Information Operations – Page 18 – Public Intelligence Blog

2006/07/072012/10/31

2006 INFORMATION OPERATIONS: All Information, All Languages, All the Time

Books w/Steele, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Information Operations, Information Society, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Commercial), Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks)

I have learned a great deal from colleagues at the U.S. Special Operations Command. Their most memorable lesson is captured in the following quotation from a person who in my mind represents the very best intellect and ethics that command has to offer:

“Secret intelligence is 10% of all-source intelligence, and all-source intelligence is 10% of Information Operaitons (IO).”

I have long known that acquisition and logistics are the red-headed step-children of the global defense community, and long realized that we create force structure without regard to the actual threat or the actual geospatial conditions in which we will be waging war and peace, but with this book I attempted to address the totality of our information needs in relation to strategic planning and programming for Whole of Government operations, not just military operations. I also believe that we have failed to develop decision support as well as IO capabilities relevant to cdost avoidance, burden sharing, and leveraging opportunities for creating a prosperous world at peace.

Technical Preface by Robert Garigue, CA (RIP)

2006/03/172009/12/04

Review: Information Operations–Warfare and the Hard Reality of Soft Power (Issues in Twenty-First Century Warfare) (Paperback)

4 Star, Information Operations

Outstanding First Cut, IO as Inter-Agency & Long-Term Continuity Glue,

March 17, 2006

Edwin L. Armistead

This is a first rate effort, but it is incomplete and overly U.S. centric. A new expanded edition is needed soonest.

For myself the best chapters were on “Intelligence Support: Foundations for Conducting IO” and “Information Projection: Shaping the Global Village.” Other chapters on the language of IO, information protection, related and supporting activities, and implementing IO were good.

The most important point in this book from my point of view was its observation that modern war is only 15-25% military action, and the rest must be a unified national campaign that leverages all sources of national power **for which IO is the glue that provides the inter-agency coherence.** These authors understand and teach, very ably, how IO is at the heart of managing complex coalition contingency operations.

The book over-all shows a real appreciation for the role that must be played by non-military agencies, coalitions, and private sector organizations including religions, academics, and business as well as media personalities.

The discussion of the “information battlespace” is useful, as are the illustrations. There is an excellent “strategy to task” section helpful to anyone actually implementing IO.

The authors are to be commended for emphasizing that knowing the enemy is not enough–you must know yourself and be firmly grounded in reality rather than ideological fantasy, if the IO message is to have traction. The authors also address, diplomatically but directly, the limitations of the traditional insular military planning process (especially the secretive intelligence process), and clearly articulate the need for open processes that can embrace and leverage varied communities of interest, non-US as well as US.

The authors also raise an extremely important issue to which they cannot provide an answer, but which must be resolved sooner than later: the urgency of being able to educate Americans about global realities and threats, without being accused of propagandizing Americans. [This is one reason why Congressman Simmons, on both the House Armed Services Committee and the House Homeland Security Committee, is so important–he understands that the state intelligence centers and networks we are advocating can serve two functions: as bottom up dot collectors, and as disseminators of real world open source intelligence to the state and local publics.]

One minor nit: the authors assume that because most of the 9-11 hijackers had Saudi passports they were Saudi. My understanding is that they were a mixed bag with passports of convenience from Saudi Arabia for those who were not Saudi.

The book concludes with cursory attention to Russian, Chinese, and Australian IO doctrine and practices, and does not address Iranian, Indian, Pakistani, and Venezuelan-Cuban IO, which are of considerable importance.

The book, very understandably, does not spend a lot of time on Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) or the need to properly monitor all information in all languages all the time, but the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence has clearly articulated the need to do “universal coverage, 24/7, in all languages, at the neighbood level of granularity” (this is an abdiged paraphrase) and DoD appears well on its way to doing just that. I recommend that this book be read in conjunction with Max Manwaring and John Fishel's Uncomfortable Wars Revisited (International and Security Affairs Series) with Max Manwaring's edited work on The Search for Security: A U.S. Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century which emphasizes key moral messages; and my own IO book, Information Operations: All Information, All Languages, All the Time which focuses exclusively on information peacekeeping or the foreign language content side of IO, and has a comprehensive annotated bibliography. Specialty books that I recommend to IO practitioners include Larry Beinhart's Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin Robert Cialdini's Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Collins Business Essentials); Robert Parry's Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth' and John Hasling's The Audience, The Message, The Speaker with Public Speaking PowerWeb.

2005/12/312009/12/04

Review: The Audience, The Message, The Speaker with Public Speaking PowerWeb (Paperback)

5 Star, Information Operations

World Class Reference for Modern Information Operations (IO),

December 31, 2005

John Hasling

This is an extraordinarily well-crafted work, and I deeply regret that I did not read it in time to include in the bibliography of my forthcoming book on Information Operations (Amazon, February 2006). This becomes the first of three books I recommend as basic instruction for the adult professional seeking to do Public Diplomacy or Strategic Communication. The second book would be Robert Cialdini's “Influence: Science and Practice,” and the third is Lev Manovich, “The Language of the New Media.” Of course there are many other good books, but these are the three I have selected from among many possibilities, and I recommend all of them.

The book begins with “know your audience.” I consider this very important, because the normal American approach to both Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication is “who cares what they think, just give them our message.” The author excels at including religious and cultural influences in his treatise on evaluating the audience and its interests **in order to be relevant and in order to connect.** I have said this before, but this author says it better: if you do not understand the psychology and sociology of your audience, you will NOT be able to communicate any message to them with credibility or “stickiness.”

The book segues to “finding common ground” and then spends an entire chapter on the importance of listening. I am reminded of the book on Iraq, “Squandered Victory,” whose most important point was that we failed to listen to anyone in Iraq as we planned and executed our invasion and subsequent “liberation” which most Iraqis now appear to see as “occupation.”

Fully a third of the book focuses on what can only be considered to be “intelligence preparation of the battlefield,” i.e. know your audience before you even *begin* to conceptualize a message that achieves common ground and desired outcomes. The author then moves on to the message, spending over 60 pages on the minutia of developing the topic, the purpose, and the content. The author excels at both suggesting useful forms of documentation to increase credibility, and useful forms of organization to increase effectiveness of delivery. The author concludes this section of the book with an excellent discussion of how to achieve and leverage “shared values.”

Finally, and very much last, the author focuses on the speaker, and how to craft a self-image that is welcomed by the audience. One is reminded of the military spokespeople in combat fatigues, sending their message to the US audience, but portraying an entirely different message to the indigenous audience by simple virtue of being in combat fatigues. Following this section the author focuses on mechanics, with details on visuals, on making “high-stakes” presentations, and includes a check-list for getting it right.

The book concludes with a final chapter on meeting ethical standards. This is the section that confirmed my already strong view that this author is a superb practitioner and teacher. He understands the tangible value of telling the truth and holding the best interests of the audience foremost in mind.

Although this book was written as a college text, and is superb for its intended function, in my personal view most US diplomats and most US military officers have not received in-depth training of this nature, and I regard this book as a superb adult self-study manual that will significantly enhance the professionalism and the achievements of any information operations professional.

2005/12/312009/12/04

Review: The Language of New Media (Leonardo Books) (Paperback)

4 Star, Information Operations

Original and worth considering, Nailed Google 3 Years Early,

December 31, 2005

Lev Manovich

EDIT of 11 Dec 07: the release by Stephen E. Arnold of “Google 2.0: The Calculating Predator,” has sent shock waves among analysts who are slowly begining to understand thatGoogle's programmable search patents are the first step toward Google determining what you see depending on who pays them what. Google is now evil. Look for my book review on the above, the book itself costs $675 or so.

All of the other reviewers are correct in the varied points, from praise for the substance to criticism for the tedious nature of some of the writing.

My take-away from this book is two-fold:

1) The author spends most of his time focused on a variation of “the medium is the message” and how important it is to understand not only the medium, but the totalitarian uses to which the medium can be put. The book is strongest over-all in bringing to bear real-world experience that contrasts sharply with the US view of the Internet as all flowers and love and freedom. He clearly articulates the totalitarian opportunities.

2) What he does not focus on, although this is alluded to in the preface by Mark Tribe, is the human cost of going online to the detriment of face-to-face. I have a 13-year-old who would, given a choice, spend 24/7 online, with his cell phone glued to his ear, watching a TV with one eye. As Mark Tribe notes, museums and other gathering places are essential for creating a focused kind of face to face interactivity that is not yet possible online.

An underlying sub-theme throughout the book is that reality and virtual reality are merging. We are moving toward a time when we will have a choice between opting for “authenticated” reality, or reveling in “constructed reality.” One shudders to think of The Matrix, where all humans have become the ultimate couch potatoes, spending their lives immobile in a petri dish being fed “virtual reality” while their brainpower is sucked off for energy and other nefarious purposes.

This is not an easy book to absorb, especially if you are not obsessed with the merger of cinematography and computers, but on balance, I am quite happy to have taken this in for its unique perspective.

2005/11/262009/12/04

Review: Information Proficiency–Your Key to the Information Age (Industrial Engineering) (Hardcover)

5 Star, Information Operations, Information Society, Information Technology

Quite Extraordinary–Handbook for Creating Wealth Though Information,

November 26, 2005

Thomas J. Buckholtz

The publisher has done a very poor job of communicating the value and depth of this book. It is superb. Easy to read, clear-cut concepts, well-defined chapter order, and above all, solid gold thinking.

As someone who specializes in fostering effective public intelligence and reducing wasteful ineffective secret intelligence, I could not help but marvel at how useful this book is in evaluating two completely opposite approaches to decision-support: Google, and the U.S. Intelligence Community.

The author's chapters run logically from developing a framework to setting goals to improving personal information proficiency and then organizational learning, and thence to managing information as a resource to help make better decisions that yield profit, cut costs, and result in mission accomplishment.

This is a book that should be read by every leader of any type of organization, large and small. What I like most about the book, even though the author is partial to maximizing investments in information technology, is his dual understanding that 1) the point is to make better decisions not buy more technology; and 2) information and information technology that are considered out of context and in isolation from other relevant information, are inherently flawed.

Wow. Google fails this test, and so does the CIA. Google gives you a million hits on “Colombia,” without any visualization, synthesis, etc., while CIA tells you either that they don't know, or what they know is too secret to tell you.

The heart of the book is about actually measuring information proficiency along multiple scales. I will not belabor the point, and will only stress this once that on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being ignorant incompetence, 2 being ad hoc isolated processes, and 5 being fully integrated and optimized data collection (including historical and parallel data), processing, analysis, decision, AND implementation, both Google and the CIA got an average of 2. That's a 40%, folks, a failing grade in any school district. Now, since the U.S. Intelligence Community costs $70 billion a year and serves only the President, and Google costs nothing to the end-user and serves hundreds of millions, we give them the advantage. We're betting Google will grow faster than CIA and the IC can reform.

It merits comment, in passing, that this book is a very elegant recycling of earlier work by the author within the U.S. Government, subsequently published in earlier versions. This version is the best, and potentially revolutionary. I recommend that it be read in conjunction with Robert Buckman's Building a Knowledge-Driven Organization and if you really want to get into it, Margaret Wheatley's Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World; Thomas Stewart's The Wealth of Knowledge: Intellectual Capital and the Twenty-first Century Organization Barry Carter's Infinite Wealth: A New World of Collaboration and Abundance in the Knowledge Era my own Information Operations: All Information, All Languages, All the Time as well as Alvin and Heidi Toffler's new book, Revolutionary Wealth: How it will be created and how it will change our lives, and the work praised by Lawrence Lessig among others, Yochai Benkler's The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom.

2005/10/302009/12/04

Review: Spychips–How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID (Hardcover)

4 Star, Information Operations, Information Society, Information Technology, Privacy

Excellent Review, Somewhat Hyped, Tries to Scare,

October 30, 2005

Katherine Albrecht

This is a tremendous, absolutely superb example of what “citizen intelligence” can mean in the world today. Two individuals have come together to thoroughly investigate the RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) marketplace, and they have published a book that is nothing short of brilliant in its detail, its notes, its photos, and its objectives.

They have even embedded in the book the fundamentals of mass psychology, and found two “hooks” for spreading fear of RFID among Jews (calling it the modern equivalent of the Yellow Star, which makes light of the Holocaust in this context) and fundamentalist Christians (calling it the Mark of the Beast that preceeds the apocalypse, also a step too far, in my view). My goodness-a two-woman CIA/Special Operations PSYOP unit!

On balance, the book is a superb technical review of what is possible and what is planned, and it is also seriously oversold and out of context. There is no question but that many companies, aided by the US Government, are planning for very intrusive tracking of individuals and their purchases. At the same time, the book ignores what is called a “path loss” obstacle (need for short-range transmitter to plugged in receiver), they ignore the ready availability of counter-measures (including aluminum foil, which they do mention in passing), and they fail to understand the severe challenges to massive data mining.

The book is somewhat out of context. While it enjoyes a superb Foreword from one of my five hacker/snowcrash heros, author Bruce Sterling, and it is full of unquestionably serious information, it is also oblivious to books like “The Long Emergency,” or “PowerDown,” and hence it fails to see that while RFID may be a pervert's dream and a Hitler-esque opportunity, the coming Great Depression is likely to bury most RFID applications as unaffordable.

There is much that is good about RFID that the authors leave unsaid. As companies like BreakAwayLtd.com advance reality games, RFID could allow citizens to understand how many child labor hours went into a product, or how much cheap oil was wasted on a product, or–as WIRED Magazine noted a few issues ago–actually tell a potential buyer “If you eat me I will kill you.”

The authors have performed a brilliant public service–I am absolutely totally admiring of what they have done–but the book must be understood to be somewhat unbalanced. Apart from not discussing the good of RFID as a logistics and cost of goods/return on investment capability, the authors also do not discuss the greatest danger within RFID data, that of ignorant programmers and stupid assumptions.

They do a very fine job of discussing how RFID can lead to a depersonification of services–a “smart” medical cabinet replacing a nurse, for example.

Throughout the book they offer quotes from great works or great speakers that are very good contributions to their work, and they also do a superb job of summarizing the RFID industry's spin and slur defenses against the kind of fact-finding and public disclosure that this excellent work embodies.

They conclude that the US Senate and the US Executive have “sold out” to the RFID industry, but that the consumer taxpayer can indeed stop RFID in its tracks by boycotting. They offer a thoughtful list of possible actions by any individual at the end of the book, and if they have one lament, it is that the RFID industry may be right about anticipating the “apathy” of the citizen taxpayer, and being able to implement it vision of persistent surveillance of all individuals and all things.

As an intelligence professional, long critical of the excessive investments in satellite collection (for example, the moronic current new system that will cost $9 billion and not add any substantive new capability), I have a note to myself that RFID is the private sector's tarpit–RFID is to industry what secret satellites were to government: a sucking chest wound into unreal amounts of cash will go, with little to show for it beyond the the logistics routing function.

The authors accept financial contributions but are not a 501c3. I believe that the best way we can honor them and help them is by buying their book. I have done so. Very worthwhile.

2005/10/232009/12/04

Review: Fog Facts –Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin (Nation Books) (Hardcover)

5 Star, Censorship & Denial of Access, Education (General), Education (Universities), Information Operations, Information Society, Media, Misinformation & Propaganda

Makes the case for a People's Bank-Union-Intelligence Agency,

October 23, 2005

Larry Beinhart

This is quite an extraordinary book, one of five I picked up while browsing at Barnes & Noble today. It gets a full five stars for elegant writing, logical presentation, and a lovely index. I read it together with Noam Chomsky's Imperial Ambitions: Conversations on the Post-9/11 World (American Empire Project) interviews, and the two complement one another.

“Fog facts” are facts that are out in the open, but “invisible” in the sense that no one acts on them. The stolen Florida election–30,000 plus disenfranchised blacks *and* “overcount” votes where Al Gore was both checked and written, rejected as invalid instead of returned for verification–the specious claims against Iraq; the 9-11 Commission apologia; the list goes on. For myself, the most interesting fog facts dealt with the number of terrorists caught and jailed by France and other nations, as a tiny fraction of the cost of invading Afghanistan and Iraq, and with little to show for it excepts casualties, including significant numbers of US amputations being concealed from the public.

The author “outs” Judith Miller as an agent of Karl Rove in the run-up to the war in Iraq, earnestly selling the Administration's line on weapons of mass destruction, and perhaps one reason she was both favored by Rove in the current Valerie Plume case, and also sought to protect Rove.

THe author gets the jump on the current scandal of the disappearing billions in Iraq–not just the billions for Halliburton in sole source contracts, but the outright theft and squandering of the $19 billion in Iraqi bank credits that Paul Bremer managed to fritter away–and they still do not have running water or electricity.

THe author quotes several times from Mein Kamph in discussing the extremist Republican use of “the big lie” and the comparisons are disconcertingly clear. He weaves a tale of draft-dodging hypocrisy among the Bush Junior and Cheney gang that is all too distasteful when combined with their corruption in favoring Halliburton–his listing of Cheney's ignominious failures as CEO of HAlliburton are fun–and also a sign that Halliburton knew what it was doing in suffering the fool that would deliver the people's treasure. His accounting of Bush Juniors many failures in business, each time living on his father's name and getting bailed out by the forgiving rich that he has repaid many times over with tax cuts and exemptions from asbestos claims, among other loopholes, is dismaying in the extreme. We “know” these things, but we do not act.

On page 82 he repeats what is now perhaps the most famous quote to come out of the Bush Junior White House, where an arrogant aide dismisses a “reality-based” person and says that the U.S. is an empire now, and makes its own reality. That the reality we are making is one of our own destruction escapes this witless aide to the President, so full of himself is he.

The books adds to my understanding of the current Social Security arrangements as a pass through system (each generation funds the next) as opposed to the Administration's proposal for privatization, which converts it to a pension fund that dies with each generation. I am persuaded that we must defend Social Security, it is present form, to the death, and that we must remove the caps and make the wealthy contribute for every dollar, not just up to $90,000.

The author concludes that there is a war today, not between civilizations, but between faith-based and reality-based communities.

I put the book down reflecting to myself that it is time for the American labor union pension funds to lead a revolution. It is time for the people to form their own bank, their own credit card company, their own intelligence agency, and their own media. Although this is happening in fits and starts with the Internet, it is disjointed. We need to marry up money, willpower, and honest information, and we need to out these carpetbaggers and regain control of the commonwealth.

Truth and morality are here to be found, but the question that remains is: will the people act? This is a very fine book for anyone who cares about future generations and resents being robbed.

Ten Other Recommended Books (Five Bad News, Five Good News):
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future – and What It Will Take to Win It Back
The Working Poor: Invisible in America
American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America
A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
Escaping the Matrix: How We the People can change the world
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom