[iwar] [fc:Winning.the.War.of.Words:.Information.Warfare.in.Afghanistan]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-10-25 09:39:11
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Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 09:39:11 -0700 (PDT)
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Winning the War of Words: Information Warfare in Afghanistan 

Analysis Paper #5
Brookings Project on Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy
October 23, 2001 

P.W. Singer, John M. Olin Post Doctoral Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies 
        
As the US military responds to the terrorist attacks of September 11th,
understandably enough much of our attention has been paid to the
missiles and warplanes currently hitting targets in Afghanistan.  But
perhaps more important to the success of Operation Enduring Freedom than
the fire of any weapons, will instead be the use of words, images, and
ideas to create an environment amenable to victory.  Military planners
call this information warfare. 

Unfortunately, while the US is winning the all-important battle over
perception at home, it is not clear yet that we are winning where it
counts, within Afghanistan.  In order to fully succeed in the upcoming
operations, the US and its allies must be able to implement a strategy
of means and message, that recasts the conflict and takes advantages of
preexisting fractures in Taliban. 

The article discusses the role of information warfare, the present
setting within Afghanistan, and then the key elements of a successful
campaign.  Its focus is on the military side, within Afghanistan.  But,
many of the same lessons can be applied to political dimension and the
broader need for public diplomacy elsewhere in the region. 

Information Warfare

Dating back to Sun Tzu's teachings, information warfare is the offensive
and defensive use of information and information systems to deny,
exploit, corrupt, or destroy an adversary's knowledge, communications,
and perceptive access and processes.  It is designed to achieve almost
costless advantages over one's adversaries.  It can be a supplement or a
replacement for traditional military operations.  Falling within the
domain of information warfare are psychological operations, which are
designed to influence adversaries' attitudes and behavior, affecting the
achievement of political and military objectives.  In particular, they
aim at subverting both the will of the populace and soldiers in the
field and also the authority of those in command. 

The US military has mixed history in its recent use of information
warfare.  The primary units of relevance are Psychological Operations
Groups within the Army Special Forces and the 193rd Special Operation
Wing, a Pennsylvania Air National Guard Unit.  The 193rd flies EC-130s
(also known as Commando Solos), essentially transport planes converted
to jam and transmit radio and television signals.  During the 1991 Gulf
War, their efforts, including radio broadcasts over Iraqi-held Kuwait
helped prepare the battlefield by inducing large numbers of Iraqi
soldiers to defect or surrender.  Prior to the 1994 intervention into
Haiti, the planes broadcast radio and TV messages from deposed President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, explaining the situation and that the mission of
US soldiers was to restore democracy.  They also dropped portable
radios, to ensure that the message was heard throughout the broader
populace.  In contrast, information warfare results during the 1998
Kosovo war met with limited success.  NATO never fully coordinated its
information warfare operations to link with its more traditional
military ones.  It also never was able to silence Serb propaganda. 
Equally, a prime opportunity for information warfare was missed during
the 1994 Rwandan genocide.  Commando Solo planes were not used to jam
radio broadcasts that were exhorting and coordinating the genocide,
primarily due to legal concerns that it would constitute interference in
another nation's sovereignty.  However, the UN genocide convention
should have overrode any such concerns about the legality of such
operations, as the UN conventions against terrorism and past
International Court rulings would do so today. 

The general point is that the tools of information warfare can meet with
success under certain conditions.  The message must be available to the
targeted groups.  It must be dominant, rather than at a disadvantage in
competing with other sources of information.  This applies to both
frequency of message and trustworthiness of source.  The message must
also find a receptive audience.  It must be attuned to the local culture
and environment and the target audience's prior concerns. 

The Setting

There are two important elements to consider in crafting an information
warfare strategy: the nature of the opposition and their present control
of the information environment. 

From an information warfare perspective, the key aspect of the Taliban
is that they are susceptible to certain divisions.  The Taliban
leadership has never been a truly cohesive actor, but more reflects the
nature of its quick takeover of most of Afghanistan from 1994-96.  There
are two broad potential fractures in the movement.  The first is between
relatively moderate and more orthodox factions within the original
Taliban.  The second, and perhaps more important, is that the Taliban
were able to seize power rapidly though the incorporation of local
warlords and commanders, who were either bought off or defected from
other mujahadeen groups.  Hence, there is also a split between the new
members, who joined out of expediency, and the original Taliban leaders. 


Despite these divisions, though, the information environment leading up
to US air strikes was fairly singular and thus not positive from a US
perspective.  The Taliban movement enjoyed an unchallenged grip on the
sources of information inside Afghanistan.  With its control of the
media, few Afghanis, including most importantly their soldiers in the
field, have access to outside media.  Thus, many do not know of the
Sept.  11th terrorist attacks or the reasoning behind the US's recent
concern with their own country.  With the banning of television, almost
none have been able to see the extent of the destruction in New York. 

Those that do have access to radios, instead, were only the recipients
of defiant speeches carried by the regime's Radio Shariat (meaning
"Islamic Law").  These broadcasts laid the baseline for understanding
the conflict and evoked powerful emotions.  The one constant rallying
point in Afghan history has been for the various tribes to join to throw
out invaders, from the Persians and the British, to most recently the
Soviets.  The Taliban's broadcasts painted US demands on their country
as falling in line with this long procession of outsiders attempting to
interfere in their own local matters.  The dominant message was that the
US was yet another imperial power targeting Afghanistan. 

Changing the Environment

In recent days, the US and its allies have begun to fight back in this
battle of perception.  Whether it is a matter of too little, too late
remains to be seen. 

The elements of the information campaign involve both means and message. 
The first step in the campaign was the takedown of the Taliban's radio
transmission towers.  This happened within the first week.  Given the
lack of strategic targets within the country, one would hope this
happened within the first hours, as they represented a critical node in
Taliban control.  At some point after this, limited communication links
were established with the Afghan populace.  One would also have hoped
that these had begun earlier, perhaps even before the attacks, in order
to counter the base-line presumptions of the target audiences. 

The operations now involve intermittent radio broadcasts (the rest of
the broadcasts are of local music), in the local languages of Pashtun
and Dari and also the dropping of leaflets.  A set of eighteen scripts,
now available from the Pentagon, make up the bulk of the message.  They
are targeted at civilians, Taliban leaders, and soldiers in the field. 
As of yet, we have no reports rechargeable radios being dropped to
populations on the move or out of contact, as they were in the Haiti
operation.  Hopefully, this will happen in the near-term to ensure a
broader audience. 

The Message

While the means are important, ultimately it is the message that will
determine our success.  It must be carefully crafted, making sure to
take into account the local situation and any points of fracture.  A
successful information campaign will require three elements, each of
which focuses on shifting the paradigm in which the conflict is
understood.  It appears that some are occurring to the full extent
possible, and some are not.  Continued close coordination between the
targeting side and the information side will be important. 

First, it is necessary to recast the enemy.  An attempt is being made to
reverse Afghan nationalism from focusing on the US as the Taliban would
like, to looking instead at the undue influence that Osama bin Laden and
other foreign fighters now enjoy within Afghanistan. 

Dating back to the Soviet war, there has always been great tension
between the native mujahadeen fighters and Arab fighters, who came as
part of their jihad duties.  Local Afghanis resented not only the
greater wealth of the "Gucci Mujahadeen," but also their dilettante
attitude towards the fighting.  A carefully managed program should
attempt to broaden this prior rift with the aim of driving a real wedge
between the two.  It should paint bin Laden and the Arab mujahadeen as
the core cause of any present Afghan misery.  They should be portrayed
as unwelcome guests, who have too long taken advantage of Afghan
hospitality and now overstayed their welcome.  As strikes continue at
the tactical level, they should focus on those Taliban units made up of
foreign fighters, such as the 55th brigade.  These can be coordinated
with broadcasts and leaflets drops that make this agenda of focusing on
foreign fighters known and attempt to spread dissension in the ranks. 

A contrast is also being made between the deeds and words of bin Laden
and the Taliban.  Bin Laden's great wealth, activity in terrorism and
the drug trade should be highlighted, as well as the daily lives of the
hijackers (which included visiting strip bars), to illustrate that they
do not always practice what they preach.  The fact that he and his top
commanders hide in the caves, while others pay the ultimate price,
should also be noted. 

The transcripts also show that a contrast is also being made between the
deeds and words of bin Laden and the Taliban, highlighting the Taliban's
failure to fulfill its promise to bring peace and prosperity.  This can
be developed further and should remain attuned to changes on the ground
as they develop.  One focused message should be on the regime's recent
seizure of food supplies and shutdown of humanitarian aid facilities in
the midst of famine.  Allusion can then be made to the years of US food
aid, as well as the latest aid package.  In the future, though, aid
distribution on the ground should preferably been done through the Red
Crescent, rather than the UN, to further engender local sympathy. 
Airdropped supplies would also best be coordinated with information
operations, in order to maximize their impact.  This would include
combined food and leaflet drops in target areas and ensuring that the
supplies are carefully marked in local languages (the present
Humanitarian Daily Rations are not). 


The second component of a successful information operation is to recast
the nature of conflict.  The Taliban and bin Laden have attempted to
turn any opposition to the US as part of a jihad and the duty of a true
Muslim.  The counter is to undermine their credentials to speak for
Islam.  The broadcasts and pamphlets underscore that rather than having
the sanction of a true fatwa, bin Laden's targeting of innocent men,
women, and children, including Muslims, is what is clearly against the
teachings of the Koran. 

In particular, the task is to make full known the international
coalition that has built up in opposition to their views, indicating
that this is not an issue of the US versus Islam or the Afghani people,
but rather the civilized world versus those limited few who perpetrate
crimes against humanity.  This aspect will require that the broadcasts
into the region not be US-centric.  Information operations will be
unsuccessful if they simply carry statements by US leaders and sources,
who will be seen as dubious.  Rather, they should emphasize and quote
the many statements by Islamic leaders from around the world, both
religious and political, who have lined up in support of the fight
against terrorism.  Two powerful examples bears stressing: the statement
by the Saudi government that accused the terrorists and the Taliban of
besmirching Islam and a fatwa issued by a group of prominent Islamic
scholars that found the justness of punishing the terrorists. 

Since the start of air operations, the general silence so far from
friendly Arab states has been disturbing.  This is a critical area to
lean on our allies in the region, both in providing these voices and
shutting down any inflammatory broadcasts that emanate from within their
own borders.  Urging such governments take a public role in the
humanitarian aspects of the campaign may be a means to link the more
timid regimes to the overall effort. 

Finally, it is necessary to recast the ultimate goals of the operation. 
A constant and repeated point in the transcripts is the causes of our
concern.  Broadcasts highlight the costs of the attacks on New York at
the personal level and focus on those casualties with which there will
be the greatest sympathy, such as the Muslim women and children who were
killed.  One additional area to build on this is to include statements
from Afghani-Americans, letting their relatives know that they were not
killed in bin Laden's attacks, used as a powerful indirect means of
persuasion. 

It still remains, though, to counter the perception of an imperial
agenda.  Future broadcast must make clear the US military's objectives
and stance on a future government of Afghanistan.  Unfortunately, this
has not been fully developed, simply because its unclear if the
political decision on this has been reached. 

The crux is to clarify that the US military's objective is not to impose
any government on the Afghani people, as the Taliban have portrayed it. 
The role of Zahir Shah, the former king of Afghanistan, may be critical
in this aspect.  Zahir's relatively peaceful reign from 1933 to 1973 is
now looked upon with nostalgia by war weary Afghanis of all ethnicities. 
The US should provide support to Zahir and other figures of unity, but
be careful so as not to send the impression that they are at the beck
and call of foreign governments. 

Backing of the institution of the Loya Jirga may be the means towards
striking this difficult balance.  The Loya Jirga is a 250-year-old
traditional Afghan parliament that has been the means toward
inter-ethnic unity at past points of crisis.  Most importantly, it is
one of the few institutions that enjoys any legitimacy across ethnic
lines.  Zahir and many other Afghan leaders have made a call for the
replacement of the Taliban with a Loya Jirga.  It is also an Afghan-only
institution.  Broadcast support would illustrate a concern with allowing
Afghans to determine their own destiny.  In addition, many moderates
within the Taliban movement have quietly supported the Loya Jirga idea
in the past, providing another line of possible exploitation. 

This aspect of short-term information operations will also dovetail
quite nicely with longer-term goals in the region.  The institution of
the Loya Jirga, with Zahir serving as a figurehead, could become the
means toward a sustainable peace process, structured along the lines of
the relatively successful peace process in Cambodia. 


Conclusion

The mission of destroying missile sites and arms depots is almost the
easy part.  The critical task in the days ahead is to continue to
reshape the information environment and target points of fracture in the
opposition.  By taking away the Taliban's tools of misinformation and
recasting the situation on the ground, the battle of hearts and minds
can be a success.  It can unite the interests of the local populace
against bin Laden and the Taliban movement, potentially splinter the
Taliban leadership, and even help form the basis for a new peace process
for Afghanistan. 

In the end, no battle should be fought without using all the weapons at
one's disposal.  Hopefully, the U.S.  will take full advantage of the
potential of information operations necessary to the success of Enduring
Freedom. 

�2001 The Brookings Institution

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