Pentagon Weighing News and Spin - LA Times

Gen. Petraeus has proposed changing policies dating back to the Vietnam War regulating the relationship between information operations (IO) and public affairs (PA).

Those who favor more aggressive information management believe public affairs officials should work for information operations offices.

Military officials in Baghdad say Petraeus does not want to try to manage the news; they insist he is not interested in extreme changes. Under the Petraeus plan, public affairs officials would continue to work directly for unit commanders, but would coordinate extensively with information officers.

One the one hand we have those who are worried about PA and IO personnel working at cross purposes. On the other hand we have those who are worried that any modification of the existing policies will only harm the military’s credibility.

Although many public affairs officials trust Petraeus, some fear that other commanders, who may care less about the military’s credibility with the press, could use Petraeus’ policy request to subordinate public affairs officials to information operations officers.

Information operations may encompass what the military calls psychological operations — a range of persuasion techniques to influence local populations in foreign countries. Operations can be as simple as spreading truthful information via a loudspeaker truck or giving deliberately false information on a televised broadcast.

The article offers no concrete ideas for how to address this tension between IO and PA missions

The senior officer close to Petraeus said that information operations officers in Baghdad are not engaging in deception, so there was little risk to military credibility.

“Public affairs officers will not be involved in deception operations,” the officer said. “There are red lines public affairs will not cross. They will not jeopardize their credibility.”

Others are more skeptical of Petraeus’ request, believing that the information operations officers engage in deception at times and that military spokespeople must steer well clear.

“They will tell you” psychological operations “is always truthful. But you know how the game works,” said a senior defense official.

Those who favor rescinding or altering the Myers memo argue that it is better for public affairs officers to know what information officers are up to, so as to better prevent misleading information from filtering back to the U.S.But other Pentagon officials say that as soon as information operations and public affairs start working together regularly, reporters will start questioning the information they are getting.

A far deeper issue is the sheer imposibility of preventing misleading information from filtering back to the US. If globalization means anything it means that the increasing flows of people, goods, ideas and capital are connecting formerly isolated regions. This means that, short of short-circuiting globalization itself, it will be impossible to insulate our domestic audience from disinformation intended for an overseas audience. Furthermore, the flow goes both ways. Thus, any honest and truthful PA content targeted for a domestic audience is immediately available to an international audience, which could potentially undermine an overseas IO effort.

Given these realities of the global media commons, the article’s implied vision of two distinct messages (one accurate, the other potentially deceptive) for two distinct audiences may simply not be possible. I wonder if part of the friction comes from the COIN environment in which the PA and IO personnel are operating. What does it mean to influence, disrupt, usurp and corrupt human adversaries in a COIN environment? While there is a small cadre of enemy actors who we wish to disrupt and deceive, if we treat the entire population like this we’ll thwart our goals.

To paraphrase Boyd, if we find ourselves lying to sway others, maybe we need to rethink our ends.

In the COIN and stability operations we will be confronted with in the years ahead, radical transparency could do a great deal to resolve the apparent schizophrenic relationship within DoD between PA and IO. Demonstrating that we will be forthright and honest, even when the news isn’t the best, provides our forces with a key moral advantage.