Thread by @ProfessorBurgos

Skeptical thoughts on implementing #InformationWarfare #OIE doctrine, a 🧵

1/ Let's talk language capabilities. If one is serious about "influence," messaging has to be comparatively sophisticated for anything more than "get fresh water at Grid Square 1234."

2/ I've not been able to find systematic data on foreign language proficiency in the Joint Force. There've been some articles on language in SF, like this one: warontherocks.com/2021/05/talkin…

3/ There were HASC hearings in the late '00s when DOD was rethinking its foreign language approach. govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CH…

4/ GAO investigated language training and made recommendations for the Army and Marine Corps gao.gov/products/gao-1…

5/ And there's countless (near-mandatory) invocations of "cross-cultural competency" and "foreign language ability" in reporting on SOF. businessinsider.com/language-abili…

6/ And of course the speaking of a foreign language has been a core element of the Green Beret mystique from the start, displayed in the Gabriel demonstrations (as shown in the John Wayne movie)

7/ But moving from "building rapport with a partner" and running training lanes to messaging foreign audiences to influence and persuade requires moving to an entirely different level of language capability.

8/ So if one is serious about implementing new Information doctrine, the question is inescapable: does the Joint Force *have* that capability? The fact is, I haven't seen anyone gather relevant, systematic data. That's a planning problem.

9/ The Defense Language and National Security Education Office (DLNSEO) claims that 27,000 active duty personnel receive some kind of foreign language proficiency pay. dlnseo.org/content/welcom…

10/ That's only 2% of the active duty force and only some fraction of that would presumably be taskable against Information operations. Many will be in other linguist billets. It's one thing to say the Joint Force Cdr will "do" Information. It's quite another to resource it.

11/ More importantly, what's the DLPT score distribution across the force? What's the mean DLPT score by language across the force? Getting pro pay for a 1+/1+ in, say, Swahili is one thing; persuasive communications to a non-military Swahili-speaking audience is another.

12/ What's the rate of language decay, by language, post-DLI? SF groups have in-house language facilities, which is great, but we're not going to be tasking SF for OIE support at Joint Force Commander levels.

13/ Since doctrine defines a kind of "informational" preparation of the area of operations as a -2 function, will intelligence-branch personnel get initial and sustainment language training -- AND be held to account for comparatively high levels of maintenance and retention?

14/ It's insufficient to wave these problems off with "by-with-through" and "partnering." Anyone who has ever had dealings with an interpreter knows that even under the best of circumstances something always gets lost in translation.

15/ As vast as the literature on persuasive communications is—and after 5 months at the rate of 6-8 books and dozens of articles a month, I can assure you it's *vast*—there's still rather little that can be shown conclusively to be the key variable that accounts for "influence."

16/ A number of factors on the source (or as I prefer, "supply") side matter, not least of which is credibility, but there are far more that matter on the audience (or "demand") side.

17/ Among these is the fact that audiences are more likely to be amenable to persuasion/influence (that is, to enact the intended behavioral response) when they're unaware they're being persuaded. Well, you can't do that with "¿dónde está el baño?"

18/ You can get away with 1/1 or 2/2 language when working with a partner force, because at the end of the day they're just tickled that you're having a go at their language—and that you make funny mistakes. More to the point, that partner force *sought you out.*

19/ Messaging a public is a different thing—especially one that's not actively seeking out the Joint Force Commander's message. They expect to hear things that sound like what they're accustomed to; otherwise, they'll tune it out, like bypassing static on a car radio station.

20/ As the literature shows, this means the audience is attuned to indirect elements of speech (things like allusions, metaphors, or plays on words) and that employing them correctly is key to breaking through a listener's natural resistance.

21/ I don't know about you, but I can mute a television with mad ninja skills the nanosecond I hear "commercial voice." So if a messenger is going to deter me from *click* they're going to need something special.

22/ After all, there's a reason that shows like "SNL" could so easily parody t.v commercials, especially local commercials: to break through viewer apathy and resistance, they had to be silly and over the top. Just ask Mel of Mel's Char Palace. (Or go see Cal Worthington.)

23/ That breakthrough requires more than "cultural awareness" and "language ability." It demands a high degree of cultural and language *fluency*, and to be frank I just don't see where a Joint Force Commander is going to find that—even if they'd give it any credence if they had.

24/ Add to that my doubt that sophisticated messaging could be developed, tested, refined, briefed, revised, retested, and approved in any reasonable amount of time, and I see a recipe for The OIE Guy sitting at the back of the TOC, nowhere near the map boards.

25/ In effect, the Joint Force has said, "Let's get some A-bomb capability," but as yet no one can do fission outside a lab. Joint information doctrine is admirably aspirational, but in a "budget constrained environment" will DOD be serious about resourcing that ambition?

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