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cultural awareness, psychological operations, and other issues of persuasion. As
we have found in Iraq, technology is a force protector and force multiplier and
even a combat minimizer (for example, leaflets produced by the 4 th
Psychological Operations [PSYOP] Group can reduce combat’s intensity or
length), but it is also insufficient to quickly conclude an insurgency.
Information technology is a two-edged sword. It enables the small and the weak
to use technology to their advantage just as it enhances the power of the strong.
Insurgents have conducted successful media operations that touch at the
cultural roots of some Iraqis while frightening others with threats of execution
and vivid war footage. For the first time in recent conflicts involving US forces,
CNN has a competitor, and it is not another US station. It is al Jazeera, an Arab
station that is closer to the heartbeat of the local population even if, from a
Western perspective, it is less truthful and exploited for the wrong purposes. In
addition to media exploitation, insurgents use the Internet to spread cyberfear
and to conduct cybermobilization, cybermanipulation, and cyberdeception in
ways that equal or surpass nation-state capabilities (since the latter has legal
responsibilities that insurgents do not). Insurgents also capitalize on their innate
understanding of Iraqi and Arab cultural awareness and mentality.
US Army Captain Bill Putnam served in Iraq for over a year as the
head of an Open Source Intelligence Unit. Putnam believes animosity still runs
high among Iraqis because the US is ineffective at disseminating its message to
the Iraqi people. Most importantly, this is because the US military is
determined “to make the Iraqi information environment conform to its
information operations and public affairs doctrine on how things should be
done, rather than vice versa.” 3 Putnam believes the US is forcing its views on a
situation where they don’t fit. It is the classic “square peg in the round hole”
syndrome. Perhaps this is because there is no counterpropaganda capability
anymore in the US IO doctrine.
It is the author’s desire that the following civilian and military
overview will expand the reader’s understanding of the implications and
consequences of the Cyber Age. It is also an aim to offer recommendations that
might assist in the further development of US IO theory and to offer an
observation on the emerging worldwide Cyber Age environment in which US
forces are operating and potential implications.
The author believes that we have progressed beyond the Information
Age and a proper description of our current environment is the Cyber Age.
Articles that the author wrote previously (some of which are included in this
3 Bill Putnam, “Winning Iraqi Hearts and Minds,” Army, January 2005, p. 7.
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