Welcome back to The Deep Dive, the place where we take stacks
of declassified documents, policy papers, and obscure
research and turn them into instant knowledge for you, the
learner. Today, we're embarking on a
mission that is less about bombs and bullets and much more about
beliefs and behavior. We are opening a really unique
window into the US military structure of the late 1990s.
A very specific time, right? Exactly.
This is a time when the global information landscape was
changing fast. But, you know, before the
massive shifts of the early 2000s came along and completely
altered warfare. That's right, our source
material today is a document that, well, until recently, was
strictly for official eyes only. It's a huge 330 page training
manual. And we got it through a Freedom
of Information Act FOIA request. Specifically, case number 16, F
1727, coming from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Joint
Staff. The document itself is
identified as CJCSM 3500.08 and it's dated May 26th, 1999.
It served a very specific, specific purpose.
It was the official training curriculum for the Joint
Psychological Operations Task Force Headquarters or JPOTFHQ.
So this isn't some high level policy paper, this is the
blueprint. It's the blueprint.
It's how the people running influence campaigns were
actually organized and, you know, educated.
And here's the crucial historical context that makes
this manual so valuable. I think it's a real snapshot in
time. The records confirm that this
document was formally cancelled on January 26, 2004.
And very notably, it was not replaced.
Not replaced. So we're looking at the final
comprehensive doctrine that the Joint Staff used right before
the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq came and completely redefined
information operations. So our mission today is to move
past all the acronyms and really examine this blueprint in
detail. We want to show you exactly how
the Department of Defense trained its people to plan,
execute, and assess psychological operations, or
PSYOP, in a joint environment. And this manual really reveals
the specific variables, the metrics, and the whole
institutional mindset they needed for planning these huge
influence operations at the turn of the Millennium.
We're diving into this institutional attempt to
standardize and really to quantify the highly subjective
world of human psychology, foreign politics, and global
culture. We're asking the big question,
How did the US military conceptualize and measure the
human environment for these large scale campaigns?
So let's start with the basics. OK, let's unpack this.
What exactly are psychological operations PSYOP as defined in
this manual? Well, the manual gives a very
clinical definition. It says PSYOP are planned
operations to convey selected information and indicators to
foreign audiences. Selected information so very
deliberate. Extremely, the goal is precise
to influence their emotions, their motives, their objective
reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments,
organizations, groups, and of course, individuals.
So the purpose isn't just to what?
Send out a press release. No, not at all.
It's to induce or reinforce attitudes and behaviors that are
favorable to whatever your objective is, whether that's
military or political. That sounds like a really
sophisticated effort to, I guess engineer consensus or
compliance. But if the goal is favorable
behavior, does the manual distinguish between, say, grand
long term policy goals and immediate battlefield support?
It absolutely does. The manual carefully separates
the concept into two key echelons, strategic PSYOP and
tactical psyop. OK, what's the difference?
Strategic psychological activities are planned and
executed in peacetime as well as during conflict.
Their objectives are broad. They're aiming to gain the
support of friendly and neutral countries.
While at the same time undermining the enemy.
Exactly, and reducing the will and the capacity of hostile
countries to wage war. Strategic psyop aligns directly
with long term US National Security.
Objectives so strategic is that high level messaging like
gaining long term regional allies or I don't know,
undercutting the political legitimacy of a rival power?
That's it exactly. It operates on a global or
theater wide scale. It often involves these overt
peacetime programs. Multinational coordination.
Tactical psyop, on the other hand, is conducted in a specific
area assigned to a tactical commander during conflict.
And its objective is immediate and localized.
Precisely. Tactical PSYOP directly supports
the mission against opposing forces in a a geographically
confined space. So we're talking about things
like loudspeaker broadcasts or quick leaflet drops.
Right, Things aimed at disrupting enemy troop morale,
encouraging surrender, or maybe enforcing A curfew.
The timeline and the scope are just completely different from
their strategic cousins. That gives us the scope.
OK, now let's place this in the broader context.
The manual always frames PSYOP not as a standalone thing, but
as a major player within this larger information operations
ecosystem. What's that framework?
Information Operations or IO is defined as actions taken to.
It's like adversary information and information systems.
While at the same time defending your own.
Right, while simultaneously defending friendly information
and systems. It's a battle over data and
perception. The manual stresses that IO
requires this close, continuous integration of offense and
defense, all backed by effective command and control and good
intelligence. And PSYOP is just one of the
tools in that IO toolkit. It's listed as a major player
alongside things like OPSEC, military deception, electronic
warfare or EW, and even physical attack and Destruction, what we
now call computer network attack.
So IO is the total toolkit for information dominance, where a
physical attack, a bombing might be used specifically to
reinforce a PSYOP message. That link seems crucial.
It is the ultimate synergy and the manual really drives that
home when it talks about command and control warfare or C2 W.
OK with C2 WC? 2 W is the integrated use of all
those disciplines we just mentioned.
OPSC, Deception, PSYOPEW, and Physical Destruction all bundled
together. The goal of C2 W is specifically
to deny information to the adversary to influence them.
That's psyop. Degrade their capabilities or
just outright destroy their command and control.
So the key insight here is that PSYOP isn't treated as some
optional window dressing. Not at all.
It's a force multiplier. It only succeeds when it's fully
integrated with physical destruction and electronic
warfare. That's spot on.
The planning has to be interwoven from the start.
I mean, if you're going to bomb a critical communications node,
the PSYOP team needs to be ready with a message explaining why
that node was targeted and what the consequences are for the
enemy's command structure. Beyond pure information warfare,
the manual also emphasizes these these mutual support roles,
showing how PSYOP links to other non lethal missions.
Let's start with Civil Affairs or CA.
Civil affairs in PSYOP are described as explicitly mutually
supportive. CA activities are focused on
managing the civil component of the operational environment.
So things like population control, getting local support,
stabilizing governments after a conflict.
Exactly, and the psyop role there is.
To market the success. It's to market the success.
PSYOP publicizes the successes of those civil military
operations. If the CA team rebuilds a bridge
or delivers medical aid, the PSYOP team make sure the local
population knows all about the benevolence and the
effectiveness of the US presence.
It's like a positive feedback loop for stabilization.
OK, Next up, counter proliferation or CP that deals
with weapons of mass destruction?
Right. CP actions are aimed at seizing,
destroying, rendering safe, or recovering WMD.
This is a highly specialized, very dangerous mission, usually
for special operations forces. And PSYOP supports those
missions. The manual confirms it.
PSYOP supports CP actions just like it would a special
reconnaissance or a direct action mission.
This could involve preparing the local population for a high risk
operation, managing the story around a WMD seizure.
Or even sending messages to convince guards to defect.
Or to cooperate absolutely. And finally, foreign internal
defense or FID. FID involves programs where US
civilian and military military agencies help a foreign
government protect its society from subversion, lawlessness and
insurgency. When a host nation is
struggling, the US provides assistance.
And psyop helps how? The manual confirms PSYOP can
maximize these FID efforts through information products
that support the host nation's welfare and security programs.
It strengthens the legitimate government's message against the
insurgents. This detailed doctrine required
specialized units across the entire military.
And this is where it gets really interesting for me.
How did the different services, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines
organize and specialize to carry this all out?
Section 6 of the manual provides A fascinating look at that,
showing both centralization and specialization.
Let's start with the US Army, which has the largest footprint
here. The Army maintains the bulk of
the forces for PSYOP. They're organized under the US
Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations
Command, USA Kapok at Fort Bragg.
It has both active component forces.
Like the 4th psyop. Group right with its regionally
focused battalions and also the crucial reserve component.
And the reliance on the Army Reserve is a huge take away
here. It's institutionalized reliance.
The majority of the Army's PSYOP forces reside in the Army
Reserve. This means that during
peacetime, reserve personnel are actively participating with
active component personnel in planning and training.
So they're essential for regional conflicts or
contingency planning. Essential and for executing
overt peacetime PSYOP programs, this structure acknowledges that
influence operations require unique, often highly specialized
linguistic and cultural skills that you just don't always find
in the act of military. So the reserve component is like
the deep bench of civilian experts.
That's a great way to put it. It's a recognition that
influence operations require skills, cultural, linguistic,
media production that the active component just couldn't
economically maintain 24/7 at the scale needed.
So the military basically made a doctrinal decision that the
scale of global influence OPS couldn't be sustained by the
active force alone. They needed reservists with
their civilian world expertise. That's it exactly.
OK, shifting to the US Navy, you don't usually picture sailors
dropping leaflets. What was their unique
contribution? The Navis contribution is
focused heavily on enabling rapid, high quality media
production at sea, at sea, at sea and intelligence support.
They have assets to develop and process high quality products
like posters and documents while they're afloat, which is
essential for maritime operations.
They can also transmit layouts electronically to other ships
for production. So they don't have to rely on
fixed land bases. It solves a huge logistics
problem. It does, but critically, the
Naval Intelligence Community also has extensive language
capabilities among native speakers.
They cover languages from the Middle East, Asia, Europe.
They are vital for generating credible, culturally accurate
audio visual products. So they're the forward
intelligence and rapid production asset.
What about the US Air Force? The USAF contribution leverages
its vast fleet and its kinetic capability.
The manual states that nearly all USAF aircraft can conduct
various PSYOP missions. But the specialized assets are
the C one 30s. The conventional C130 and the
MC130P combat shadow right? They are specifically configured
for mass leaflet dropping. But the manual also highlights a
darker synergy with strike aircraft.
This is that kinetic, non kinetic integration we talked
about. Strike aircraft can be used to
drop leaflet bombs on targets, but more profoundly, they can
conduct attack missions that are specifically designed to
dramatically reinforce a broadcast or a leaflet message.
So using physical destruction as part of the informational
strategy. Yes, ensuring the target
audience understands the gravity and the finality of the message.
It's a chillingly effective linkage, using the power of a
bomb to under score a piece of information.
And finally, the US Marine Corps.
The Marine's role is focused on observable actions designed to
convey selected impressions. They execute aerial and
artillery leaflet dissemination similar to the Army and Air
Force. But they also emphasize combat
camera documentation. Why that?
Because the Marine Corps often operates in these highly
tactical small unit environments where verifiable documentation,
proof of friendly presence, proof of enemy actions is
immediately needed to shape the narrative on the ground, they
are geared toward immediate visual communication in a
contested space. So if the whole definition of
PSYOP requires this complex integration across services, the
next question is how do you train thousands of people to
speak this singular language of influence and operate as one
unit? Which brings us to Section 2,
the training architecture. This section really details how
the JPOTFHQ gets smart. They institutionalized the
training. It's categorized into
Individual, which is often computer based, and Collective,
which builds on that and is derived from the command's
mission essential task list. And collective joint training
needs realistic scenarios and pretty resource intensive tools.
Let's look at the resource spectrum in the manual, starting
with the biggest one, Joint Readiness Exercises, or JRXS.
JRXS are the absolute pinnacle of large scale training.
They're so resource intensive because they require the
assembly, support and transportation of massive
numbers of forces from all the different services over
realistic distances. So.
They're basically simulating an actual war, which requires a
massive logistical effort. They are.
They focus on large scale combat and non combat joint operations,
building teamwork and interoperability.
It demands detailed scenario injects, coordinating opposing
forces, deconflicting air, sea and land space.
It's huge. The manual also mentions field
training exercises or FT XS. How are they different?
FT XS are still performed in the field under simulated
operational conditions, but with a tighter focus.
They concentrate on tasks at the tactical level, exercising joint
tactics and procedures. The primary audience is the
JPOTF staff itself, so it's a full rehearsal without
involving, you know, every single battalion.
And then there's a specific stress test exercise, the no
Notice interoperability exercise, or NIEX.
The NEX program is a critical piece here, sponsored by the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
You could think of it as the pre 911 equivalent of a fire drill
for a global crisis. The fire drill, Yeah, it
specifically examines strategic interoperability issues and
focuses on solving problems with command and control in a time
sensitive crisis. So it tests the military's
ability to pivot fast and act strategically without delay,
involving interagency, joint staff and tactical elements all
at once. It's about practicing for the
chaos of the unexpected. Precisely.
But as you can imagine, staging massive live exercises like
JRX's is extremely expensive and complicated.
This led the Joint Staff to rely heavily on a high quality, cost
effective alternative, the World of War Fighting simulations or
computer assisted exercises. CAX.
Tell us about the purpose of CAX.
CIX are really fundamental for staff training.
They use computers and analytical models to present
scenarios, simulate conditions a decision making, and then
portray the results of friendly actions.
They let a headquarters rehearse A wartime mission using real
world data, all while minimizing the cost of moving actual
forces. The complexity though, must be
getting all the different services simulations to talk to
each other in the same digital battlefield.
Which brings us to something called the Aggregate Level
Simulation Protocol, or ALSP. ALSP is essentially the digital
translator for the US military's war games.
It's a set of conventions and protocols that ensures the
interoperability of all these different simulation models.
So the Army simulation can interact with the Air Forces
simulation. Exactly.
It permits otherwise incompatible simulations to work
together as a single integrated whole without ALSPA decision
made by an Army staff in one simulation might not translate
correctly to the air assets in the Air Force's system.
It's all about flexibility and realism.
Let's run through the specific models that relied on ALSP in
this 1999 manual because they show how each service
contributed a piece to the training puzzle.
OK, first up is the Core Battle Simulation or CBS.
This is the designated U.S. Army combat model.
It covers ground, air, ground, ship, ground, even cruise
missile activities. And the manual as they were
trying to model more than just tanks and infantry.
They were. It explicitly says that
capabilities for modeling civil affairs and psychological
operations were actively being developed and integrated into
CBS at the time. So trying to figure out how to
model the effects of information campaigns inside the simulation.
Exactly. Then the Air Force's
contribution is the Air Warfare Simulation, or AWS.
This one does what it says on the tin.
It models air, ground air, air, ship, air, and cruise missile
activities. It's integration via ALSP is
critical. And the Navy's piece of this?
That's the Research Evaluation and Systems Analysis, or RESSA
model. This is the naval simulation,
and the manual says it was primarily used in major
exercises in places like Korea and Germany.
And then we have the specialized one, the Joint electronic
combat, Electronic Warfare Simulation or just CAC.
Jesse Desai provides the electronic warfare dimension.
Since Information Operations relies so heavily on denying and
degrading adversary systems, this simulation is vital.
The manual also notes that Jessie SI was being expanded to
simulate other key elements of C2 W.
So linking EWOP second PSYOP effects inside the simulation.
Right, it shows how integrated their training was becoming.
That is a complex digital battle space.
Beyond that main group of models, the manual lists a few
others for more flexibility. The first is the Joint Conflict
and Tactical simulations or JCATS.
Gay Cats is described as a multi sided interactive entry level
simulation. It was designed to be scalable.
Why is scalability so important for PSYOP training?
Because Jcats can be used for exercises across the entire
spectrum of war, including what they called military operations
other than war or MOTW, peacekeeping, disaster relief,
stabilization, things like that. Which is where PSYOP operates
extensively. Exactly.
Jcats allows for dynamic aggregation and drawdown of
units during the game, so you can play at the JTF level with a
huge number of entities but fewer actual human players.
It's very efficient for training staff.
So JCAS is the flexible tool for complex stabilization missions?
What about analyzing bigger theater level strategy?
For that, they use the Joint Theater Level Simulation, or
JTLSJTLS is used primarily to analyze theater operational
plans. It's both an operation support
tool and a force capability assessment tool.
So it can assess the value of different mixes of forces or
resources before you commit them.
Right. And crucially for our topic, it
includes full intelligence and logistics modeling, and can
explicitly model the effects of special operations, which are
often the tip of the spear for tactical psyop.
The depth of this training architecture really shows the
institutional commitment to interoperability.
But rehearsal isn't enough. The military needs to know if
the JPOTF was effective. That brings us to Section 3,
measuring success, the after action review process.
And this section details a highly rigorous, structured
evaluation process. It's designed to assess mission
capability and ensure data is collected against every single
training objective. It's all about removing
subjectivity from performance evaluation.
The AAR process is structured across 4 phases of the exercise
cycle. Let's outline.
That it begins with planning, which involves conferences and
analysis. Then comes preparation, which
includes document review, rehearsals and finalizing the
Collection Management Plan, or CMP, a vital document.
And then execution is the live exercise phase.
Right, that's when observers are deployed and it all culminates
in the AAR facilitated discussion.
Finally, the post exercise phase is capped by the commander's
summary report. And the central teaching tool
here is the Facilitated After Action Review, or FAAR.
This isn't just a critique, it's a specific style of teaching.
What's its objective? The objective is very
intentional to allow the training audience, the
participants themselves, to discover what happened during
the training and why. It's a discovery process.
So it's designed to promote problem solving from within the
staff rather than just having an instructor tell them what they
did wrong. Exactly.
It's a data-driven process where participants are guided to
identify their own failures and successes based on objective
metrics collected during the exercise.
Critical to its success is the accuracy of that data.
If the data is flawed, the learning is flawed.
And to keep it focused, FAI is normally planned to last about
two hours, concentrating on just four to seven major issues.
That's right, let's break down the Arkansas team structure
because it demonstrates this clear, almost forensic approach.
Who leads the charge? The team has three core
components, the facilitator, the analysts and the observers.
The facilitator is usually a senior officer reporting to the
joint exercise director. Their job is quality control.
Making sure data is collected for every objective and compared
against a predetermined standard.
Exactly. Then you have the analysts.
They're the subject matter experts, the SM ES.
They are. They function as planners before
the exercise and then as joint task analysts during.
Their core responsibility is developing that vital collection
management plan, the CMP, which dictates exactly what data gets
collected, by whom and where. And the observers are the boots
on the ground for data collection.
They are the essential eyes and ears.
Observers are usually drawn from within the command, and they're
assigned specific structured tasks directly from the CMP.
Crucially, each task is associated with a specific
condition and a clear standard of performance.
So all the raw data they collect is quantifiable and directly
measurable. It has to be.
Once all this granular data is collected, what is the official
outcome for the commander? The process culminates in the
commander's summary report, which has to be completed within
20 days. This report includes all the
collected data, focusing on the task performance observations,
or TPO's for each training objective.
And this leads to the official grade card.
What proficiency levels are used to describe how well the JPOTF
performed? The report uses specific
standardized descriptors. T means the task was
successfully trained, P means it needs practice.
Needs practice, meaning they tried but didn't meet the
standard. Right, U means the task was
untrained, the staff just couldn't perform the task and
finally N means the task was not observed, which tells the
commander what still needs to be tested in the future.
That is very detailed and standardized framework.
OK, now we reach the absolute core of the manual and where we
get the deepest insight into the military's worldview in 1999 in
Section 4. This lists hundreds of criteria
used to classify the political, cultural and economic factors of
a foreign nation before conducting any influence
operation. This is target audience
analysis. This section really reveals the
military's institutional attempt to simplify and categorize
global complexity. I mean, if you're trying to
influence an audience's behavior, you have to first have
a clear, measurable understanding of their
environment. And this manual just
meticulously breaks down foreign nations into these standardized
factors. It does.
It's all to ensure the psyop is effective, culturally accessible
and well, susceptible to the desired influence.
Let's start with the political and legal factors.
The analysis begins with how a nation views US operations
classify simply as political policies.
Correct policies are described using just four factors, fully
supportive, mixed support, neutral or opposed.
This dictates the operational leeway.
And that's directly related to domestic public support?
Right, the expressed attitude of the foreign public.
This goes beyond the government's stance and measures
the street level. Full support, limited support or
negative meaning the public is generally in opposition.
It also analyzes how much autonomy a nation has globally,
which it frames as internationalism.
This measures their involvement in international organizations
and their willingness to yield sovereignty.
The descriptors are fascinatingly specific.
What are they? Strong, which means they support
supranational approaches. Moderate, meaning they cooperate
but maintain autonomy. Low meaning they resist
involvement or anti actively opposing supranational
approaches. That spectrum shows how much a
nation is willing to play by international norms, which
directly affects the global narrative of any PSYOP campaign
run there. It does.
And in terms of US freedom of action, the manual tracks NCA
decisions, decisions by the National Command authorities.
These are just categorized as clear and unrestrictive, vague
or restrictive. Finally, the attempt to reduce
global legal systems into just three categories is pretty
stark. For legal systems, the law
source descriptors are Quran, English Common Law, and
Napoleonic Code. What does that tell us?
It speaks volumes about the level of generalization needed
for a broad global training manual.
I mean, while there are countless variations, these
three represent the major philosophical roots of global
jurisprudence. It provides a quick baseline for
understanding legal predictability.
The resulting legal penalties are then simply rated low,
moderate or high. OK, let's move to the people
themselves. Cultural and social factors This
section attempts to measure the core identity and collective
psychology of the foreign audience.
And we start with the broadest stroke.
Cultural identity described simply as western or non western
language is primary English, English as secondary or other.
But where it gets really ambitious is an assessing
national character. OK, this one stood out to me.
The manual attempts to put an entire nation's perceived
behavior into one of three boxes open and adaptable, careful and
moderate, or closed and rigid. Isn't that an exercise in
dangerous oversimplification? It is.
Of course it is. But you have to remember this is
designed for military planners who need rapid standardized
inputs for complex modeling, not anthropological nuance.
The defense for this is likely operational.
Meaning what? Meaning a society perceived as
open and adaptable is viewed as more susceptible to outside
messages, whereas a closed and rigid society requires
completely different, probably slower, influence strategies.
It standardizes the perceived resistance level of the target
audience. That distinction directly
effects how the PSYOP staff quantifies core beliefs that
drive group behavior, like nationalism.
Precisely, they quantify nationalism, the belief that the
good of the nation is paramount, as high, moderate or low.
Similarly, ethnocentrism, the degree of emphasis on a
particular ethnic group, is also rated high, moderate or low.
These are vital metrics. And these factors feed directly
into the overall stability rating cultural unity.
Cultural unity measures the extent to which a country is
free from serious ethnic, cultural, and language
divisions. It's rated high for unified,
moderate for few divisions, and low for serious divisions
causing internal conflict. Which is essential for planners
who have to decide if their message should target the whole
nation or maybe exploit existing divisions.
And finally, they quantify the visible stability of the
population through the metric of civil unrest.
This measures the level of dissension by how often it
happens. Expensive weekly incidents,
moderate quarterly or little annual incidents.
Next, we have to get into religious factors.
Given the 1999 publication date, this is a particularly sensitive
and critical area for influence operations.
It is, and the descriptors here are handled with a specific
attempt at objectivity. They first look at the strength
of religious beliefs in general, rated as strong, moderate, or
indifferent. Religious unity follows the same
pattern, strong, moderate or low.
But here's the critical detail. Religious militancy This
descriptor tries to gauge the degree a religious group seeks
to impose its views internally or externally by force of arms.
This metric is perhaps the most operationally weighted in the
entire cultural section because it determines the physical
threat level. It has four specific, very
distinct levels. Where are they significant?
Meaning the group pursues internal domination and actively
exports its beliefs by force of arms.
This is a high threat military grade risk.
Then moderate. Meaning the group is politically
active internally but exports its beliefs primarily by
missionary activity. Non coercive means this is a
political risk, not necessarily a kinetic 1.
And then the other two. Limited meaning the group is
disinclined to impose its views externally and simply no.
It's a powerful classification that differentiates political
opposition from armed insurrection.
And this feeds directly into the religion state relationship, the
extent to which religion influences the civil government.
This is also rated in three levels.
Dominant, A theocracy, strong guides civil law, or limited,
only influences civil. Law that gives planners the
whole institutional landscape for governance.
OK, let's move to the tangible capacity of a nation, economic
and demographic factors, which are defined by very specific
numerical ranges. This section looks at a nation's
capacity to sustain itself and its military.
They start with sheer scale, using specific ranges for
population from very large, over 150 million, down to very small,
less than 5 million. And they apply similar scale to
the size of military. Right from very large over 5
million down to very small under 200,000.
Now for the economy itself. The manual classifieds the
economy based on the three waves of economic development.
Why use that specific framework? Agrarian, industrial and
knowledge based. Well, this framework, which was
popularized by the futurist Alvin Toffler, provides a quick
way to gauge a nation's technological maturity and,
critically, its systemic vulnerabilities.
OK, break that down an. Agrarian or first wave society
is based on farming. Its vulnerabilities are food
supply, weather, basic logistics.
Psyop messages there might focus on survival or land rights.
Makes sense. An industrial or second wave
society focuses on mass production.
It's vulnerabilities are it's complex infrastructure, power
grids, factories, railroads. PSYOP messages could focus on
employment or disrupting supply chains.
And the third wave. A knowledge based post
industrial society relies on information and services.
It's vulnerabilities lie in its networks, it's technology, it's
global financial connections. Influence operations here are
highly dependent on advanced media and telecommunications.
So classifying the economy this way immediately tells the
planner which influence mechanism is most likely to
succeed. Exactly.
And this is backed up by the quantitative measure of gross
domestic product or GDP, which is also broken down into very
specific dollar ranges from very large, over a trillion dollars
down to very small, less than 30 billion.
And finally, a key vulnerability assessment is infrastructure
dependence. This measures the degree of
infrastructure, roads, power, communications required to
sustain the economy. It's a vital operational metric.
How so? It's rated low, moderate or
high. A high rating suggests that
disrupting communication or transportation networks will
have an immediate and severe effect, making it a primary
target for integrated IO and PSYOP efforts.
So. Beyond the people in their
politics, the manual also requires A detailed, almost
minute analysis of the physical environment.
For operational planning, this environmental data is just as
critical. It demonstrates the bureaucratic
detail required for planning air operations.
Section 5 covers the operating environment in granular detail,
confirming that even the smallest geographical and
atmospheric details have to be codified for a mission to
succeed. Starting with geographic
conditions. Right, they need to understand
the physical makeup of the theater.
The manual lists specific categories for terrain,
mountainous, desert, jungle, and vegetation.
Dense, flight sparse. This is necessary for logistics,
but also for audience reach. And because of the necessity of
leaflet distribution, climate and specifically wind or
catalogs meticulously. Oh yes, climate and weather are
tracked both long term and short term, but the level of detail
regarding wind velocity is almost absurdly bureaucratic.
This is because aerial dissemination requires precise
knowledge of dispersal patterns. Tell us about the wind velocity
at altitude descriptors. They track wind speed at 4
distinct altitude bands. This level of detail is
necessary to make sure the leaflets actually land where the
target audience is and not 50 miles off target.
We see specific criteria for surface wind.
Up to 500 feet. Low altitude wind from 500 to
10,000 feet, medium altitude wind from 10,000 to 25,000 feet,
and even high altitude wind above 25,000 feet, and the speed
criteria shift drastically at each level.
It sounds like they're planning a moon landing just to drop 500
leaflets. Yeah, the amount of bureaucratic
data required for this one task underscores the meticulous
nature of the doctrine. It forces planners to treat non
lethal delivery systems with the same operational rigor as they
would a guided missile. You can't influence an audience
if your message literally lands in the ocean.
And finally, even the quality of the intelligence they're
collecting has to be quantified. How certain are they about all
this data they're inputting? They use a metric called
certitude of Data which quantifies the degree of
confidence in the accuracy of the Intel.
This is the built in risk management system.
How does it work? It's a scale absolute for 100%
confidence, high is greater than 90%, moderate is 50 to 90, a low
is 25 to 50, and little or no is less than 25. 5% confidence.
So if the data they're relying on to plan a major influence
campaign, say, the classification of a nation's
national character is based on little or no confidence, that
uncertainty is explicitly factored into the planning.
It has to be. It forces planners to
acknowledge the inherent uncertainty of operating in
these complex foreign environments.
When your mission is influencing people's minds, operating with
poor intelligence is potentially more damaging than operating
with poor fire control. This has been an incredible deep
dive into CJCSM 3500.08. We've traced the full journey
from high level policy of influence, through the detailed
mechanisms of joint training and simulations, and finally to the
granular data points used to assess a foreign nation's every
vulnerability. The overarching theme this
manual presents is this institutionalized effort to
break down the complex human and political environment into
measurable, standardized factors.
This wasn't just about readying the forces, it was about
creating a common language for influence operations.
And the sheer depth of the cultural and economic metrics in
Section 4 shows that understanding the target
audience, their nationalism, their infrastructure, their
religious militancy was deemed as critical as understanding the
wind velocity for a leaflet drop.
It truly demonstrates the operational mindset of the post
Cold War military. Global engagement requires not
just force projection, but information dominance built on
standardized, data-driven analysis of the human domain.
It's a fascinating look into that world.
It is. The document was cancelled in
2004, but the level of detail used to map human complexity for
military planning remains A fascinating lens into how the US
government prepared for global engagement just before the
digital revolution truly upended everything.
The system they designed was robust but fundamentally analog
and its data sources. And that leads us to our final
thought for you, the listener, reflect on the comprehensive
list of factors used to define a nation in this 1999 manual,
everything from GDP size to religious militancy to
infrastructure dependence. What new factors completely
absent from this list do you think would be added today if
the US military were to update its core assessment criteria?
I mean, consider the rise of pervasive social media, the
influence of non state cyber actors, the ability of
populations to self organize across borders using encrypted
networks. How would you even quantify
social media penetration, information resilience or cyber
vulnerability and make it a measurable input for strategic
planning that is the critical challenge for modern information
operations. That's something substantial for
you to Mull over until our next deep dive.
It's a truly critical question for a world that changed
fundamentally just two years after this manual was printed.
We'll catch you next time for another deep dive.