by Michael Williams
“If you haven’t read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate, and you will be incompetent, because your personal experiences alone aren’t broad enough to sustain you.” – former Secretary of Defense James Mattis
I’ve had this book on my ‘re-read’ list for the past year. When I was heavily involved in reviewing our information activities in Iraq and Afghanistan while in my Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) advisory role, I always valued the opinions of our United Kingdom (UK) colleagues, who could often clearly see where we were going wrong. Why read (much less write a review of) a book written about events of 15-20 years ago and centered on conflicts that, increasingly, are criticized for mismanagement, bungled leadership, and lack of clear strategic planning? I re-read this book because I’m worried we seem to be burying our past and we seem to be shying away from learning from our mistakes.
There is much to learn (re-learn?) from a review of what happened 15 years ago. Have we integrated lessons learned into our planning and execution of Operations in the Information Environment (OIE)? More importantly, have we learned to adapt to the modern battlefield at the speed of current change? I didn’t know it when I read this book in 2012, but with the benefit of hindsight, I certainly know now that adaptation to the environment in which you’re fighting is the most important quality we need in leaders on the modern battlefield.
So, what is this book about? In chapter after chapter, the authors have identified a skill endemic to success in all conflicts: The ability to examine assumptions, learn from mistakes, and boldly define what is needed in the face of resistance from those above and below you. It would be easy to say MacKay and Tatham were trailblazers in every instance, but they did identify leaders that had the qualities necessary to win in modern conflict.
I’ve learned a lot from my mistakes and successes, but far more from the former, and I think the authors would agree. This book, however, doesn’t dwell on mistakes. Retired Major General Andrew MacKay and retired Commander Steve Tatham identify the primary role of an OIE planner and operator is to understand the decision making of the adversary AND any individual or group that can affect the outcome of a military operation. I don’t think Tatham or MacKays are outliers in this regard. Both have a natural curiosity about human decision-making and use that curiosity to determine the motivations of both the adversary and those that can affect the outcome of military operations. This curiosity is a prerequisite to being a successful OIE planner and operator.
This is also not a book for pointing out the shortcomings of doctrine or military capabilities, though the authors point out the lack of both early on in Afghanistan and Iraq operations. For each conflict highlighted in the book, whether in the Balkans, Sierra Leone, Lebanon, Iraq, or Afghanistan, there was always a shortfall of information about decision-making by the combatants. There is no manifesto for making over Psychological Operations (PSYOP), the military planning process or, God forbid, the military acquisition process. The PSYOP Target Audience Analysis (TAA) process comes in for high praise as a model to be adopted by all military forces that find the population is indeed part of the military terrain (and is likely to be in any future conflict). But before the TAA is put to work, we need planners curious about what motivates combatants and others and what information they consume to inform their decisions.
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The nature of war has not changed; it remains as it has since conflict became the domain of professional soldiers and perhaps even before that: Bending the enemy to your will. To do that, of course, you must identify the ‘enemy’ and if only it were a matter of pointing out people wearing the ‘wrong’ uniforms. That’s less likely to happen now than ever before.
It would be easy to write off our information-related efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan as flawed efforts rooted in a flawed strategy and certainly there’s some of that discussed in the book. Again, this is not a book about failed strategies. MacKay and Tatham spend much of their analysis on the two major conflicts of the past 20+ years but just as importantly point out the lessons learned in the Balkans, Sierra Leone, Libya, Lebanon and Gaza. Like myself, they took experiences and lessons from previous conflicts, and began to see that human decision-making is subject to the same heuristics regardless of the continent on which you may find yourself. What has changed over the past 30 years is the ever-increasing volume and speed of travel of information to ubiquitous handheld devices. Every conflict cited was a reminder that all military operations will eventually find this thing called the information environment carrying information between individuals and groups that affects the decision-making not just of adversary forces with military weapons but influences the decision-making of anyone that can affect the outcome of military operations. Again and again, MacKay and Tatham identify unexpected actors able to influence the outcome of operations in completely unexpected ways. Though, why should we have been surprised?
“As Al-Qaeda’s master strategist Ayman al-Zawahiri once observed: ‘We are in a battle, and more than half of this battle is taking place in the media.”
The authors assert that “understanding behaviour deserves greater resonance and involvement in the contemporary operating environment.” This now seems obvious to anyone who has experienced conflict in the past 25 years, yet our military formations devoted to this understanding have shrunk, and we now look at cyber operations as the nucleus of our information activities. I’m not the only one wondering how we’re going to orient cyber forces to execute influence operations, but this was not a worry of Mackay and Tatham in 2011.
My own experience in Afghanistan was certainly shaped by my planning and execution of information activities in the Balkans. When I arrived in Afghanistan in early Spring of 2002, my team and I had only left Kosovo a little more than three months prior. Our efforts in Kosovo focused on local community leaders in the ethnic conclaves, from which we learned much about decision-making among the former warring parties. Given the relative calm (at the time) in Afghanistan and with the encouragement of the parallel special operations command which had also found this method to be very useful, we set out to get our leaders out to see local Afghan leaders particularly those that had returned to Afghanistan from the secure and comfortable expat lifestyles abroad encouraged by the nascent Afghan central government. This was to be an eye-opening experience. On one occasion, we met with a regional governor of a province on the Afghan-Pakistan border. Our party was led by the Task Force Chief of Staff (at the time, the 10th Mountain Division was the core of the American forces on the ground). After pleasantries, we started down a list of talking points prepared by the staff. High on the list of points the senior leader I was supporting wanted to ask this particular governor was the matter of working with former Taliban (as characterized by task force intelligence sources). Our communication with this governor was excellent as he was a fluent English speaker brought back from his expat life in the west to re-build a provincial government. The governor was quite taken aback and was very articulate in his response, which remains burned into my brain: “If we did not work with those whom you consider former Taliban, we would have no one in the Province to work with.” My senior leader was left speechless momentarily and quickly moved on, but it was tremendously revealing about our failure to understand the motivations and decision-making of the population – a failure that would continue to haunt us for at least another 10 years, by which time we had made many mistakes in evaluating the Afghan population’s decision-making.
MaKay and Tatham cited similar difficulties in evaluating the poppy-growing farmers of Helmand Province. Our leaders in our respective capitols saw this behavior as simply one to be eradicated. Yet, to Pashtun farmers, this was not about picking a side between the Taliban or ISAF. This was about having enough money to feed and care for a family, and taking away that source of income and being told to ‘grow wheat’ was a stark reminder that we could inadvertently influence decision-making in a way that was devastating to our ability to achieve military objectives.
In another Afghanistan example, the authors highlight the ever-present use of the term “democracy” in our communications with senior leaders and the population, but in a society with no history of democratic governance, the message often had no meaning to the receiver and thus influenced none of their behavior. MacKay and Tatham suggest we need a “granular understanding” of audiences that can affect the outcome of military operations and hinder achievement of theater and strategic objectives (and again, they highlight the excellent TAA process as a curative tool).
The book highlights the UK Ministry of Defence guidance to UK forces in Iraq as referencing the “trinity of democracy, liberation, and freedom,” but when transmitted to the Iraqi population, the feedback implied the populace believed they were to be liberated by foreign forces, which is something that lacked any positive resonance. It would be easy to say we should ‘keep it simple’ and transmit basic messages, but even the simplest of messages requires some perspective-taking to understand how it will be understood and acted upon by the receiver of the message. I observed first-hand a US general telling his subordinate commanders to tell Afghans who may ask why we were in Afghanistan to provide a one-word response: “Revenge.” In addition to getting approval from the theater commander for this message, he believed this would resonate with a population steeped in an honor code. It was his attempt at perspective-taking. Sadly, each audience interpreted the message a little differently, and each evaluated a little differently against whom revenge was being taken. The effect was often not the one desired.
This book is about how we often fail to learn and adapt at tactical, theater, and strategic levels when assumptions meet reality. Again and again, they cite instances of how we must often question our assumptions and that when we DID take the time to learn how we might achieve an advantage in a complex counter-insurgency combined with counter-terrorism operations, we found the needed actions challenged our very conception of what constitutes a military operation.
Strategically, the inability of both the US and UK governments to recognize the centrality of the population in both conflicts deserves much criticism but that is not the domain of military planners and the authors recognize that a misstep in a capitol thousands of miles away is no reason to repeat the mistake in tactics used on the ground. Many examples are cited in the book about how planners were faced with the lack of proper tools, doctrine, training, and guidance to achieve tactical objectives on the ground. MacKay and Tatham realized they needed to review their understanding of human behavior in their unit’s area of responsibility. They were fortunate to have had the opportunity to observe decision-making and behavior in previous conflicts and understood that while conditions were different in each operation, the humans were much the same in how they utilized information and applied it within their own culture and environment. Commanders needed an understanding of why Iraqis or Afghans made decisions that, to the outside observer, seemed inimical to their own interests but made perfect sense to those being affected by military operations. Those decisions often affected the outcome of military operations.
MacKay and Tatham point out many mistakes made by leaders at all levels throughout these two conflicts and others. How they overcame these mistakes is the most important lesson to draw from this book. These leaders adapted and used the tools necessary and not necessarily those they were given by their military. A basic understanding of the society, its history, and the people’s motivations are all necessary to begin to understand the local information environment. While each culture is distinct, the authors also point out the many commonalities of human behavior and the extensive resources available to help leaders better understand this component of the battlefield.
There are many reasons we should understand our past, and examples of successes are always a pleasure to read, but it’s more important to read about our failures, whether because of misinformed leaders, poor planning, or a more adaptable adversary. The primary reason will always be: To Not Repeat The Mistakes of the Past.
All OIE leaders should read this and other books about our experiences of the past 25 years. Gen Mattis’s advice is all you need to justify doing so, but every leader should seek to learn from our mistakes. The book about our successes in Afghanistan and Iraq OIE has not yet been written whether for classification reasons or lack of interest but even if it is written, we won’t learn as much from that as from books like that written by Maj Gen (ret) MacKay and Commander (ret) Tatham who showed us that despite all the shortcoming in doctrine, training and capabilities, we do have the ability to learn and adapt. Challenging our assumptions and adapting to our ever-changing environment is not the easiest task, but it is an essential one for all OIE.
LTC (USA ret) Michael Williams is a retired Army Information Operations officer. Following his retirement in 2006, Mike became an advisor to the Information Operations policy office in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and later to the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy and worked on Secretary Gates’ program review of IO among many other projects over a seven year period. Since leaving his advisory position, he has become a Senior Analyst for Cognitive Performance Group which focuses on analyzing decision-making and developing models of expertise in support of training and leader development in DoD. Mike was the Executive Director of IPA during its formative period and currently supports IPA’s efforts to expand understand of Cognitive Security. Mike also owns a real estate brokerage in a small town in the Finger Lakes region of central New York where he makes his home.