A Campaign Assessment of the US-led Coalition's Psychological and Information Operations in Afghanistan
by Oleg Svet
Download the Full Article: Fighting for a Narrative
Despite increases in military and civilian personnel to Afghanistan, the United States is losing in a field crucial to the counterinsurgency's long-run success: the battle of perceptions. Information and psychological operations have failed to substantially gain support for US-led efforts or gain credible legitimacy for the host nation's government. Two reasons have contributed to this failure, both unrelated to political or military realities on the ground. The first is that communication methods used by the Coalition often do not reach a majority of Afghan citizens. The second is that the specific messages and general themes that actually make it to Afghan audiences frequently fail to resonate.
This paper analyzes Coalition and Taliban efforts to shape the battle of the narratives through information operations (IO) and psychological campaigns (PSYOP). Geographically, the scope of this paper is Afghanistan and to a lesser degree Pakistan; temporally, attention is paid to more recent efforts, although early operations are referenced as well. The paper first provides an analysis of Coalition and Taliban efforts aimed at influencing the information environment. Next, it offers a general background on the role of information operations in counterinsurgency and insights on Afghan society drawn from anthropology. Finally, drawing on the analysis presented in the first two sections, the paper proposes ways in which the Coalition's psychological and information operations in Afghanistan can be improved. The three main recommendations are that the US-led Coalition (1) use more traditional and accessible methods of communication; (2) incorporate ethnographic data into its messages; and (3) focus the overall narrative on the country's tribal and socio-cultural legacies rather than religious aspects.
Download the Full Article: Fighting for a Narrative
Oleg Svet is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), where his studies focused on the intersection of behavioral and national security studies. He is now working for Strategic Social, where he provides analysis of Arabic-language Iraqi and pan-Arab media for the U.S. military in Iraq.
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Fida:
Before you try to fight narrative and embark upon new narrative construction, it is important to understand how you initiate this entire process that I may call, due to lack of suitable word, "indoctrination", which involves cognitive opening - socialization - culturing. It is only during the later stages of socialization that you introduce some new narrative!
Individual are initially inspired by a cognitive opening that shakes the certainty of previously accepted beliefs. Once individuals are willing to expose themselves to new ways of thinking and worldviews, the cognitive opening help facilitate possible receptivity to joining a movement.
There is no single catalyst to trigger cognitive opening. One can foster a cognitive opening through activism and outreach by raising consciousness, challenging and debating the status quo with/ via alternative ideas. However, it is worth noting that when an individual is tied to religion or drives meaning from religion, a cognitive opening may lead to religious seeking.
Besides, the West has highlighted only the hard side of Talibans; Talibans are smarter than the West thinks. They never immediately leap to challenge their new friends beliefs. The objective is to learn about particular concerns of targeted individuals so that conversation can be shaped to address worries of common interest. In such cases, perception about credibility is essential for recruitment. Once seeker accepts credibility, the way to "socialization" and "culturing" is opened.
Till now, the US has failed to achieve desired credibility among Afghans. So, there is no point talking about "socialization" and "culturing". Traditional mediums that Taliban are employing for spreading their messages, mostly word of mouth, are through credible channels.
The article states that an effective argument would be to highlight the interference and evil intent of "the other" and how the Taliban admittedly depends upon "the other"; "the other" of course being Pakistan. It would have the great added benefit of being blindingly obvious.
That section of the article concludes with the following sentence, the most interesting in the article: "Coalition messages that emphasize nefarious interference by Pakistan, an outside power, in order to prop Afghan identity
will be difficult to justify officially, so covert psychological operations will have to be applied." We cannot use a powerful argument in winning over the people, an argument that all know to be true because officially, we don't acknowledge it to be true. Instead we are advised to use "covert psychological operations", whatever in the world those are.
The people inside the beltway must be supremely limber from twisting themselves into knots justifying all this.
A good article but it may be that the place where the narrative is most flawed is well above the level of the ordinary illiterate Afghans. The Islamist insurgency (which, presumably, is the coalition's main focus...after all, the US couldnt care less about their local politics and policies if local taliban commanders switch sides and become local taliban commanders allied with the regime) has a fairly coherent leadership and as long as their allies are willing to host them and help them, they will find some way of outflanking coalition "information operations". Their narrative is effective because they convince people that they will be around after the infidels leave. THAT is the narrative that counts. On the other hand, if their allies and hosts are seen to have abandoned them, then their chances of outlasting the coalition (corrupt central govt and all) are so low, the Afghans will know....you wont have to find some new technology. The news will get around. The biggest problem right now is not that people hate infidels and outsiders and like Islamic holy warriors...they do, but they are also practical people who make deals....the biggest problem is that people can see who is going to be around when the infidels leave.
I guess what I am saying is: imagine that the taliban have no safe haven anywhere and no higher order (state) support. What is the chance of their making it back into power purely as an indigenous guerrilla movement against a central govt that is getting stronger every day and has deep pockets? I would guess, pretty slim. More to the point, so would most canny Afghans....After that, its just one long struggle against nihilistic Islamist terrorists who are their own worst enemy....they will still kill many people while they blow themselves up, but how would they win? there is no there there. They cannot win. They can only provide the pointy end of the spear for a more serious state-supported organization that CAN win.