Information Warfare: September 21, 2002

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Another secret U.S. government intelligence project has been unmasked. Through the 1990s, the Department of Defense has been developing software to figure out how the enemy high command thinks, and will react in wartime. The software program, "Caesar", was used during the Gulf, Kosovo and Afghanistan wars. However, this stuff has an ancient pedigree. Sun Tzu talks about it 2500 years ago, and during World War II, there was a lot of work done trying to get into the heads of Hitler and his key subordinates. As hard as it is to deal with these intangibles, it's just as hard measuring success. However, with the large number of Iraqi defectors, there should be a large enough body of information on who might cut and run, switch sides or fight to the death. Give the high rate of turnover in Saddam's inner circle (often for good reason), any attack plan should take advantage of this. An insidious Information War move would be to speak more openly about these analyses. Then again, this is already being done. Perhaps it would also be a good idea to let the media talk to American civil affairs folks about how they plan to implement democracy and honest government in Iraq. The Special Forces have long studied the experience of our occupation forces in Germany and Japan after World War II. Open discussion of "the Iraq Occupation force" ought to unnerve lots of key people in Baghdad. The "war of nerves" is an ancient tactic, and for good reason. It works. 

 

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