Pentagon Report Calls for Office of ‘Strategic Deception’
• By Noah Shachtman
• January 26, 2010 |
• 12:54 pm |
• Categories: Spies, Secrecy and Surveillance
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/01/pentagon-report-calls-for-office-of-strategic-deception/
The Defense Department needs to get better at lying and fooling people
about its intentions. That’s the conclusion from an influential
Pentagon panel, the Defense Science Board, which recommends that the
military and intelligence communities join in a new agency devoted to
“strategic surprise/deception.”
Tricking battlefield opponents has been a part of war since guys
started beating each other with bones and sticks. But these days, such
moves are harder to pull off, the Defense Science Board (DSB) notes in
a January report first unearthed by InsideDefense.com. “In an era of
ubiquitous information access, anonymous leaks, and public demands for
transparency, deception operations are extraordinarily difficult.
Nevertheless, successful strategic deception has in the past provided
the United States with significant advantages that translated into
operational and tactical success. Successful deception also minimizes
U.S. vulnerabilities, while simultaneously setting conditions to
surprise adversaries.”
The U.S. can’t wait until it’s at war with a particular country or
group before engaging in this strategic trickery, however. “Deception
cannot succeed in wartime without developing theory and doctrine in
peacetime,” according to the DSB. “In order to mitigate or impart
surprise, the United States should [begin] deception planning and
action prior to the need for military operations.”
Doing that will not only requires an “understanding the enemy culture,
standing beliefs, and intelligence-gathering process and decision
cycle, as well as the soundness of its operational and tactical
doctrine,” the DSB adds. Deception is also “reliant… on the close
control of information, running agents (and double-agents), and
creating stories that adversaries will readily believe.”
Such wholesale obfuscation can’t be done on an ad-hoc basis, or by a
loose coalition of existing agencies. The DSB writes that ”to be
effective, a permanent standing office with strong professional
intelligence and operational expertise needs to be established.” I
wonder: what would you call that organization? The Military Deception
Agency? Or something a bit more… deceptive?
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