at a restaurant, he volunteered to supply the information. Gietler
was arrested after German counterintelligence agents intercepted a phone
call by Osmat.
7
112
The United States and its allies had their own sources of intelligence,
including satellites, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and Iraqi defec-
tors. In 1990, US spy satellites saw Iraqi forces massing on the Kuwaiti
border, although an invasion was discounted after Arab allies said Saddam
Hussein was blung.
8
Also before the war broke out, satellite imaging
systems mapped potential target areas. The maps were put on board Tom-
ahawk cruise missiles during the war and compared with images taken by
the missiles’ own radar.
9
The Global Positioning System (GPS), a 24-sat-
ellite constellation that emits signals used for determining location, helped
coalition land forces navigate the desert terrain. GPS was used by aircraft
to map mineelds accurately and by US warships to obtain correct launch
positions for missiles.
10
UAVs orbited the battleeld, using video and in-
frared imagery to provide real-time tactical information on the movements
of Iraqi troops and bomb damage assessment. These drone aircraft logged
a total of 530 missions and 1,700 hours of ight time. Iraqi troops even
surrendered to one.
11
Gaining and maintaining contact with the adversary is necessary to
reveal the adversary’s areas of inuence and dispositions; therefore, intel-
ligence support to IO is essential to exposing the adversary’s intent in the
information environment. Technology increasingly oers a more diverse
array of intelligence-gathering platforms, but more information does not
necessarily mean better intelligence, particularly when it comes to dis-
cerning the threat’s “mind” and modes of decision making.
Equally important, coalition forces neutralized or destroyed key Iraqi
information systems with electronic and physical weapons. During the
rst moments of Operation Desert Storm, clouds of antiradiation weapons
red from helicopters and aircraft disabled the Iraqi air defense network.
Ribbons of carbon bers, dispensed from Tomahawk missiles over Iraqi
electrical power switching systems, caused short circuits, temporary dis-
ruptions, and massive shutdowns in power systems.
12
An Air Force F-117
Stealth ghter directed a precision-guided bomb straight down the air-con-
ditioning shaft of the Iraqi telephone system in downtown Bagdad, tak-
ing out the entire underground coaxial cable system, which tied the Iraqi
high command to their subordinate elements. This eliminated the prima-
ry method of communications between the command center in Bagdad
and subordinates in the eld.
13
Once the command and control centers
were out of action, the coalition went after Iraq’s radar systems, taking
away their ability to “see” the battlespace.
14
Blind and deaf, Iraq had little
chance of victory.
113
IO is lethal and nonlethal but never strictly oensive or defensive; it
modulates among attack, defend, and stabilize weighted eorts in support
of lines of operation or lines of eort. In other words, IO’s focus is not so
much the type of operation but the type of eects that need to be generat-
ed in and through the information environment to support the large-scale
operation being undertaken.
According to one tale, the allies further disabled Iraqi military com-
puter systems with a computer virus, shipped to Iraq in printers. The story,
which aired January 10, 1992 on ABC’s Nightline following publication
in US News & World Report, said the US government targeted the virus
at Iraqi’s air defense. A few weeks before Operation Desert Storm, a vi-
rus-laden computer chip allegedly was installed in a dot matrix printer
that was assembled in France and shipped to Iraq via Amman, Jordan. The
virus was said to have been developed by the National Security Agency
(NSA) and installed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). It appar-
ently disabled Windows and mainframe computers. The operation was
said to have worked.
Cyberspace is a domain that is fully a part of the information environ-
ment. To achieve synergy, IO and cyberspace electromagnetic activities
(CEMA) are closely coordinated. As Gantz’s story reveals, most cyber-
space eects are planned and executed at the operational and strategic
levels, but tactical units can request cyberspace operations and electronic
warfare support, through channels, using standard message formats (see
FM 6-99).
The story originated from John Gantz’s weekly Infoworld column on
1 April 1991. Gantz had reported that the NSA had written a computer vi-
rus dubbed “AF/91” that would “attack the software in printer and display
controllers.” The column went on to say that “By January 8, 1991, Allies
had conrmation that half the displays and printers . . . were out of com-
mission.” It concluded with: “And now for the nal secret. The meaning of
the AF/91 designation: 91 is the Julian date for April Fool’s Day.” As Winn
Schwartau observed, AF/91 also denotes April Fool’s, 1991. According
to a letter from Gantz to Schwartau, Infoworld Japan picked up the story
and translated it to Japanese, in the process losing the meaning of “April
Fool’s.” US News had gotten the article from their Tokyo Bureau, which
in turn had gotten it from the Infoworld Japan piece.
15
What began as a
practical joke had become national news. It was a hoax.
During the Gulf War, both sides exploited television to their advan-
tage to inuence perceptions and public opinion. Shortly after invading
114
Kuwait, Saddam’s “EliteRepublicanGuards” (spoken as one word by TV
journalists) faked a retreat in front of the cameras of global television. In
fact, Iraq was reinforcing its grip on the country.
Reports from CNN’s Peter Arnett in Bagdad were skewed by the limit-
ed amount of satellite time he had available to coordinate his reportage, as
well as the best eorts of his Iraqi minders, who were bent on using CNN
as an instrument of propaganda. Even prior to his arrival, the Iraqi censors
scored big when CNN aired, live as received, Iraqi-provided video. Sadd-
am’s propagandists also gained direct access to the friendly Jordanian tele-
vision system, causing anti-US and anti-Alliance riots in Jordan.
16
Some
Iraqi propaganda backred. When Saddam boasted that Iraq would win
because they were prepared to sacrice thousands of soldiers whereas the
Americans could not stand the loss of even hundreds, his troops realized
he was talking about sacricing them. This was said to have contributed to
their willingness to defect and surrender.
17
Deception is fundamental to large-scale combat operations. It’s not a
skill reserved only for the IO or military deception ocer or designated
representative. MILDEC is a competency that every unit and individual
must possess, to varying degrees.
US forces staged several amphibious exercises along the Saudi coast
in front of CNN crews in order to trick Saddam into believing that the
coalition planned an amphibious assault to ank Iraqi forces along the
Kuwaiti border. The deception paid o, as several Iraqi divisions were tied
down defending the coast from an allied Gulf landing.
18
As the example of the amphibious exercises demonstrates, the most
eective deceptions are rooted in truth.
One news story depicted Iraqi soldiers yanking Kuwaiti babies out of
incubators. The story apparently was hyped by an American public relations
rm hired by a Kuwaiti government-backed organization. The only eyewit-
ness to the horror was the 15-year-old daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador
to the United States. After investigating, ABC’s 20/20 reporter John Martin
found little proof that the story was anything more than propaganda. At the
time, however, the story had a major impact on policy makers in the United
States. President Bush is said to have mentioned the “incubator atrocities”
eight times in 44 days, and seven senators brought it up during debate over
the war. The war resolution passed by only ve votes.
19
The amount of “fake news” on all sides is increasing at an exponential
rate. Its intentional use by US forces—particularly if its aim is to inuence
115
audiences other than the enemy or an adversary—is problematic and runs
the risk of being illegal, immoral, or both.
During the war, the allies dropped 29 million leaets behind Iraqi
lines. The leaets, which came in 14 varieties, reached approximately 98
percent of the 300,000 troops. They were tested on cooperative prisoners
of war, whose recommendations included removing any trace of the color
red (a danger signal to Iraqis), showing allied soldiers with beards (convey
trust and brotherhood in Iraqi culture), and add bananas (a great delicacy)
to a bowl of fruit shown being oered to surrendering Iraqis. The Voice of
the Gulf was broadcast over six clandestine radio stations, including both
air and ground stations. During its period of operation in early 1991, a total
of 189 psyop (psychological operations) messages were aired. Additional
messages were broadcast from loudspeakers in manpacks, vehicles, and
helicopters during ground campaigns.
20
Military information support operations (MISO) provide a wide array
of means to reach the enemy or adversary, such as printed products, radio,
and loudspeakers. MISO programs must be approved through channels,
typically requiring a long lead time to plan properly.
The leaets and broadcasts conveyed the inevitability of Iraq’s defeat.
Over 40 percent of the leaets were appeals for surrender; seven percent
urged Iraqi troops to abandon their weapons and ee. The messages, which
were part of the campaign in psyop and perception management, attempt-
ed to reassure Iraqi soldiers that they would be treated well in allied hands.
They blamed an “evil” Saddam for the war, depicting the solders as brave
men who had been led astray. The messages stressed Arab brotherhood
and peace or warned that Iraqi commanders would be held accountable for
war crimes against Kuwaiti people and property. To deter use of chemical
weapons, messages warned that Iraqi soldiers were ill equipped with pro-
tective gear and that commanders would be punished.
21
MISO products (and the scheme of IO more broadly) require an acute
understanding of the full range of target audiences in the area of oper-
ations, including the enemy. PSYOP forces bring the ability to conduct
target audience analysis, which is essential to crafting the right messages
and ensuring their delivery at the right time and place in order to achieve
psychological objectives in support of the commander’s intent.
According to the American Red Cross, nearly 87,000 Iraqi soldiers
turned themselves over to coalition forces, most of them clutching the
leaets or hiding them in their clothing.
22
A postwar survey of 250 pris-
oners of war found that 98 percent had seen the leaets, 58 percent heard
116
radio broadcasts, and 34 percent heard loudspeaker broadcasts. The sol-
diers found the messages credible, with 88 percent saying they believed
the leaets, 46 percent the radio broadcasts, and 18 percent the loudspeak-
er broadcasts. The POWs also reported that their decisions to surrender
or defect were inuenced by the messages, with 70 percent saying they
were inuenced by leaets, 34 percent by radio broadcasts, and 16 percent
by loudspeaker broadcasts.
23
A captured general said that “Second to the
allied bombing campaign, PSYOP leaets were the highest threat to the
morale of the troops.”
24
The Red Cross statistics cited here also demonstrate the necessity of
conveying messages via multiple platforms. Repeated messages from mul-
tiple sources are more likely to “stick.”
Iraq’s own program in psyop was much less successful, failing in part
because they did not understand American culture. For example, they used
a woman, “Baghdad Betty,” to make broadcasts aimed at disillusioning
American soldiers. She lost credibility early on, however, when she told
the soldiers that their wives and girlfriends back home would be sleep-
ing with Tom Cruise, Tom Selleck, and Bart Simpson. It was ridiculous
enough suggesting that the women would be seduced by movie stars, but
a cartoon character?
25
At the end of the war, Soviet General S. Bogdanov, chief of the Gen-
eral Sta Center for Operational and Strategic Studies, said: “Iraq lost
the war before it even began. This was a war of intelligence, electronic
warfare, command and control and counter intelligence. Iraqi troops were
blinded and deafened. . . . Modern war can be won by informatika and that
is now vital.”
26
Psyop and perception management also played an import-
ant role, not only with Iraqi soldiers but also with the public. When Kuwait
City was liberated, images on television showed hundreds of Kuwaitis
waving American ags as liberating forces entered the city, demonstrat-
ing their support for American eorts. A public relations rm had earlier
arranged the mass distribution of the handheld American ags, as well as
lapel pins.
27
As the quote from General Bogdanov makes clear, adversary military
commanders consider IW not simply as another element of their combat
power but one that is decisive. In 2017, the US Department of Defense
designated Information as a joint function in recognition of its parity with
other functions in achieving military and national objectives.
After the Gulf War, the United States, through the CIA, reportedly
continued to use perception management in an attempt to overthrow Sadd-
117
am Hussein. The operation, eventually broken apart by the Iraqi president,
used radio broadcasts and other media for spreading messages. In a 1997
interview, Warren Marik, retired CIA agent, said a Washington-based pub-
lic relations rm produced radio scripts and videotapes denouncing the
regime. The scripts, which called on Iraqi army ocers to defect, were
broadcast on two large radio transmitters the CIA established and man-
aged in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; and Kuwait. Additional stations sprang up
in Cairo and Amman. Marik also reported that unmanned aircraft dropped
leaets over Baghdad ridiculing the Iraqi dictator on his birthday.
28
IO and the various capabilities it synchronizes are involved in percep-
tion management; that is, they seek to aect the way that various audiences
perceive or construct their reality so it is favorable to US and allied objec-
tives. As this article suggests, the term perception management is typically
applied to non-military eorts that must be part of a whole-of-government
approach to operations in the information environment.
The challenge with perception management that confronts the United
States and many of its allies is the rules by which it is employed. Enemies
and adversaries are quite willing to do whatever is necessary to get the
United States and its Unied Action Partners to believe what they want
us
to believe, with little or no concern for the truth. Legally and morally,
US forces must be able to articulate clearly—and then enforce—the al
-
lowable limits of shaping, shading, or disregarding the truth in pursuit of
military objectives.
Iraq has continued its intelligence activities. In November 1997, US
military and intelligence ocials reported that Iraqi intelligence agents
successfully spied on United Nations weapons inspectors in 1996 and
1997. The methods used included eavesdropping, wiretapping, and plac-
ing spies in the U.N. camp. Secretary of Defense William Cohen said in a
television interview that “the Iraqis have always watched every move the
inspectors have tried to make. They anticipate where they’re going.
They
may have, in fact, penetrated their inspection team.” Ocials said the team
might even be under surveillance at U.N. headquarters in New York.
29
Iraq’s agency for electronic eavesdropping, known as Project 859,
is staed by almost 1,000 technicians and analysts who monitor satellite
telephone calls and other telecommunications from six listening posts in
the country. International calls are picked up at a switching post in Al
Rashedia, where Project 859 headquarters are located. There, messages
are taped and analyzed by Iraqi intelligence ocers. The agency may have
the ability to decode some scrambled calls.
30
118
The nation’s largest intelligence agency is the Iraqi Intelligence Ser-
vice, which is responsible for spying overseas. It is believed to have mem-
bers working abroad under diplomatic cover. The two agencies report to
the Special Security Organization, which collects information about all
threats, domestic and foreign, to Saddam.
31
On 19 October 1997, Israel’s
general security service, Shabak, arrested two people suspected of spy-
ing for Iraqi military intelligence. One of the persons, 37-year-old Yukhar
Faran, had emigrated to Israel with false papers identifying him as the son
of a Jewish family that remained in Iraq. The second person, 30-year-old
Joseph Hirsch, also held Israeli citizenship. Both operated out of the port
of Ashdod.
32
American “eyes and ears” watch over Iraq to ensure Iraqi compli-
ance with agreements on weapons inspections. The airborne surveillance
system has three layers: Keyhole KH11 photographic reconnaissance sat-
ellites orbiting at an altitude of about 660 miles, US Air Force U2R spy
planes operating from up to 90,000 feet, and US Navy ES3A “Shadow”
Viking aircraft, which can pick up military radio signals from 34,000 feet.
33
In June 1998, Richard Butler, the Australian diplomat who heads the U.N.
Special Commission (UNSCOM) charged with eliminating Iraq’s weap-
ons of mass destruction, showed photographs suggesting that Iraq had
buried some missile parts and then dug them up again after inspections.
The photos, which were backed up by satellite images, were presented as
evidence that Iraq was still hiding illegal weapons.
34
Iraq allegedly used deception to cover up its weapons programs.
During the three-week interruption of U.N. searches for hidden weapons
in late 1997, Iraq apparently moved equipment that could be used to pro-
duce forbidden missiles out of range of U.N. surveillance cameras. Butler
said the equipment included “gyroscope rotor balancing equipment which
could be used to balance prohibited missile gyroscopes.” He also said that
it appeared the Iraqis had tampered with U.N. cameras, covered lenses,
and turned o lighting in facilities under monitoring.
35
Information un-
derpinning the entire Iraqi nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare pro-
gram was said to be stored on computer hard drives and disks that were
constantly moved from one location to another in an eort to frustrate the
U.N. team.
36
Iraq has also continued its use of psyop and perception management.
When U.N. inspectors resumed their business after the crisis that had
barred Americans from the inspection team, thousands of Iraqis shouted
“Down with America” as they took part in a mass funeral for dozens of
119
children. Iraq blamed the deaths on U.N. sanctions, claiming the children
had died from lack of food and medicine.
37
Perception management can be viewed as the means by which the
Information instrument of national power is exercised. It is also increas-
ingly becoming the chief instrument by which state, non-state, terrorist,
and criminal actors achieve their aims. Of the four instruments (DIME:
diplomatic, information, military, economic), information is the one that
is in continual use. Therefore, it must be planned and executed continu-
ally across the cooperation-competition-conict continuum. There is no
pause or break in action with information. Like Iraq during the post-Des-
ert Storm period, adversaries will not hesitate to do everything they can to
shape our perceptions favorable to their ends. US forces must do likewise,
both to counter threat narratives and promote their own such that they
decrease the need for large-scale combat operations and enhance their
success should they become necessary.
Later, Iraq accused the United States of planning air strikes to plant
fake chemical or germ warfare evidence at “presidential sites” declared
out of bounds to U.N. inspectors.
38
Butler and others, for their part, voiced
suspicions that these mammoth complexes, some of which stretched for
several miles, were being used to hide weapons of mass destruction from
the inspectors. The Clinton administration estimated there were 78 of
these presidential sites.
39
One covered 31.5 square miles and contained
1,058 buildings.
40
When the crisis over U.N. inspections and the threat of an American
air strike ended in early 1998, Iraq portrayed Saddam as the winner. Tele-
vision broadcasts showed a beaming Saddam waving an old rie as he
visited village after village. Adoring crowds were dancing, singing, and
clapping as Saddam waved from a balcony.
41
Information Warfare
The brief history of the Gulf conict presented here illustrates sever-
al types of information warfare operations—computer intrusions, human
spies, spy satellites, eavesdropping, surveillance cameras, electronic war-
fare, physical destruction of communications facilities, falsication of pa-
pers, perception management, psychological operations, and computer vi-
rus hoaxes. There are others—theft of trade secrets, privacy invasions, and
e-mail forgeries, to name a few. Depending on the circumstances, some
acts are crimes. Others are unethical even if legal. Still others are consid-
ered acceptable practices, of governments if not other parties. Some oper-
ations are aliated with military conicts. Others are situated in broader
120
conicts at an individual, organizational, or societal level. What they have
in common is that they all target or exploit information resources to the
advantage of the perpetrator and disadvantage of another.
Information has always been a component of warfare but its impact
has become more acute given technological advancements and the perva-
siveness and instantaneousness of information across all aspects of life.
Although Army doctrine has addressed information as a component of op-
erations for decades, it wasn’t until the mid-1990s that it achieved parity
with other elements of combat power and warranted its own eld manual.
In the intervening 25 years, IO has gone through three name changes (in-
formation environment, inform and inuence activities and back to infor-
mation operations). As of the publication of this desk reference, it is un-
certain whether IO will again be rebranded as information warfare (IW),
operations in the information environment (OIE), or another term yet to
be decided. The bottom line is this: as an element of combat power, infor-
mation has often been misunderstood, under-valued, and under-utilized.
Whatever term is applied, commanders and units must be adept at opti-
mizing this element of combat power in concert with all other elements.
In the preface to Winn Schwartau’s book Information Warfare, John
Alger, then dean of the School of Information Warfare and Strategy at Na-
tional Defense University, wrote, “Information warfare consists of those
actions intended to protect, exploit, corrupt, deny, or destroy information
or information resources in order to achieve a signicant advantage, ob-
jective, or victory over an adversary.”
42
A December 1996 directive from
the Oce of the Secretary of Defense denes information warfare as “In-
formation operations conducted during time of crisis or conict to achieve
or promote specic objectives over a specic adversary or adversaries,”
where information operations are “Actions taken to aect adversary infor-
mation and information systems while defending one’s own information
and information systems.”
43
This book [Denning’s Information and Security] attempts to take these
denitions deeper, to provide a theory of information warfare based on the
value of information resources to an oense and defense. An oensive op-
eration aims to increase the value of a target resource to the oense while
decreasing its value to the defense. A defensive operation seeks to counter
the potential loss of value. Information warfare is a “win-lose” activity.
It is about “warfare” in the most general sense of conict, encompassing
certain types of crime as well as military operations.
121
The value gained by the oense can have a monetary component, as
when intellectual property is stolen and sold, but this is not always the
case. In destroying and disrupting Iraqi command and control and radar
systems during the Gulf War, the United States and its allies gained a mil-
itary advantage over Iraq. Disabled, the systems became virtually useless
to Iraq but of great strategic value to the allies, who took advantage of
Saddam’s blindness and inability to communicate with his troops. It would
be impossible to assign a dollar value to these systems, before or after
the attack, to either side. Similarly, it would be dicult to assign a dollar
value to the advantage gained by Saddam in censoring the broadcasts of
his adversaries.
As currently dened, IO is about aecting enemy or adversary de-
cision making while protecting our own. Decision making cannot occur
without information or, using Denning’s lexicon, without information re-
sources, whether these resources are physical (cell tower, computer hard-
ware), informational (algorithms, software, data processing), or human/
cognitive (perception, biases, sense making).
The value of an information resource to a player is a function of six
factors. First is whether the resource is relevant to the concerns and com-
mitments of the player. Second is the capabilities of the player. The player
must have the knowledge, skills, and tools to use the resource eectively.
Third is the availability of the resource to the player, and fourth is its
availability to other players. Often, a resource has the most value to a par-
ticular player when it is readily available to that player but not to others.
When Gietler sold Western intelligence documents to Iraq, for example,
their value to the allies was diminished. Iraq, on the other hand, gained
from the acquisition. Fifth is the integrity of the resource, which includes
completeness, correctness, authenticity, and overall quality or goodness.
In general, the greater the integrity, the more reliable and hence valuable
a resource to particular player—unless it is the player who intentionally
corrupts the resource. Then lack of integrity can be used to advantage.
This happened when the allies staged the amphibious exercises in front of
CNN cameras, compromising the integrity of Iraq’s source of news and
giving the allies an advantage in their ground-based attacks. The sixth and
nal factor is time. The value of an information resource can increase or
decrease with time.
Oensive information warfare operations produce a win-lose outcome
by altering the availability and integrity of information resources to the
benet of the oense and to the detriment of the defense. In so doing, they
122
may also alter the concerns, commitments, and capabilities of the defense,
but the immediate eect is a change of availability or integrity. There are
three general outcomes. First, the oense acquires greater access to the
information resource; that is, the availability of the information resource
to the oense is increased. This was illustrated by the Iraqi acquisition of
intelligence documents from the German spy and the allied acquisition of
information about the battlespace from spy satellites. Second, the defense
loses all or partial access to the resource; that is, the resource becomes less
available to the defense. This was illustrated by the attacks that sabotaged
Iraq’s command and control and radar systems and by Saddam’s censoring
of broadcast media. Third, the integrity of the resource is diminished. This
was illustrated by the TV broadcasts that aired misleading or distorted sto-
ries such as the amphibious exercises. Many operations produce multiple
eects. Acts of sabotage, such as those against Iraq’s command and con-
trol systems, both deny access and damage integrity. Computer intrusions
give the hacker greater access to computer systems while diminishing the
integrity of the systems, especially if les are altered. Some operations
begin with an acquisition phase, then move on to sabotage, or use a com-
bination of both throughout.
Oensive information warfare is a win-lose activity. It is usually con-
ducted without the consent of the defense and often without their knowl-
edge. Even when the defense apparently agrees to participate, it is without
fully understanding the motives of the oense and the consequences to
themselves. The insider who reveals a password to a hacker on the other
end of a phone call who says it is needed to x a problem does not know
the hacker’s true intent.
Denning uses “win-lose” to refer to the intended result of a single
operation, not a whole campaign or sustained eort. It is adversarial as
opposed to “win-win”. To win, one side or the other must gain a window
of advantage in the information environment and hold the advantage long
enough that the other side makes a fatally-awed decision or believes it
cannot prevail.
As the Gulf War example illustrates, information warfare involves
more than destructive acts. Many acts of acquisition, such as covert intel-
ligence operations, aim to leave originals intact. The objective is to get the
information without being detected. Media manipulation and censorship
are also nondestructive acts, aimed at inuencing perceptions and beliefs.
IO involves risk. When units employ it against the threat, they must
be cognizant of second and third order eects—of both intended and un-
123
intended consequences. They must also recognize that destroying threat
information resources might achieve a temporary, tactical advantage that
is oset by a longer-term disadvantage. Defensively, it is impossible to
achieve an impenetrable shield against enemy IW eorts. There will al-
ways be gaps or vulnerabilities that can be exploited. Commanders must
weigh the costs of achieving ever-higher levels of security with the bene-
ts, which may oer diminishing returns.
Defensive information warfare seeks to protect information resourc-
es from attack. The goal is to preserve the value of the resources or, in
the event of a successful attack, recover lost value. Defenses fall in six
general areas: prevention, deterrence, indications and warnings, detection,
emergency preparedness, and response, although specic operations and
technologies may fall in more than one area.
In IO’s denition, the phrase “while protecting our own” is almost
an after-thought. It is anything but secondary. Given the legal and mor-
al limitations and/or prohibitions placed on US forces that delimit oen-
sive—or attack-weighted IO eorts, protecting friendly information may
be the primary means by which US and allied forces gain advantage in the
information environment.
Defensive information warfare is closely related to information secu-
rity. They are not, however, identical. Information security is concerned
mainly with owned resources and with protecting against errors, acci-
dents, and natural disasters as well as intentional acts. Defensive infor-
mation warfare addresses non-owned resources, including broadcast and
print media in the public domain, but is not concerned with unintentional
acts. The term “information assurance” is often used to encompass both
information security and defensive information warfare.
Information warfare involves much more than computers and comput-
er networks. It encompasses information in any form and transmitted over
any media, from people and their physical environments to print to the
telephone to radio and TV to computers and computer networks. It covers
operations against information content and operations against supporting
systems, including hardware and software and human practices.
Oensive information warfare operations succeed by exploiting vul-
nerabilities in information resources. These vulnerabilities can arise in
hardware and software components and in human practices. They can be
introduced at the time products are developed, delivered, installed, cong-
ured, used, modied, and maintained. Implementing airtight defenses is
extremely dicult, and security holes are discovered in areas where they
124
were not expected. Although many information resources can be reason-
ably hardened against all but the most sophisticated outsider attacks, 100
percent security is neither possible nor worth the price. Computer systems
are tremendously complex, containing millions of lines of code. No single
person can comprehend that much code well enough to conrm that it is
free of security holes or hidden trapdoors. Moreover, systems and environ-
ments change, and even the most thoroughly studied and highly protected
resources are generally vulnerable to threats from insiders with access.
The goal is risk management, not risk avoidance at all cost.
Vulnerabilities in themselves do not constitute a threat to informa-
tion resources. Nor does the existence of methodologies to exploit those
vulnerabilities. A threat arises only when there is an actor with the intent,
capability, and opportunity to carry out an attack. Defensive information
warfare aims primarily to protect against credible threats, especially those
that have some reasonable chance of occurring and could lead to substan-
tial losses. A goal of this book is to make some assessment of what those
threats and losses are today and what they are likely to become in the
future. Toward that end, emphasis is on actual incidents that have taken
place and on observable trends.
From Chicks to Chips
This section is substantially edited for length. See Denning’s book for
the complete version.
Information warfare is not new. It is not a “third-wave” phenomenon
nor a by-product of the computer revolution. Indeed, it is not even unique
to the human species. Take the cuckoo bird. This information warrior has
duped as many as 180 dierent species into foster parenthood by laying
its eggs in the nests of other birds. To avoid detection, it adjusts the egg’s
morphology to that of the host. Through its behavior, it destroys the integ-
rity of the information environment of its host. The visual appearance of
an egg is no longer a reliable source of information.
44
As another example,
the raven makes phony submissive gestures to hated rivals in order to en-
tice them to come close. When they do, it makes an abusive attack. Again,
it has compromised the integrity of its adversary’s information environ-
ment.
45
Plants and animals also employ methods of defensive information
warfare to guard information that is crucial to their survival. For example,
they may be countershaded or have special coloration in order to make
them inconspicuous to species that are higher up on the food chain.
Denning uses an apt phrase when discussing the raven’s use of IO/
IW: compromising the integrity of the adversary’s information environ-
125
ment. Put another way, the information environment is everything in our
surroundings that enables us to make sense of things, formulate thoughts,
make decisions, and take action. IO is about aecting the information en-
vironment so that it confounds the enemy’s ability to do these things while
preserving our own ability to make swift, accurate, and fully informed
decisions. Although IO tends to focus routinely on synchronizing infor-
mation-related capabilities to achieve these ends, in large-scale combat
operations, any and all capabilities must be harnessed to create eects
in the information environment that optimize the information element of
combat power or informational power.
Human beings have always been concerned with protecting prized
information from adversaries. Some 5,000 years ago, Chinese emperors
guarded the secret of silk production—the larval worm that produced the
ber, the mulberry plant that provided its food source and place of dwell-
ing, and the weaving techniques that transformed the bers into elegant
cloth—with the threat of death by torture. Their security system worked
for about 3,000 years, when the secret was carried out by a princess who
left to marry a prince in a far-o land.
46
In 1500 BC, a Mesopotamian
scribe guarded the secret to pottery glazes with a less threatening method.
He encoded the recipe in cuneiform signs on a clay tablet.
47
In the rst cen-
tury BC, Julius Caesar, fearing his messages would be intercepted, wrote
to Cicero and other friends in a secret code that today bears his name.
48
Even though information warfare is not new, it has been transformed
by new information media and technologies. At the turn of the twentieth
century, an information warrior would not have contemplated hacking into
a computer system to steal secrets, launching a destructive computer virus
onto a network, intercepting cellular phone calls, gathering imagery with
spy satellites, or broadcasting propaganda and disinformation over radio
and television stations. The technologies simply did not exist. By 1950,
computers had been invented (as well as radio and TV), but hardly anyone
had them and none of them were connected or even remotely accessible.
There were no Web sites to hack, no Internet service providers to take
down, no Web transactions to intercept, and no e-mail for delivering ma-
licious code. There was no low-cost method whereby an ordinary person
could reach potentially millions of people with destructive computer vi-
ruses, hate messages, hoaxes, and conspiracy theories.
It was not until the 1960s that computers began to be interconnected,
initially on local area networks within an organization. By 1969, the rst
wide area network was operating in the United States. Named after its
sponsor, the Department of Defense Advanced Research Project Agency,
126
ARPANET connected Stanford Research Institute, the University of Cal-
ifornia at Los Angeles, the University of California at Santa Barbara, and
the University of Utah. It eventually evolved into the Internet—a network
of networks that spans the globe.
49
When ARPANET was nally decom-
missioned in 1990, there were more than 300,000 hosts on the Internet.
This jumped to 1 million in 1992, 10 million in 1996, and 30 million by
1998. As of September 1998, the Irish rm NUA Ltd. estimated that 147
million people worldwide were using the Internet.
50
We approach the end of the [20th] century with computers every-
where. They are cheap, often tiny, frequently interconnected, and incorpo-
rated into everything from microwave ovens to precision guided missiles.
They have been integrated into all types of processes, including business
processes, banking and nance, transportation and navigation, energy and
water delivery, education, entertainment, government, health care, emer-
gency services, and military operations. They have enabled electronic
commerce, telemedicine, teleconferencing, and telecommuting. A conse-
quence is that sensitive information, once conned to conversations and
paper documents in oces, is now computerized and transmitted over
public networks—making it potentially vulnerable to theft, exploitation,
and sabotage by distant parties.
Advances in computing have been joined by equal advances in sensors.
They too are cheap, tiny, pervasive, and connected to other technologies.
They are paving the way to a future when information in the environment
is readily available to remote persons. Already, some day care centers let
parents watch their children while browsing the Web. Video cameras are
placed in the rooms where the youngsters play and then fed to the center’s
Web site.
51
Although access to the sites is restricted to parents, are there
risks to the children if the sites are hacked? Will totalitarian governments
install such systems everywhere so they can watch their citizens? Andrew
Leonard, technology correspondent for Salon, observed: “Just imagine
how tempting that kind of Net-enabled Panopticon will be in a country
whose leaders have always looked upon the [population] as one big mass
of pre-schoolers.”
52
While new technologies have enabled new methods of information
warfare, old methods have persisted and are likely to continue to do so.
Spies still penetrate organizations to steal their secrets and police use un-
dercover operations to inltrate organized crime groups. Military units
use visual surveillance along with high-tech sensors and other gadgetry
to acquire information about the battlespace. They engage in deceptive
maneuvers to fool the enemy and in psyop and perception management to
127
inuence behavior. They use bombs and other physical weapons to take
out enemy communications systems.
Perception management in particular is likely to play a signicant role
in future operations. John Petersen predicts that information warfare in
the future will look much like advertising, convincing people to behave
in ways that meet the objectives of the warrior. Information warfare will
move away from hardware toward ideas and perceptions. It will involve
the manipulation of “memes”—big, powerful ideas such as global warm-
ing and nuclear war that move people to action and the manipulation of
perceptions through such means as holographic projections.
53
Human his-
tory has been shaped by memes, religion being a good example, so Pe-
tersen’s projection might be viewed as a continuation of age-old methods.
Our adversaries, Russia in particular, have become masters of per-
ception management, largely through the use of misinformation and dis-
information. An excellent primer on their techniques and ways to counter
them is found in Christopher Paul’s and Miriam Matthews’ publication
The Russian “Firehose of Falsehood” Propaganda Model, available online
through the RAND Corporation.
54
The big question is this: Can someone launch an attack with cata-
strophic consequences and, if so, what are the chances of that happen-
ing? In truth, nobody knows. It is easy to postulate scenarios such as
“Stock market crashes after hacker tampers with Wall Street computers”
or “Planes collide after terrorists hack into navigation system and alter
routes.” It is much more dicult to assess whether a scenario is plausible
or likely. Several factors must be considered, including vulnerabilities in
technologies and the way they are used, the capabilities needed to exploit
those vulnerabilities, redundancies and other safeguards that compensate
for weaknesses, and whether there are people with the capabilities, mo-
tive, and opportunity to carry out an attack.
Denning raises the specter that IW will involve more than purely
military means to achieve an adversary’s aims. Simultaneous to physi-
cal attacks in distant areas of operations, the threat will employ infor-
mational attacks on the homeland, such as against power grids, infor-
mation networks, telecommunications infrastructure, banking, and so
on. There will also be psychological attacks across all media platforms
designed to spread propaganda, disinformation, and misinformation, as
well as sow uncertainty and discord. This future reality demands a robust
whole-of-government approach to information, as well as mutual, rein-
forcing support from Unied Action Partners. Due to its size and budget,
128
the Department of Defense will play an outsized role in coordinating this
whole-of-government approach to the threat’s use of IW and our response
to it. The increasing level of connectedness among systems—both gov-
ernmental and nongovernmental—means that attacks to any part of the
system threatens all others and national security.
What we do know is that information systems are vulnerable and there
are people who are motivated to do bad things. For this reason, it is worth
taking information warfare seriously, particularly as it aects critical na-
tional infrastructures and one’s own information resources—not because
a catastrophic attack is inevitable, but to prepare for an uncertain future.
129
Notes
* Dorothy Denning, Information Warfare and Security (New York: Addison
Wesley/ACM Press, 1999)
1. Graeme Browning, “Counting Down,” National Journal 16, 19 April
1997, 746–49; Associated Press, 23 March 1997; “Information Security: Com-
puter Attacks at Department of Defense Pose Increasing Risks,” US General Ac-
counting Oce, GAO/AIMD-96-84, May 1996, 25; Jack L. Brock, Testimony
in Hackers Penetrate DOD Computer Systems, Hearings before the Subcommit-
tee on Government Information and Regulation, Committee on Governmental
Aairs, United States Senate, 20 November 1991.
2. Gina Smith, “Hackers Could Switch Toothbrushes for Bullets,” ABC-
News.com, 18 November 1997.
3. Communication from Eugene Schultz, 15 May 1998.
4. Graeme Browning, “Counting Down,” 746–49; Associated Press, 23
March 1997; communication from Eugene Schultz, 15 May 1998.
5. Communication from Eugene Schultz, 15 May 1998.
6. Erik Kirschbaum, Reuters, Bonn, 17 November 1997.
7. Associated Press, New York, 30 April 1998.
8. John Diamond, “CIA Seeks to Provide Warnings of Global Conicts,”
Associated Press, 27 December 1997.
9. Bruce Kammer, “Information Warfare: The Revolution in Military Aairs
and How the US Is Adapting to the Future of Warfare,” term paper for COSC
511, Georgetown University, 1 May 1997, citing Norman Friedman, Desert Vic-
tory: The War for Kuwait (Annapolis, MD: United States Naval Institute Press,
1991), 172–78.
10. Kammer, citing United States Department of Defense, Conduct of the
Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Congress (Washington, DC: Government
Printing Oce, 1992), 91–94.
11. Kammer, citing Michael J. Mazarr, Don M. Snider, and James A.
Blackwell Jr., Desert Storm: The Gulf War and What We Learned (Boulder, CO:
Westview Press, 1993), 106–07.
12. Alan D. Campen, “IRAQI Command and Control: The Information Dif-
ferential,” in Alan D. Campen, editor, The First Information War (Fairfax, VA:
AFCEA International Press, 1992), 171–77.
13. Heather Yeo and Hadley Killo, The Evolution of Military Information
Warfare, http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Quad/8813/main.html.
14. Kammer, “Information Warfare,” citing Friedman, Desert Victory,
172–78.
15. Winn Schwartau, Information Warfare, 2nd ed. (New York: Thunder’s
Mouth Press, 1996), 426–35.
16. Chuck de Caro, “Softwar,” in Cyberwar: Security, Strategy and Con-
ict in the Information Age, eds., Alan D. Campen, Douglas H. Dearth, and R.
Thomas Goodden (Fairfax, VA: AFCEA International Press, 1996), 203–18.
130
17. Chad R. Lamb, “Military Psychological Operations,” term paper for
COSC 511, 4 May 1997, citing Stephen T. Hosmer, Psychological Eects of
US Air Operations in Four Wars 1941–1991 (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1996),
149–50.
18. Kammer, “Information Warfare,” citing Philip M. Taylor, War and the
Media: Propaganda and Persuasion in the Gulf War (Manchester, England:
Manchester University Press, 1992), 235.
19. Chuck de Caro, “Softwar,” in Cyberwar, 203–218.
20. “Psychological Operations/Warfare,” http://www.geocities.com/Pen-
tagon/1012/psyhist.html; Chad R. Lamb, “Military Psychological Operations,”
term paper for COSC 511, 4 May 1997, citing Stephen T. Hosmer, Psychologi-
cal Eects of US Air Operations in Four Wars 1941–1991 (Santa Monica, CA:
Rand, 1996), 143–148.
21. Lamb citing Hosner, 143–48.
22. “Psychological Operations/Warfare,” http://www.geocities.com/Penta-
gon/1012/psyhist.html.
23. Lamb, “Military Psychological Operations,” citing Hosmer, Psychologi-
cal Eects of US Air Operations in Four Wars 1941–1991, 143–48.
24. Lamb, citing “US Army Special Forces: The Green Berets—US Special
Operations Command: Psychological Operations,” http://users.aol.com/army-
sof1/PSYOPS.html.
25. “Psychological Operations/Warfare,” http://www.geocities.com/Penta-
gon/1012/psyhist.html.
26. Mark R. Jacobson, “War in the Information Age: International Law,
Self-Defense, and the Problem of ‘Non-Armed’ Attacks,” The Ohio State Uni-
versity, citing Brieng by Martin S. Hill at the Worldwide PSYOP Conference,
November 1995.
27. John Rendon, “Mass Communication and Its Impact,” in National Se-
curity in the Information Age, James McCarthy ed., Conference Report, US Air
Force Academy, 28 February–1 March 1996.
28. Jim Hoagland, “How CIA’s Secret War on Saddam Collapsed,” Wash-
ington Post, 26 June 1997, A21.
29. Tim Weiner, “Iraqi Spies Know U.N. Inspectors’ Next Moves, Ocials
Say,” New York Times, 25 November 1997.
30. Weiner.
31. Weiner.
32. “Israel Catches Iraqi Agents,” Intelligence Newsletter 324, 4 Decem-
ber 1997.
33. Michael Evans, “American Spies in the Sky Keep Watch on Regime,”
The Times, 26 February 1998.
34. “UN Inspectors: Iraq Hiding Weapons,” Associated Press, 4 June 1998.
35. John M. Goshko, “Iraqis May Be Acting to Avoid Surveillance,” Wash-
ington Post, 6 November 1997, A1.
36. Patrick G. Eddington, “Information Should Be Main Target in Iraq,”
Navy Times, 23 February 1998.
131
37. “Iraq Blames Sanctions for Deaths,” Associated Press, 30 November
1997.
38. “Iraq Accuses US of Plotting to Plant Fake Germ Warfare Evidence,”
Boston Globe, 12 December 1997, A5.
39. Jorgen Wouters, “Magical Mystery Tour,” ABCNews.com, 19 Decem-
ber 1997.
40. Associated Press, Iraq, 13 March 1998.
41. Associated Press, Iraq, 18 March 1998.
42. Winn Schwartau, Information Warfare, 2nd ed. (New York: Thunder’s
Mouth Press, 1996), 12.
43. Department of Defense Directive S-3600.1, Information Operations, 9
December 1996; see also Information Assurance: Legal, Regulatory, Policy and
Organization Considerations, 3rd Edition, Joint Chiefs of Sta, Department of
Defense, 17 September 1997.
44. Loyal Rue, By the Grace of Guile: The Role of Deception in Natu-
ral History and Human Aairs (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994),
120–22.
45. Rue, 120–22.
46. “Risky Business: The Threat from Economic Espionage,” video, The
National Counterintelligence Center, 1997.
47. David Kahn, The Codebreakers (New York: Macmillan 1967), 75.
48. Kahn, 83–84.
49. For a brief history of the Internet, see Peter J. Denning, “The Internet
after Thirty Years,” in Dorothy E. Denning and Peter J. Denning, eds., Internet
Besieged: Countering Cyberspace Scoaws (New York: ACM Press, Addi-
son-Wesley, 1997), 15–27.
50. NUA Internet Surveys, Review of 1997, 5 January 1998. For the latest
gures, see http://www.nua.ie/surveys/how_many_online.html.
51. Jennifer Lenhart, “Keeping an Electronic Eye on the Kids,” Washington
Post, 29 May 1998.
52. Alex Cohen, “Net Politics: A Mover, but Not a Shaker,” Wired News, 8
April 1998.
53. John Petersen, “Information Warfare: The Future,” in Alan D. Campen,
Douglas H. Dearth, and R. Thomas Goodden, eds., Cyberwar, 219-226.
54. Christopher Paul and Miriam Matthews, The Russian “Firehose of
Falsehood” Propaganda Model (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation,
2016).
132
133
Chapter 8
Information Operations in Large-Scale Combat Operations—
Operation Iraqi Freedom I
Colonel (Retired) Carmine Cicalese
Every DOD [Department of Defense] action that is planned or ex-
ecuted, word that is written or spoken, and image that is displayed
or relayed, communicates the intent of DOD, and by extension the
USG [United States Government], with the resulting potential for
strategic eects.
1
As of this writing, it has been 15 years since the Iraqi invasion, and
nearly as long since the US Army trained for high intensity conict or
large-scale combat operations. While the Mission Command Training Pro-
gram Warghter Exercises are able to generally replicate kinetic conict
with objectively quantiable results, higher echelon exercises and simula-
tion have not yet matured to the point that information operations (IO) ac-
tions, and their resulting eects on adversary decision making, are equally
quantiable or translatable to practical lessons learned. As a result, the
Army lacks recent, relevant experience or tested command competence to
plan and execute essential IO in large-scale combat operations.
Information is an element of national power that creates, strengthens,
and preserves favorable conditions. Given that the United States goes to
war as an extension of politics to impose its policies by threat or use of
violence, legitimacy is a key factor and dependent on the audiences. In-
formation is an element in unied action and is integrated with other in-
struments of national power to advance and defend US values, interests,
and objectives.
2
Without being mutually supportive, legitimacy becomes
at risk or violence becomes preeminent.
IO was a vital part of the Coalition’s defeat of the Iraqi military, and
its neutralization and ultimate destruction of the Saddam Hussein regime.
IO was also part of the collective failure to rapidly stabilize post-invasion
Iraq, or deter the emergence of intra-ethnic conict and an active, exter-
nally supported insurgency. While IO has not proven to be a proverbial
“silver bullet” to success in today’s complex operating environment, it is
also undeserving of primary blame when an adversary or other target of IO
action fails to respond as desired. Indeed, these are maneuver failures and
overall Unied Action failures as much as they are specic IO failures,
and frequently attributable to a larger inability to suciently harmonize
134
and publicly contextualize our actions and overall message from the stra-
tegic to tactical echelons.
This chapter will discuss how IO was planned by the Combined Force
Land Component Commander (CFLCC) and executed by subordinate
forces; discuss lessons learned to include how incomplete eorts led to
challenges for the occupation; and end with an examination of how the
Army can successfully enact information as a warghting function in fu-
ture large-scale combat operations. However, before going into detail on
IO and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), it is necessary to baseline under-
standing of what information operations is, and also additional reasons
why it is a challenge to integrate properly.
Part of IO’s inconsistent application stems from a multitude of doctri-
nal changes leading to a general lack of common IO understanding across
the Army. From 2002 to present, the Army changed its denition of IO
several times, including a period when the Army dened IO a joint activ-
ity while the Army conducted “inform and inuence activities.” In 2014,
General Raymond Odierno, Army Chief of Sta, discontinued inform and
inuence activities in favor of the joint denition of IO. General Odierno
considered IO an operation that needed to be tightly nested within the
overall operational concept and conduct of operations. He also saw that
IO had practical application for the Army Service Component Commands
executing theater engagement and security cooperation plans in support of
Combatant Command deterrence missions.
3
In decisive action, Army forces normally operate as part of a joint
force, often within a multinational and interagency environment.
4
Be-
cause the joint and Army IO denitions are synonymous, this chapter will
utilize the joint and Army IO denition as of June 2018: “Information
operations is the integrated employment, during military operations, of
information-related capabilities, in concert with other lines of operation,
to inuence, disrupt, corrupt, or usurp adversarial human and automated
decision making while protecting our own.”
5
In practice, IO is fundamentally about aecting an adversary or en-
emy’s decision-making, while simultaneously protecting friendly deci-
sion-making, whether information quality of availability, thus creating a
relative advantage for US commanders. IO integrates information related
capabilities (IRCs) that can be generally conceptualized as either aecting
information content or information ow. For example, Military Informa-
tion Support Operations (MISO), Operations Security (OPSEC) and Mil-
itary Deception (MILDEC) predominantly target the adversary’s percep-
135
tions and cognitive process, with the objective being a response benecial
to US end-states (normally reducing US risk, resources, or both) —infor-
mation content. Simultaneously, IO coordinates other IRCs like Cyber-
space Operations and Electronic Warfare to aect the adversary’s ability
to collect, transmit, store, or access information that supports eective or
timely decision making and battle command—information ow. Each of
these IRCs have a similar function to protect friendly forces, either direct-
ly or by identifying similar attempts by the adversary.
The purpose of this explanation is not to establish IO primacy over
the IRCs but rather to simply acknowledge the long-standing synergy of
synchronizing and de-conicting activities. Indeed, IO is a planning and
integration function. It does not possess capability in itself, and only suc-
ceeds through open collaboration with all the IRC stakeholders. That said,
the integrated application of IRC through the IO function is inherently
a commander-centric activity prone to subjective bias, experiences, and
understanding.
6
This, more than any other factor, has led to an uneven
application of IO over the past 15 years of combat. Quite simply, the com-
mander’s understanding of and operational experience with IO invariably
inuences their guidance and direction to the sta. The ultimate fault for
this disconnect is not with IO, but rather with the Army’s broader leader
development, education, and training processes that fails to equip leaders
with a consistent understanding and peacetime training application of IO.
Convoluting this dynamic, many of the IRCs are cloaked in mystery
due to their classication requirements. Many IO successes and failures
are hidden behind this curtain of secrecy—a curtain that is seldom ex-
posed to the larger Army. So much so, it is dicult to nd and discuss De-
partment of Defense (DoD) discreet and acknowledged military deception
and cyberspace activities other than for the DoD to admit that, in general,
it conducts such operations when it has the proper authorities. Discussing
unique IRCs can be as vague as a doctrinal hand wave due to classication
levels and perceived “need-to-know” restrictions.
For example, coordinated small arms ground re disrupted the rota-
ry wing deep attack of OIF I: Did non-lethal suppression of enemy air
defense fail to disrupt the voice command nets and data links? The Iraqi
Army quit ghting and disappeared into the city population: Did MISO
leaets and tactical net intrusions with messages provide the nal push
that persuades the enemy to quit ghting? The Iraqi Army misallocated
forces north rather than committing them south against the Coalition’s
main axis of advance: Was there a successful MILDEC plan executed to
convince the Iraqi military leadership to commit forces away from the
136
main coalition attack? While these answers can be discovered with the ap-
propriate clearances and access, IO lessons-learned personnel frequently
are not determined to possess a “need-to-know.” This chapter will discuss
and work through these challenges attempting to use multiple open sourc-
es to best account for an action.
The CFLCC IO Mission: “Go Faster”
In response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11, United States Central Com-
mand (USCENTCOM) deployed the Third United States Army, “Pat-
ton’s Own” Headquarters forward to Kuwait to serve as the nucleus of
the CFLCC for Operation Enduring Freedom. From Kuwait, CFLCC led
the hybrid ground war of conventional and special operations forces in
Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne, Marines, and Special Forces that suc-
cessfully and quickly routed the Taliban while Osama Bin Laden and other
Al Qaeda leaders successfully escaped into the Pakistani Tribal Areas.
7
By April 2002, CFLCC Headquarters was extricating its role as the ground
component lead for Afghanistan, and turning over authority to Combined
Joint Task Force–180.
Surprisingly, CFLCC was preparing for a second conict that would
be dierent than Operation Enduring Freedom, and more familiar as a
conventional large-scale combat operation for which the CFLCC person-
nel had trained. The Bush Administration was pressuring Iraq to comply
with the United Nations mandate to destroy its inventories of weapons
of mass destruction, end support to terrorism, and cease prosecution of
its civilian population.
8
Weighing possible military options, the Secretary
of Defense summoned CFLCC leaders and planners to the Pentagon for
a Joint Chiefs of Sta “Tank” discussion. The “Tank” is a reference to
where the DoD leadership gathers for important briengs and decisions.
CFLCC planners briefed an operations plan which, in the words of the
lead planner, “turns Kuwait into a huge armored parking lot,” amassing
overwhelming combat power before invading Iraq.
9
Leadership questions
oriented on how long it would take to amass adequate combat power, and
how to accelerate the timeline. The ubiquitous question “can we go fast-
er?” permeated the discussion.
10
CFLCC planners returned to Kuwait with the guidance to re-assess
the plan and develop more timely alternatives. The planners deliberately
developed a exible option that would aord the president more latitude
and not be bound by over bearing military timelines. At rst, the plans
team struggled to adapt the plan as it tried to identify how to achieve the
same goals as the operational plan given the DoD leadership intent to go
137
faster. Then, Lieutenant General Paul Mikolashek, the CFLCC, oered
guidance: “Do what you think you can with what you think you would
have.”
11
This again created a planning pause until the CFLCC strategic
planner recommended planning based o the Time Phase Force Deploy-
ment List (TPFDL).
CFLCC had an Army armored brigade from the Third Infantry Division
on the ground which could be enough to secure the Iraqi port of Um Qasr.
Next, a Marine Division might secure the Iraqi city of An Nasiriyah. The
plans team worked its way through the TPFDL. The concept of a “Running
Start” plan was born. The plan would pick up that moniker because it
did not wait until the optimum force was in place to launch an invasion.
As directed, the military timeline would not limit or impinge upon the
presidential decision making.
The “Running Start” would continually evolve and become more agile
and dynamic by adding and dropping units from the plan and even execu-
tion. The USCENTCOM plan focused on decapitating Saddam Hussein’s
regime as USCENTCOM identied Saddam Hussein as Iraq’s strategic
center of gravity (COG). In kind, the CFLCC designated the Republican
Guard Forces Command (RGFC) as the operational COG. While there
was some debate within the CFLCC planning group as to whether the
Iraqi military leadership was the operational COG, the planning group
concluded that the RGFC had to be rendered combat ineective to force
the Saddam regime to capitulate. Saddam’s son Qusay directed the RGFC
and the Special Republican Guard protecting the regime. From here, the
IO planners and intelligence support team deconstructed the COG.
An Integrating Planning Strategy
When he was the First Cavalry Division Commander, General Dave
McKiernan often ended the Warghter Battle Update Brief with the fol-
lowing guidance to his commanders: conduct aggressive counter-recon-
naissance and maintain constant pressure on the enemy. This guidance
was not lost on the CFLCC IO planner who hearkened the guidance of
his former command and saw information as means to maintain constant
pressure on the enemy.
If the CFLCC mission was to defeat the Iraqi Army by focusing on
the RGFC, then IO should contribute towards the accomplishment of that
end. This is consistent with Unied Action—the synchronization, coordi-
nation, and/or integration of the activities of governmental and nongov-
ernmental entities with military operations to achieve unity of eort.
12
To
support the invasion and the commander’s intent, the CFLCC IO plan used
138
proven military planning techniques like COG analysis and Information
Preparation of the Environment.
Given the previously discussed denition of IO, the IO team was most
interested in which RGFC Critical Capabilities relied heavily upon vul-
nerable information content or information ow. Supported by the 1st In-
formation Operations Command reach-back intelligence support team, the
CFLCC IO intelligence planner developed a robust Information Prepara-
tion of the Environment (IPE) describing how the Iraqi military information
owed. This analysis included the strategic military telecommunications
infrastructure, operational to tactical radio frequency communications net-
works, plus the RGFC communications. The IPE described how the Iraqi
people processed and consumed information and the inuence of culture
in terms of information context. For instance, the ordinary Iraqis of 2002
did not have consistent access to the Internet while the elite did have ac-
cess. Radio, print, and word-of-mouth were the most common forms of
communications. Saddam’s rumor mill ruled the streets.
13
Non-state controlled television was available to the elite who were
allowed television satellite dishes, and to a small minority of Iraqis who
were willing to take a chance in defying the regime. A Sunni Muslim
minority ruled over a Shia Muslim majority. While Sunni and Shia have
much in common, they have their dierences in how they practice their
religion. In sum, the IPE described the military and civilian information
environment regarding how information owed within the Iraqi military
and how information content mattered especially to the civilian Iraqi pop-
ulace. It was an information overlay upon the physical terrain of the oper-
ational environment.
Using the Information Preparation of the Environment and applying
Joe Strange’s COG methodology, the IO plans team identied the RGFC
as having four critical capabilities: res, maneuver, command and control,
and protection. As the IO team further analyzed the critical capabilities, it
evaluated which critical capabilities and subordinate critical requirements
and critical vulnerabilities were possibly susceptible to IO. Consequently,
command and control (C2) and protection were the two critical capabili-
ties that bore the most worthwhile critical vulnerabilities. Maneuver also
had common critical vulnerabilities; a military leader gave maneuver di-
rections via C2 means.
14
Command and control across any military has technical and human
aspects: the ability to physical transmit an order, as well as the ability to in-
139
spire obedience to the order. Similarly, the RGFC C2 had a technological
aspect—information ow—and a human aspect—information content—
both of which exposed many vulnerabilities. For instance, the RGFC
maneuver voice command nets were vulnerable to electronic attack, and
the Iraqi soldiers receiving information through command channels were
susceptible to the manipulation of information. The CFLCC IO Planners
realized that if MISO messages could be synchronized with overwhelming
kinetic res, IO might have the same eect on Iraqi ground forces as it did
during Desert Storm.
Regarding protection, the ground air defense units were critical to pro-
tecting the RGFC from CFLCC rotary wing deep attacks and the artillery
units, which could have also been part of the critical capability shoot, had
similar technical and cognitive information vulnerabilities. The CFLCC
IO plan directed units and information-related capabilities to mass non-le-
thal res directly upon the RGFC and the protecting air defense and ar-
tillery res to disrupt the Iraqi Army’s ability to command and control,
maneuver, and protect its forces. In terms of the suppression of enemy air
defenses (SEAD), the IO plan directed the use of MISO and electronic
warfare supported by OPSEC and, when applicable, supporting unique in-
formation related capabilities, like cyberspace operations, to disrupt Iraqi
Army C2 and degrade their will to ght.
As Sun Tzu wrote, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you
need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”
15
While the main part of the
IO plan intended to mass information-related capabilities to increase the
adversary’s friction, the IO team had to acknowledge that IO was criti-
cal toward maintaining friendly freedom of action. In this instance, the
IO team conducted an internal analysis (i.e. BLUE Forces COG analysis)
based on warghting functions (WfF). For an attacking CFLCC, maneuver
was the most critical WfF. First, the IO plan emphasized operations secu-
rity (OPSEC) and communications security to protect critical information
regarding CFLCC timelines and intentions to include routes and timing of
ground and rotary wing movements. At that time against the Iraqi military,
CFLCC retained an overwhelming advantage in assured and secured com-
munications to include encryption and frequency hopping radios. Similar-
ly, protecting against mass casualty events was important to maintain US
political will. So, the IO eort had to support any counter-missile eort
that was capable of producing mass casualty events as a result. In hind-
sight, it would have been appropriate to have a collection plan that placed
140
a priority on identifying Iraqi Special Forces serving as forward observers
for SCUD missile teams to mitigate the threat. In sum, the defensive IO
plan assured maintaining freedom of action from adversary intervention.
Because the IO denition is adversary-focused, there is a perception
gap as to how IO can aect civilian decision making. Most civilians, in
this case, were not adversaries. The prevailing assessment was that many
of the Shia Iraqis to the south, for instance, would support Saddam’s re-
moval from power. The CFLCC IO plan intended to communicate to the
Iraqi people to support Coalition actions by avoiding combat operations.
Here, MISO, Civil Military Operations, Public Aairs, and Defense Sup-
port to Public Diplomacy would be critical toward communicating with
the Iraqi people to stay safe and not interfere with combat operations. The
CFLCC IO plan intended to limit collateral damage to the Iraqi commu-
nication infrastructure so that the new Iraqi government would be able to
communicate to its other echelons of government and the Iraqi people. IO
plan branches and sequels included options to use escalating non-lethal
capabilities to protect the Iraqi communication infrastructure for future
use by the Iraqi people. Information access would be critical to securing
the peace.
To put it into Clausewitzian terms, the CFLCC IO for the invasion
used the Direct Approach in attacking the adversary’s decision cycle
and the Indirect Approach in keeping the Iraqi civilians from turning on
the Coalition. Or, in a more complete perspective, the IO plan sought to
maximize friction for the Iraqi military, especially the RGFC, and mini-
mize friction for Coalition ground forces. The CFLCC IO plan had great
breadth because CFLCC would have many dierent types of Coalition
ground forces with a variety of IRCs responsible for covering a tremen-
dous amount of battlespace.
After completing Phase 3 planning, CFLCC took a short break be-
fore the CFLCC C9 hosted a Civil-Military Operations (CMO) conference
with supporting unit planners. Most planners had a CMO, IO, or PSYOP
background and CFLCC had a strategic planner attend to assist in main-
taining continuity with the Phase 3 plan. Using a draft Department of State
planning strategy, the conference produced Phase 4 objectives and end
states to secure the peace. Then, planning concluded, for a time, while
CFLCC redeployed back to Fort McPherson, Georgia to prepare for the
next possible mission. In October 2002, a CFLCC exercise validated the
IO plan.
16
141
Planning and Expectation Frictions
During the Phase 3 IO plan internal brief back to the CFLCC planners,
a CFLCC logistics planner challenged the IO plans team that attacking
the adversary’s information cycle, while protecting the CFLCC decision
space and keeping Iraqis safe, was not enough if not outright misguided.
IO needed to win the Iraqi people hearts and minds. This was not new.
Since its inception and mentioned in the introduction, IO has suered
from others viewing IO through a clichéd prism: “winning the hearts and
minds,” “wagging the dog,” or even “mind-trick.”
The IO plans team countered. While winning the hearts and minds is
often considered an IO specialty, the CFLCC plan had limitations. First,
it was inherently challenging to win hearts and minds when the bullets
would be ying in a large-scale combat operations (LSCO) context. Sec-
ondly, the commander would have to be willing to commit more than just
information-related capabilities towards winning the hearts and minds. In
most instances, information unto itself is not enough to positively inu-
ence people to support a cause. Information requires action or a convinc-
ing promise of action. Many Army commanders would learn to appreciate
this during the 2007 Surge and counterinsurgency operations. Lastly, and
most importantly, the IO plan was singularly focused on facilitating the
defeat of the Iraqi military including the RGFC.
17
By late June 2002, the IO sta and planner had a one-on-one session
with the CFLCC over such dissonance. The commander was rightfully
ambitious challenging the IO sta to consider how an IO plan might win
the battle without ring a shot. The IO team understood that the command-
er was implying that thoughtful precision application of strategic action
synchronized with information-related capabilities could convince Iraqis
to take matters into their own hands and overthrow Saddam.
18
The CFLCC IO plans team struggled to identify the appropriate in-
formation-related capabilities and authorities needed to fulll this rather
ambitious objective within the prescribed available time. Often, the iden-
tied capabilities and authorities fell outside CFLCC’s span of control,
and CFLCC planners needed to coordinate capability delivery with own-
ing commands/departments and/or request an expansion of authorities to
leverage said capability unilaterally. The IO plans team recommendation
to the commander was to keep the people and their communication in-
frastructure safe during combat operations so the peace could be secured
in Phase 4. Still, the CFLCC would continue to press USCENTCOM for
more authority.
19
In the end, though, USCENTCOM would retain the stra-
142
tegic initiative, and use IRCs in a synchronized manner with kinetic ac-
tions to compel Iraqis to remove Saddam from power prior to the commit-
ment of Coalition ground forces.
Execution and Innovation
On 19 March 2003, USCENTCOM initiated Operation Iraqi Freedom
with coordinated strategic bombing and information activities. “Shock and
Awe,” as it was coined by the Western media, rained bombs and mes-
saging down on the Iraqi military. The Coalition attempted to decapitate
the Saddam regime through precision strikes and messaging designed to
reduce Iraq’s ability to wage war and establish the conditions necessary to
promote regime change from within Iraq.
20
After the invasion, open source media reports included stories that
USCENTCOM sent MISO messages to Iraqi leaders in attempts to inu-
ence them to not support and even kill Saddam. The US government never
conrmed these stories. If true, though, such IO eorts would have been
consistent with the CFLCC guidance to win the ght without ring a shot.
Whereas days of air and indirect preparatory res preceded the Desert
Storm ground invasion, Operation Iraqi Freedom had only a day of pre-
paratory kinetic res. CFLCC massed its forces along the International
border between Kuwait and Iraq. These forces included from east to west:
the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force including a Marine Division, a Marine
Expeditionary Brigade and a British Armored Division; Fifth United States
Army Corps with three Army Divisions—also in play was the 4th Infantry
Division awaited equipment landing in Turkey, and US Special Operations
Command-Central with multiple task forces. Ultimately, Saddam and his
sons were able to maintain their eeting grip on power prior to the inva-
sion despite CFLCC’s coordinated and direct eorts to the contrary. As a
result, CFLCC forces crossed the line of departure on 21 March 2003.
21
It is important to understand that, in 2003, many of the IO stas were
lightly manned, often with people not possessing any IO training or expe-
rience. Furthermore, commanders had a variety of perspectives of IO from
classical command and control warfare that was designed to create advan-
tages in C2, to inuence operations intended to mitigate violence between
ethnic groups. Given the breadth of the CFLCC IO plan designed to main-
tain constant pressure on the enemy, protect friendly decision space and
minimize Iraqi civilian casualties, subordinate commanders had to make
decisions as to how to best utilize their limited sta and IRCs. CFLCC
had an operational approach towards the application of IO, while each of
143
the CFLCC subordinate commands took an integrated tactical approach
tailored to their missions.
By most accounts, the CFLCC invasion crossed the line of departure
without incident as the Iraqi military may have expected a longer prepa-
ratory re barrage as witnessed during Desert Storm. On 26 March 2003,
the 173rd Airborne brigade conducted an airborne operation in northern
Iraq that met no organized resistance from the Iraqi Army. The ground op-
erations were over in less than two months.
22
Other than some unexpected
resistance from the Fedayeen, to discuss later, all indicators pointed to the
fact that CFLCC had successfully protected its decision space.
As CFLCC forces made progress, CFLCC IO was successful in shap-
ing the operational environment through the information environment.
MISO, nesting with the Shock and Awe narrative, was hugely successful
in degrading the Iraqi military’s will to ght. This was a tiered approach.
CFLCC and immediate subordinate headquarters nominated targets and
messages for delivery by air assets. The coalition dropped millions of leaf-
lets upon Iraqi RGFC and army forces imploring them to not ght. MISO
messages ranged from questioning the value of Iraqis ghting for Sadd-
am, to how the Iraqi military should properly park armored equipment.
Other messages highlighted Saddam and his sons’ ostentatious lifestyle to
separate the rank-and-le of the Iraqi military from its leadership.
23
Mean-
while, tactical MISO teams used loudspeakers to encourage forces in con-
tact to surrender.
24
As the saying goes, the enemy gets a vote. While the RGFC may have
been the COG that CFLCC identied, Saddam’s Fedayeen gave the most
resistance and arguably impeded progress more than the RGFC. For sev-
eral days, the Fedayeen delayed 3rd Infantry Division’s (3ID) advance
inicting casualties and disrupting Coalition logistics forces. In late March
2003, a misoriented logistical convoy would suer deaths and the Coali-
tion’s rst prisoners of war. Within days, a Special Forces team would res-
cue Private Jessica Lynch from the hospital using helmet camera to video
tape all of it including a team member presenting Private Lynch with an
American ag to soothe the Soldier’s nerves. The video images of Amer-
ican Special Forces rescuing Private Lynch gave some ease to an anxious
American public and military concerned for their Prisoners of War. The
Iraqis, to their credit, highlighted the humane treatment they gave the un-
guarded Soldier at the hospital.
25
Within a week, 3ID defeated the outgunned Fedayeen and continued
north. This begs the question, though, would a dedicated and loyal Fed-
144
ayeen been as susceptible to Coalition MISO as the RGFC seemed to be?
Furthermore, the Fedayeen fought more like a guerilla organization than
the traditional military organization so its communications networks may
not have vulnerable as were the RGFCs.
As 3ID advanced, the RGFC had two divisions waiting at the Karbala
Gap—critical terrain that defended the high-speed avenues of approach
towards Baghdad. The Battle of Karbala oers a few instances of IO ex-
ecution. As discussed, the CFLCC IO plan included coordinating IRCs
as part of SEADs to support rotary wing attacks. Before the 3rd ID tanks
arrived at the Karbala Gap, the 11th Aviation Regiment launched a rotary
wing deep attack against the Medina Division. By deploying civilian for-
ward observers using cell phones and hand-held radios, the Iraqis success-
fully thwarted the attack damaging several helicopters and resulting in the
Iraqis capturing two US Apache helicopter pilots. The pilots would later
be freed without harm.
26
There were several factors that contributed to the Aviation Regiment’s
challenges. It is possible this was also an indication the non-lethal SEAD
may not have been adequately planned. By 2003, the Army had divest-
ed itself of the bulk of its organic Electronic Warfare capabilities and
expertise, so the Army lacked both the capabilities and capacity needed
to unilaterally suppress enemy air defenses to enable the 11th Aviation
Regiment’s deep attack. Compounding this macro-level issue, the few IO
personnel in theater that did possess the requisite expertise to eectively
plan and integrate electronic warfare were not present in the 11th Aviation
Brigade’s planning eorts prior to the attack.
While OPSEC was successful in protecting the invasion timing, it
could not protect all elements of deployment information. This may have
contributed to the array of Iraqi forces in Karbala. According to open
source reports after the Battle of Karbala, the threat of 4th Infantry Divi-
sion (4ID) invading from Turkey convinced Qusay Hussein to redeploy a
depleted Republican Guard Corps from Karbala to north of Baghdad. This
reduced the enemy armor presence at the Karbala gap that would allow
unprotected 3rd ID to promptly defeat the Median Division, pour through
the gap and race to Baghdad unimpeded.
Many Iraqi soldiers simply chose not to ght and went home, but not
the way CFLCC expected. Persistent MISO messaging gave specic in-
structions on how the armored formations should array their vehicles to
depict surrender, and how the Iraqi soldiers should present themselves to
the Coalition for surrender. Instead, the Iraqi Army just abandoned most of
145
their vehicles and faded back to civilian life with their individual military
issued side arms. After the Battle of Karbala, there were very few instanc-
es where the RGFC oered organized resistance.
Once 3ID passed through the Karbala Gap, the RGFC forces arrayed
around Baghdad were mostly empty vehicles. One Iraqi unit did success-
fully resist for a while near Baghdad Airport before relenting to a 3ID
Thunder Run through downtown Baghdad. As one RGFC general pon-
dered after the battle of Baghdad airport:
The percentage of forces that really fought was simple. I don’t
have exact numbers, but I can say almost 15 percent. In spite of
that, it kept on ghting for three weeks—so what if everybody
was ghting? We might have fought for longer time, and we could
have delayed the enemy and forced him to pay heavy price, so as
to have justice for the Iraqi people and armed forces from historic
point of view?
27
CFLCC forces had many other instances of executing the IO plan to
include their own adlibbing and originality. In the Shia holy city of An Na-
jaf, an element from the 101st Airborne Division surprised the Najaf citi-
zenry when they appeared in the city square. A quick-thinking commander
told his troops to take a knee and point their weapons at the ground while
the commander and his translator spoke to a local cleric. The situation
quickly diused and the coalition avoided oending any Shia religious
leaders. If anything, this singular event set the tone that demonstrated that
the Coalition’s valued and respected Iraqi beliefs, customs, and institu-
tions. Meanwhile, a Marine detachment to the east in Um Qasr led Iraqis
in a cheer for Iraq with the event captured on television.
The most far-reaching IO action of the invasion came from a tacti-
cal MISO team assigned to the 1st MEF. After 3ID’s famous “Thunder
Run” concluded and the Iraqi Army disappeared into the night, an M88
armor wrecking vehicle and the tactical MISO team found itself in Firdos
Square (not far from Saddam’s statue towering over the square). Noticing
the Iraqis feeling emboldened enough to defame Saddam’s statue, the tac-
tical MISO team used loudspeakers to compel the Iraqi crowd to assist as
the M88 tore down Saddam’s statue. The Iraqis frolicked on the befallen
image of Saddam, throwing their shoes at it.
28
The resultant images sent a
very clear strategic message: Baghdad was no longer Saddam’s city. Al-
though, more than one media outlet claimed it to be a staged event.
29
The CFLCC plan called for the protection of the Iraqi communica-
tion infrastructure. To make this happen, commands had to submit rec-
146
ommendations to higher headquarters to maintain a restricted target list.
This required diligence and negotiations with other headquarters to con-
vince them, for example, to not destroy a bridge that has a telecommunica-
tion line running through the infrastructure of the bridge itself. Likewise,
CFLCC had to oer non-kinetic alternatives which could degrade, disrupt,
neutralize, or otherwise deny a target.
Perhaps the best instance of this was how the Coalition handled Sadd-
am’s ubiquitous spokesman Muhammed Saeed al-Sahhaf (aka Baghdad
Bob). Saeed had a perpetual TV presence, adamantly denying any and
all coalition progress. Night after night, he appeared unfazed of any im-
pending coalition action. The coalition tried several non-lethal options to
deny Baghdad Bob from transmitting having some success in forcing him
to move. Eventually, the Coalition physically destroyed the transmitter to
neutralize the Iraqi Government’s primary means to propagate itself to the
outside world.
Lastly, the CFLCC plan to protect the Iraqis non-combatants had
mixed results. In general, there were few media accounts of collateral
damage or Iraqi civilian deaths due to ground operation during the for-
ty-ve days of combat. This did not mean, however, that Coalition opera-
tions did not create any civilian casualties. Iraqi civilians died. Plus, there
were some instances of concern that could aect a future peace. During
the initial push through southern Iraq, Civil Aair teams reported meeting
Iraqis who said, “Thank you, now leave.”
30
This indicated that the Coali-
tion to include CFLCC may not have fully understood the tensions within
the country.
Immediately after combat operations, Frontline documented a tank
squad destroying an Iraqi man’s vehicle because he was allegedly stealing
wood and his child was not enrolled in school. While the Soldiers prompt-
ly faced disciplinary actions, the damage was done. Such actions do not
win hearts and minds if that is what IO is supposed to do. On the other
hand, one could argue it was tactical level Shock and Awe, just not the
kind of Shock and Awe CFLCC wanted.
Conclusion
While there is no limit to the IO lessons learned, the most important
lessons involve tiered coordination, the precursors of what would become
CEMA, and post combat operations planning. CFLCC was two headquar-
ters removed from its next closest subordinate command which created
an environment where it was easy for higher headquarters to defer too
much action to the subordinate headquarters such that higher is only a
147
pass-through command. This would not be acceptable. For instance, CFL-
CC had to manage MISO leaet drop and broadcast target nominations.
Amidst coordination, all units need to have cognizance of what higher and
lateral are doing with information such that there is trust that the lowest
headquarters doesn’t have to do it all. This allows each headquarters to
manage its limited IRC assets and nest eorts to achieve synergy.
In another instance, it is easy to argue whether the approach of apply-
ing IRCs to disrupt the adversary’s air defense has merit. After all, CFLCC
itself might not directly oversee an attack involving rotary wing aircraft
so how can CFLCC force a subordinate unit to plan and execute a proper
non-lethal SEAD? Also, subordinate Army units might not have the nec-
essary skilled personnel to do all of this. At least, though, the guidance
assists subordinate commands with priorities and focus.
With regard to SEAD planning, the advent of CEMA and renewed
emphasis on assigning EW personnel to army formations should improve
the future success of army aviation. Likewise, the addition of cyberspace
operations and personnel to army formations gives the IRCs more capabil-
ity. This alleviates responsibilities that previously fell on the IO planners
and synchronizers. This development could portend the improved future
integration of technical IRCs that will enable decisive results against en-
emy C2.
While Phase IV planning did occur, the strategic decision to not con-
duct Stability Operations damaged the post-Phase III operational environ-
ment. Still, CFLCC and the coalition writ large did not fully understand or
appreciate the complexity of the Iraqi information environment, and more
so the actors and stakeholders operating within it. Iran was strategically
committed to making Iraq a weak state from which it could forward proj-
ect its inuence regionally. Given the overwhelming number of Iraqi Shia
to Iraqi Sunnis and their proximity to Iran, Iran had interior lines, not just
logistically, but culturally as well that the Coalition could never hope to
replicate or consistently interdict. Iran understood the dierences between
Iraqi Shia and Sunni and how to exploit it.
Information without corresponding action is pointless. Such was the
occupation. The coalition said life would be better without Saddam. Yet
after a few months, life was not improving. Crime was rising and the so-
ciety was falling apart. The coalition told the Iraqi military Saddam was
not worth ghting for and to go home with honor. Then, the Coalition Pro-
vincial Authority red them. With honor lost and the Iranian backed Shia
killing Sunni Baathists, the Sunni options were to ght, ee, or do nothing.
148
CFLCC’s IO plan worked mostly as intended. Inevitably, though, the
invasion itself mired in a deliberate lack of afterthought and decisions
made at strategic levels. The lack of coordinated message to action in
Phase III led to the inexorable slide towards a counter-insurgency. Many
of the information principles of a counter insurgency, like coordinating
message to action, using information to nd high value targets, and so
forth, apply to large-scale combat operations but dier in scale.
The importance of successfully managing and manipulating informa-
tion in the 21st Century’s Information Age cannot be overstated. The chap-
ter’s opening quote from the National Defense Strategy highlights the im-
portance of information. Plus, the Secretary of Defense has produced more
guidance for information. In the 2016 “Department of Defense Strategy
for Operations in the Information Environment,” Secretary Ashton Carter
avers: “Information is such a powerful tool, it is recognized as an element
of US national power—and as such, the Department must be prepared to
synchronize information programs, plans, messages, and products as part
of a whole of government eort.”
31
This DoD guidance set the table for Secretary Mattis to approve the
Information Joint Function which is a superior intellectual model to IO
that fully captures the breadth, diversity and importance of information to
warghting. The Information Joint Function is not bound to just the adver-
sary but inuences all relevant actor perceptions and behaviors. Indeed,
the relevant actor’s behavior is more important than the actor’s perception.
Moreover, information is vital to human and automated decision making.
The human aspect and the human reliance on technology are inseparable.
The 2018 National Defense Strategy acknowledges the changes infor-
mation and associated technology as it notes the use of emerging technol-
ogies to discredit and subvert democratic processes in Georgia, Crimea,
and eastern Ukraine is concern enough.
32
From actions in Ukraine to the
South China Sea, US competitors recognize that information is a weapon.
The US military must adapt more quickly to this changing environ-
ment and fully adopt information as a way of ghting war. To do less is to
cede the space to a capable, agile, and willing adversary who wants to win
as much as the US military hates to lose.
149
Notes
1. James Mattis, “National Defense Strategy, 2018,” 2, accessed 8 July
2018, https://www.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-De-
fense-Strategy-Summary.pdf.
2. Mattis, “National Defense Strategy, 2018,” I-14.
3. Matthew J. Sheier, “US Army Information Operations and Cyber-
Electromagnetic Activities: Lessons from Atlantic Resolve,” Military Review,
19 March 2018.
4. Headquarters, Department of the Army, Field Manual (FM) 3-0, Opera-
tions (Washington, DC:) 2-1.
5.
Joint Publication (JP) 3-13, Information Operations (Washington,
DC: 2012).
6. FM 3-0, Operations, 2-24.
7. Army Central Command ARCENT, accessed 8 July 2018, https://www.
globalsecurity.org/military/agency/army/arcent.htm.
8. George W. Bush, “Remarks by the President in Address to the United Na-
tions General Assembly, New York, New York,” ocial transcript, press release,
12 September 2002, accessed 8 July 2018, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.
archives.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020912-1.html.
9. Lead CFLCC Planner, Name Unknown, Remarks to the CFLCC planning
team upon returning from the tank session, April 2002.
10. Colonel Carmine Cicalese, “Firsthand experience while serving as the
CFLCC IO Planner, April 2002 to July 2002.”
11
. Cicalese, Firsthand experience.
12. FM 3-0, Operations, 2-1.
13. Cicalese, Firsthand experience.
14. Joseph Strange, “Center of Gravity & Critical Vulnerabilities,” Marine
Corps University, Quantico, VA, 1996.
15. Sun Tzu, Art of War, (Hollywood, FL: Simon and Brown), 2011.
16. Kevin Cavanaugh, CFLCC PSYOP Ocer email note to Major Car-
mine Cicalese circa November 2002.
17. Carmine, Cicalese, “Redening Information Operations,” Joint Forces
Quarterly, 69, 2013.
18. Cicalese.
19. Cicalese.
20. David Martin, “Iraq Faces Massive US Missile Barrage,” CBS News, 24
January 2003, accessed 8 July 2018, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iraq-faces-
massive-us-missile-barrage/.
21. Gregory Fontenot, et al, On Point. The United States Army in Operation
Iraqi Freedom, (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2004),
441–496.
22. Fontenot, On Point, 441–496.
23. “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” Conict 21. United States Air Force, 13
150
March 2006, accessed 8 July 2018, http://c21.maxwell.af.mil/iraq.htm#willing.
24. Sergeant Major Retired Herb Friedman, “Operation Iraqi Freedom,”
accessed 8 July 2018, http://www.psywarrior.com/OpnIraqiFreedom.html.
25. Helen Kennedy, “RESCUE POW IN DARING RAID Supply clerk
found wounded at hospital,” NY Daily News, 2 April 2003.
26. Colonel David Eshel, “Deadly Scourge of the US Helicopter Pilots
in Iraq,” Defense Update, 10 February 2007, accessed 8 July 2018, http://de-
fense-update.com/20070210_us-helicopter-iraq.html.
27. Interview with Raad Haamdani, Frontline, accessed 8 July 2018, https://
www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/invasion/interviews/raad.html.
28. Fontenot, On Point.
29. David Zucchino, “Army Stage-Managed Fall of Hussein Statue,”
Los Angeles Times. 3 July 2004, accessed 8 July 2018. http://articles.latimes.
com/2004/jul/03/nation/na-statue3; Common Dreams, 9 December 2004, ac-
cessed 8 July 2018, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Dreams.
30. Mark Shankle, Interview circa 2 April 2003. The 1st Cavalry Division
G5 shared a 3ID G5 SITREP with the 1st Cavalry Division IO Ocer.
31. Ashton Carter, “Department of Defense Strategy for Operations in the
Information Environment, June 2016,” 1.
32. Mattis, “National Defense Strategy, 2018,” 2.
151
Chapter 9
The Cyber Crucible: Eastern Europe, Russia, and the
Development of Modern Warfare
Wesley P. White
The United States Army is unequivocal in its belief in the importance
of cyberspace. The rst paragraph in Field Manual (FM) 3-12, Cyberspace
and Electronic Warfare Operations, states that superiority through indirect
means (either through cyberspace operations or other electronic warfare)
is decidedly advantageous to all commanders at all levels, and that these
indirect means will serve as a critical component to future land operations.
1
Though the US Army has recognized the importance of the cyber domain
in conicts going forward, the Russian Federation has delivered a master-
class on the development and integration of cyber capabilities into modern
conicts and seems wholly invested in the idea of cyberspace operations
and other indirect actions being a primary means of force projection, rath-
er than a useful (or necessary) pairing with traditional kinetic forces.
In February 2013, General Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s Chief of the
General Sta (comparable to the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Sta), published an article titled “The Value of Science is in the Fore-
sight,” in the weekly Russian trade paper Military-Industrial Kurier. In it,
Gerasimov suggested that the “very ‘rules of war’ have changed,” and that
in many cases, nonmilitary means have exceeded the power and force of
weapons in their ability to eect change on the international stage.
2
Gera-
simov argues that new technologies have reduced gaps between traditional
forces and their command and control, though also noting that “frontal
engagements of large formations of forces at the strategic and operational
level are gradually becoming a thing of the past.”
3
The future, Gerasimov
suggests, lies in “contactless actions”—made through cyber or other elec-
tronic means—being used as the main means of military or intelligence
goals. This belief—that traditional military interactions are giving way to
newer and subjectively more eective indirect interactions via computers
and electronics—has been dubbed by some as the Gerasimov Doctrine.
4
The timing of the release and publication of the Gerasimov Doctrine is
important. Closely after the release of Gerasimov’s article, Russia invaded
Ukraine with both tanks and malware. The Russian digital incursion into
Ukrainian networks, in tandem with a physical military assault, was some-
thing the Russian Federation had been practicing for almost a decade. Tar-
geting Estonia in 2007, Georgia in 2008, and eventually Ukraine in 2014,
152
these attacks used cyber eects, more traditional eects (with mechanized
ground units, troops on the ground, and aircraft), or a combination of both.
In each of the three instances, Russian force escalated in both scope and
complexity. Russia has set forth the blueprint for the training and devel-
opment of an eective cyber corps, and broadcast to the world how it has
eectively integrated cyber operations with traditional large-scale military
maneuvers. Moreover, Russia is making it known how they perceive the
place of cyber, and other indirect forms of conict, as shapers of policy.
From a military perspective, Russia’s crawl-walk-run progression
of cyber operations—enacted through casual disregard for internation-
al norms and standards of conduct—has enabled it to develop its cyber
corps through real world cyberspace missions. Russian cyber operators
have worked in tandem with Russian military operations to nd the most
eective ways to integrate cyber eects into more traditional military bat-
tlespace. This invaluable experience, unable to be fully recreated in train-
ing laboratories and exercises, aords Russia the dual abilities of both
shaping and better understanding the battleeld of the future.
Understanding the Terms
Before considering the how cyber operations t into the current under-
standing of battlespace, one must ensure that he or she understands at least
the denitions of baseline concepts within the cyber domain.
First, this chapter will eschew the term “hacker.” “Hacker” is a load-
ed, ill-dened word; its position as a ubiquitous catch-all for bad actors
“on the internet” necessarily means it should be excluded from a more
granular discussion of cyberspace operational development. Because the
concepts dealt with herein deal more with nations and nation-states, the
term “attacker” is more appropriate.There are two types of actions to de-
lineate for the purposes of this chapter: cyber-attack and cyber-warfare. A
cyber-attack must aim to undermine the function of a computer or com-
puter network and must have a political or national security purpose.
5
A
generic end user being infected with malware from a bad website is not a
cyber-attack. Further, state or non-state actors may propagate a cyber-at-
tack. Richard A. Clark, former member of the US National Security Coun-
cil, denes cyber-attacks as “actions by a nation-state to penetrate another
nation’s computers or networks for the purposes of causing damage or
disruption,”
6
and Michael Hayden, former Director of the National Secu-
rity Agency, describes cyber-attacks similarly as a “deliberate attempt to
disable or destroy another country’s computer networks.”
7
153
On a larger, purely nation-to-nation scale, is cyber-warfare. Cyber-war-
fare will also always meet the benchmarks of a cyber-attack, though not
all cyber-attacks are cyber-warfare. A cyber-attack rises to the level of cy-
ber-warfare—that is, the “level of an armed attack justifying self-defense
under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter”—when the attack results in physical
destruction comparable to a conventional, kinetic eect.
8
If an attacker
launches a denial-of-service attack against a telecommunications provider
or datacenter, for instance, this would not rise beyond the denition of
cyber-attack; however, if the attacker unleashes malware which destroys
stored data, device rmware, or information back-ups, those events would
be more in-line with “cyber-warfare.”
With that said, where else should the Gerasimov doctrine—a doctrine
of increased belligerence and warfare through indirect means and “con-
tactless actions”—be eventually aimed but at the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO), Russia’s trans-Atlantic menace which too often
stands in the way of Moscow’s Russo-centric policies?
NATO is based on the concept of collective defense that enhances
its strategy of deterrence. Through formal agreements and long-standing
and extensive collaboration, NATO sends a strong signal that member
states will stand together in the face of threats to deter aggression against
its
members. NATO exists to preserve the peace and to make sure that
changes to the status quo in Europe occur through political processes that
lead to the spread of democracy, the rule of law, and adherence to inter
-
national norms
.
To achieve its varied Russo-centric objectives, Russia opted to pick a
course of action not to defeat NATO, but to defeat NATO’s strategy. By
presenting the Western alliance with actions that produce minimal death
and minor (if any) physical destruction, Russia has attempted to shift the
responsibility of escalation onto NATO, attempting to goad the defensive
alliance into launching a pre-emptive attack in order to keep the status
quo.
9
If, through ambiguously legal actions, Russia could goad NATO
(or simply a NATO-aligned country) into a traditional, military response,
Russia could claim to be the wronged, vulnerable defender now suering
an act of aggression—merely because there is no concrete international
understanding of when and where a military response is appropriate for
a cyber-attack
.
Estonia
The attack on Estonia was a two-phase oensive. Initially, the attack-
ers engaged in little more than electronic vandalism, such as hacking into
154
the website of the political party that led Estonia’s coalition government,
where the attackers posted a fake letter of apology from Prime Minister
Andrus Ansip for moving a statue. In the second phase, the attacks es-
calated into a full-scale campaign. The aim was to overload Estonia’s
computer servers with massive volumes of message trac causing them
to crash, leveraging bot-nets—large networks of computers which have
been taken over by malware and which are controlled from one or more
central locations—to bombard the targeted Estonian systems with mil-
lions of fake messages. Some estimates suggest that one million com-
puters were co-opted or otherwise employed globally for this Distributed
Denial of Service (DDoS) onslaught on the servers of a country of 1.3
million inhabitants.
10
Georgia
Cyber-attacks on Georgian systems were already under way before
Russia invaded in 2008. On the day the ground attacks began, sites such
as stopgeorgia.ru posted lists of Georgian targets to attack as well as in-
structions on how to launch those attacks.
11
While Moscow baited Georgia
with troop movements on the borders of the breakaway provinces of Ab-
khazia and South Ossetia, bot-nets were already on the attack, degrading
Georgian websites, including the pages of the president, the parliament,
the foreign ministry, and news agencies. Banks, which were also targets of
cyber-attacks, shut down their servers at the rst sign of attack to pre-empt
identity or monetary theft.
12
This was the rst (recognized) time Russian
cyber and traditional military attacks were performed in coordination.
13
Target surveys, targets, domains, and instructions were ready to go
and posted to the internet in accompaniment with the initial Russian incur-
sion into Georgia. This was not a y-by-night operation set up by helping
hacktivists; rather, the timing suggests this was a state-sponsored, mili-
tary-ordered cyber incursion specically designed to be launched in tan-
dem with the military operation.
Ukraine
Some suggest that Russia is using Ukraine as a perpetual cyber-war
testing ground, or as Wired described it in a lengthy and detailed report
on the matter last year, “a laboratory for perfecting new forms of global
online combat.”
14
A digital army has systematically undermined practical-
ly every sector of Ukraine: media, nance, transportation, military, poli-
tics, and energy. Seemingly unstoppable intrusions deleted data, destroyed
computers, and in some cases paralyzed organizations’ most basic func-
tions.
15
There is no way to know exactly how many Ukrainian institutions
155
have been hit in the escalating campaign of cyber-attacks, and any count is
liable to be an underestimate. For every publicly known target, others have
not admitted to being victimized. Still more have not even discovered the
intruders in their systems.
The attackers’ intentions can be summed up in a single Russian word:
poligon, translated loosely as “training ground.” Even in their most dam-
aging actions, the attackers never seem to go too far; the attackers could
have knocked out Ukrenergo’s transmission station for longer or caused
permanent, physical harm to the grid, but instead settled (repeatedly) for
blackouts.
16
The attacker never seem committted to full destruction of
their targets in Ukraine. Instead, the attackers cease before delivering ir-
reparable damage, playing their cards close to their chest as if reserving
their true capabilities for some future operation—one can almost think of
it as game planning during a pre-season football game.
17
The attacks on Estonia, Georgia, and the Ukraine, while highlight-
ing the fusion of cyber-eects with more traditional military operations,
should also serve as a wake-up call to military and security circles in
NATO nations on both sides of the Atlantic and to highlight questions
in need of thoughtful consideration: namely, what are the lessons to take
away from the Russian Federation’s increased utilization of the cyber do-
main in their combat operations, and how does this help to shape the
battleeld of the future?
Analysis
The cyber domain oers an increased latitude of action for command-
ers in the modern battlespace in part due to the fog of uncertainty that sur-
rounds the proportion, suitability, and overall eectiveness of responding
to a cyber-attack. An attack on a base which wounds and kills opposing
soldiers or physically destroys infrastructure may invite a response in-
kind, where a communications system that has been denied service or oth-
erwise degraded may not elicit a physical strike in retaliation. Cyberspace
operations serve as an excellent avenue of force projection without putting
Soldiers in harm’s way; these operations have increased the latitude for
action in the same way that the development and elding of the Unmanned
Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) did. A UAV can be sent on a mission that may be
deemed too hazardous or not important enough to send Soldiers into the
eld to risk life and limb to accomplish. The same concept applies to a cy-
berspace operation—rather than send a team into a known hostile area to
physically retrieve and return intelligence from an enemy’s digital devic-
156
es, it is easier (and may make more sense) for the commander to approve a
cyberspace operation to electronically retrieve the same intelligence.
A cyberspace operation also does not require the complex partnerships
that a mission with Soldiers being transported via airplanes, helicopters,
ships, or ground vehicles may require. Where a traditional mission may
require the use of an aireld in a partner country, or the use of anoth-
er country’s airspace or other violation of territorial sovereignty for the
delivery and retrieval of Soldiers and eects, a cyberspace operation is
not constrained in the same way. Cyberspace operations may also require
signicantly less deconiction to perform than a traditional military oper-
ation. There is a far smaller chance of collateral damage coming from a
cyberspace operation than through the launching of missiles or dropping
of bombs; with that decreased chance of sparking an international incident
through harming or killing citizens or soldiers of a dierent country, an
increased utilization of cyberspace operations would allow a commander
more avenues to prosecute their target or objective.
The ability to launch a cyber-attack changes the face of a large-scale
combat operation because the ecacy of the operation can be wildly
out-of-proportion to the risk of damage or loss. When a few strokes on the
keyboard—from dozens, hundreds, or thousands of miles away—can turn
an enemy’s power o, disable their communications, or turn their trans-
portation systems into a chaotic, unmanaged mess, and the cost in lives,
equipment, and resources is negligible, then a commander nds him or
herself in an advantageous position from which to launch further attacks
(cyber or otherwise).
For all the new and exciting avenues open to a commander on the
oensive, the introduction of cyberspace operations should also be of
great concern. Much of the modern battlespace is shaped by timely—if
not instantaneous—communication, and it is exactly that communication
which would be targeted by a group waging a cyber-attack. Unfortunately,
the best and only surere way to defend a machine with any sort of con-
nectivity is to disable or unplug it; otherwise, a determined attacker will
eventually gain access. He or she only needs to wait for an end-user of that
machine or equipment to make the fatal mistake which grants the attacker
access. Defensive cyber operations have their place but, due in part to
the ever-present risk of human error, serve primarily as a delaying action.
What this practically means is that the best defense is a good oense, and
that energy should be focused on assaulting any enemy’s (digital) position
with such overwhelming force and violence that the same force and vio-
lence cannot be oered in return. Scenes from Hollywood, with defenders
157
running to and fro, typing on this terminal or that keyboard to fend o
some sort of cyber-attack have no basis in reality; once a machine has
been compromised or degraded, it should be eectively considered out
of the ght (until properly remediated). Not only has the commander lost
that piece of equipment, but now the attackers who had been focused on
the now out-of-commission equipment can redouble their eorts against a
dierent target. In a persistent cyber-attack scenario which a commander
would nd him or herself in a large-scale combat operation, the losses
cascade together like so many dominoes, failures and defeats compound-
ing exponentially until the enemy attacker has control of the systems and
freedom of movement within.
The
binary choice of oense or defense, at least with regards to mod-
ern cyber battleeld operations, is an anachronism. The new commander
should seek to deny, degrade, or destroy the capabilities of the enemy
with whom he is engaged as expeditiously as possible, understanding that
his or her enemy is seeking to do precisely the same thing at precisely the
same time.
Conclusion
A crawl-walk-run approach through Estonia, Georgia, and Ukraine
has lent the Russian cyber-arm a smooth, well-oiled quality; at the same
time, the Russian ability to conduct real world operations, absent eective
international intervention, external defense, or interdiction has allowed a
honing of tactics, techniques, and procedures (or TTPs) and tools to great-
er obfuscate Russian presence and activity.
18
Estonia, the initial victim, was a low-key aair, or the crawl: cyber-at-
tacks launched, without being paired with military intervention, which in
retrospect can be viewed as a proof-of-concept. Georgia, a step beyond
Estonia, was the walk: pre-formed bot-nets sending pre-formed packets,
in a larger-scale denial of service attack, but now paired with an incursion
of troops and tanks and a traditional military movement into the South
Ossetia area. Through postings on various internet forums and sites, para-
military cyber activity seems to have been, if not encouraged, but also not
discouraged—which only served to swell the ranks of those conducting
cyber-attacks on Russia’s behalf. Finally, Ukraine, was the run: large-scale
cyber-attacks paired with military incursion and occupation. Simultane-
ous attacks occurred on media rms; an attack on the Central Election
Commission’s website triggered the announcement of an ultra-right-wing
candidate as winner of the election; and an incursion took over the net-
works which connected and controlled the systems for entire power grids.
158
Once the desired levels of denial, degradation, and destruction had been
achieved, the attackers destroyed the rmware for the network cards in
the machines, leaving administrators and responders unable to x the is-
sue remotely.
19
It is perhaps best to think of the ongoing cyber activity in Ukraine as
Russia’s Combat Training Center, or CTC. The purpose of a CTC is to
provide realistic collective training for Soldiers, leaders, stas, and units
according to Army and Joint doctrine, simulating as closely as possible
the rigors and stresses of combat.
20
The CTC ensures Soldiers, units, and
leaders are well prepared for current and future operations; no other means
of training provides the Army with the ability to maintain the consistent-
ly tough and realistic training environment that combatants require for
success in warfare.
21
Though cyberspace is a tested domain at both the
National Training Center (NTC) and at the Joint Readiness Training Cen-
ter (JRTC), there is not a dedicated electronic or cyber CTC with which
to train US Army (or military at-large) cyber actors.
22
This leaves cy-
ber-training to be conducted in more traditional, lab-based environments,
the limitations of which are clear: training networks can only be so large;
the trainer can only provide the types of operating systems that he or she
has access or license to provide; and the vulnerabilities and/or exploitation
vectors provided to train a cyber-actor are limited to what the training
facilitator can think of (or knows about) at the time he or she is putting to-
gether a network. In the case of Russia, however, adventurism in Ukraine
has served to oer a holistically complete training environment for the
Russian cyber-forces—state-sanctioned or otherwise. Russian forces will
nd a width and breadth of computers and operating systems, in a vari-
ety of patched and unpatched states, administered by both the lazy and
hyper-vigilant. Russian cyber actors can train against medical, transporta-
tion, banking, power, or education systems, take note of what works and
what does not, and then take that real-time, operational data back to the
coders and developers to manipulate their cyber toolkit on the y, increas-
ing their ecacy for the next round of attacks.
“Russia is not only pushing the limits of its technical abilities,” says
Thomas Rid, a professor in the War Studies department at King’s College,
London, “but also feeling out the edges of what the international commu-
nity will tolerate.”
23
The Kremlin meddled in the Ukrainian election and
faced seemingly ineective repercussions; Russian and Russia-aligned ac-
tors continue to wreak havoc across the country in a variety of necessary
and national-security-level industries, including turning the power o and
on in Ukraine with impunity.
24
Then, full of condence from their eastern
159
European triumphs, Russia tried similar tactics in Germany, France, and
the United States. Russian government cyber actors have targeted “gov-
ernment entities and multiple US critical infrastructure sectors,” including
those of energy, nuclear, water and aviation, according to an alert issued
by the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investi-
gation (FBI).
25
Critical manufacturing sectors and commercial facilities
also have been targeted by the ongoing “multi-stage intrusion campaign
by Russian government cyber actors.”
26
A joint analysis by the FBI and the
Department of Homeland Security described the intrusions as extremely
sophisticated, in some cases rst breaching suppliers and third-party ven-
dors before hopping from those networks to their ultimate target.
Rid suggests that Russia is testing out boundaries and trying to map
out red lines; if Russian actions are rebued in one area, or an eect that
they have produced draws too much attention or creates unacceptable
consternation, then Russian forces simply move on to the next target or
the next intrusion. However, without signicant ramications—or even
merely eective international reaction—Russia may not feel signicant-
ly at-risk and, lacking necessary external push back, might continue to
the
“next step” for their targets.
27
What the escalation of Russian attacks
truly suggests, however, is a cyber-war will not be waged at some ab
-
stract point in the future; it is happening, at least the initial stages, now,
throughout the world, propagated (at least in part) by a seasoned corps of
Russian veterans
.
Every so often in the history of warfare a sea-change occurs which
aects the way militaries function and how combat is conceived. Stone
gave way to metal, bows to gunpowder and bullets. Automatic weapons
eventually oered commanders a multiplicative increase in repower and
destructive capability. The advent of airpower opened up an entirely new
domain on the battleeld, and now the advent of weaponized cyberspace
has done the same. The Russian Federation’s stepped-inclusion of cyber
operations into their military campaigns serves as a proof of cyber oper-
ations’ utility and benet to a commander in the modern battlespace. The
lesson of Russia’s success is not how the Russian Federation developed
their program. Instead, having seen the eectiveness that cyber operations
can have both in shaping a battlespace and in oering a decided tactical or
psychological advantage over an enemy, the lesson is that cyber operations
must be more fully integrated into modern combat. Peer and near-peer
adversaries alike are elding cyberspace capabilities and integrating those
same capabilities into their operation plans; Russia just happened to dis-
play their progression and development on the world stage. With the lati-
160
tude of action it aords commanders on the ground, the ability to degrade
or deny the communications of an opposing force, and the psychological
aspect of an eective cyber-attack on the armed forces of an adversarial
country (in addition to the population), the cyber domain truly is the next
evolution of battlespace. The United States must fully embrace and work
to seamlessly integrate cyberspace operations into their plans for combat
operations, both large-and small-scale. As has been demonstrated by the
Russian Federation’s military adventurism through the past decade, the
adversaries of the United States fully intend to do just that.
161
Notes
1. Department of the Army, (FM) Field Manual 3-12, Cyberspace and Elec-
tronics Warfare Operations (Washington, DC: 2017), 1-1.
2. General Valery Gerasimov, “The Value of Science Is in the Foresight
New Challenges Demand Rethinking the Forms and Methods of Carrying out
Combat Operations.” Military Review, January/February 2016, 23.
3. Gerasimov, 23.
4. Molly K. McKew et al., “The Gerasimov Doctrine,” POLITICO Mag-
azine, September/October 2017, accessed 27 April 2018, https://www.politico.
com/magazine/story/2017/09/05/gerasimov-doctrine-russia-foreign-poli-
cy-215538. For the opinion that the Gerasimov doctrine is not necessarily “real,”
see Roger N. McDermott, “Does Russia Have a Gerasimov Doctrine?” US Army
War College Quarterly Parameters 46, no. 1, 103.
5. Oona A. Hathaway and Rebecca Crootof, “The Law of Cyber-Attack,”
2012, Faculty Scholarship Series Paper 3852, 836–837.
6. Richard A. Clarke, Cyber War (New York: HarperCollins, 2011), 6.
7. Tom Gjelten, “Extending The Law Of War To Cyberspace,” National
Public Radio, 22 September 2010, accessed 15 February 2018, https://www.npr.
org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130023318.
8. Hathaway and Crootof, “The Law of Cyber-Attack,” 841.
9. Clarke, Cyber War, 34.
10. Robert Mandel, Optimizing Cyberdeterrence: A Comprehensive Strategy
for Preventing Foreign Cyberattacks, (Washington, DC: Georgetown University
Press, 2017). See also Franklin D. Kramer and Melanie J. Teplinsky, “Cyberse-
curity and Tailored Deterrence,” Atlantic Council, 3 January 2014, accessed 20
February 2018, http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/publications/issue-briefs/cyberse-
curity-and-tailored-deterrence.
11. More than likely, these instructions amounted to having the interested
user download a tool such as the low orbit ion cannon, which lets a user opt for
their box to be coopted and controlled as part of a larger, Denial of Service or
Distributed Denial of Services intent bot-net.
12. John Marko, “Before the Gunre, Cyberattacks,” The New York
Times, 13 August 2008, accessed 13 February 2018, http://www.nytimes.
com/2008/08/13/technology/13cyber.html.
13. David J. Smith, “Russian Cyber Strategy and the War Against Georgia,”
Atlantic Council, 17 January 2014, accessed 20 February 2018, http://www.
atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/natosource/russian-cyber-policy-and-the-war-against-
georgia. This is more along the lines of what the Rand Corporation was dening
as a cyber-attack—computer-based occurrences paired with actual military
movements and force.
14. Christopher Miller, “What’s Ukraine Doing to Combat Russian Cy-
berwarfare? ‘Not Enough,’” RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty, 8 March 2018,
accessed 22 February 2018, https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-struggles-cyberde-
fense-russia-expands-testing-ground/29085277.html.
162
15. Andy Greenberg, “How an Entire Nation Became Russia’s Test Lab
for Cyberwar,” Wired, 20 June 2017, accessed 14 February 2018, https://www.
wired.com/story/russian-hackers-attack-ukraine/.
16. Greenberg, “How An Entire Nation.” “A power company responsible
for operational and technological control of the Integrated Power System (IPS)
of Ukraine and electricity transmission via trunk power grids from generating
plants to the distribution networks of the regional electricity suppliers,” About
Us, УКРЕНЕРГО, accessed 7 March 2018. https://ua.energy/about-en/.
17. Greenberg, “How An Entire Nation.”
18. I say “absent eective international intervention” because if the interna-
tional intervention had been eective, then the cyber-attacks, which still ravage
Ukraine, would have been stopped.
19. Greenberg, “How An Entire Nation.”
20. “Combat Training Center Directorate (CTCD),” 8 July 2014, accessed
27 April 2018, https://usacac.army.mil/organizations/cact/ctcd. See also: US
Army, “Combat Training Center (CTC) Program 2009 US Army Posture State-
ment,” accessed 25 February 2018, https://www.army.mil/aps/09/information_
papers/combat_training_center_program.html.
21. US Army, “Combat Training Center (CTC) Program.”
22. “Combat Training Center Rotations Continue to Drive Evolution of
Army Cyber-Electromagnetic Activities,” Army News, 29 June 2017, accessed
26 April 2018, https://www.army.mil/article/190201/combat_training_center_ro-
tations_continue_to_drive_evolution_of_army_cyber_electromagnetic_activitie
23. Greenberg, “How An Entire Nation.”
24. Greenberg.
25. “Alert (TA18-074A).” Russian Government Cyber Activity Targeting
Energy and Other Critical Infrastructure Sectors | United States Computer Emer-
gency Readiness Team (US-CERT), 15 March 2018, accessed 21 March 2018.
https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/alerts/TA18-074A.
26. Jennifer A. Dlouhy and Michael Riley, “Russian Hackers Attacking U.S.
Power Grid and Aviation, FBI Warns,” Bloomberg, 15 March 2018, accessed
March 21, 2018, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-15/russian-
hackers-attacking-u-s-power-grid-aviation-fbi-warns.
27. Greenberg, “How An Entire Nation.”
163
Chapter 10
Botnet Evolution during Modern-Day
Large-Scale Combat Operations
1
Lieutenant Colonel Rick A. Galeano, Katrin Galeano,
Samer Al-Khateeb, Nitin Agarwal, and
Lieutenant Colonel James N. Turner
Large-scale combat operations no longer involve only land, sea, and air
domains, but also an Information Environment (IE) capable of quickly and
unexpectedly changing conditions in all domains within the multi-domain
operational environment. A new articial means, social bots, has been in-
troduced to the constantly evolving IE to shape and inuence perceptions
and cognitively trigger behavioral change on an exponentially massive
scale worldwide. The goal is to inuence the IE by amplifying social me-
dia followership in the form of “social bots”—scripted codes that mimic
human users and serve as super-spreaders of information. These social
bots can be used to promote particular points of view, fabricate perception
of popularity or popular viewpoint, muddle the discourse and narrative
space, and/or serve as a means to bolster these points of view by promot-
ing blogs or other digital content. Eects can range across the physical,
cognitive, and informational dimensions to ultimately trigger specic be-
haviors in individuals and groups that impact the operational environment
in a way that is benecial to those who operate the bots.
For example, in the physical dimension, bots are capable of disrupting
infrastructure by overloading networks or hosting platforms with a deluge
of information; or they could easily carry obtrusive malware or viruses
to deny or degrade a targeted system. Once an infection starts inside a
network, it is dicult for network defenders to isolate and contain. Con-
template the potentially catastrophic eect that a Tactical Operations Cen-
ter’s (TOC) mission command systems being denied during large-scale
combat operations (LSCO)—where assured communications is vital and
may well prove to be the dierence between a mission’s success or failure.
Correspondingly, social bots can shape the informational dimension by
corrupting and/or disrupting how information is received, processed, and/
or disseminated through mission command systems and human lters—
eectively limiting the optimal employment of friendly combat power.
Contrary to popular belief eects within the IE are not solely generated
through non-kinetic eects; rather “the warghting functions (particularly
movement and maneuver res) produce eects in the information envi-
164
ronment, whether intentional or not.
2
Lastly, the cognitive dimension re-
volves around the perceptions that the audiences receive from any of the
messaging and the resultant behavior based on those stimuli. Repeated
messaging from what appears to be a variety of independent sources create
an echo chamber that focuses on repetition in order to resonate cognitively
within targeted individuals or groups. “Rarely does a single tactic, task,
method, action, or message change behaviour.”
3
Quite simply, the variety
employed in disseminating a message and frequency at which that mes-
sage is disseminated in some cases matter just as much as content itself to
generate to required resonance to trigger the desired behavioral change.
The case study discussed in this chapter provides empirical evidence in
support of this.
The 2014 Russian invasion of Crimea provides a historical case study
of hybrid warfare activities involving ground operations and information
operations.
4
Social bots operating during this time moved specially-craft-
ed messages through the information environment. Data collected from
social media, including blogs and Twitter clearly demonstrate both Rus-
sia’s intent and capability to manipulate information through the use of so-
cial bots.
5
Western analysts utilized socio-computational methodologies to
identify the “seeders of information”—sources of information supplying
content to the botnets or a set of bot accounts working together—and the
communication and coordination strategies used. During the aforemen-
tioned event the botnets deployed for propaganda dissemination evolved
by becoming increasingly deceptive and well-coordinated to mislead tar-
geted audiences on the direct level of Russian participation and strategic
objectives to confuse and delay decision from Western political leaders.
This chapter provides the relevancy and importance of reinforcing eects
into the information operations domain, especially in the realm of social
media, by studying the social network analysis of the eect of hybrid war-
fare during large-scale combat operations.
What Is a Bot?
A bot is a coordinated computer program that tries to mimic human
behavior through messaging/interacting. For example, a bot can manipu-
late the search results returned by various search engines such as Google.
6
Such methods can be used to elevate a topic into “top trends”—which are
often highlighted at the top of search results or social media platforms.
This is especially important in today’s “Information Age” where many
users simply rely on these “top results” to formulate their initial percep-
tions/positions of a particular event without rigorous examination of all
informational sources. In short, the Russians, through their systematic em-
165
ployment of social bots were able to eectively lter information received
by the vast majority of their targeted audiences.
Research shows that most internet trac, especially on social media,
is generated by “botnets.”
7
In addition to botnets, the Russians employed
large numbers of people to troll social media sites and blogs to disseminate
propaganda.
8
The diverse nature of social media user interaction and news
distribution creates a huge gap-lled territory for exploitation by social
bots and human-bot collaborations that engage in information conicts,
“trolling,” or in inuencing narratives.
Case Study: The 2014 Crimean Water Crisis
Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula on 16 March 2014 was
met with international discontent, and a sense of Russian imperialism to
expand their reign of power. Both the United Nations and NATO Sec-
retary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen condemned Russia’s blatant ag-
gression and disregard of international law. Grievances, requests for help,
and on-the-ground accounts on the developing conict were reported to
worldwide audiences through a variety of open source platforms including
blogs, news websites, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.
Several stories published by Russian news agencies to mislead and
confuse target audiences through the dissemination of disinformation
(i.e. lies) and misinformation (i.e. misleading). Examples of these na-
tional-level, coordinated eorts include ITAR-TASS, which claimed that
the Ukrainian government had ceased work on the North Crimean Canal
which carries water from the Dnepr River to Crimea.
9
In another exam-
ple, the Russian international television network Russia Today (RT) re-
ported that satellite images showed Ukraine deliberately trying to cut o
the Crimean Peninsula’s water supply by building a dam, while Russian
scientists were trying to nd ways to supply Crimea with fresh water in
the meantime.
10
Reliant on these false and misleading stories, a subse-
quent New York Times article reported that a water shortage was observed,
Crimean farms were drying, food supplies were inadequate, and the price
of basic goods, such as milk and gas, had doubled.
11
All the while, Russian
armed forces were fully engaged in LSCO against Ukrainian forces in the
eastern Ukraine in July 2014. Russia’s employment of new weapons and
methods of employment were not limited to non-kinetic capabilities. In
eastern Ukraine, an entire Ukrainian battalion was virtually destroyed in
four minutes from a barrage of high explosives, cluster, and thermobar-
ic munitions.
12
What remains is clear from Russian involvement in the
Ukraine is that they are employing a variety of capabilities in new and
166
innovative ways to generate a relative edge on the battleeld. The thought
that should keep Western military analysts up at night is that the Russians
surely did not reveal their full bag of tricks.
Pro-Russian bots leveraged the internet to shape the information en-
vironment in the form of echo chambers. “Conrmation bias perpetuates
misinformation, and when incorrect information bounces around through
an echo chamber, it leaves a mark every place it hits. Even if something
we read is disproven, we can’t un-see incorrect information.”
13
The cre-
ators of bots understand the eect of an echo chamber. The low eort and
cost combined with the high eect of seeding information through social
bots can quickly inuence the masses over the short, and in some cases,
the long-term. In this case study, these bots were disseminating anti-West
and pro-Russian news articles in a bid to create a window of opportunity
for Russian forces to achieve their strategic objectives prior to potential
Western intervention. Numerous bots were simply tweeting the same ar-
ticle after copying it to various websites and blogs, making it appear as if
the articles were independently posted on dierent website URLs. In other
words, bots were cloning the [mis]information, creating an echo chamber
and misleading targeted audiences about the military operations that were
ongoing in the Ukraine.
Data Description
Often content (e.g., reports, images, videos, and articles) originated
from one social media site and were diused to many other sites without
sucient source attribution. For the purposes of illustrating this point, the
authors tracked multiple popular social media sites in an attempt to iden-
tify sources and their implicit interconnections. The keywords “Ukraine,”
“Ukraine Crisis,” “Euromaidan,” “Automaidan,” and “Ukraine’s Auto-
maidan Protestors” were used to collect data about the crisis. First, pop-
ular blog posts were identied for the Ukraine-Russia conict, and then
cross-referenced these posts with Twitter data to nd the posts that were
diused the most on Twitter. Tools such as TweetTracker, and NodeXL
were then used to collect Twitter data for the research period between 29
April 2014 20:40:32 and 21 July 2014 22:40:06 UTC—which coincided
with [event].
14
This series of methodical queries resulted in 1,361 unique
tweets, 588 unique Twitter users, and 118,601 relations (including follows,
mentions, replies, and tweets) between these users.
167
Figure 10.1. Word cloud depicting data description searches of the information
dimension related the 2014 Ukrainian water crisis. Graphic created by the authors.
Methodology to Identify Botnets
As Russia’s strategic objectives and resultant aggression transitioned
from Crimea to the Ukraine proper, worldwide media attention did not
correspondingly shift. Russia’s misinformation eorts played a signicant
role is this delay. As misinformation continued about the Russian-invent-
ed water crisis (just enough information that made it believable), Russian
forces—both proxy and conventional—were operating with relative free-
dom within the territorial borders of the eastern Ukraine.
15
The hashtag #Crimea, in both Russian and Ukrainian language, had
erratic results from day to day using the same ltering algorithm. Topics
such as the end of the ceasere and the advance of troops into Southeast
Ukraine began to take precedence. “Propaganda, deception, disinforma-
tion, and the ability of individuals and groups to inuence disparate pop-
ulations through social technologies reect the increasing speed of human
interaction.”
16
Misinformation promulgated across social channels, keep-
ing all but the outside confused as to what was happening. Controlling this
line of communication in the information domain was conducted with an
implicit use of narrative control by using botnets. The use of botnets to
inuence is portrayed in Figure 10.2.
168
Figure 10.2. Three sub-networks with unusual structural characteristics in S1
are observed
when the Girvan-Newman clustering algorithm is applied to the
network. On the left are the expanded clusters and on the right is the collapsed
view of the identied ve clusters. Graphic created by the authors.
The rst network that was analysed was the friends and followers net-
work, i.e., the social network. As shown in Figure 10.2, the accounts that
were related to the collected data had three sub-networks: S1, S2, and
S3. The sub-network S1 exhibited unusual structural characteristics. The
other two sub-networks were ignored due to their relatively small size and
lack of anomalous behaviors. We applied the Girvan-Newman clustering
algorithm—an algorithm that detects communities in a network based on
how closely the nodes are connected—and found that the network had ve
clusters (communities or groups of nodes), as shown in Figure 10.1.
17
The
center of the star-shaped cluster within S1 belonged to a “real-person.”
18
Figure 10.2 shows the Twitter account, which was connected to 345 bots
out of 588 Twitter accounts in this network. This real person was the
owner/operator of a specic webpage that all the other bots referred
to in their tweets with dierent shortened URLs.
The star-shaped cluster was connected to the other two-syndicate
groups, viz. syndicate-1 and syndicate-2. Close examination of these ties
revealed that the members of the syndicate groups followed the “real-per-
son” node, and not the other way. The research conclusively determined
that “real-person” is the most central node of the entire bot network in
question, and functioned as the bots” information source.
The other ties within the two syndicates were mutually reciprocated
relationships, suggesting use of the principles “Follow Me and I Fol
-
low You” (FMIFY) and “I Follow You, Follow Me” (IFYFM)—a well-
known practice used by Twitter spammers for “link farming,” or quickly
gaining followers.
19
169
Unlike the “real person” network, there is no single most central node
in these networks, indicating an absence of a hierarchical organization
structure in the “syndicate-1” and “syndicate-2” networks. Further anal-
ysis showed that the broker nodes act as interfaces between the group
members and other groups. They established bridges that facilitated tweet
circulation across the syndicates. The broker nodes were primarily re-
sponsible for connecting with the “real person” network, specically the
most inuential “real person” node. The operational eect being achieved
through this method was narrative control as depicted in Figure 3. Thus
Russia, through their use of bot-seeded misinformation, was able to suc-
cessfully shape the necessary strategic conditions within the IE to allow
for large-scale combat operations to begin in eastern Ukraine.
The Military Implications for the Expanded Use of Social Bots
The instantaneous speed and worldwide reach of social media coupled
with the quick pace of interactions between a exponentially large set of us-
ers, many of whom do not verify the veracity of proered information and
sourcing, create the conditions ripe for the massive manipulation of tech-
nologically-dependent societies such as the United States. Quite simply,
the more popular a social media message is the more likely non-discerning
individuals are to believe that the content is true. This dynamic should
not be lost on Western militaries who are beholden to elected individuals
that are subject to the approval of their constituencies. The nation’s future
adversaries and enemies will likely increasingly leverage information as
a low-cost and low-risk instrument of national power to corrupt the inter-
connected tissues of America’s “Clausewitzian trinity.” At the strategic
and operational levels of war, social media platforms that are manipulat-
Figure 10.3. This real person network is connected to broker bots that coordinate
the dissemination of propaganda through the bots in their respective syndicates.
Graphic created by the authors.
170
ed by bots can shift international and regional opinions about the use of
military force or validity of military operations in a region. At the tactical
level, bot-induced social media propaganda could potentially be used to
persuade susceptible targets to disrupt or delay military operations through
protests or other “non-lethal” resistance.
Military leaders need to understand that the narrative can be easily
manipulated and inuenced by bots and trolls. Most users of social media
cannot or will not dierentiate between real accounts and fake bot ac-
counts. Because social bots can be employed clandestinely in a low-cost,
low-risk context military leaders can expect to encounter an increased
amount of adversary-generated social media propaganda. Bots will likely
be a weapon of choice for America’s adversaries and enemies for the fore-
seeable future.
The growing weaponization of social media is inuencing large-scale
combat operations. Military units at all levels need to develop tools for
identifying threats and opportunities within the IE, and responding to them
appropriately across all domains. There is a present need for social media
cells that are able to monitor the IE in real-time, and have requisite author-
ities to pre-emptively act or rapidly respond to adversary actions within
the IE. Developing well-trained social media cells at the appropriate tac-
tical headquarters for an operation enables rapid and appropriate response
that can neutralize propaganda and mitigate its negative eects.
Three key enablers should be incorporated into Army units to eec-
tively counter bot-enabled social media propaganda. These enablers are
Public Aairs (PA), Psychological Operations (PSYOP), and Operations
Security (OPSEC). Army Divisions are typically augmented with a Mil-
itary Public Aairs Detachment (MPAD), a Tactical PSYOP Develop-
ment Detachment (TPDD), and occasionally an Information Operations
Field Support Team (IO FST) in addition to organic support. The MPAD
can directly counter bot-enabled propaganda through media engagement
and social media outreach. The TPDD can help assess propaganda and
evaluate what messages within the propaganda resonate with specif
-
ic local audiences.
The IO FST can manage OPSEC to identify critical
information that must be protected to ensure successful operations. All
of these enablers must coordinate their eorts to address the threat of
bot-enabled propaganda.
Military leaders at all levels must have a broad understanding of the
IE, and the potential cross-domain of information. This understanding en-
ables leaders to better incorporate social media considerations into intelli-
171
gence collection, planning, and operations to best achieve desired eects
in an integrated and synchronized manner. Once bots and trolls are iden-
tied, Army units can use Public Aairs ocial social media accounts to
counter adversary propaganda by informing interested audiences of the
truth so that they can validate this trusted source of information to verify
truthful information or debunk myths espoused by propaganda.
Conclusion
Social media use has been shifting from entertainment to public dis-
course, thereby making it a preferred tool for inuencing group opinions
or achieving political goals by disseminating propaganda or misinforma-
tion about various events. The hybrid warfare observed in Ukraine in 2014
identied how information warfare was successfully employed to support,
facilitate, and allow large-scale combat operations; since this time bot net-
works have evolved into even more complex entities that could exponen-
tially magnify the scale and reach of the eects seen in 2014. A follow-on
study conducted by the Collaboratorium for Social Media and Online Be-
havioral Studies (COSMOS) at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock
identied an even more complex series of botnets operating during the
2015 military exercise Dragoon Ride conducted by US Army Europe.
20
These botnets demonstrated a probing attack into the information dimen-
sion, the goal was to also change the overall narrative. Although, not in-
cluded for this chapter, Dragoon Ride 2015 does demonstrate the contin-
ued evolution of echo chambers with the use of botnets.
By presenting half-truths, contorted facts, manipulated images, and
videos in a cogent manner substantiated by URLs to other propaganda
riddled websites, it is not very challenging to mislead a potential target au-
dience, especially during LSCOs—where time constraints make sucient
analysis exceedingly more challenging. Twitter and other social platforms
are merely just a mechanism to steer readers in the desired direction. This
is where other forms of mass media that allow more expansive content are
most helpful to developing a credible story for target audience consump-
tion. Bots are used to steer attention to these blogs. The goal of the bots
is to bring the propaganda to as many readers as possible by employing
clandestine means as demonstrated in these case studies. Military leaders
must consider how they will incorporate information operations to count-
er adversary use of social media to counter adversary actions and create
positions of relative advantage for US Commanders within the IE, and
ultimately the OE.
172
Notes
1. Preliminary research for this study was conducted in Agarwal et. al.,
2017. Since its publication, the research has been updated with revisions such
as the correlation to large-scale combat operations. This research was funded in
part by the US National Science Foundation (IIS-1636933, ACI-1429160, and
IIS-1110868), US Oce of Naval Research (N00014-10-1-0091, N00014-14-1-
0489, N00014-15-P-1187, N00014-16-1-2016, N00014-16-1-2412, N00014-17-
1-2605, N00014-17-1-2675), US Air Force Research Lab, US Army Research
Oce (W911NF-16-1-0189), US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(W31P4Q-17-C-0059), and the Jerry L. Maulden/Entergy Endowment at the
University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Any opinions, ndings, and conclusions
or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do
not necessarily reect the views of the funding organizations. The researchers
gratefully acknowledge the support.
2. Department of the Army, Field Manual (FM) 3-13, Information Opera-
tions (Washington, DC: 2016), 3-3.
3. FM-3-13, 8-25.
4. News BBC, “Russia Fears Crimea Water Shortage as Supply Drops,”
BBC News, 25 April 2014, accessed 12 June 2018, http://www.bbc.com/news/
world-europe-27155885.
5. Nitin Agarwal, Samer Al-khateeb, Rick Galeano, and Rebecca Goolsby,
“Examining the Use of Botnets and their Evolution in Propaganda Dissemina-
tion,” Journal of NATO Defence Strategic Communications 2, 2017, 87–112.
6. Tuja Khaund, Richard Young, Samer Al-khateeb, and Nitin Agarw-
al, “Blog Farm Detection Using Social Network Analysis and Social Cyber
Forensics Informed Methodologies,” in proceedings of the Advances in Social
Network Analysis and Mining (ASONAM 2018), 28–31 August 2018, Spain.
7. Alex Cheng and Mark Evans, “Inside Twitter An In-Depth Look at the
5% of Most Active Users,” Sysomos Inc., 2009, accessed 12 June 2018, http://
sysomos.com/insidetwitter/mostactiveusers.
8. Daisy Sindelar, “The Kremlin’s Troll Army: Moscow Is Financing
Legions of pro-Russia Internet Commenters. But How Much Do They Matter?”
The Atlantic, 12 August 2014, accessed 15 June 2018, https://www.theatlantic.
com/international/archive/2014/08/the-kremlins-troll-army/375932/.
9. Alexel Pavlishak, “Water Supply Problem in Crimea to Cost $247–417
Million - Kremlin Aide,” TASS Russian News Agency, 28 April 2014, accessed
12 June 2018, http://tass.com/russia/729854.
10. RT News, “Ukraine Builds Dam Cutting o Crimea Water Supply,”
News Website, RT Question More, (10 May 2014), accessed 12 June 2018,
https://www.rt.com/news/158028-ukraine-water-supply-crimea/.
11. Neil Macfarguhar, “Aid Elusive, Crimea Farms Face Hurdles,” The
New York Times, 7 July 2014, accessed 12 June 2018, https://www.nytimes.
com/2014/07/08/world/europe/aid-elusive-crimea-farms-face-hurdles.html.
173
12. Department of the Army, Field Manual (FM) 3-0, Operations (Washing-
ton, DC: 2017), 1-5.
13. Quora, “Are You In A Social Media Echo Chamber? How to Take An
Objective Look,” Forbes, 28 February 2018, accessed 20 May 2018, https://
www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2018/02/28/are-you-in-a-social-media-echo-cham-
ber-how-to-take-an-objective-look/#718fb21961f9.
14. Shamanth Kumar et al., “TweetTracker: An Analysis Tool for Hu-
manitarian and Disaster Relief,” ICWSM, 2011, accessed 12 June 2018, http://
tweettracker.fulton.asu.edu/Kumar-etal_TweetTracker.pdf; Marc A. Smith et al.,
“Analyzing (Social Media) Networks with NodeXL,” Proceedings of the Fourth
International Conference on Communities and Technologies, ACM, 2009,
255–264, accessed 12 June 2018, http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1556497.
15. “Conceptual: Deception - GlobalSecurity.org,” accessed 28 March 2018,
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/call/call_3-88_concept.htm.
16. M. Girvan and M.E.J. Newman, “Community Structure in Social and
Biological Networks,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the
United States of America 99, no. 12, 6 April 2002, 7821–26, accessed 12 June
2018, doi:10.1073/pnas.122653799.
17. Department of the Army, FM 3-0, 1-13.
18. Girvan and Newman, “Community Structure in Social and Biological
Networks,” 7821–26.
19. The term “real person” is used so as not to disclose the identity of this
node; Saptarshi Ghosh et al., “Understanding and Combating Link Farming in
the Twitter Social Network,” Proceedings of the 21st International Conference
on World Wide Web, ACM, 2012, 61–70, accessed 12 June 2018, http://dl.acm.
org/citation.cfm?id=2187846.
20. Nitin Agarwal, et al. Journal of NATO Defence Strategic Communica-
tions, 87-112.
174
175
Chapter 11
Future Large-Scale Combat Operations (LSCO) Implications
for Information Operations
Major General James J. Mingus and Colonel Chris N. Reichart
The far-reaching impact of social media, the expansion of infor-
mation technology, the widespread availability of wireless com-
munications, and competitor inuence campaigns have dramat-
ically aected military operations and changed the character of
modem warfare.
1
—Patrick M. Shanahan, Deputy Secretary of Defense
Over the past 15 years, the Army has focused the majority of its ef-
forts on operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, honing the ability to conduct
counterinsurgency operations where information operations eorts were
focused more on aecting a non-military population than on enemy de-
cision makers. With the designation of information as a joint function,
the Department of Defense has increased the importance of the use of
information during operations across the range of military operations, to
include during large-scale combat operations. As the military scans the
horizon for the character of future conicts during an era that is increasing
being dened by the proliferation and expansion of information-related
technologies, information will have a larger—if not decisive—role in the
accomplishment of military missions, both in competition and conict.
The unique aspect of the use of information during military activities
is that its eects are potentially global in nature—blurring the lines be-
tween the tactical, operational, and strategic levels of conict. The military
can employ the use of information to aect outcomes not only on adver-
sary military formations, but multiple audiences simultaneously, aecting
state actors, societies, and individuals not just in the geographical theater
of conict, but globally. In the future, war will be characterized by an
increasing use of information and its associated technologies to achieve
objectives below the level of armed conict. Multiple actors, to include
nation states, global corporations, transnational terrorists and criminal or-
ganizations, societies, and even individuals will all have an important and
direct role in the composition and conduct of future conict. These current
and emerging characteristics will require future Army forces to leverage
information and associated technologies to understand operational envi-
176
ronments and employ capabilities to achieve informational eects across
multiple systems and audiences to achieve military objectives.
Future adversaries will increasingly look to expand on this global per-
spective of the information environment, by leveraging expanding infor-
mational means to shape and exploit societal and political vulnerabilities
on the home-fronts of America and its allies to increase friction amongst
friendly actors and undermine and erode strategic resolve. From a defen-
sive standpoint, this dynamic presents a very real and increasing risk to
America and its allies that are beholden to maintaining the sanctity of the
relationships within the Clauswitzian Triad (e.g. the people, the govern-
ment, and the military). Indeed, it is a very distinct possibility that a nation
state could be strategically defeated during the competition period through
the sucient corruption of these relationships.
While this volume is focused on large-scale combat operations, the
use of information has and will continue to have universal application in
the accomplishment of positive military outcomes at all echelons. The Ar-
my’s purpose is to ght and win the nation’s wars, but future wars will be
multi-domain endeavors that will increasingly stress, and ultimately ren-
der useless, traditional operational approaches, paradigms, and processes.
Wars of the future will be fought in an increasingly contested information
environment, where state and non-state actors will proliferate information
through the use of technology on a scale never before seen. The US mil-
itary will be simultaneously and continuously shaping, preventing, and
consolidating gains against adversaries at home and abroad in the informa-
tion environment to gain and maintain operational and strategic advantage.
The future force must account for the use of information across the range
of military operations in each of the four Army strategic roles. Information
and its employment to achieve military objectives will continue to grow
in importance as our adversaries achieve political and military objectives
over time below the level of armed conict.
While the requirement to integrate information-related capabilities to
aect adversary decision making is rooted in all military operations, the
primary focus for employment of information during past 15 years of coun
-
terinsurgency has largely been a population-centric—not adversarial—ef-
fort. However, during large-scale combat operations, the Army will need to
refocus its eorts to employ these capabilities against enemy information
and command and control systems to create conditions in the information
environment that place our forces at a position of relative advantage.
177
The use of current and emerging technology to manipulate informa-
tion will allow military forces to create false perceptions in the minds of
adversary decision makers, causing them to act in a manner that places
their forces in a position of relative disadvantage. During modern and fu-
ture operations, however, commanders must be cognizant of the totali-
ty of the information available to adversary decision-making processes.
This presents both risk and opportunity. The increasing prevalence of in-
ternet-based technologies, to include social media, provide military orga-
nizations information that can support or discount eorts to manipulate
decision making systems and processes.
In an increasingly interconnected world, future military planners must
suciently account for eorts to shape a broader information environ-
ment, inclusive of social media, the internet, mass media, and articial
intelligence. The internet has allowed information to be disseminated fast-
er, across greater distances, and at greater volumes than at any point in
human history. Quite simply, the sheer volume of information available
to relevant actors surpasses the capability and capacity of human analysts.
This trend will continue to increase exponentially. Technological tools and
capabilities will be required in increasing numbers to augment the limits
of human analytic abilities and decision making. Machine learning and ar-
ticial intelligence that can process big data and automate the observe, ori-
ent, decide, act (OODA) loop to operate at inhuman speeds oer glimpses
of what this future may look like.
The Army must adapt its culture and processes to elevate the impor-
tance of information in future competition and conict. Current eorts to
create an information warghting function as well as creating an informa-
tion center of excellence that will develop, produce, and deliver improved
capability to operate in the information environment are only the rst steps
in this eort. However, these eorts alone will have no eect unless the
culture of the Army changes. The Army and its leaders must place a pre-
mium on the use of information and information technology by devoting
the proper resources to change the Army culture. Culturally, Army leaders
need to evolve from the narrow approach of massing lethal res to defeat
an enemy army to a more blended approach that combines the massing
of lethal and information eects to comprehensively defeat a nation state
both militarily and politically. This eort starts in Training and Doctrine
Command (TRADOC) at the proponent level, but also requires changes
in policy to allow commanders the freedom to employ information and
technology from the tactical edge to the operational level.
178
The Army must initiate change at every echelon across the operating
force, and within the generating force, to ensure future commanders have
the capability and capacity along with the requisite knowledge and au-
thority to optimally employ information through current and future tech-
nologies. Army leaders must account for information and its eects in the
operations process, not as a separate eort managed by a separate group
of individuals, but mastered by commanders and stas with the same de-
gree of prociency by which they employ and maneuver physical forces.
Information operators must be just that, operators, capable of integrating
physical and informational power seamlessly, as part of operations, and
must understand the eects information will have on military formations
and civilian entities alike. All operations must be designed with an infor-
mational end state and operations, actions, and investments must support
that end state. Information capabilities must be inherent in every forma-
tion, from tactical to strategic.
The current system of augmentation and reach back capability is in-
sucient for future conict. The fact that the majority of the Army’s cur-
rent information forces that would be needed to support LSCO contingen-
cies reside in the reserve component underscores the point that current
force structure does not meet projected LSCO force requirements. The
Army must balance the requirement for large physical forces with tailored,
adaptable information forces that can achieve strategic objectives below
the level of conict through the weaponized use of information.
The US Army is at a pivotal crossroads on how it will employ infor-
mation power in the future. It can decide to continue on the same path
that relegates the use of information to a small group of professionals
that have to ght for their relevance on a daily basis, or it can decide to
take another course. The US Army can decide to create a total Army force
trained, organized, and resourced to operate and prevail in the information
environment during the Army’s four strategic roles of shape operational
environments, prevent conict, conduct large-scale ground combat, and
consolidate gains to achieve outcomes. The US Army can design and ap-
prove a strategy to approach operations in the information environment,
shaped by policy that provides funding and that concisely assigns roles
and responsibilities to achieve Army, Department of Defense, and national
objectives. The US Army can align agencies, commands, formations, and
proponents that design, build, and deliver capability to the warghter to
achieve information dominance in the conduct of unied land operations.
The US Army can develop and elevate a professional, multi-disciplinary
capability of generalists and experts that possess the necessary knowledge,
179
skills, and abilities who are armed with the tools required to deliver oper-
ational advantage in the information environment. Only by doing so can
the Army provide commanders the information capability and capacity
required to gain a position of relative advantage over the enemy not only
in the information environment, but also in the operational environment.
This volume, though intended for Army leaders at every echelon, will
undoubtedly be read and studied by our allies and adversaries alike. They,
too, will glean lessons from this volume—not only on how the Army has
used information in the past but seek to learn how the Army will leverage it
in the future. For the intended audience, the only question remains is this,
“Who will better harness the power of information to defeat an adversary
before the battle ensues?” Advantage in the future information environ-
ment will start with armies that are culturally inclined to recognizing the
potentially decisive nature of information in the “Information Age.” Sec-
ondarily, achieving informational advantage on the LSCO battleeld will
require a professional force that is trained, organized, resourced, and most
importantly empowered by commanders to leverage eects eciently and
eectively in the information environment. Will the US Army realize that
vision before it is too late?
180
Notes
1. Memorandum from Deputy Secretary of Defense, “Designated Senior
Ocial for the Integration of Strategic Information Operations and Cyber-en-
abled Information Operations,” 24 May 2018.
181
About the Authors
Nitin Agarwal
Nitin Agarwal, PhD, is the Jerry L. Maulden-Entergy Endowed Chair
and Distinguished Professor of Information Science at the University of
Arkansas and Director of the Collaboratorium for Social Media and On-
line Behavioral Studies (COSMOS). He researches cyber information
campaigns, social computing, deviant behavior modeling, group dynam-
ics, social-cyber forensics, data mining, and privacy.
Samer Al-Khateeb
Samer Al-Khateeb, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of
Journalism, Media, and Computing at Creighton University and a former
Postdoctorate Research Fellow at the Collaboratorium for Social Media
and Online Behavioral Studies (COSMOS) at the University of Arkansas
at Little Rock. His research interests include deviant behavioral modeling;
deviant cyber ash mobs; cyber propaganda campaigns; bots behaviors,
evolution, and detection; and social cyber forensics.
Lionel M. Beehner
Lionel M. Beehner, PhD, is an assistant professor at the Department
of Defense & Strategic Studies at the United States Military Academy at
West Point and director of research of West Point’s Modern War Institute.
He previously was a senior writer at the Council on Foreign Relations.
He holds a doctorate in political science from Yale University and a mas-
ter’s of international aairs from Columbia University. His research has
appeared in Security Studies, Military Review, Parameters, Democracy
& Security, Orbis, Foreign Aairs, The New Republic, and The National
Interest, among other publications.
Carmine Cicalese
Colonel (Retired) Carmine Cicalese served for 29 years of active duty
in a variety of signal, information operations, and cyberspace operations
positions at every headquarter level from platoon to Headquarters, De-
partment of the Army. He was the 1st Cavalry Division IO ocer from
2000–03 and 2005–08, with a stint at Joint Special Operations Command
from 2003–05. During his rst assignment with 1st Cavalry Division, he
fullled a one-year WIAS tasker that included an assignment to Command
Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC). He concluded his informa-
tion career as Director, Joint Command and Control & Information Op-
182
erations School and as Division Chief, HQDA G-3/5/7, Cyberspace and
Information Operations. Cicalese enjoys sharing his experiences, and es-
pecially his failures, with interested information professionals.
Liam S. Collins
Colonel Liam S. Collins is the director of the Modern War Institute
at West Point. A career Special Forces ocer, he has conducted multiple
combat deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq; operational deployments to
Bosnia, Africa, and South America; and more than a dozen trips to Ukraine
during the 18 months prior to this publication. He has a master’s degree
and a doctorate from Princeton University.
Dorothy E. Denning
Dorothy E. Denning is Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Defense
Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School. She is author of Information
Warfare and Security, Cryptography, and Data Security and more than 200
articles on topics relating to cybersecurity and cyber conict. She previous-
ly worked at Georgetown University and served as president of the Inter-
national Association for Cryptologic Research. She has received numerous
awards for her pioneering work in cyber security and was inducted into
the inaugural class of the National Cyber Security Hall of Fame in 2012.
She received BA and MA degrees in mathematics from the University of
Michigan and a PhD degree in computer science from Purdue University.
Katrin Galeano
Katrin Galeano is a PhD student at the University of Arkansas. She is
majoring in computers and information science and has a research inter-
est in support of the US Army operations security program, in which she
volunteers as a social media administrator. Her background is in strategic
communications for non-prot and government organizations.
Rick A. Galeano
Lieutenant Colonel Rick A. Galeano is an active-duty US Army of-
cer. He is a PhD student at the University of Arkansas, pursuing a de-
gree in Computers and Information Science. His research interests revolve
around strategic communications, social network analysis, and social cy-
ber forensics.
Justin B. Gorkowski
Major Justin B. Gorkowski is a PhD student at the University of Vir-
ginia, where he is studying international relations. Prior to this assignment,
Gorkowski was a Congressional Fellow in the US Senate and Congressio-
183
nal Budget Liaison for HQDA. Gorkowski is an information operations
ocer and previously managed the integration of information-related ca-
pabilities in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and Vilseck, Germany for the 2nd
Cavalry Regiment.
Robert M. Hill
Robert M. Hill is a military analyst and doctrine writer for the US
Army Information Operations Proponent and a retired eld artillery and
public aairs ocer. Over the past decade, he has contributed articles to
Joint Force Quarterly and Military Review on topics ranging from com-
munication to leadership and women in the Army. He is also a published
novelist. He has an MA in English from Duke University and an EdD from
the University of Missouri.
Michael E. Kitchens
Michael E. Kitchens is a Department of the Army Civilian as a Doc-
trine and Concept Developer for the US Army Knowledge Management
Oce at the Force Modernization Proponent Center (FMPC). He has a
master’s in Information Management from Webster and undergraduate de-
grees in Economics and History from Auburn University. Kitchens served
on active duty in the US Navy and 28 years in the Army National Guard
and Reserve. His military training includes Military Intelligence Basic and
Advanced, CAS3, CGSC, Combat Advisor Course, Knowledge Manager
Qualication Course and FA-30 Qualication Course (information oper-
ations). He served in multiple assignments to include S-2, Information
Operations Combat Advisor, Division Knowledge Manager and Division
G-7. His most recent assignment before retirement in 2018 was Chief
Knowledge Ocer (CKO) for US Army Reserve Command, Fort Bragg,
North Carolina. He deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation En-
during Freedom, and Hurricane Katrina support.
Bradley S. Loudon
Lieutenant Colonel Bradley S. Loudon has been Director of the Unit-
ed States Army Information Operations Qualication Course at Fort Leav-
enworth, Kansas, since September 2017. Previously as 1st ID’s IO Ocer,
he oversaw Combined Joint Forces Land Component Command-Opera-
tion Inherent Resolve’s IO eorts in support of large-scale combat opera-
tions during the Battle of Mosul (November 2016 to July 2017). Previous-
ly, Loudon was selected as the 2014 military recipient of the Secretary of
the Army’s Pace Award for his work as a HQDA G-3/5/7 Cyber Planner.
He has a bachelor’s degree in History from the University of Kansas and a
Juris Doctorate from Washburn University School of Law.
184
Christopher W. Lowe
Colonel Christopher W. Lowe has more than 22 years of military ser-
vice, with more than a decade of experience as an information operations
ocer. He has master’s degrees in Military Arts and Sciences from the
US Army School of Advanced Military Studies and in National Resource
Strategy from the Eisenhower School, National Defense University.
James J. Mingus
Major General James J. Mingus is the Commanding General of the
82nd Airborne Division. Prior to this assignment, he was the Director,
Mission Command Center of Excellence at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
He commanded at every echelon from company to division, gaining ex-
tensive experience with integrating information operations into the oper-
ational process during numerous combat deployments. He has a bachelor
of science degree from Winona State University and a master’s in strate
-
gic studies from the US Army War College.
Robert T. Person
Robert T. Person is an associate professor of International Relations
at the US Military Academy, where he also serves as Director of Curricu
-
lum for West Point’s International Aairs Program. He has a PhD in polit-
ical science from Yale University as well as a master’s degree in Russian,
East European, and Eurasian Studies from Stanford University. His re
-
search focuses on Russian foreign policy and grand strategy, post-Soviet
political and economic transitions, Eurasian security, and nationalism in
the post-Soviet space. He has conducted extensive eld research across
Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltics, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.
Person is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Resi
-
dent Fellow at West Point’s Modern War Institute.
Christopher N. Reichart
Colonel Christopher N. Reichart is the Director of the Force Modern-
ization Proponent Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He has served
as an infantry ocer and information operations ocer over the past 24
years, recently serving on the CENTCOM sta as the director of sever-
al IO portfolios. Reichart holds a Bachelor of Science Degree from the
United States Military Academy, a Master of Arts Degree in International
Public Policy from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International
Studies,and a Master of Strategic Studies from the US Army War College.
185
Brandon S. Riley
Sergeant First Class Brandon S. Riley is a Military Analyst at the Ar-
my’s Information Operations Proponent at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
He has a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Post Uni-
versity. Riley has served with 1st Cavalry Division, US Army Recruiting
Command, 3rd Infantry Division, the US Army Armor School, and the
101st Airborne Division. He has served in leadership positions from Team
Leader to Platoon Sergeant and has four operational deployments—two
each to Afghanistan and Iraq.
Michael R. Taylor Jr.
Colonel Michael R. Taylor Jr. is an information operations ocer. He
serves as the Chief, CJ39 Information Operations, for Headquarters Res-
olute Support, in Kabul, Afghanistan. He has a master’s in International
Public Policy from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced In-
ternational Studies (SAIS), Washington, D.C.
James N. Turner
Lieutenant Colonel James N. Turner is an active-duty US Army o-
cer. Turner has served for nine years as an information operations planner
at the brigade, division, and theater Army level and has honed his under-
standing during three deployments and multiple training exercises. Turner
is respected as one of the most experienced information operations ocers
at Third Army.
Mark D. Vertuli
Colonel Mark D. Vertuli is the Chief, Operations Plans (J35) for US
Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM). He has more than 23 years of mil-
itary experience and has planned information operations in Afghanistan
and the European Command (EUCOM) and Pacic Command (PACOM)
areas of operation. He was the battalion commander for 1st Battalion, 1st
IO Command (Land) from 2012–14. He has master’s degrees in History
from Vanderbilt University and in National Resource Strategy from the
Eisenhower School, National Defense University.
Andrew D. Whiskeyman
Lieutenant Colonel Andrew D. Whiskeyman is Acting Deputy for the
US Central Command (USCENTCOM) Joint Cyber Center. He has more
than 23 years of military experience and has worked extensively in the
information operations eld while deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. He
186
earned a doctor of Philosophy in Military Strategy from Air University in
2015 and has master’s degrees both from Air Command and Sta Col-
lege (ACSC) and from the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies
(SAASS). He is also a member of the Military Writer’s Guild.
Wesley P. White
Wesley P. White is a Department of the Army Civilian. He previously
was a sergeant in the 781st Military Intelligence Battalion (Cyber) as a
17C, Cyber Operations Specialist. He has a master’s degree in history
from the University of Florida, where he wrote his thesis on Chernobyl
and its representation in the contemporary Soviet press. During his enlist-
ed career, he was an Exploitation Analyst on a National Mission Team, a
job which he continues in his position as an Army Civilian.
Matthew J. Yandura
Colonel Matthew J. Yandura is Chief, Concepts, Requirements, Inte-
gration, Personnel, and Doctrine for the Information Operations Proponent
at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He has a Bachelor of Applied Arts in Inter-
personal-Public Communication from Central Michigan University and a
master’s in International Relations from The Catholic University of Ameri-
ca. He has served with the XVIII Airborne Corps, 82nd Airborne Division,
173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, 11th Psychological Operations Bat-
talion, US Army Cadet Command, US Military Training Mission to Saudi
Arabia, and the US Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Au-
thority. He has served in leadership positions from Platoon Leader to Chair
and Professor of Military Science at Loyola University-Chicago. Yandura
has three combat and two operational deployments to Afghanistan, Iraq,
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Israel respectively.
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
