Levi's Levity 2

More Levi Levity. on today, his 7th b-day, I will share one of my many awesome stories of him from the past year. A few months ago, as I sat on the couch working on my laptop, Levi came in and instructed "Dad Norman, come with me. It is time for your (ninja) training." I responded with "Yes, Master," as I popped up to follow him, and he stops, swirls around gives me a stern stare and scolded "Dad Norman, I told you NEVER to call me "Master" outside of the lair!" Kewl, we have a LAIR!!!! Who knew? That's like platinum-level manspace.

Levi's Levity

A little off-topic, but these stories are gems!

So, my 6 year old son Levi recently offered me a job as a captain in his worldwide army of 100,000, which he commands. Says he has 3 captains now, but "I have an opening" (his words) for me if I am willing to train hard. I know the economic recovery is in full swing when my 6 year old is hiring.
I have not yet accepted the job. I'm still in training. There are 100 ninja levels (it is a ninja army) but I only have to do 12 to be a captain. I'm only level 2. I do have a certificate he made and awarded to me stating I am a level 2 ninja (beat that, Six Sigmas!!). [update-now Level 4]

 

Two interesting pieces I am reading

Article "Influence as a Measure of Success" by Andrew Knight, and the book "Weapons of Mass Persuasion: Strategic communication to Combat Violent Extremism." I will post my thoughts when I finish them.

The PSYOP CODEL brouhaha

I have avoided commenting on the Runaway General II for several weeks now, mainly because I didn't want to jump in with only limited facts. What has emerged has made for interesting discussion.

First has been the inevitable character evaluation of LTC Michael Holmes, who has seemed to have launched his own information campaign to rally support for his version. I don't blame him; if my career was in jeopardy, I'd go on the offensive too. What is clear is he was disgruntled/disappointed/frustrated at training for a deployment to lead an IO Field Support Team and then arrived to find he would be anything but. This is a failure of the TIOG who manages the FSTs and NTM-A to waste a resource that should have been shifted elsewhere. But this is key-the IO team was NOT doing the IO team job. As happens often, warm bodies were parceled out. It doesn't matter what the training, or intended job, an officer assigned to protocol is working protocol, not IO or PSYOP or whatever. The chief of staff may have used poor choice of words ["get in their minds"] but the task was not illegal if LTC Holmes was not in an IO-related role.

Second has been the discussion of influencing versus communicating. There is nothing in the article that would qualify as PSYOP or even subversive influencing. What occured goes by other terms-lobbying, persuading. In college we learn to write persuasion papers and give persuasion speeches; this intent is not labeled "PSYOP" in any manner. In the military we learn to develop decision and information briefs. Heck, even a COA brief to the commander is usually based on and includes information planners/XO provides to get the commander to select the COA WE want. Briefs are tainted, especially if not done by your own staff. It is almost insulting to suggest the CODELs are naive enough to not know there is a persuasion/lobbying element in the presentations. We are talking about politicians here.
Communicating and influencing are not crimes; what would have been egregious, but never mentioned, if deception was involved. The issue was "how do we get the CODEL to support xyz" and not "We need the CODEL to believe the training level of Afghan security forces is much different than reality so they will support xyz." NTM-A wanted more resources, and the CODEL was the path to obtain that, but nothing in the article or discussions suggest that NTM-A employed underhanded or illegal methods.

A third issue I have is in both cases of Hastings writing about "Runaway Generals" is he provides information of improper attitudes and comments of a staff working for the Generals, but not the Generals themselves. In LTG Caldwell's case, it is his Chief of Staff who made the controversial comments and gave the orders, not the General.

Great posting on interesting information domain premise

Really enjoying Professor Cynthia Ayers postings addressing the premise of "Information Momentum Warfare" on the DIME Blog. http://www.carlisle.army.mil/dime/blog/default.cfm?blog=dime

Using IO Practitioners in the Government Sector

How do we bring our understanding of the information battle space to the civilian government sector? Agencies other than DOD have a limitation in personnel and resources staffing. Therefore it would make sense to explore multipliers to complement existing intelligence and operations. Who might benefit by cherry picking the most relevant and effective IO related capabilities, doctrine and employment successes? DOS is an obvious choice, but what about DHS? DEA? FBI? Can the FBI use an IO planner to fix a fugitive, or make him move? Obstacles to such thinking might mirror overcoming of the dismissive warrior mentality in DOD. But soft concepts are no longer unsexy pie-in-the-sky bright ideas-it has been proven in hostile and limiting environments and embraced if not trumpeted by warrior leaders.

Leaflets aside, why can’t we use the same inter-agency (IA) collaboration developed to find AMZ, AAM, or a number of other highly valuable individuals? But instead of it residing in DOD, it resides in the IA, supported by civilian (not military) or contracted planners. If IO can work with intel and ops in the hunt for AAM, why can’t it be done domestically as well as internationally for terrorists or high value individuals? The principles are enabling or exploiting operation and information success, synchronizing to support FBI or DEA operation objectives/intelligence collection requirements (do we want suspect to move/communicate, not move/communicate, communicate). Very likely that pieces (public information releases, EW, etc) are being done, but think back 10, 7 or even 4 years ago to when commander’s/staffs thought they were already doing IO because they had a Public Affairs officer or a Tactical PSYOP Detachment in direct support. The eaches don’t essentially equate to  the whole if not part of a broader and deliberate information environment concept to support achieving objectives, and the IO practitioners and the commanders and staffs they support have learned this well in the last five years. So if there is practical application in the government sector, consider the target audience that has to buy into this to be where our military leadership at various levels was 8-10 years ago.

The payoff is government agencies incorporating the IO practitioner capability for operational effectiveness. Since there are no civilian schools or feeder systems to create such a skillset, at least initially it may be contracted to quickly bring in those civilians and military who have developed said fundamentals, skills and intuition to support ops/intel.

SECDEF releases Joint IO/SC reorg memo//25 Jan 2011

SECDEF released yesterday a memo outlining his decisions that effect the Joint IO/SC fields (I do not have a soft copy), namely IO management/oversight moving to USD(P), the USD (P) and ASD (PA) are co-leads for SC, and the re-org of JIOWC. I will write on the opinions/impact this will have on Joint IO. From the wording, it looks positive.