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Deception is 5GW’s central offensive weapon—the “secret war” equivalent of the combined arms strike. Some may say this is an overstatement. Can active deception really be classified as a weapon?
Our disbelief in the offensive power of deception springs from our limited—and static—conception of deception operations. Most Western strategists believe that deception operations are chiefly used to cloak military capabilities and confuse the enemy. When we think of military deception, we tend to imagine something like the successful cloaking of the Normandy invasion in World War II. But deception is more than just camouflage and strategic feints. A holistic conception of deception operations holds that deception can sway an opponent to act against his own interests and undermine his political and military organizations.
I propose utilizing the Soviet deception apparatus as a baseline model of deception operations.
Our disbelief in the offensive power of deception springs from our limited—and static—conception of deception operations. Most Western strategists believe that deception operations are chiefly used to cloak military capabilities and confuse the enemy. When we think of military deception, we tend to imagine something like the successful cloaking of the Normandy invasion in World War II. But deception is more than just camouflage and strategic feints. A holistic conception of deception operations holds that deception can sway an opponent to act against his own interests and undermine his political and military organizations.
I propose utilizing the Soviet deception apparatus as a baseline model of deception operations.
While Al Qaeda uses tactical and operational deception for security and strategic surprise, its open-source model precludes extensive offensive strategic deception. Al Qaeda’s tactics and strategic goals are articulated in the publicly available writings of senior strategists, available to anyone with Arabic language skills and an Internet connection. Translations are also available from both government (The Open Source Center) and commercial services (SITE Institute) devoted to tracking jihadist operations. Al Qaeda’s relative transparency is an inherent feature of the open-source warfare model it depends on to galvanize its global movement.
For the Soviets, deception was a way of life. The Soviet Union—a secretive and paranoid totalitarian state—-sealed itself from outside influence and extensively utilized deception to mislead Western policymakers, journalists, and intelligence analysts. The cultlike nature of Soviet life has ample parallels to 5GW.
Back in the USSR
Richard J. Heuer Jr. (see the excellent volume Soviet Strategic Deception) classifies Soviet Deception efforts as Active Measures, Counterintelligence, and Maskirovka (Military Deception). Counterintelligence and Maskirovka are limited and more or less self-explanatory. Neutralizing or co-opting enemy intelligence networks is an operational mission, as is misleading OPFOR in an attempt to preserve operational security or retain strategic surprise.
This does not mean that Soviet CI and Maskirova did not at times assume a strategic dimension. In the 1920s, the CHEKA and OGPU created a fake resistance movement called “The Trust.” It was marketed as an authentic opposition umbrella movement in the hope that enemies both home and abroad would flock to its banner. Opposition networks and foreign intelligence operatives made contact with The Trust, allowing Soviet intelligence to penetrate and neutralize their organizations. When the Trust outlived its usefulness, Moscow revealed and closed down the operation. If The Trust itself had liquidated the Soviet opposition’s best operatives, its exposure humiliated and shattered the Soviet émigré network. The West no longer trusted their expertise and they no longer trusted each other.
The example of the “Trust” demonstrates how a 5GW adversary might respond to an attempt by an opposing organization to penetrate and destroy its operational network. If it still retains operational secrecy and surprise, the 5GW organization may simply create a dummy front that can be used as a kill vehicle. Once entrapped within the dummy front, enemy operatives can either be misdirected or liquidated.
Active Measures
The Soviet Union’s main covert strategy involved in use of “Active Measures”—extensive attempts to undermine the West’s unity and influence its decision-making. The battlespace was truly worldwide, ranging from the Third World to the homeland. The Soviets relied on a worldwide cabal of agents and contacts to agitate against America and her allies through a series of front organizations. The methods of agitation ranged from black propaganda to sophisticated media campaigns. Agitation meshed with strategic influence operations utilizing agents and sympathizers highly placed within government, academia, and the press to mold both policy and public perception to Moscow’s benefit. Not all of the KGB’s proxies were committed believers—KGB officers also developed unwitting agents of influence for the purpose of spreading messages favorable to the USSR.
As Heuer Jr. argues, we should not conceptualize Soviet influence operations as exclusively characterized by one-way transmission. Deception was altered based on feedback from the one being deceived. Messages were altered to accommodate shifts in public opinion.
Deception operations depend on adversary mirror-imaging and a willingness to be deceived. Western analysts in both the government and the media often own force their own pre-conceived cultural norms onto the enemy with the erroneous belief that Western concepts of government, strategy, and morality are universally applicable. Additionally, elites and thought leaders already pre-disposed to distrusting their government and society were more willing to highlight American perfidy while ignoring the horrors of Soviet totalitarianism and imperialism.
Conclusion
Thankfully, the relative skill of Soviet deception operators wasn’t enough to overcome the larger strategic failure inherent in the USSR’s political, military, and economic spheres. History has often demonstrated that brilliant tactical and operational success cannot compensate for strategic dysfunction. Nazi Germany’s armies were at one point the most powerful and skilled fighting forces in Eurasia, but that alone couldn’t compensate for the Allied industrial advantage nor mitigate the Fuhrer’s self-sabotaging myopia and madness. So what lessons can we take from the Soviet example?
• 5GW operations on the operational level will consist of deception operations designed to sow confusion among the enemy, influence decision-making, and undermine the enemy’s unity.
• 5GW organizations will utilize pseudo-operations as a countermeasure against opponents seeking to use penetrate their organizations.
• The perquisites for defense against 5GW are holistic thinking, avoidance of mirror imaging, and a healthy—though skeptical—patriotism.
For the Soviets, deception was a way of life. The Soviet Union—a secretive and paranoid totalitarian state—-sealed itself from outside influence and extensively utilized deception to mislead Western policymakers, journalists, and intelligence analysts. The cultlike nature of Soviet life has ample parallels to 5GW.
Back in the USSR
Richard J. Heuer Jr. (see the excellent volume Soviet Strategic Deception) classifies Soviet Deception efforts as Active Measures, Counterintelligence, and Maskirovka (Military Deception). Counterintelligence and Maskirovka are limited and more or less self-explanatory. Neutralizing or co-opting enemy intelligence networks is an operational mission, as is misleading OPFOR in an attempt to preserve operational security or retain strategic surprise.
This does not mean that Soviet CI and Maskirova did not at times assume a strategic dimension. In the 1920s, the CHEKA and OGPU created a fake resistance movement called “The Trust.” It was marketed as an authentic opposition umbrella movement in the hope that enemies both home and abroad would flock to its banner. Opposition networks and foreign intelligence operatives made contact with The Trust, allowing Soviet intelligence to penetrate and neutralize their organizations. When the Trust outlived its usefulness, Moscow revealed and closed down the operation. If The Trust itself had liquidated the Soviet opposition’s best operatives, its exposure humiliated and shattered the Soviet émigré network. The West no longer trusted their expertise and they no longer trusted each other.
The example of the “Trust” demonstrates how a 5GW adversary might respond to an attempt by an opposing organization to penetrate and destroy its operational network. If it still retains operational secrecy and surprise, the 5GW organization may simply create a dummy front that can be used as a kill vehicle. Once entrapped within the dummy front, enemy operatives can either be misdirected or liquidated.
Active Measures
The Soviet Union’s main covert strategy involved in use of “Active Measures”—extensive attempts to undermine the West’s unity and influence its decision-making. The battlespace was truly worldwide, ranging from the Third World to the homeland. The Soviets relied on a worldwide cabal of agents and contacts to agitate against America and her allies through a series of front organizations. The methods of agitation ranged from black propaganda to sophisticated media campaigns. Agitation meshed with strategic influence operations utilizing agents and sympathizers highly placed within government, academia, and the press to mold both policy and public perception to Moscow’s benefit. Not all of the KGB’s proxies were committed believers—KGB officers also developed unwitting agents of influence for the purpose of spreading messages favorable to the USSR.
As Heuer Jr. argues, we should not conceptualize Soviet influence operations as exclusively characterized by one-way transmission. Deception was altered based on feedback from the one being deceived. Messages were altered to accommodate shifts in public opinion.
Deception operations depend on adversary mirror-imaging and a willingness to be deceived. Western analysts in both the government and the media often own force their own pre-conceived cultural norms onto the enemy with the erroneous belief that Western concepts of government, strategy, and morality are universally applicable. Additionally, elites and thought leaders already pre-disposed to distrusting their government and society were more willing to highlight American perfidy while ignoring the horrors of Soviet totalitarianism and imperialism.
Conclusion
Thankfully, the relative skill of Soviet deception operators wasn’t enough to overcome the larger strategic failure inherent in the USSR’s political, military, and economic spheres. History has often demonstrated that brilliant tactical and operational success cannot compensate for strategic dysfunction. Nazi Germany’s armies were at one point the most powerful and skilled fighting forces in Eurasia, but that alone couldn’t compensate for the Allied industrial advantage nor mitigate the Fuhrer’s self-sabotaging myopia and madness. So what lessons can we take from the Soviet example?
• 5GW operations on the operational level will consist of deception operations designed to sow confusion among the enemy, influence decision-making, and undermine the enemy’s unity.
• 5GW organizations will utilize pseudo-operations as a countermeasure against opponents seeking to use penetrate their organizations.
• The perquisites for defense against 5GW are holistic thinking, avoidance of mirror imaging, and a healthy—though skeptical—patriotism.
Posted by Adam Elkus on Jun 30, 2008 02:35 PM
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5 Comments
“If it still retains operational secrecy and surprise, the 5GW organization may simply create a dummy front that can be used as a kill vehicle. Once entrapped within the dummy front, enemy operatives can either be misdirected or liquidated. “
I like this idea. I think misdirection might be better then liquidation. Dead bodies might lead to further investigation by the 5GWers adversary.
“The Soviet Union’s main covert strategy involved in use of “Active Measures”—extensive attempts to undermine the West’s unity and influence its decision-making. The battlespace was truly worldwide…”
I think “Active Measures” is a good example of how states can apply 4GW (4gw is more than just evolved guerrilla warfare + info war). It is also a going to be a big carry over to 5GW. There is a book out there from an ex-soviet intel officer called I think “The World Was Going Our Way”. The officer claims that the Soviet active measures where working in turning the third world (and much of the first world) against the US. I think the vibrations of these campaigns are still felt today. Interesting, you could claim that the Soviet “Active Measures” driven 4GW was defeated by the 5gw that Anti-Soviet Western 5GWers created in the form of institutions that continued to oppose the Soviets even as the world turned against them and their own populations lost the stomach for the Cold War.
Another security control the Soviets successfully built in the west is that anybody point out the “Active Measures” would often be dismissed as a (pick your favorite): Right-Winger, John Bircher, McCarthyite, Conspiracy-monger, red-baiter, etc. This fits in quite well with 5GW theory [1].
The Soviets Active Measures were long-term focused, they were not trying to defeat the US/West with one broad stroke. They were willing to try lots of little actions tailored to different groups as needed. That all fits in with my view of one of the essential properties of 5GW [2].
This is a great post. I can’t believe I missed it when it came out.
[1] http://purpleslog.wordpress.com/2006/05/30/5gw-will-hide-in-the-sea-of-conspiracy-theories-to-avoid-discovery/
[2] http://purpleslog.wordpress.com/2006/05/22/boiling-the-frog-5gw-style/
Purpleslog,
Thank you for your praise. With the recent news about Russia, this isn’t purely academic, eh?
One other side effect of the Soviet deception machine was that it convinced America to cannibalize itself——by targeting people who had no connection to the Soviet Union other than general leftist beliefs. A paranoid sensibility, created through the Soviet usage of deception operations, led to the McCarthy hearings, the Hollywood blacklist, and extensive dirty tricks campaigns directed against legitimate left-wing movements in the 1960s which were believed to be Communist fronts. This overreaction (which included the famous FBI harassment of Martin Luther King) and the Vietnam War (a self-inflicted wound bourne out of mirror-imaging), nearly split America apart culturally. We inflicted this strife wholly on ourselves through our paranoia and close-mindedness, inflicting much more damage than the Soviets could ever hoped for through their deception operations. Perfect 5GW?
“Al Qaeda’s relative transparency is an inherent feature of the open-source warfare model it depends on to galvanize its global movement.”
Call this recreational paranoia, but what if this open source model is just a dummy front? Suppose I was OBL; I set up this network of websites to create a multitude of copies of my organization. With no input of resources other than the occasional motivational video, my enemies are worn down, tempted into actions that discredit them, turned upon each other and distracted from whatever I’m really doing. Scary elegant.
Assuming I haven’t just slipped the surly bonds of reality, the question becomes: How would one go looking for the real plot and real plotters?
AE:
“This overreaction (which included the famous FBI harassment of Martin Luther King) and the Vietnam War (a self-inflicted wound bourne out of mirror-imaging), nearly split America apart culturally. We inflicted this strife wholly on ourselves through our paranoia and close-mindedness, inflicting much more damage than the Soviets could ever hoped for through their deception operations. Perfect 5GW?”
Yes, pretty darn perfect.
Lucky, the US institutional-based 5GW won out over the Active-Measure based 5GW.
The effects of both linger on.
Michael:
Poole suggests in his latest book it may be a front, with the Chinese behind the scene.
“Assuming I haven’t just slipped the surly bonds of reality, the question becomes: How would one go looking for the real plot and real plotters?”
I am not sure. That would be an interesting model of a Strategic Citizen in action.
We do know that OBL’s Al-Qada was a real organization that did real things. Many terrorism experts think that version Al-Qada has been destroyed for the most part. What is 1) Remnants working with the Taliban on the frontiers of Afghanistan and Pakistan; and 2) a loose network of groups and individuals linked to together by common purposes and memes which share ideas but that are not necessarily controlled by OBL.
You are getting into John Robb’s GG territory. The flaw in that I always thought was that the GG’s seemed to have no purpose. They were like modern day version of the 19th century anarchist but with better means.
I think the GG idea only makes sense if 1) They are fighting to keep civilization out to have an ungoverned space for some other purpose, 2) They are being controlled by somebody else (perhaps unknowing proxies of OBL or Iran). Also, recently Hammes suggested, that GG like entities would continue on till the leading power was defeated and the outside left, and then they all knew there would be a civil war among themselves. That makes sense to me too as a possibility.