Military Review English Edition May-June 2016

responding to adversarial propaganda or negative information attacks. Inclusion of former Army doctrinal counterpropaganda techniques into joint publications would at a minimum provide those staffs with the basic tools. Counterpropaganda in Joint Doctrine Adolf Hitler writing a speech, circa 1933. (Photo courtesy of Bundesarchiv) Adolf Hitler Mein Kampf Volume 1, Chapter VI: War Propaganda But the most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success. … The purpose of propaganda is … to convince, and what I mean is to convince the masses. But the masses are slowmoving, and they always require a certain time before they are ready even to notice a thing, and only after the simplest ideas are repeated thousands of times will the masses finally remember them. … All advertising, whether in the field of business or politics, achieves success through the continuity and sustained uniformity of its application. Here, too, the example of enemy war propaganda was typical; limited to a few points, devised exclusively for the masses, carried on with indefatigable persistence. Once the basic ideas and methods of execution were recognized as correct, they were applied throughout the whole War [World War I] without the slightest change. At first the claims of the propaganda were so impudent that people thought it insane; later, it got on people’s nerves; and in the end, it was believed. After four and a half years, a revolution broke out in Germany; and its slogans originated in the enemy’s war propaganda. And in England they understood one more thing: that this spiritual weapon can succeed only if it is applied on a tremendous scale, but that success amply covers all costs. There, propaganda was regarded as a weapon of the first order, while in our country [Germany] it was the last resort of unemployed politicians and a comfortable haven for slackers. And, as was to be expected, its results all in all were zero. Source Adolf Hitler, “War Propaganda,” Mein Kampf, vol. 1, chap. 6, Hitler Historical In recent years, joint and service IO doctrine place little emphasis on countering propaganda. Indeed, Joint Publication (JP) 3-13.2, Psychological Operations, replaced the term “counter propaganda” with the terms “countering adversary misinformation” and “countering adversary information activities.”12 JP 3-13, Information Operations, is equally deficient, mentioning the term “counterpropaganda” only once.13 Inexplicably, neither doctrinal publication provides guidance to employ counterpropaganda measures. Conversely, Army Field Manual (FM) 3-05.301, Psychological Operations Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures, does provide guidance on propaganda analysis and counterpropaganda techniques.14 Unfortunately, this manual was declared obsolete by the Army in 2014. The current lack of emphasis placed on counterpropaganda in joint doctrine (resulting in lack of emphasis at a strategic level) is due to our consistent success on the battlefield in recent conflicts and a perceived lack of credible propaganda efforts by our adversaries. While these conditions would most likely change in a conflict with a near peer whose propaganda activities resonated with American and coalition military personnel, the United States must also consider the use of counterpropaganda against less than near-peer adversaries. For example, the United States and its allies are losing the information war against Islamic State (IS) propaganda. The Brookings Institute reports conservative estimates Museum website, accessed 30 March 2016, http://www.hitler.org/writings/Mein_ Kampf/mkv1ch06.html. 64 May-June 2016 MILITARY REVIEW

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