PROPAGANDA WARS

Traditionally, guerrilla wars are fought in the moral sphere. This means that the side that can hold together its moral cohesion the longest, while simultaneously fragmenting its opponents, will come out the winner (I think this is shifting, but we can save that thought for later).

From this grain of truth, the US government/military reached (primarily due to hindsight bias re:Vietnam) the conclusion that moral conflicts are won through propaganda. In other words, the side with the better propaganda machine wins the war. These organizations are implementing this conclusion in this conflict. Everything from embedded journalists to continuously rosy statements (such as "the tide of history is on our side," "the insurgency's back is broken," "just a few more months and the turning point will be reached," etc.) to pro-war bloggers that regurgitate talking points are part of a propaganda effort deemed necessary to win our current conflict. However, this decision to build a propaganda machine isn't showing signs of working. The reason is that a propaganda campaign within the current complex, global and media/information saturated environment is not only foolish, it is downright dangerous. Why? Here are the reasons:

• It generates dissent faster than it solidifies support. People have access to so many alternative sources of information, that any concerted attempt to spin facts is quickly seen for what it is: deception. The result is that non-cooperative centers of gravity are generated (first globally and then domestically) so quickly, that the very moral cohesion sought is the first victim of the effort.
• Propaganda efforts destroy effective decision making. The US military's approach to this propaganda war has been to trot out generals at every opportunity to provide upbeat and positive assessments (the most negative statement is blandly neutral). Anything less would be seen as a negative in the moral conflict and thereby disloyal. This has the unintended consequence of clouding internal decision loops. In the business world this is called "drinking your own kool-aid" (in a cold reference to the Jamestown religious cult where the members committed suicide by drinking poisoned kool-aid). Facts are misinterpreted/misrepresented for marketing externally, these tainted facts are consumed by internal audiences, and bad internal decision making is the result ("we don't need more troops," "we should stick it out since it will get better soon," "more of the same will work," etc.). This is pure poison given the complexity of modern counter-insurgency.
• Natural allies are quickly turned into enemies. Since propaganda is central to the US war effort, any criticism (from any quarter) is seen as something that aids and abets the enemy ("if you are not with us, you are against us"). A good rule of thumb (and this applies to all organizations and not just the US military/government), is that the best people don't work for you. However, it also follows that they aren't necessarily working against you either, and they could provide you substantial benefit to you if properly enticed (this is something that has become a central aspect of most organizations in our heavily cross connected world). Propaganda alienates this group since they aren't seen as being on the "team."

The Alternative

Since propaganda is so ineffective, what would work? I believe a better approach (perhaps the only approach that even has a hope of working given the complex networked environment within which wars are fought today), is:

• A strict adherence to unvarnished truth. Assessments should not be spun. Decisions and analysis of results should be completely caveated. This requires backbone (which is perhaps in short supply). Truth generates trust.
• Transparency. Confidence in decision making is generated through transparency (both internally and externally). Transparency also allows the process to be improved. This is completely at odds with the Cold War secrecy culture that is currently in place.
• A willingness to listen to criticism (particularly from knowledgeable external sources) and respond to it if justified. This doesn't require thick skin, it only requires a willingness to acknowledge truth when you see it. This process generates a growing network of allies. NOTE: This also requires that the hermetic seal around most government/military organizations needs to be broken. If the routes into these organizations are limited, the benefit will be limited too.

End Note

While truth, transparency, and receptiveness are difficult traits to develop, they offer the best path towards a sustainable effort. For those cynics out there, this isn't nearly as naive as it looks at first glance. The wars of the future will be non-existential (not against peer competitors, no matter how much some would like) and of indefinite duration (read: long). In order to pick the right ones to fight, fight them well, and sustain the effort over the entire required duration: an open process must be adhered to. Anything less offers nothing but vociferous dissent, sequential disasters, and ignoble defeat.

Comments

[Valdis]

Interesting. So does transparency deprive insurgency of its oxygen?

[John Robb]

At at a minimum, all of these steps are necessary to maintain some semblance of moral cohesion (on our side). I'll update the brief (above) to provide some insight on your question Valdis. Thanks.

[RyanLuke]

"...the side that can hold together is moral cohesion the longest, while simultaneously fragmenting its opponents, will come out the winner (I think this is shifting, but we can save that thought for later)."

John,
I look forward to hearing about what you think is shifting and in which ways.

[Z]

Interesting thoughts. But with regard to the solutions, unvarnished truth, transparency, expert advise, they would essentially make the Iraq war impossible to continue.

Unvarnished truth would lead almost everybody to conclude its time to get out. Tranperancy would expose multiple errors in judgement and execution to public scrutiny (which would lead to demands of accountability) and experts would advise the government to do exactly what it seeks to avoid...to get out.

Propaganda can be effective if goals are reasonable and the time frame for deception is limited (can't fool all the people ALL the time) That's why Afghanistan was thought to be a success up untill recently. Last year I thought, naively, that the government would use the most recent Iraq election as an opportunity to get out with some grace. And propaganda could have spun that into success, at least for much of the U.S. public.

A house of cards can stand for a long time in a glass cage. But not when exposed to the elements.

[Bob Morris]

Openness and transparency can't happen when true believer ideologues are in control.

[Coathangrrr]

"Interesting thoughts. But with regard to the solutions, unvarnished truth, transparency, expert advise, they would essentially make the Iraq war impossible to continue."

Perhaps, but I imagine that the majority of Americans already have a view of the current situation that is as bad or worse than the reality on the ground. That and they on't trust anything that is coming out of the white house. What those two things put together mean is that the truth would be a huge improvement over what we have now.

Of course, even if this administration started telling the truth now few people would believe them.

[Laney]

Bush and company have to manufacture a reality for their hardcore believers. These people want to believe, and they will rationalize their way to believing what they are told, but something has to be provided for them. So Ann Coulter and the Swiftboat industry exist to say that John Kerry was a coward, Saddam had WMD and helped plan 9-11, and (in the near future) the defeat in Iraq was the fault of the liberal media.

Laney, blogging at http://laney5-sb.livejournal.com/

[Glenn Condell]

'From this grain of truth, the conclusion the US government/military has reached (primarily from the lesson of Vietnam), is that moral conflicts are won through propaganda.'

Yes, but not just the presence of propaganda; perhaps even more crucially, the absence of distressing images. I'm not sure if the deliberate withholding of the sort of pictures (or simply making their production impossible) that turned opinion on Vietnam can be considered 'propaganda' but it's part of the same effort and to me, it's more effective for being, by it's nature, silent, and not prone to the sort of multiple info source challenge you allude to.

People react viscerally to images, but they have to exist first. Their absence now makes the propaganda that much easier to swallow. With Vietnam, the propaganda didn't go down so easily once images of My Lai appeared - people choked on it, because they could see with their own eyes the reality under the spin. This collision with the truth no longer happens.

How many Americans saw or even heard about the awful photographs featured at Nowthatsfuckedup.com? What would have happened if they's been featured on the MSM primetime news? Where are the apparently shocking images from Abu Ghraib and elsewhere mentioned by Seymour Hersh some time ago? Will Americans ever be able to see what they are responsible for?

Related to this is the fact that where in the 60s and early 70s, the major media was still independent enough to cross the military/govt, to actually hold them accountable, it now seems co-opted, part of the problem. They are 'on side'.

It is nice to see such reasoned backup for the idea that the truth, while being a good in itself, is also the most effective way to achieve goals in dealings with others. It's not just morally right, it's pragmatic and sensible. It dovetails neatly with the old notion that lies will eventually bite the arse of those who tell them.

'Of course, even if this administration started telling the truth now few people would believe them.'

True - The Men Who Cried Wolf. People play to their strengths, they work with what they've got, and for this administration that means venality in general and lies in particular. Change is not impossible, but surely unlikely.

Great blog John. Good comments too.

[Duncan Kinder]

Juan Cole asserts that the purpose of torture is not to obtain information about terrorism but rather to manufacture evidence about it.

quote:

Why is the Bush administration so attached to torturing people that it would pressure a supine Congress into raping the US constitution by explicitly permitting some torture techniques and abolishing habeas corpus for certain categories of prisoners?

(See David Corn's "This is What Waterboarding looks like.".)

Boys and girls, it is because torture is what provides evidence for large important networks of terrorists where there aren't really any, or aren't very many, or aren't enough to justify 800 military bases and a $500 billion military budget.

:end_of_quote

http://www.juancole.com/2006/10/craig-murray-on-manufacturing-terror.html

[gmoke]

The information strategy in a 4G war is primarily towards the homefront and bystanders. There is another strategy that can be applied to the insurgents but that is another story. Truth, transparency, and openness to criticism are a good start. Flexibility should be added. Flexibility is the sine qua non of the response to 4G war.

As for the Vietnam parallels, now it seems that Henry Kissinger is advising Bush/Cheney and his advice is that we lost because the homefront quit. Exactly the wrong lesson to learn from that experience. But, of course, Kissinger is brilliant and his policies couldn't have been wrong. The American people failed him. He never failed us, at least in his own mind.

The Abu Ghraib photos are archived and featured at salon.com The fact is that we have been desensitized and atrocity pictures don't quite have the same effect as previously. Those who need to see the pictures most will refuse to look at them and there are some who will, sadly for us all, only enjoy them.

[David Hayward]

These ideas echo a lot of the problems I perceive in the way businesses communicate with markets.

Trackback on my Wordpress installation seems to be falling out with Typepad at the moment. Here:
http://func-auton.net/blog/?p=60

[Syn Diesel]

"A strict adherence to unvarnished truth. Assessments should not be spun. Decisions and analysis of results should be completely caveated. This requires backbone (which is perhaps in short supply). Truth generates trust."

Not only could these "leaders" benefit from some Cognitive Therapy as per an earlier comment but also could use some heavy dosing of soya phytoestrogens.

http://www.pauljzak.com/index.php?news=showAll
(neuroeconomics systems theory focusing on oxytocin and trust)

[TomGriffin]

The prevalence of propaganda has a lot to do with the ascendancy of the Neo-Cons, who basically emerged out of the CIA's links with the European non-communist left, during the cold war.
It seems to me that the expertise in propaganda (and not much else) that was aimed at keeping Europeans out of the arms of the Soviet Union, has now been turned on their own sponsors. Drinking your own kool-aid indeed.

[zenpundit]

Hi John,

Excellent brief. One additional comment:

Deficits in cultural intelligence capability degrade our capacity to communicate effectively to target audiences when we have truthful, accurate and cogent points to make.

The best "propaganda" efforts are credible facts in our favor. Persuasion need not be based on lies but can be based on appeals to self-interest.

[ramsis]

interesting point but to suggest that a war be fought propaganda free is almost unheard of. In some cases the propaganda has proven quite useful. I know that when i saw pictures of gassed kurds in Iraq or women buried up to their neck and stoned in afghanistan it was propaganda but it didn't make it any less true. Rosie assesments by the current adm. reflect more wishful thinking and miscalculations more than deception but i guess if you belive the propaganda by the "bush lied people died" crowd you might not view it that way. ramsis.

[Claymore]

The masses are asses and unable to comprehend what is really at stake, amorally. I guess it really boils down to what your -agenda- is and how you criticise. Overall, if you can't root for the home team, then get the fuck out of the stadium.

[jesus reyes]

So, we cant beat them unless we have the best propaganda but they know why they are fighting no matter how many times we send Karen Hughes.

The only one who believes Karen Hughes is US public opinion but the next thing you know we are drinking our own kool-aid and making policy and running wars based on our own propaganda.

What exactly is the current version of "Why we fight". Was it to free the slaves? Lee really did us a disservice by not launching an insurgency. It gave americans a screwy idea about how wars end.

[subadei]

I think the cogent point here is that while propaganda certainly carried the US during WWII it's effectiveness has spun about 180 degrees given the massive propensity for information that most Americans have at their fingers.
Simply put, warfare as we know it will have to undergo a rather severe change in direction regarding the PR effect. As John surmised, transparency lends no fuel to subsequent political goblins. Spin, however, can quickly develope very public and even widely held misguidance. The current mass adherence to a conspiracy regarding the 9/11 attacks and the collapse of the WTC towers comes to mind.

[RevG]

The comments upon this post cause me to question who understands what propaganda actually is. Before World War II propaganda was a descriptive term. However, the word has now become pejorative. This feature demonstrates its efficacy as utilized by its masters (and aspirants). Propaganda is everywhere, employed in advertising and public relations as well as elsewhere. It is so strange nobody ever believes themselves affected, that only other people are influenced. This is the strongest indication that it is indeed similar to a 5GW effort. Everything that exerts a subtle influence upon the direction of your thoughts and indeed your world view is the result of propaganda. Think about this, nothing you were ever taught was for your benefit but rather to benefit those who taught you. Make no mistake about schools, their first goal is to survive, as any entity, their second goal is to grow and prosper and only thirdly at best are the students a consideration. ‘A’ students usually end up teaching or administering a school, those who do best are groomed to continue a schools existence and growth and are rewarded appropriately. Think, you parents, how much you teach your children so that you can better manage them. Was it different for your parents? Yet so many believe the thoughts in their heads are truely theirs alone. Is this belief actually justified? Once propagnada is directed toward the goals of war you have 5GW as posited here and around the web. And what goals may they be? To destroy a people’s will to contest a foriegn power perhaps? It would behoove those who would discuss a large picture to be familiar with the various parts as individual parts first. This is where military veterans have an advantage regarding the generations of warfare. But when the picture enlarges, don’t we have to learn the substance of individual parts added to create the larger view? I would think so.

[enigma_foundry]

Interesting, because it is exactly those values (transparency, adherence to the truth, willingness to listen to criticism) that I believe to be essential ingredients in the handling of public health emergencies. I suspect some of the same dynamics are at work, at the intersection of war and media.

[blokg]

The only difference between Nazis and Americanists is that the Nazis didn't get away with their genocide. No, guerilla wars is not decided by "moral cohesion" but wheter or not the state terrorist forces are ready to inflict genocidal violence on the resisting population like in the Philippines were the US stormtroopers were ordered to murder every male from ten years and older. As the US is not quite ready to do this (although a quarter of a million or so Iraqis have already been exterminated by US bombs), they will lose. The war on Iraq to control the Middle East oil reserves is not justified. The US should leave right away, apologize and in accordance with US law execute Bush, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other high ranking officers responsible for the war. Leave Iraq to be ruled by the Iraqis, pretend you believe that people should actually be in control of their own nation (and not some pathetic puppet).

As for propganda, propaganda always works. "24", "Sleeper Cell", "Black Hawk Down" and all that other crap is dehumanizing the enemy and justyfing the wars flawlessly. Transparency and telling the truth (ie the US launched a war of aggression to control the oil wells) will only hasten the demise of the blood soaked US empire, something the glass-eyed fanatical hordes of US citizens don't want.

[Marcello]

"In other words, the side with the better propaganda machine wins the war."

I disagree.The narrative is that the armed forces, which were otherwise winning the war, were stabbed in the back by the treacherous media and by the liberal fifth column.
The solution was therefore to use propaganda and others consent related measures to build up an impregnable homefront to support the war effort.
This has been a spectacular success, as confirmed by the reelection of George Bush.
Only now some cracks are just beginning to show where it actually matters.
What the enemy does and the rest of the world thinks, they figured out, was not relevant since the US is invincible.
Of course the world does not actually work that way but given the immense amount of leverage (military,political etc.) that the US has you can afford to show the finger to everyone else for a while.

"People have access to so many alternative sources of information, that any concerted attempt to spin facts is quickly seen for what it is: deception."

Access does not equate use.And the people want to be deceived,to an extent.

[ramsis]

i agree in the sense that america can give a finger every once in a while but one must also be willing to take a pen and sword approach when dealing with the conflicts at hand. propaganda only works when military victories accompany them. we must also adjust our propaganda to fit the culture of our enemies, Al-quida videos seem to stir up triumphant emotions in the middle east but when shown in the U.S scenes of citizens being beheaded have merely strengthened our moral resolve that we are fighting evil. as for blokg the only apology i can think of that might be of some help to you is that we are sorry no one ever bought you a history book (or a plane ticket out of the country).

[surferbeetle]

Hope is not a strategy lieutenant. We all wish for world peace, but wishing doesn’t get things done.

The US spends about a billion USD a year on public diplomacy:

http://www.state.gov/r/adcompd/rls/15812.htm

Apparently the EU spends significantly more on public diplomacy (16 times) annually than do the Americans:

http://www.theglobalist.com/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=3886

http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/intrel/EFPC/Papers/Zalzberg.doc

There are reports that Saudi Arabia has spent over $75 billion USD on shaping the minds of Muslims:

http://www.freedomhouse.org/religion/pdfdocs/KSAtextbooks06.pdf#search=%22how%20much%20does%20saudi%20arabia%20spend%20on%20religious%20education%22

Coca-Cola is reported to spend several billion USD yearly on advertising:

http://blog.detectivemarketing.com/2005/11/coke-spent-25-billion-on-advertising.html

Who knows how much bloggers spend in order to ‘educate’ the masses that travel the internet.

Propaganda….apparently it’s cost effective….