Deception Flashcards
Deception
on the battlefield is a force multiplier whose target is the adversary’s mind as much as his technology. Deception can be countered by understanding the rules that govern suggestion or, better said, magic.
Worldwide examples:
India exploded a nuclear device under the world’s nose.
In Kosovo, the Serbs used fake tanks to drain away allied air sorties.
Artillery that the Vietnamese “did not have” at Dien Bien Phu appeared as if by magic after having been secretly delivered from the Korean peninsula.
The great Chinese military philosopher Sun Tzu wrote, “All war is deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable. . . . When we are near, we must make the enemy believe that we are far way. [We must] hold out baits to entice the enemy.”1 Almost every U.S. Army officer has read Sun Tzu’s words. Yet, the U.S. military is little prepared for deception operations, which comprise a significant component of information operations.
Sun Tzu uses verbs that refer to the mind, emphasizing appearance, belief, and enticement. How something seems or appears, what is believed, and enticement are activities discerned by the mind, not by technology. Deception in war deceives first the mind, then the eye.
The difference between deception and military intelligence apparatus
Basic military intelligence apparatus is sensory. We use platforms to see and hear the enemy. We base assessments on what is perceived as cold, rational fact. Appearance, belief, and enticement are mental, not sensory words. The U.S. military interprets enemy activities based on what can be seen, heard, and touched.
Deception for countries
When a weaker country confronts a great power, the weaker knows it must employ deception to prevail.
Deception in a war
We all know the old adage that the hand is quicker than the eye. The magician seems to deceive the eye, but this is not true. The hand is not quicker than the eye. The magician actually beguiles the eye. In war, an opponent tries to beguile his adversary’s perception. What appears factual might actually be an artful creation with which to convince the adversary that it is real. Properly understood, these principles can be used to assess the battlefield, to assess intelligence reports, and to defeat deception attempts.
Deception of the enemy
Before the enemy employs deception, he must analyze the situation, because to defeat his enemy, he must first understand how the enemy thinks. He can then orchestrate the adversary’s responses. He will work to understand the enemy better than the enemy understands himself, then he will deceive the enemy’s brain, not his eye.
Preconceptions and deceptions
Chechen perception of what was true about individual mercenary practices was not true about the Russians’ relentless will as a group. Russian individual corruption could not be extrapolated to the entire army. We can learn from this that we can be deceived by our own preconceptions when falsely applied to known facts.
Deceptions and us
If we know ourselves, we have identified the first target of an adversary’s deception. We can then ask how the enemy might try to deceive us. What is he doing to exploit our beliefs? What is he doing to make us believe something? How is he making himself appear? What will he try to entice us into doing? Using these concepts to manipulate us can be powerful force multipliers to a determined enemy.
Counterdeception
If we apply counterdeception, which corresponds to an awareness of the principles of suggestion as used in magic, we can begin to interpret an adversary’s schemes.
Efforts to negate, neutralize, diminish the effects of, or gain advantage from a foreign deception operation. Counterdeception does not include the intelligence function of identifying foreign deception operations.
Kontraapgaulė yra analitinis identifikavimo ir įvertinimo procesas. priešininko apgaulės operacijos.
Perception warfare
is the concept of how to create occurrences that give illusions of all as winners in their own way. It is a combat of the commanders’ minds.
The assumption is that a decision-maker, commander, will avoid violence if possible and use other ways and means to achieve similar goals, if such is possible, which is a matter of humanity.
Perception and information warfare
the concept of information warfare are not something new, but still new technology gives new possibilities. One example is to attack the source of information with information as a weapon. In the discussion up until today the main focus of information warfare has been technology, providing solutions to create control of the information flow surrounding the crisis. Concepts or techniques like command and control warfare, intelligence based warfare, electronic warfare, psychological warfare, hacker warfare, economic information warfare and cyber warfare were invented to show different applications of information warfare (Libicki, 1995). Other concepts are propaganda, deception warfare and misinformation. Still, the aim of all these concepts is a combat of controlling information, and using information to create an intentional output.
Creation of information by individuals
individuals create different ‘pictures’ of situations depending on rational and emotional influences.
The difference between perception warfare and propaganda
We believe that it is the commander, the decision-maker that is the main focus of information activities. The ‘picture’ of the situation is essential for the group’s or organisation’s further actions, and that the information ‘combat’ actually is perception warfare or the creation of this picture. The public will be influenced by the leader’s statements and indirectly affected by the commander’s beliefs. This perspective is common with propaganda, but differs in terms of objective. In perception warfare the object is a particular ‘key’ individual while propaganda is directed more to public opinion.
Mao Tse Tung (“On the protracted war”, 1938) once said that “In order to win victory we must try our best to seal the eyes and the ears of the enemy, making him blind and deaf, and to create confusion in the minds of enemy commanders, driving them insane”. His statement addresses what we can regard as perception warfare.
The question of perception is traditionally seen as part of psychological warfare (PSYWAR), in terms of perception management.
The form of perception
In its simplest form, perception requires a perceived object and an observer. When we say, “I see a chair” the chair is the objective reference, and “I” is the observer.
The description of modern war
We could describe modern war as the battle of truths. In a battle of trust we search not only for the truth like a journey for the Holy Grail, but instead we attempt to control the truth.
What is a perception warfare and what is happening during war with information? And how information warfare plays in this?
Information warfare implies clear goals that should be achieved in a relatively short period of time. War is a chaotic situation with high uncertainty. The first thing lost in war is the ability to create a view of what seems to be true. Both the observer and the norm system will be questioned. Rumours and misinformation will make it even harder to value how truthful accessible information is and the decision-maker will be forced to act on incomplete information. In this situation we still will have an opinion about what to believe or not, which is built on how we perceive the situation. What seems to be true or not will be based on individual belief structures that could change over time. Trustworthiness is a social construct and could be extended, manipulated. Perception warfare is not about damaging the truth; it is about creating the truth. In both perspectives truth is the victim.
