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Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on The Creation and Dissemination of All Forms of Information in Support of Psychological Operations (PSYOP) in Time of Military Conflict

May 2000

Office of the Under Secretary of Defense

For Acquisition, Technology and Logistics

3.2 Developing the Message

Presenting the message so that it is compelling and credible requires a careful blend of creativity and sensitivity. The product must grab the attention of the target audience – in a wholly positive way – and leave the message with them in an unambiguous and memorable fashion. Unless a rough-and-ready message has special cachet, the more polished and professional the message is, the better. While there surely are dedicated and creative individuals in the PSYOP force, turning to commercial producers, where possible, is recommended. As previously mentioned, the Task Force recommends that the PSYOP force be adequately resourced to engage commercial providers, and adequately trained to get the most for the expenditure. However, background information required for framing the message and selecting distribution channels, most likely, must be supplied by the government.

Three sources of intelligence contribute to a capable PSYOP program. These are perhaps best described as proprietary information, classified intelligence, and information from the public domain.

Proprietary or privately held information requires considerable diplomatic expertise to acquire. It is best acquired through organizational interchanges, either among governments or non-government entities, or through contacts, meetings, international or transnational coalitions, and the like.

Classified intelligence supports PSYOP in largely traditional ways, except that the ratio between technical collection and clandestine collection is reversed – that is, the raw information of most value to the conduct of PSYOP is often acquired by clandestine collection. To the extent that the necessary information comes from public and private sources, it should be reinforced through clandestine means as a quality check. A cooperative effort involving intelligence agencies and country teams (coalition, perhaps) is vital.

The Task Force observes that the PSYOP community must better specify the intelligence support it requires, especially for classified collection and tailored production. Currently, the PSYOP community seems to expect that the provision of tailored intelligence and other necessary information will be serendipitous. This is decidedly not the case, and raises a risk that the planning, execution, and assessment of PSYOP effectiveness will be based upon faulty information.

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The Task Force believes that the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) should be tasked by the Secretary of Defense through his Assistant for C3I to establish a psychological warfare intelligence element. This element, in cooperation with the PSYOP community, should develop intelligence requirements, task the appropriate collectors (overt, technical, or clandestine), and analyze and produce finished intelligence products specifically meeting PSYOP needs. The PSYOP community should have representation within this DIA element, and DIA must be able to access the 4th PSYOP Group’s research and analysis group. The DIA element should be authorized to coordinate fully with the other U.S. intelligence agencies, certain law-enforcement agencies, and U.S. and other allied information services.

In addition to proprietary information and classified intelligence, a considerable amount of information needed for the development and employment of PSYOP products is available via open source acquisition and an increasing amount of that information is available on the public Internet. The Task Force distinguishes between two kinds of open source acquisition activities. The first is simply the use of commercial contractors to provide suitable open source products to fit PSYOP needs. This would largely be geared to derivative products and non-Internet sources. In many cases, there are contractors who already supply a market with such information and the costs are merely subscription and licensing costs. In other cases, general products could be tailored to special PSYOP needs at minor cost. Even in cases where the contractor would be required to start from scratch to collect, organize, and synthesize such materials for the PSYOP community, the Task Force anticipates that one can negotiate favorable terms insofar as the contractor is permitted to re-purpose the materials for commercial customers. The second category of open source acquisition involves direct online access. A considerable and increasing amount of the information needed for the development and dissemination of PSYOP products is available on the public Internet. Harvesting that information – often translating it, organizing it, and providing quality assurance – is manpower intensive. And while it can be accessed by any individual analyst or tool developer, there are major economies of scale in doing it once, centrally and making it available for the community.

Because the Intelligence Community has declined the opportunity to aggressively organize the open source effort, it falls to individual organizations, such as the 4th PSYOP Group, to shoulder the burden themselves. The Task Force is unanimous in recommending that harvesting this information be done just once and well for the PSYOP community and, moreover, that it be made broadly available within the Department of Defense.

The Task Force believes that ASD C3I should be charged to either: (a) provide resources to the PSYOP community to implement a robust organic program of open source acquisition, or (b) task the Intelligence Community to fulfill the need for on-the-shelf, worldwide basic information, including the media and cultural background information that is necessary to adequately inform PSYOP products in a given country.

Military reservists offer a largely untapped personnel resource that can be profitably applied to the business of mining open sources for the technical and cultural information needed for the development and dissemination of PSYOP products. Unfortunately, reserve forces are not currently structured to optimize their potential contribution to this effort. The principal mismatch – which, indeed, reflects an active duty problem – is that the reserve forces are organized around the reservist's wartime Military Occupational Specialty (MOS). In this day and age, however, many reservists have civilian employment in information technology areas, which makes them especially suitable for this open source mission.

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A prototype effort along these lines was sponsored, originally, by the Intelligence Community's Open Source Program Office, which used such online teams to organize and populate the online World Basic Information Library (WBIL). The WBIL program is now operated by the U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO). Beyond thenatural desire to serve their country, the individuals are motivated to "drill for points" so that the dollar costs of this effort are quite modest.

…

To take full advantage of efforts like the FMSO WBIL will require the deployment to the PSYOP community of state-of-the-practice data mining software, connectivity, and computing power. The Task Force also notes, in passing, the need for ever more powerful data mining tools to keep up with the explosive growth in online information, which inevitably worsens the "signal-to-noise ratio" – more wheat, but a lot more chaff; more nuggets, but a lot more ore to be refined.

Correctly choosing the media dissemination channels that reach the target audience is an essential element of PSYOP. This requires knowing the "market penetration" of the media, and the viewing, reading and/or listening habits of the target audience. Media penetration, particularly for electronic media, is a subject of constant commercial study, especially in North America and Europe. An admittedly somewhat cursory search for media penetration data for other regions of the world indicated that there is little or no information available. Those studies that do exist are generally available by subscription or on a selective, one-time-purchase basis. For purposes of long-term planning and quick reaction, these general data sets need to be acquired and on-the-shelf. This requires a certain attention span that is sometimes lacking in the case of the Intelligence Community – as, for example, its lassitude with respect to global (open source) coverage. Absent a reinvigorated Intelligence Community open source effort, the local solution is to ensure that the PSYOP force has the resources to purchase these materials directly. It is important, however, to acquire and maintain these data sets, where available, for easy access by the entire national security community.

The Task Force encourages ASD C3I to make NFIP/JMIP funds available to USSOCOM for the express purpose of acquiring available data sets, particularly those for countries 27 outside North America and Europe. The Task Force also recommends that USSOCOM work with FMSO to ensure the integration of these data sets with the WBIL and their community-wide accessibility. Moreover, the Intelligence Community should be further tasked through ASD C3I to develop methods and sources to obtain media-use demographic information where it is not now available, and where the United States might plausibly have future national security interests in which PSYOP might be employed. The underlying premise is that the right business principle is to turn the "consumers" into "customers."

http://www.theblackvault.com/documents/psyop.pdf

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Recommendation 1

The Task Force recommends that DoD create a military PSYOP planning staff, under the coordination authority of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict (OASD(SO/LIC)), to ensure the integration of operational- and tactical-level PSYOP with strategic perception-management initiatives and to provide planning support for strategic PSYOP activities.

Recommendation 4

The Task Force recommends that the Defense Intelligence Agency be tasked by the ASD C3I to establish a psychological warfare intelligence element. ASD C3I should be charged to either (a) provide resources to the PSYOP community to implement a robust organic program of open source acquisition, or (b) task the Intelligence Community to fulfill the need for on-the-shelf, worldwide basic information, including the media and cultural background information necessary to adequately inform PSYOP products in a given country.

Recommendation 5

… Moreover, the Intelligence Community should be further tasked through ASD C3I to develop methods and sources to obtain media use demographic information where it is not now available but where the United States might plausibly have future national security interests in which PSYOP might be employed.

Recommendation 6

The Task Force recommends that OSD work with the Department of State to fund, position, exercise, and maintain suitable distribution channels and brand identities, insofar as these can be reasonably anticipated for future PSYOP requirements.

Recommendation 7

The Task Force recommends that DoD acquire the technical capability to understand emerging media dissemination techniques and technologies. Furthermore, DoD should provide the resources to acquire (rent or purchase) emerging media content and dissemination channels from commercial organizations. Here, DoD may be able to acquire good channels very cheaply by means of being an “anchor tenant.”

The prompt and effective use of PSYOP in military operations can avert crises, end wars, and save lives. The Department of Defense should prioritize Psychological Operations appropriately, because the misuse of PSYOP can cause untold damage to military operations. A relatively small investment over time can reap huge rewards for the United States and its allies, both diplomatically and militarily.