Thu, 11/19/2020 - 1:15pm
Long-Term Behavioral Change in a Knife Fight:
The Future of Psychological Operations
Wade Pommer
BLUF: Special Operations Forces - Psychological Operations should not exist in its current form. Rather, it should be moved to Conventional Forces with direct access to the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense.
Discussion:
Psychological Operations (PSYOP) is the influencing of foreign Target Audiences leading to long-term behavior change that achieves strategic level objectives. Due to this, the approval process for PSYOP is often retained at the highest level echelons of command (for good reason); however, most of the Active Duty PSYOP Soldiers operate at a much lower level, often times at the tactical level. This leads to extremely long approval timelines, resulting in missed opportunities to conduct true behavioral change. Missed opportunities have led to stresses in relationships with host nation partners as well as other SOF Soldiers. This holds particularly true when attempting to counter propaganda. In order to mitigate the missed opportunities, moving PSYOP to the national level gives the US Government the capability to conduct long-term behavioral change comparable to our adversaries’ capabilities. One counter argument in favor of keeping the status quo is a concern over a loss of capabilities to ground force commanders. My response to this concern is to question the capabilities a ground force commander is required. I propose that what a Ground Force Commander is wanting should be considered Psychological Warfare (PSYWAR) and deception operations.
https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/long-term-behavioral-change-knife-fight-future-psychological-operations-0
