Global Security and Intelligence Studies Volume 5, Number 1, Spring / Summer 2020 | Page 50

Global Security and Intelligence Studies
mand, the Navy Information Warfare
Systems Command, and the USAF’s
newly minted Information Operations
Officer, or 14F, community, bolstered
by the also new 16th Air Force, which
was designated specifically as a centralized
unit for information warfare. Unfortunately,
what is currently lacking
is a unity of command between these
communities and confusion about the
ownership of the messaging. These are
only a start toward fully utilizing an
operational understanding of to the
psychological domain. While military
leaders increasingly view information
as a domain, they tend not to focus
on the battle space fought in the cognitive
realm, instead choosing to focus
on non-kinetic effects, such as cyber
and electronic warfare. As history has
shown, the psychological domain is a
strategic weapon with effects spanning
all other domains and dissemination
methods that rely on the same.
Psychological warfare also faces
challenges based on the perception of
the public and of decision-makers who
choose whether or not to employ influence
operations. In an arena where the
theme is “perception is everything,” influence
operations are failing at perception
management. With programs like
MK Ultra, in which the CIA conducted
mind control experiments on US citizens
(Project MK Ultra, the CIA’s Program
of Research in Behavioral Modification
1977), the general population has
reason to distrust the intentions of any
type of psychological operation. With
the abundance of misinformation and
disinformation being spread online,
people are often either overly critical
of true information or only trust information
confirming their preconceived
biases. People often do not understand
psychology, partially because the wealth
of information available online has led
to a population that believes that a layperson
can be as informed as an expert
(Nichols 2017). Online quizzes lead
people to believe they understand personality
tests, and therefore psychology
as a whole. This perception may cause
key decision-makers to forgo the use of
psychological tactics in order to focus
on traditional methods of warfare.
IO practitioners need to realize
that the United States cannot and
should not employ the psychological
domain in the same reckless way that
Russia does. The US aims to show the
rest of the world that we are a proponent
of trustworthiness and fairness. As
a result, creating and distributing false
stories would quickly erode the image
of trustworthiness the US wishes to
foster. Because the US values integrity,
communicators delay releasing information
in order to fact-check, a strategic
weakness in the information arena,
which leaves a void in which other
countries can dominate the narrative
with inflammatory and false headlines.
In the world of fake news and
intriguing headlines, what people see
first often sticks, regardless of truth. If
the US were to forgo a commitment to
the truth, we would betray our cultural
values, and the US would lose credibility
in the eyes of the rest of the world
(Watts 2019). Fortunately, often the best
propaganda is true, so the US should
continue to work to be a key leader in
influence operations without betraying
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