Kinetic IO: The Use of Physical Destruction (PD) to Achieve Effects in the Information Environment

Military professionals maintain many common misconceptions about Information Operations (IO), but perhaps the most frustrating for IO Officers is the idea that IO is a non-kinetic discipline.  As a professional tanker who found himself the 1^st Marine Division IO Officer in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, I was particularly disconcerted by the pervasive belief that my purview did not entail killing the enemy or destroying his assets.  By the second or third Operational Planning Team in which, mid-planning, the team leader would turn to me and ask for the “non-kinetic” perspective, I had vowed to change that perception among my colleagues.  What follows are the two Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTPs) that I found to be the most effective argument for use of the Physical Destruction(PD) IO Supporting Capability to achieve effects in the Information Environment.

Synchronization of PD and Key Leader Engagements (KLE):  “To increase local national support for ISAF and GIRoA” is no doubt a near universal objective for military forces operating in Afghanistan.   Radio-in-a-box broadcasts, handbills, engagement and the use of Civil Military Operations (CMO) are all common tools the IO Officer is called upon to coordinate and synchronize in order to influence local nationals (and fence sitting key leaders in particular) toward this end.   However, the marked effect that can be achieved when these tools are combined with the well timed and targeted application of force is often overlooked in this synthesis.

Often undecided or uncommitted key leaders remain so because of illicit ties to the insurgency, the narcotics trade, or a combination of both.  Such individuals have the money and influence to be either positive or negative actors within the Area of Operations (AO), but choose instead to be neither - a choice that military commanders seeking timely results cannot afford.   Three specific components are necessary to move a targeted individual away from indecision and toward the desired endstate: motivation to support GIRoA, motivation not to support the insurgency (as the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive), and a sense of urgency to make the decision.   Information Operations are normally very good at the former, but typically don’t play a particularly active role in planning operations that accomplish the latter two goals.  IO Officers should be aware, and commanders and planners briefed, on the ability of PD to achieve these objectives in the Information Environment.  Once intelligence has identified the network within which a fence-sitting individual operates, the IO Officer should be ready with specific processes and recommendations for the Targeting Process, Key Leader Engagement Cell, CMO, FOPs and COPs:

1.  KLE Strategy:  The tone of engagement should highlight the benefits or “carrot” of cooperation with ISAF forces, while making thinly veiled references to the “stick.”   We always found Afghans to be skilled orators, negotiators and bargainers who are fully capable of understanding their position based on unstated implications, but whose pride and the necessity to save face with constituents never allowed them to respond to direct threats.  A key consideration while using this technique is the necessity that leaders ensure their interpreter is sufficiently skilled and adequately briefed to accurately convey tone, not merely meaning.  Following this initial engagement, both the carrot and the stick will be reinforced with other carefully synchronized operations.

2.  Civil Military Operations:  A primary benefit of Civil Military Operations is the influence commanders can achieve with targeted projects.  Once engagement begins with the targeted key leader and projects have been agreed upon, they should begin at once, demonstrating that ISAF has the ability to immediately act upon stated agreements.

3.  Physical Destruction:  Engagement, CMO projects, and exploitation of subsequent successes using IO capabilities are SOP for most commands, but the IO officer’s involvement seldom goes further.  However, taking the next step and synergizing these operations with kinetic efforts is essential to achieving timely results.   A particular engagement should be carefully timed so that it is closely followed by SOF or conventional forces conducting a strike targeting the key leader’s known associate, his bed down location or weapon cache.  This is the stick that proves ISAF is as fully and imminently capable of meting out repercussions for non-compliance as it is rewarding cooperation.  Like the CMO project, the successful strike should be exploited via patrol and PSYOP talking points as well as radio broadcasts.  Another meeting with the key leader should closely follow the strike. Talking points within the subsequent engagement don’t necessarily have to mention the strike: the targeted key leader will assuredly be aware of the operation and understand its implications.  This engagement strategy can be repeated if necessary, but typically need not be.  The circumstances that identified this engagement sequence as a successful and replicable TTP occurred after I was in country just a short while:

A Bn Commander had spent weeks engaging a small network of powerful local elders with known Taliban and narcotic ties, and was moving - albeit very slowly - to an agreement in which the elders would agree to eradicate their poppy fields and “influence” local fighters to cease attacks and Improvised Explosive Device (IED) emplacements in exchange for CMO projects and other assurances.  Talks had been stalling when, in a completely unrelated operation in a neighboring AO, SOF coordinated a successful Hellfire strike on a truck containing 5-6 known insurgents.  It was soon determined that one of the passengers in the truck had been an elder from the group with which the  Bn Commander had been working.  Initial impressions were that his death would seriously degrade relations with the elders and possibly even end negotiations.  The Bn commander, his IO officer, PSYOP Officer, and other planners came up with a solution that was so successful that it would become a TTP: he was matter of fact and unapologetic.  In the next meeting, when the subject of the elder’s death was raised, the Bn commander simply stated that the vehicle had been full of insurgents and narcotics traffickers, and the strike is simply what happens to individuals who engage in illicit activities.  No threats, just cold and to the point as only a Marine LtCol can be.  The point was well taken, and an agreement was reached shortly thereafter.

As the Pashtun proverb goes: “A Pashtun is not at peace unless he is at war.”  Afghans, and Pashtuns particularly, have historically been warriors; they respect strength and force. The elders may have prolonged peace talks indefinitely; making money from the drug trade and keeping upper level Taliban placated with complicit (at least) support of the insurgency, all the while pursuing any benefit they could from ISAF and GIROA’s efforts to influence them with projects.  It took the threat of violence, the show of force, the “stick,” to truly move negotiations forward.  This successful outcome was a benefit in itself, but the big gain was the revelation of a TTP that is seldom considered within the realm of Information Operations.  Instead of the aforementioned conditions resulting from an accidental strike on a key leader’s illicit associate, why not carefully coordinate the strike with engagement and CMO projects for maximum impact? This is what we did, it worked over and over again, and it should be a part of every IO Officer’s toolkit.

Removal of Negative Influencers from the Battlespace:  Beneficial CMO projects, ongoing relationship building and engagement, and even increased general security are all severely limited in their ability to influence local nationals if there is a threat, even a mere perceived threat, of violent repercussion (often labeled Murder and Intimidation [M&I]) from enemy forces.   For many Afghans life is a daily, violent struggle for existence.  In this context it is very easy to see why even the very substantial benefits of working with ISAF pale in comparison with the very real possibility that one may have his head removed later that night. Taliban M&I practitioners consistently and successfully leverage this fear with both real and fabricated incidents of M&I, significantly degrading the ability of ISAF forces to accomplish objectives in the Information Environment.   

In Southern Afghanistan, where personal interaction is still the primary means of communication, the enemy found that the most effective TTP was for insurgents to make retaliatory threats on a face to face basis - or at the very least with a night letter signed by an individual that the targeted local national knows.  Although this TTP was very successful in creating an intimidating mystique around the particular insurgent, it also created an interesting side effect: local nationals didn’t fear a vague threat of violence or concept of retaliation; instead, they had a face for their fears – the person they directly associated with M&I threats.  Consequently, commanders, CMO/IO officers and others whose mission required establishing relationships with local nations and Key Leaders often found that these relationships would undergo a dramatic positive transformation following the removal of individuals directly associated with M&I - even in the absence of overall security gains in the area.  In other words, it wasn’t general security gains that made local nationals feel safe; it was the removal of the specific individual they feared the most.  Targeted removal of these individuals should be an ongoing objective for IO officers, and something IO officers are constantly advocating for during their participation in the Targeting Cycle.

Intel officers, targeteers and planners are accustomed to identifying networks of narcotic traffickers, weapons traffickers and IED builders or facilitators.   In addition to these familiar targets and networks, however, IO Officers and their intelligence support cell will also find that the insurgency’s structure contains a network of fighters whose focus is on influencing the Information Environment.   M&I activities can include everything from beheadings and detention at torture facilities to a known insurgent foot soldier standing menacingly in the back of a local shura (village council), and in Helmand the entire spectrum regularly appeared in operational and intelligence reporting.  Careful analysis of this reporting over the long term revealed that, much like an IED network, these activities were planned and conducted by the same individuals – almost like an IO/PSYOP cell.  Identification and exploitation of these M&I networks should be a stated goal of IO officers and their targeting cell.  Of course efforts to deliberately target every individual performing M&I would not only be an overwhelming task, but would also prove to be an ineffectual game of “whack a mole” as new foot soldiers are endlessly recruited or imported.  Instead, an M&I network can be targeted using the same nodal methodology used to dismantle an IED network. 

Targeting the leadership and planning nodes of an M&I network has a two fold benefit.  Primarily, the removal of leadership causes the network to fall apart as planning, coordination, and accountability are disrupted.  We often saw a significant reduction in M&I (and corresponding increase in positive atmospherics) for weeks or even months after the removal of a planner as the network struggled to reconstitute itself.  The second effect is harder to measure than simply counting and comparing the number of M&I incidents before and after a strike, but will often prove to be no less impactful.  This is the emotional effect on local nationals and key leaders created by ridding them of an oppressive presence in their community – an effect that is compounded by the prestige of the upper level insurgent.  The careful and deliberate self vilification that originally made the insurgent so effective as an M&I personality also make his removal a particularly powerful influence tool for ISAF forces – the enemy is undone by his own tactic, and our exploitation of this tactic using PD.

Conclusion:  Presented here are only two examples of the targeted application of force to achieve effects in the Information Environment, and is by no means an exhaustive discussion of the subject, or even of the PD TTPs that became SOP for 1^st Marine Division.  Instead it is intended as a foundation for professional creativity and discourse among IO professionals and the staffs that they support.  PD is an IO supporting capability for a reason.  While planning engagements, targeting efforts, or simple daily patrols, commanders and IO professionals should never lose cognizance of Physical Destruction’s influence potential.  Marines and Soldiers are warriors: our mission is to seek out and destroy the enemy by all means possible, a fact that should never be forgotten – even while planning Information Operations.