BISON FMFRP 15-6 Strategic and Operational Military Deception: · U.S. Marines and the Next Twenty Years STATE U ~ • OF NEW YOR N!VtRS!TY KAT BUFFALO APR . 4 7.qq(] DOCUMENTS LIBRARY DEPOSITORY 0433 U.S. Marine Corps PCN 140 lSOSOJ OJ DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY Headquarters United States Marine Corps Washington, DC 20380-0001 14 December 1989 FOREWORD 1. PURPOSE Fleet Marine Force Reference Publication (FMFRP) 15-6, Strategic and Operational Military Deception: U,S. Marines and the Next Twenty Years, is published to ensure the retention and dissemination of useful information which is not intended to become doctrine or to be published in Fleet Marine Force manuals. FMFRPs in the 15 series are a special category: contains operational and tactical thoughts that are not part · of an approved Marine Corps concept but may be of value to Marines. 2. SCOPE This reference publication was written by Major John LeHockey, USMC, while attending Ohio State University's Mershon Center as a U.S. Marine Corps Fellow. The publication holds great interest and im portance for all officers and others who have an interest in the field of strategic and military deception. Published in May of 1989, the document is current and particularly appropriate as the surveillance, recon naissance, intelligence groups of each MEF work with their tactical deception platoons. The volume is complete with detailed discussions on doctrine, methodology, and resource materials and is tied together with a bonding of historical examples. For officers of all MOSs, in operations, intelligence, or supporting es tablishments, this volume gives an excellent basis to begin earnest study in the field of strategic operational military deception. 3. CERTIFICATION Reviewed and approved this date. BY DIRECTION OF THE COMMANDANT OF THE MARINE CORPS ~~ M. P. SULLIVAN Major General, U.S. Marine Corps Deputy Commander for Warfighting Marine Corps Combat Development Command Quantico, Virginia DISTRIBUTION: "TQl" PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS "We're too busy trying to do things the way they're supposed to be done to try to deceive anybody." --Anonymous, HQMC As I began this study, some wondered why the Marine Corps should be interested in anything strategic. After all, as the smallest of the services, the Marine Corps has no strategic forces of its own. It has no business at the strategic end of the national security spectrum; or so the argument goes. The answer to that argument lies in the employment of Marine forces. Recent events have shown that vital national interests are more than likely going to be defended at the lower end of the violence spectrum. The figure below depicts the levels of violence and their probabilities ] OVERT VIOLENCE HOSTILITIES NUCLEAR THRESHOLD THRESHOLD THRESHOLD ~. of occurrence. 1 f.-Non-Violent-•Non-Co,.,.,tional•-eon-toonal Nuclei<-Conflict Hostilities Hott•tities Hostilities r Nuclear Wit T.aa•l n,.,., 1s'"'I9C llh,.c:,_, I Hue..., 1 NIJC~w., lWer rtlfl.,- COALITION M1tor Con~nt1onal WarW•\R I Jr ROijoon•l W1r I Small WarJ Minor Hostilities I NATIONAl. t----Nuclear WAR Pacekeepong Oool "F~ret,e•k" [ Show of Forat Guom111 Wllfll'o I llnsur91"CV 1nd Counto,nsur91"CV j INTFRNAL Sub-soon Terroritm IWAR Couo d'Etlt Ci~d Wat Revolut•on Most Ukely .....______...,..,~ Least Likely THE SPECTRUM OF CONFUCT T.N. Dupuy, Understanding~' (New York: Paragon House Publishers, 1987), p. 73. U.S. national interests can appear at any point along the conflict spectrum. Units, whatever their size, are strategic forces when used to achieve strategic goals and defend national interests. Actions in Lebanon and Grenada testify to the flexibility of amphibious forces and highlights their ability to i nf1uence i nternationa 1 events. So 1ong as the Marine Corps continues to forward deploy, it will remain the "strategic weapon of choice" when diplomacy fails. More to the point is the Commandant's recent focus on the Corps' expeditionary role and on its value as a strategic force. As the nation's premier expeditionary force, the Corps must be ready to "serve in any clime and place," and be fylly involved in the political and diplomatic missions that now seem inevitable. Part of becoming involved means planning and executing various forms of military deception; often in conjunction with deception by the civilian leadership and other agencies of government. Many of the available studies addressing military deception deal with our susceptibility to surprise and to being deceived. They attempt to develop defensive American strategies that either prevent surprise or, if they fai 1, reduce its consequences. In contrast, this study explores the offensive potential of strategic and operational deception in modern day conflicts. It looks at our capability to confuse and inflict surprise on the enemy. ·In this light, effective deception is a force multiplier and should i i be an early consideration 1n the development of any strategy or campaign plan. Deception i§ cheap, it causes· the adversary to waste his resources, spread his forces, and divert his attention~ We do not know enough about it. We cannot afford to be "too busy," So far as I know, this is the first work on military deception that attempts to encompass all of the existing theory. There are, of course, many excellent books on the subject. Unfortunately, the sheer number of references make it difficult for researchers and planners to acquaint themselves with curreht writings: too many sources in 'too many locations. I hope to rectify that problem with this book. As a single-source document, this manuscript provides an overview of the existing work in the field. Chapters 1, 6, 9, and 10 have been adapted for publication as separate articles. At this printing one has been accepted, the others are still under consideration. Chapter differentiates between the strategic and the operational levels of military deception---something that existing It touches on some of the cultural inhibi doctrine does not do. tions that slow our acceptance of deception as doctrine and address the need for a Marine Corps capability to conduct strategic and operational military deception . • i ; i Chapters 2 through 5 cover the history of military deception. I am especially indebted to J. Barton Bowyer for his research into the early history of this subject. Mr. Bowyer deserves credit for the organization and the inspiration for each of the historical chapters. An examination of the existing academic theory of deception, counter-deception, and self-deception follows in Chapter 6. It outlines the psychologies involved in both deceiving and being deceived and introduces a model for deception planning. Chapter 7 reviews current U.S. doctrine, training, and organization for the conduct of military deception. The chapter examines the organization of deception staffs, their location, and, finally, their control. In closing, the chapter explores the role of deception in campaign planning and contrasts it with psychological operations. Profiled in Chapter 8 is the ''Threat: Theory and Practice.·· The Soviets had a large and varied experience with military deception during world war II. They have not forgotten it. This chapter reviews Soviet theory as it app 1i es to strategic and operational deception and weaves through its historical development. Stalin's purges of the military in the 1930's weakened the Red Army to the point that it became almost incapable of conducting even the simplest tactical military deceptions. Through trial iv and error and the important WW II campaigns of Stalingrad, Belorussia, and Manchuria, the Soviets learned the deception skills that served them so well in Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan. Chapter 9 takes a short look at new developments. It highlights Competitive Strategies, Stealth technologies, Over-theHori.zon assaults, Electronic and Information Warfare, and a renewed emphasis on the Command and Control of deception operations. The manuscript cone1udes with some "Second Thoughts" on military deception. The reduced casualty ratios that surprise ensures reiterate the need for a focused and accepted doctrine. The chapter contains methods for manipulating adversaries and some basic axioms or principles not found in our military publications. It also includes some of the adverse consequences of deception programs. The costs associated with these programs are not always measured in do 11 ars. The Marine Corps must adopt strategic and operational deception with its eyes wide open, aware of the potential pitfalls. The chapter concludes with a 20-year prescrip tion for the introduction of strategic and operational deception into Marine Corps doctrine. I have tried to encourage discussion of military deception in much the same manner as we discuss the emp 1oyment of nuc1ear v weapons. It is something unpleasant, something no one wants to do, but it is a subject that must be confronted. We never comment on the presence of special weapons and we neither confirm nor deny their presence. It should be the same with military deception. It is a program or, if you prefer, a policy, that represents a military capability. Simply admitting that such a program is in existence or under development has ramifications beyond our borders. Never again could an adversary be absolutely sure of our position or intention. A listing of all who helped write this monograph is neither possible nor practical. Those to whom I am most indebted are accorded my sincerest appreciation here: To the many U.S. Marine Corps representatives at the various War Co 11 eges, and to the faculties of the same, who volunteered their time and knowledge. Captain J.C. Hodell, USN, (U.S. Naval War College), spent several hours on the telephone and forwarded additional 1nformation to the author. Colonel P.G. Davenport, USMC, (U.S. Army War College), provided much information on current training and doctrine. Co 1one 1 J. G. Henderson, USMC, (Industria1 Co 11 ege of the Armed Forces), provided liaison with Colonel H. Trimble, USMC, (National War College) and sent along course materials. Lieutenant Colonel M.T. Beck, USMC, (U.S. Army Command and General Staff College), provided some excellent background material. Captains Walsh and Trout, USAF, (USAF Special Operations School), also provided background material. Lastly, Major G. Flynn, USMC, (Headqua~ters, vi U.S. Marine Corps), provided advice, counsel, and liaison to the Joint Staff throughout this project. The Mershon Center at The Ohio State University deserves my thanks for its administrative support during the last 10 months. my fellow Research My colleagues at the Center, especially thanks. Lieutenant Colonel G.W. Associates, deserve special Mr. B. Franke, USARNG; Lieutenant Colonel V.J. Landry, Jr., USAF; all provided encouragement and Nardulli, and Dr. David Pearson, For that I am grateful, frank, constructive criticism of my work. Dr. J. Kruzel and Mr. D. Lair were instrumen if somewhat singed. tal in getting me personally and professionally acclimated to the university environment. Perhaps most important was the support and Millett, Associate Director of the -...,_ guidance given by Dr. Allan R. i Mershon Center and Professor of History. His expertise on the role of mi 1 i tary force in contemporary i nternationa 1 re1ations was instrumental in keeping this project in focus. I have striven for accuracy and c 1ar i ty in q~otations and citations. Any errors or false attributions are mine and mine alone. The ideas contained herein are not to be construed as official or reflecting the policies or positions of the Departments of the Navy and Defense or of the U.S. Government. John D. LeHockeyMajor, U.S. Marine Corps Columbus, Ohio May 1989 I vii CONTENTS pagePreface and Acknowledgements i List of Maps and Figures xi Chapter 1: "A Need to Deceive: A Stratagem for the Marine Corps" Chapter 2: "In the Beginning 16 "Sun Tzu" 18 "Romans" 19 "Middle Ages" 21 "Napoleon" 25 Chapter 3: "Wor 1d War I" 33 Chapter 4: "Wor 1d War I I" 42 "Barbarossa" 45 "Bodyguard" 52 "Deception in the Pacific" ' 59 Chapter 5: "Korea and Beyond" 76 "The 1973 Middle East War" 80 "Falklands (April -June 1982)" 85 I "1982 Israeli Invasion of Lebanon" 87 Chapter 6: "The Theories of Deception, Counter-Deception, and Self-Deception" 95 "A Model" 102 "Other Deception Theories" 109 "Counter-Deception" 121 viii "Self-Deception" 125 Chapter 7: "Doctrine, Organization, and Training for 135 Deception" 137 "Doctrine" 142 "Organization" "Control and Coordination" 148 157 "Training" "Campaign Planning" 162 167 "Psychological Operations" Chapter 8: "Threat: Theory and Practice" 177 181 "History" 185 "Stalingrad" 187 "Belorussia" 190 "Manchuria" 193 "Czechoslovakia" 195 "Afghanistan" 197 "Current Affairs" "Soviet Vulnerabilities" 202 209 Chapter 9: "The Way Ahead: Silent MAGTFs" 210 "Competitive Strategies" 212 "Stealth" 218 "Over-the-Horizon" "Electronic and Information Warfare" 221 "Control and Coordination of Military 223 Deception" I ix Chapter 10: "Second Thoughts" 236 "The Next Twenty Years" 240 "Strategic and OperationalPlanning Considerations" 265 Appendix A: "23rd Headquarters Special Troops .. 273 Appendix B: "Dissimulation (Hiding the Real)" 279 Appendix C: "Simulation (Showing the False)" 281 Appendix 0: "Glossary of Terms" 283 Appendix E: "Basic Deception: A Primer" 293 BIBLIOGRAPHY 296 INDEX 304 X J.lll Qf ~At1Q FIGURES i 1. The Spectrum of Conflict 3 2. The Levels of Deception 3. Planned Assaults in the Kyushu and Shanghai Areas 66 Planned Assaults for Coronet and Coronet Deception 68 4. 70 5. Planned Assaults in the Tokyo Plain Area 103 6. The Process of Deception 111 7. Communication Paradigm 139 8. The Levels of Deception 145 9. U.S. Cover and Deception Agencies during WW II 146 10. British Cover and Deception Agencies during WW II 166 11. Organization for National Security 225 12. The Levels of Deception 241 13. Command Responsibility 254 14. Deception Responsibilities by Command Echelon • xi CHAPTER 1 ~ Need to Deceive: A Stratagem for the Marine Corps" is divided between force and stratagem. What "The art of war cannot be done by force must be done br stratagem." ---Frederick The Great: Instructions for His Generals, xii, 1747. Deception in warfare is not new. Twenty-five centuries ago Sun Tzu wrote, "All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. Hold our baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him. "2 A historical survey of deception probably would begin with It would touch on Sun Tzu, Vegetius, quotations from the Bible. Clausewitz, and B.H. Liddel Hart. Readers would find that the have remained virtually practice and principles of deception Most of the writings on the subject of unchanged through history. deception would deal with our own susceptibility to surprise and They have attempted to develop defensive strategies deception. if that fails, reduces its that either prevents surprise or,It The Marine Corps, as it did for amphibious opera consequences. tions during the 1930's, should take the lead in the exploration of the offensive potential of strategic and operational deceptionin modern day conflicts. Effective deception, at any level, is aforce multiplier, or a force effects multiplier. It must be anearly consideration in the development of any war-fighting strategy or campaign plan. We do not know enough about it. For that reason, the Marine Corps should pursue the doctrinal developmentof strategic and operational deception. What i§ Deception? Any attempt to examine a military concept usually begins witha definition. The Joint Chiefs of Staff Publication 1 (JCS Pub 1)defines military deception as "actions executed to mislead foreigndecision makers, causing them deriveto and accept desiredappreciations of military capabilities, intentions, operations, orother activities that evoke foreign actions that contribute to theoriginator's objectives." The definition further includes threetypes of military deception: Strategic activities which supportnational policies and objectives; Tactical actions which influence the outcome of battles or local engagements; and Department/Serviceactions which affect deception in doctrine, tactics, and techni ques. 3 Dec~ption encompasses an assortment of strategies undertakenwith a variety of objectives in mind. The JCS definition does notdistinguish· between strategic and operational deception. It 2 should. Nor does it address the different levels on which they operate and the scope of their effects. Figure 1.1 portrays the relationship between the different levels of deception. 4 INFLUENCES CONCEPTS STRATEGIC ~ DOCTRINE ·DECEPTION TRAINING FORCE STRUCTURE MATERIEL ENEMY INTELliGENCE !INFLUENCES COLLECTION AND DECISION CYCLE OPERATIONAL MANIPULATES t DECEPTION TACTICAL ENEMY PRE-BATTLE DECEPTION OPERATIONAL AND INDUCESt SUSTAINMENTINFLUENCES DECISIONS Figure 1.1 Strateg j c deceoti ens shou1d affect the er.emy 's tota1 They should have major effects on the capability to wage war. 5 direction of a war. Three assumptions [can be] made about military deceptions at the strategic level: first, that they involve large numbers of individuals and organizations as perpetrators and victims of deception, including the national command authorities on both sides of the deception interaction; second, that they are relatively 3 long-term deceptions, recurring over thecourse of weeks or months; and third,that their stakes are very high, in thatthey can affect the out comes of wars orlarge-scale front-level campaigns as opposed to tactical deceptions, which affect the o~tcome of battles or local engagements.~ Strategic deceptions are designed to i nf1uence the enemy's concepts, doctrine, training, force structure, and materiel procurement. This, in turn, influences operational deceptions that induce the enemy towards desired pre-battle operational and sustainment decisions.' Operationa 1 deception supports campaigns and major operations. The deception objective at this level is "to influence the decisions of the enemy commanders before battle occurs so the tactical outcome of battles and engagements are favorable, and subsequently exploitable operatioflally."8 It can often be the unexpected initiation or use of nove1 tactics or techniques. The Egyptian use of tank-killer teams in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war is an example of the latter. If operational deceptions influence the enemy's force composi tion, disposition, and distribution, then Tactical deception manipulates the enemy's intelligence, collection, and decision cycles.9 It drives the conduct of friendly operations. 10 Often it is an unexpected attack or unexpected technique of engaging troops at a local level. Conducted on a smaller scale, it affects only 4 the course of a particular engagement. Camouflage is perhaps the most common example. It is worth noting there is also a distinction between military and political deception. The first refers to essentially military actions aimed at misleading the enemy as to one's mi 1itary intentions or plans,particularly when preparing a strategic surprise attack. Political deception can be defined as essentially non-military actions aimed at influencing an antagonist's behavior in a manner contrary to his interest. It may be directly or indirectly related to the preparation of strategic surprise, but not necessarily. It also may be aimed at achieving such objectives as the destabilization of the target countries and/or creati rg pressures on political adversaries. 1 A decision to go to war requires more than just confidence in military strength. It requires "political, social, and economic confidence as we11." 12 It requires national strategies that support national goals and objectives. One set of strategies designed by the United States seizes the initiative by aligning Western tech~ nological strengths against weaknesses in Soviet war-fighting doc trine.13 Called "Competitive Strategies," they may also be useful in deceiving the Soviets by forcing them to develop weapon systems which ultimately prove ineffective or cause them to waste valuable resources. 14 Complementing the development of "Competitive Strategies" are the new United States war-fighting doctrines. I 5 These include the Army's Airland Battle and Follow-on Forces Attack (FOFA), and the Navy's Maritime Strategy and Over-The-Horizon (OTH) doctrines. These developments have generated new interest in tactics, equipment, and capabilities. They involve more than simply "landing where they ain't," or pitting our strength against an adversary's weakness. They provide a chance to deceive the enemy about our intentions and capabilities. Quite simply, they afford a broader view of both surprise and of military deception. One central principle should guide a review of war-fighting doctrines or "Competitive Strategies.·· That is to achieve victory with minimal attrition to friendly forces and materiel. In striving to realize this goal, military planners must recognize the important role of surprise actions and deceptive practices. 15 Everyone understands that surprise improves our chances ofsuccess and that surprise can neutralize much of the threat's capabi 1 i ty. 16 Not everyone understands how to achieve it. One way isthrough deception. Deception leads to surprise and should be an integra1 part of a 11 war-fighting strategies. It can take advantage of an adversary's weaknesses and help minimize its streng ths. Coupled with the new war-fighting doctrines and tactics, deception can help to shift the balance of forces in our favor. 6 Studies show that when secrecy and deception combine to surprise the enemy, chances for victory nearly double. 17 Given that it nearly always works, military deception ought to be an integral part of any U.S. doctrine. If so, why is it "U.S. military planners do not spend much of their time studying the role of deception in military operations?"18 The only formal schoo1 that exists high1i ghts tacti ca1 deception and does not specifically address the conceptual development of operational or strategic deception. Its objective is to acquaint students with service deception programs, equipment, application, and nationallevel support for joint special operations. 19 One senior war college limits the instruction on theater-level deception to three hours. At another, a lecture and seminar on deception a 11 ows two hours. Command and Staff-level courses usually include deception in an ancillary manner. When tasked with developing a concept of operations for an exercise, students are also told to develop and include a deception plan. Discussion of Combined and Joint doctrine on strategic and operational deception is nonexistent. • In general, the military students review historical examples and develop a small appreciation for the scope, nature, and problems of deception planning. They talk of deception objectives, What they do not talk about is the targets, stories, and plans. 7 noise and ambiguity that seem to both support and refute deception alternatives at the same time. They do not talk about how to use their own or the enemy's expectations and preferences. They do not examine the impact of political and military policy on deception or the delays in analysis and implementation caused by organiza tional blocks. 20 In short, through no fault of their own, although they can list the steps involVed in developing a deception plan, they have fa i 1ed to deve 1op the i nte11 ectua1 rigor necessary to make it an art. Perhaps the lack of information on the subject of military surprise and deception comes from the natural reluctance of its practitioners to reveal their secrets. Other than the Marine Corps' June 1986 publication (OH 7-13, Military Deception) and the Army's more recent July 1988 effort (FM 90-2 Battlefield Deception), little analysis of deception has occurred since the early 1980's. Much of what has been done has dea1t with a nation's susceptibility to surprise and deception. If social scientists and military planners really have been examining the susceptibility to deception, why are nations still periodically taken by strategic surprise? After a 11, those involved have been at odds for some time, or perhaps at war, and have been watching each other for some aberrant behavior. 21 Nevertheless, they got fooled. Why? As already noted, nearly all at 8 tempts at surprise are successful. If that is true, planners ought to take a closer look at just what causes surprise. One reason surprise almost always succeeds is the very nature Our country's objectives of the relationships between states. compete with the objectives of all other nation states. Consider It has 159 members, the organization of the United Nations (U.N.). each with a seat in the General Assembly. The General Assembly finances, makes non-binding recommendations on controls all U.N. various issues, and oversees and elects members of several of the On the other hand, the U.N. Security other U.N. organizations. c6uncil has primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security. It has five permanent members with veto power on votes and ten non-permanent members. That these diverse countries have objectives or interests which differ or conflict is hardly surprising and is probably inevitable. Our own chance to succeed very often depends on what other nations do, whether they are our allies or our adversaries . .§.Q Why don't ~.Q.Q More? If our success depends on what others do, why don't we do more to influence the outcome? A strong sense of fair play and a lack of incentives have inhibited the development of a tradition of military deception in the United States. The large-scale decepThey tions practiced in World War II were inspired by the British. 9 never took firm root in American military organization or doctrine. Much of the reason had to do with the overwhelming material superiority enjoyed by American forces. It also reflects underlying attitudes both within the American military and in the larger nationa 1 cu 1ture. 22 From childhood, we are taught that cheating is bad and deception unfair. That is just not the way Americans do things. George Washington never told a lie and neither should we. One author remarked that western cultures deplore "the cheat, the liar, the fraud, and the fake ... [We] favor the true, the noble, and [the] good: frontal [assault] over the s~rprise foray." Honesty always has been, and always will be, the best policy. 23 The reasons for our adverse reaction to deception are deeply rooted in our history. More than 100 years ago, one officer wrote, "(as a nation] we are bred up to feel it a disgrace even to succeed by falsehood; the word spy conveys something as repulsive as slave; we will keep hammering along with the conviction that honesty is the best policy, and that truth always wins in the long run." He said it, but he was not happy about it. He continued, "These pretty little sentiments do well for a child's copy-book, ' h h. but a man who acts on them had better sheat e 1s sword f orever. .. 24 In western societies, these notions support relatively courteous forms of behavior on the battlefield. Ideas ,of fair play carry over into war. "Moreover, great powers that enjoy significant 10 military advantages in tangible measures such as manpower and equipment often lack strong incentives to develop a tradition of strategic or operational deception."25 In spite of our cultural reluctance and our abundant resources, Michael Handel reminds us that deception occurs in every human activity. "Although in civi 1ian affairs, cheating, deception, or f~~ud are usually punishable by law ... this is not the case in war "26 He goes on to say that while helpful in war, deception sometimes fails to achieve its intended objectives, and on occasion, has even been counterproductive. Counter-deception and self-deception are concepts covered in Chapter 6. While understanding its limitations and pitfalls, deception must still be an accepted and integral part of any rational conduct of war. The United States and the Marine Corps must, in spite of their political and cultural inhibitions, adopt strategic and operational military deception as a doctrine. It is true that our national character may very well be the greatest obstacle to the institutIt should be ionalization of deception in our military planning. remembered that this reluctance applies only to peace-time planning and execution. Once in combat, Americans take pride in "outsmar ting the other fella." Americans love a winner. They demand it, and rightly so. 1 1 If the Marine Corps does not p1an, practice, and execute strategic and operational deception in peace-time, wi 11 it have the capability to do so in war? In every other case, from physical training to night he 1i copter operations, the Marine Corps has insisted upon practice in peacetime. Similarly, successful wartime deception must have a solid foundation in peacetime preparations. At the very least, the Marine Corps needs to develop a better understanding of strategic and operational deception. 27 After all, it is the same stratagems and tricks, changed only by technology, that appear again and again throughout history. Effective campaigning requires plans and options that maximize the opportunity to take the enemy by surprise, to attack the enemy's center of gravity. If we can use deception, and therefore surprise, we improve our chances of success. Force levels, even in Third World countries, are at unprecedented levels. Strategic and operational surprise may mean the difference between success or failure. Military deception is cheap. It can help us achieve victory. We cannot afford to ignore it any longer. 12 ENDNOTES 1. Robert D. Heinl, Jr., Dictionary of MilitarY and Naval Quotations, (Annapolis: Un1ted States Naval Institute, 1966), o. 310. 2. Sun Tzu, "On the Art of War," T.R. Phillips, ed., Roots of Strategy, (Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1985), p. ·23. 3. The official definition does not address a level of deception between strategy and tactics (ie. the operational level). The purpose of this research is not to enter the dialogue surrounding the various levels of the art of war. Nevertheless, it will address the different, yet complemen tary, requirements for deception at the strategic and operational level. · 4. U.S. Army, "Deception," Center for Army Lessons Learned Bulletin 3-88, (Ft Leavenworth: Combined Arms Training Activity, July 1988), p. 14. 5. Ibid. 6. Donald C. Daniel and Katherine L. Herbig, "Introduc tion," Strategic Military Deception, Daniel and Herbig, ed., (New York: Pergamon Press, 1982), p. xi. 7. U.S. Army, p. 14. 8. Ibid. 9. John R. Boyd, ~ Discourse QD Winning and Losing, (Unpublished: April, 1987), p. 5. The decision cycle has been called the Boyd cycle or Observation-Orientation-DecisionAction loop. Simply, Boyd believes every decision maker must go through four steps before he can react. The goal is to have a faster cycle than your opponent. As your adversary observes your maneuver, orients on it, comes to a decision, and begins to act, you have already made a second. move. He hesitates and begins the thought process again. As this cycle continues, the adversary fall~ further and further behind and his actions become irrelevant. Planne~s should not overlook the strategic and operational implications that this cycle can have on their work. 13 10. U.S. Army, p. 15. 11. Jiri Valenta, "Soviet Use of Surprise and Deception," The Art and Practice of Military Strategy, G.E. Thibault, ed., (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University, 1984), p. 736. 12. Gary L. Guertner, "Competitive Strategies and Soviet Vulnerabilities," Parameters, (VoL XVIII, No. 1: March1988) 1 Po 33, 13. John G. Roos and Benjamin F. Schemmer, "Revolution in NATO's Conventional Defense Looms From 'Competitive Strategies' Initiative," Armed Forces Journal International, (October 1988), p. 114. 14. Ibid., p. 120. 15. Jennie A. Stevens and Henry S. Marsh, "Part I: Surprise and Deception in Soviet Mil'itary Thought," Military Review, (June, 1982), p. 4. 16. Richard K. Betts, Surprise Attack, (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institute, 1982), p. ix. 17. see especially Ronald G. Sherwin and Barton Whaley, "Understanding Strategic Deception: An Analysis of 93 Cases," in Daniel, et al, Strategic Military Deception (New York: Pergamon Press, 1982), p. 189. The analysis ofdeception data collected by the authors shows the probability of achieving victory, given surprise is .93; while theprobability of achieving victory, given no surprise, declines to .50. In essence "surprise achieved throughdeception increases the likelihood of victory." 18. George Edward Thibault, ed., The Art and Practice ofMi 1i tary Strategy (Washington D.C. : Nationa 1 DefenseUniversity, 1984), p. 338. 19. The USAF Special Operations School at Hurlburt Field,Florida, teaches a one week course entitled the "JointSpecial Operations Deception Course." Designed to providemilitary officers and U.S. government civilians with an understanding of the concepts, this course covers themethodology, and capabilities for joint ~:military deceptionplanning in support of special operations forces. 20. Frank Stech, Political and Military Intention Estimation: A Taxonometric Analysis, (Bethesda, ~D: MATHTECH,Inc., November 1979), pJ 75. The author uses some of theseterms in his discussion of factors that influence the 14 ability to adequately and accurately identify signals. See Chapter 6 for more information. 21. Patrick Morgan, "The Opportunity for a Strategic Surprise," in Knorr and Morgan, Strategic Military Surprise, (New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1983), p. 195. 22. Carnes Lord, a book review of Michael I. Handel's book, "Strategic and Operational Deception in the Second World War," Parameters, (Vol. XVIII, No. 2, June 1988) p. 113. 23. J. Barton Bowyer, Cheating: Deception in War and Magic. Games and Sports. Sex and Religion, Business and Con Games. Politics and Espionage, Art and Science, (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982) p. 2. 24. Garnet Wolseley, Soldier's Pocket Book. 1869, as quoted in Heinl, p. 283. 25. Lord, p. 113. 26. Michael I. Handel, "Intelligence and Deception," The Journal of Strategic Studies, (Vol. 5, No. 1: March 1982), p. 122. 2 7 . Lord , p . 1 1 5 . 15 CHAPTER 2. In ~Beginning ~ ~ ~ "All warfare is based on deception." ---Sun Tzu Early Attemcts "What the ancient Chinese military philosopher Sun Tzu really meant is that a 1 1 warfare should be based on deception. "2 This has not a 1 ways been the case. Commanders with big battalions have often found it more comfortable to rely on fire power and attrition. Yet, throughout history, some generals have used deception to win over superior force or to cut their own casualties. The use of stratagem and deception in warfare was not only accepted, it was expected. The classic battle epics (the Bible, the I 1 i ad, and the Odyssey) are fu 11 of examp 1es. When weapons and equipment were nearly the same, superior numbers or superior leadership decided battles. "Deception was one of the few 'force multipliers' available that could lead to a decisive victory. "3 I.b§. Egyptians The earliest recorded example of deception in warfare occurred around 1450 B.C., when the Egyptian general Thot captured Jaffa. 16 He gained his victory by feigning defeat and hiding two hundred soldiers in baskets disguised as "surrender" gifts to the city. The citizens of Jaffa rushed the gifts into the city. Like the citizens of Troy more than 250 years later, they found that the gifts were false and the soldiers real. One of the earliest examples of Biblical dece~tion occurred ar6~nd 1300 B.C.-Soon after Joshua seized and sacked Jericho, he moved agaihst the nearby Canaanite city of Ai. The tactics used to breach the double walls of Jericho did not work against the triple walls of Ai. Instead of settling down to a prolonged and costly siege, he simply ordered his army to appear to withdraw in disorder. When the Canaanites rushed out of their city to fall upon the retreating army, Joshua had a concealed force enter and seize the unguarded city.~ Around 1290 B.C., a ruse nearly allowed the Hittites to inflict a decisive defeat on the invading Egyptian forces. Bad Egyptian intelligence had permitted the Hittites to deploy their entire army unnoticed behind Kadesh in Lebanon. Hoping to exploit the opportunity, the Hittite king sent two Bedouins posing as deserters to meet the slowly approaching Egyptians. These two agents reported the Hittite army still far to the north. Thinking the city was weakly defended, the Egyptian commander, Rameses II, decided to take it in one bold stroke. Leaving three of his four 17 divisions to continue their slow advance, Rameses rushed forward with only his second division. Just before the Hittites could spring their trap, Rameses' scouts captured the spies. Under torture (depicted in the tomb reliefs commemorating the battle) they revealed the nearby presence of the Hittite army in time for Rameses to summon his third division. Even so, the Hittite chariot attack caught the second division on the march and cut through it to surround the pharaoh in his headquarters. Rameses barely escaped, rallied his forces, and turned near defeat into victory.5 The most famous ruse in military folklore, showing startling similarity to the one the Egyptians used at Jaffa, was the Trojanhorse ploy. Used when Troy fell to the Greeks in 1183 B.C., this spectacular ruse, as the others before it, succeeded by hiding the real and showing the false. To this point, while practiced in the field, no one had yet written a treatise describing military deception. That was left to a mi 1i tary phi 1osopher from the Far East ,known as Sun Tzu. Written about 500 B.C., Qn rrut Art,Qf l1W: provided a guide for the conduct of war. In it, Sun Tzu addressed the role of deception. He wrote, "All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to 18 attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are we must make him be1i eve we are near. far away; when far away, Ho 1d our baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush h ,.m. ..s Sun Tzu's primary objective was the mind of the opposing commander. He believed that as a preliminary to battle, one should attack the mind of the enemy. 7 Romans In spite of Sun Tzu's writings and the efforts of others, the practice of tactical and strategic deception remained at a low ebb. It was not until the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C., as the Carthaginians and Romans struggled for control of the Mediterranean, that deception _began to gain credence as a military virtue. Deception in diplomacy and domestic politics marked the Roman world of this period. Military and political intrigue was the rule rather than the exception. Then came the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Emp i re . Imperial military institutions were established. The introduction of pay and of a long-service regular army resolved Men could now enlist • the objections of service from poorer men. for twenty years. The 1eg ions were reorganized. Some 6, 000 strong, each legion had 10 battalion-sized cohorts. The legion This made sure the legion also received a standard---the eagle. 19 continued its existence as a continuing and coherent entity. 8 This enabled the Emperor to deploy big battalions. Generals no longer needed to resort to deception. Stratagems passed into vi rtua1 oblivion as a common military practice, although deception in politics remained. 9 As quickly as deception had gained in popularity, it as quickly fell into disfavor. The disappearance of deception from military practice is easy to understand. The military commanders of the ancient world, Thot, Alexander, Julius Caesar, and their contemporaries, were seldom military professionals. "Whatever gui 1e they brought with them derived from their political and diplomatic experience and it disappeared with them. The armies they commanded, particularly the Greek phalanxes and Roman legions, were efficient, professional, disciplined, sh~ck instruments but lacked any strategic doctrine except that of their temporary commander." 10 As the Empire turned its back on deception as a mi 1i tary principle, the first military manuals in the West urging deceptive maneuvers began to appear. In Strategemata, written about 90 A.D., Frontinus revealed some understanding of deception. His wrote of "concealing plans . . distracting the attention of the enemy creating panic in the enemy's ranks and inducing treachery. "11 The next attempt to codify deception was Polyaenus' Strategemata. Written in 162 or 163 A.D., it contained 900 ruses of war. The most influential work came much later, around 390 A.D. 20 In~ Re Militari, Vegetius was attempting to recall the virtues and military skills of the past legions. He stressed surprise and "He noted that stratagem in the defense as we 11 as in the offense. 'surprise, ambuscades, and stratagems' are the only hope of success for a much weaker protagonist and that 'stratagem and finesse,' along with 'famine, surprise, or terror,' are always preferable to genera1 engagements. "12 Unfortunate) y, this book, "perhaps the most influential of any military treatise between Roman times and the nineteenth century . had little influence~in its own time."13 Middle Ages Vegetius' work was the culmination of military thought on deception. There was no golden age of deception between the end of the Roman Empire and the rise of the Mongols in the thirteenth century. What was important in this period was the rise of Christianity and the new institutions of feudalism and chivalry. The Christian religion raised religious issues that stressed honesty and goodness. Chivalry did not allow for cheating in combat. It was dishonorable. The impact of Christianity and chivalry on the development of military deception was significant. It stopped it. Wars would end honorably: Kins against King; knight against knight. They fought as individuals. A twelfth century battle consisted of individual skirmishes. Group skills, of which deception is one, had 1ittle place in feudal tactics. 14 Knights simply strove for victory by hard fighting. "A noble who I 21 could sit on his charger and manipulate his lance and shield was ready for war. The joust for pleasure was simply war written small---two ponderously armored knights thundering toward each other. No maneuver, no deception, no retreat---they simply [rode] into each other." 15 Genghis Khan Once again, as Sun Tzu had done in 500 B.C., it was military men from the East who began to revive the theory and practice of deception. Connected closely with the successes of the Mongols in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was the use of deception by Genghis Khan. Tight organization, rigid discipline, extreme mobility, great striking power, effective tactics, rigorous training, andconstant battle experience combined tomake the Mongol army an enormously powerful fighting machine. i Because of itssparse nomadic population base, it was asma11 army even for :its time---on1 y 129,000 at the time of i Khan's death in1227---one that could not afford heavycasualties. Yet, between 1190 and 1292,the Mongols unified all the Central Asiansteppe 'tribes, conquer~d· China, Korea,Persia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Russia andraided Burma, Annam, Japan, Java, India,Syria, Poland, Bohemia, Hungary, Serbia,and Austria. To sustain this long seriesof campaigns, often against strongerfoes, sheere force had to be bolstered by deception. 6 22 They knew their enemy. Mongo 1 i nte11 i gence was superb. p 1anned and begun on 1y after obtaining detai 1ed Campaigns were political and military information. Often, this information gained them bloodless victories through bribery, treason, or alliance. Their intelligence enabled the Mongols to use effective strategic psychological war-=::ire programs. Through these "they panicked, demoralized, and terrorized their prospective victims, again sometimes inducing surrender without battle. " 17 Psychological included forging letters to discredit or operations typically destroy enemy officials and the spreading of rumors to mask their intentions or exaggerate their numbers and strength. 18 Machiavelli In the West, it sti 11 appeared as though deception had been lost in the dark ages. French knights were slaughtered as they methodically advanced against the English long bow in the battles of Crecy in 1345 and at Agincourt in 1415. It was not until the sixteenth century that there was some evidence that the weak were finding means to avoid defeat at the hands of the strong. Philos ophers were again in the vanguard producing works on politics and war. Niccolo Machiavelli, 1469-1527, was a Florentine diplomat and the first Western theorist to address the politician. "He was problems of power, force, and stratagem in politics, diplomacy, and • understood and explored the manipulative psychological war . He 23 techniques involved· in deception in his works The Prince, Discourse, and The Art of War. "19 Sti 11 , mi 1i tary deception was not a favored technique. As late as 1512, in the battle of Ravenna, adversaries still began battle with chivalrous challenges and conducted war by agreed rules. It fell to Machiavelli to point out the interactions of war, politics, and economics. He was the first to apply the then common practice of political deception to mi 1 i tary theory. 20 From 1611 until 1806, as a result of the efforts of Machiavelli and others, deception gradually came to dominate warfare in all its phases from strategy to tactics. The French school of naval strategy, for examp 1e, taught that one shou 1d "attack the weak, f 1y from the strong" as a means of winning cheap victory by unorthodox means over superior forces. 21 Wolfe at Quebec "Whenever possible, the wise did the 'impossible.' This always produces a surprise. "22 What one genera1 rejects as an impossibility, another may think possible. A classic case occurred in eighteenth century Canada. Quebec, backed by a cliff high above the St. Lawrence River, faces an open plain. In 1759, the besieged French commander, the Marquis de Montcalm, deployed his army to the front of the city feeling protected by the "Heights of Abraham" to his rear. The attacking British commander, Major General James Wolfe, learned from scouts that a narrow and very difficult trail 24 He used it to move his army to the French rear. led up the bluff. The advance unit spoke French to the few unsuspecting enemy guards and quietly overcame them. 23 Wolfe surprised Montcalm and won the of Wo 1fe' s intention to batt1e of Quebec. Montca1m had known attack, but discounted his capability to attack from another direction. Naooleon By 1800, strategic, operational, and tactical deception had reached ful 1 bloom. Before launching a campaign or joining a battle, Napoleon made plans to confuse and mislead his enemy. A curtain of operational security would descend. Censoring the press to prevent leaks, Napoleon's counterintelligence efforts protected He collected information against penetration by enemy agents. about his enemy from public sources and through spies. He planted articles in the controlled press to promote deception. "When the campaign was underway, various ruses were systematically used to deceive the foe about the timing, direction, strength, and nature of Napoleon's blows: unit designations were continually changed, and feint attacks constant1y dep1oyments were shuff1ed about, mounted. "This was Napoleon's practice. Yet, oddly, while some of this know practice is expressed in the earliest and most .widely collection of his maxims, it does not appear there in any coherent By 1804, Napo 1eon had stopped any pretense at opera structure. "24 I 25 tional deception. Using his large battalions, Napoleon discarded deception in practice and theory. Maneuver gave way to costly assaults by large forces. He concentrated his artillery against chosen infantry targets unti 1 they began to weaken. Then he assaulted at the weakest point with massed infantry. Plentiful munitions and higher mobility made it possible to repeat the process. Of course, he kept his cavalry for shock action and used it to turn the enemy's defeat into disaster and retreat into rout. This is how a French army of 65,000 was able to defeat an army of 83,000 Russians and Austrians at Austerlitz in 1805. 25 In time, however, the big battalions ran out and victory gave way to defeat. It was left to Clausewitz, in 1832, to present the 1essons that Nape 1eon had 1earned and then discarded. 26 By then the moment was lost. Generals gave up the notion of deception as an important aspect of military doctrine for the new mechanical and scientific principles of the nineteenth century. With the machines came a reaction, exemplified by concepts of romanticism,that demanded heroic displays as a necessary proof of manliness. Odysseus wasforgotten and the Light Brigade chargedinto the cannons---it was not effective,but it was magnificent. . . . [Generalsonce again] sought to bring overwhelmingforce to a decisive point, breaking theenemy army's morale and then his ranks.Rigid, disci p1i ne, e 1an, and qua1i ty of will were stressed. Soldiers ~rre expected to fight to the last man. 26 American Cjvi l ~ In spite of this gloomy outlook, deception was not quite dead. Across the Atlantic in the United States, the American Civil War had became too serious a matter to be left entirely to generals who ordered frontal assaults or fought on line until they wasted away their armies. "The good generals, and seldom have so many appeared [They] depended simultaneously, employed all the classical ruses. upon surprise and deception and devised novel techniques and tactics. "28 Confederate General Magruder played a part in deceiving Union General George B. McClellan, commander of the Army of the Potomac. Magruder resorted to using a "stage army" on the eve of the Seven Days' Battles in the summer of 1862. Left at Yorktown by General Robert E. Lee to de1ay the Federa 1 advance up the Pen i nsu 1a, Magruder and his 10,000 men faced McClellan. Extending his en trenchments, Magruder rapidly shifted his forces from one part of the line to another giving McClellan's observers the impression of a much larger force. This ruse, coupled with disinformation planted in the Richmond papers, thoroughly deceived McClellan about Lee's real strength. McClellan, always ready for an excuse not to advance, delayed his attack. In 1864 Sherman made his 180-mile drive to Atlanta. Throughout his drive, Sherman's logistic tail was tied to a single The railway line. He had to advance and attack along that line. I 27 Confederates knew it and he knew they knew. "Yet in every engagement but one, a fronta1 attack at Kennesaw Mountain, he surprised his enemy as to the place of attack and consequently defeated them each time ... 29 A1though his 1i ne of advance was narrowly constrained, Sherman carefully placed his two corps astride the 1i ne of communi cat; on, one on each side. Thus, he retained the alternative of attacking either to the right or left of the rai 1 1i ne. "As he put it in a letter from the front, he 1i tera11 y i mpa 1ed his enemy on the 'horns of a d i 1emma. ' Left flank or right, he always succeeded -in deceiving. "30 Philippines This time, the lessons of deception learned in the Civil War were not forgotten. The American Indian saw to that. Considered by many to be the world's finest light cavalry, the plains warriors, in 943 engagements between the Civil War and the end of the century, taugh~ the U.S. Army a thing or two about guile and deception. 31 The opportunity for the Army to practice what it learned came soon enough. The Spanish-American War, short-lived and gloriously fought in the newspapers, left the United States with a new set of problems. The annexation of the Phi 1i pp i ne Islands led to the Philippine Insurrection, a guerilla rebellion led by Emilio Aguinaldo. "By 1901, after two years, it had cost the lives of four thousand' American soldiers, and there was no 1i ght at the end of the tunnel. "32 This was Low Intensity Conflict (LIC) with high intensity fighting. 28 Then, on February 8, 1901, American infantry brigade commander Colonel Frederick "Scrapping Fred" Funston intercepted dispatches from Aguinaldo ordering the movement of several guerilla units to his secret headquarters. Funston saw his chance to use a little deceit. His tactical deception would have strategic consequences. Funston and four American officers.disguised themselves as privates and simulated "prisoners." He added eighty-five loyal Filipino troops and disguised them as guerrillas. The group started for the remote enemy camp. Using captured rebel stationery and forged signatures, Funston was able to receive instructions on his route. It turned out to be a very simple operation. The unit reached the headquarters village and arrested Aguinaldo. Only two rebe1s were ki 1 1 ed and three wounded. There was no 1oss to j 3 Funston's force. The war ended "by a deceptive coup de main . .. Funston had almost singlehandedly won the war, but the reaction of journalists was startling. Turn-of-the-century Americans, it seems, accepted the motto, "It's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game." They preferred their heroes to 1ose by conventiona1 means rather than win by cunning. And the Americans were not alone in their affection for the heroic, the grand gesture rather than the subtle ruse. At Tanga in East Africa in 1914, Royal Navy Captain F.W. Caulfieldcourteously notified the off-guard Germans of the impending British landing. 29 I Only fair you know. The British attacked. The Germans, no longer off~guard, opened fire. The attack failed disastrously, the field was strewn with British bodies. Caulfield was promoted forhis gentlemanly behavior. All this,mind, nearly four hundred years after theBattle of Ravenna in 1512, when combatstill beg~n with a formal chivalrous cha11 enge. ~ 4 Af_ter thousands of years, it 1coked as if the genera1s had learned nothing and forgotten everything. "Military men could read Machiavelli or recall the Trojan Horse or the March on Atlanta, but still, however saving of lives and successful on the battlefield deceit was, the generals clung to big battalions and the lure of force . . . "35 World War I, the war to end all wars, would give them thei r chance. Smashed together in frontal assault after frontal assault, millions would suffe~.' It was only near the end of the war that the Germans changed their tactics and began to use maneuver and infiltration. It was tod late. 30 Endnotes 1. I am indebted to J. Barton Bowyer, for his research into the early history of deception. Unless otherwise cited, the historical information for this chapter largely comes from his work, Cheating: Deception in War and Magic, Games and Sports, Sex and Religion. Business and Con Games. Politics and Espionage, Art and Science, (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982), pages 15-44. Mr. Bowyer deserves credit for the organiza tion and, importantly, the inspiration for this chapter and the historical ones that follow. 2. J. Barton Bowyer, Cheating: Deception in War and Magic.Games and Sports, Sex and Religion, Business and Con Games, Politics and Espionage, Art and Science, (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982), p. 15. 3. Michael I. Handel, "Introduction: Strategic and Operational Deception in Historical Perspective," Michael I. Handel, ed., Strategic and Operational Deception in the Second World War, (London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd, 1987), p. 2 . 4. Bowyer, p. 17. 5. Ibid., p. 18. 6. Sun Tzu, "On The Art of War," Roots of Strategy, T.R. Phillips, ed., (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books, 1985), p. 23. 7. Sun Tzu, "The Art of War," translated by Samuel B. Griffith, The Art and Practice of Military Strategy, G. E. Thibault, ed., (Washington D.C. : National Defense University, 1984), p. 47. 8. John w. Hackett, "The Profession of Arms,"~ Army Pamphlet 360-302, (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 17 November 1966), p. 5. 9. Bowyer, p. 22. 10. Ibid., p. 23. 11. Ibid. 31 12. Ibid. 13. Hackett, p. 7 . 14. Ibid., p. 9. 15. Bowyer, p. 27. 16. Ibid. , p. 30. 17 . Ibid. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid., p. 35. 20. Ibid. 21 . Ibid., p. 36. 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid. , p. 37. 24. Ibid. , p. 38. 25. Hackett, p. 20. 26. Bowyer, p. 38. 27. Ibid., p. 39. 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid. , p. 41 . 30. Ibid. 31 . Hackett, p. 25. 32. Bowyer, p. 42. 33. Ibid., p. 43. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid., p. 44. CHAPTER ~ "World ~.L "Gallant fellows, these soldiers; they always go for the thickest p 1 ace in the fence." --Admiral De Robeck, watching the Gallipoli landing, 25 April 19151 In retrospect, Wor 1 d War I offered tremendous new opportunities for deception. The development of both photography and radio communication profoundly influenced the practices of deception. Even though deception principles remained the same, the new technologies multiplied the number of channels through which information could be received or sent. Spies, and later aircraft, could take photographs. Examined away from the front lines, the photographs allowed the observer more time for his observation and analysis. Messages from spies, usually delayed by manual transmission, were sent by radio. At the same time, both sides were able to intercept radio communi cati ens. Counterfeit radio messages offered chances to mislead. The "War to end all wars" afforded far greater scope both for i nte11 i gence and for deception than any previous conflict. 2 That a great opportunity existed did not mean that anyone did anything about it. "In fact, a 1 most no war presented so few examples of deception, even on a minor scale. Even the full impact of the unexpected techno1 og i ca1 innovation was dissipated. . The British introduced the tank on a small scale, the Germans gained 33 only minor tactical advantage with poison gas, and [the air war] was little more than a spectator sport."2 Firepower and attrition were thought to be the keys to victory. The mobility and speed necessary to achieve strategic and operational surprise required the concentration of many soldiers at decisive points. Rushed along by the technical advancements in weapons and ammunition, World War I fell head long into trench warfare. 3 Galliooli There was one major attempt to by-pass the deadlock of the trenches. The British invaded Gallipoli. This attempt failed for a variety of reasons not the least of which was the failure of command. In the end, the decision was made to conduct a difficult withdrawal from land to sea. Given the Turks commanding view of the beach and the sheer size of the problem (80,000 troops needed to be evacuated), deception of some sort was needed. The deception plan that evolved was both elaborate and detailed. Being separated from the Turks at some points by on 1 y 30 feet meant that the British were going to have to hide the real (the evacuation) while showing the false (business as usual). "This consisted of routine patro11 i ng and other trench activity, to inc1ude resupp1y and reinforcement, when in fact those activities actually constituted exactly the opposite and were a cover for the gradual withdrawal that was taking place. It was a brilliantly conceived and executed 34 plan, crowned with complete success that resulted in insignificant A11 i ed casua 1 ties, a 11 to the astonishment of the Turks. "4 Commanders, however, had missed the point. They centi nued smashing huge numbers of troops together for no visible gain. Winston Churchill, who had conceived the ill-fated attempt at Gallipoli, had at least tried---and not for the first, or last, time. 5 His efforts to develop stratagems actually began before the War. Mystery Ships In 1911, Churchill first conceived of a dummy fleet to forestall the German High Seas Fleet and lure its submarines into traps. However, it was not until October 1914, that Churchill, as First Lord of the Admiralty, was able to get his plan underway. It is necessary to construct without delay a dummy fleet. Ten merchant vesselsshould be selected at once. They should be distributed among various private yards not speci a 1l y burdened with warship building at the present time. They are then to be mocked up to represent the fast battleships of the First and Second Battle Squadrons. The actual size need not correspond exactly, as it is notoriously difficult to judge the size of vessels at sea, and frequently even destroyers are mistaken for cruisers. We are bearing in mind particularly aerial and periscope observation where deception is much more easy. Very little metal would be required, and practically the whole ~ork should be executed in wood or canvas. 35 He further explained, "Even when the enemy knows that we have such a fleet its presence will tend to mystify'and confuse his plans, and baffle and distract the enterprise of his submarines. He will always be in doubt as to which is the real and which is the dummy fleet. '" 7 Even if the Germans were to discover the phantom fleet, Churchill reasoned they still would not be sure which fleet was real and which was false, or at least not in all cases. Further, they would never be sure whether or not the British were continuing to construct phantom warships. Ten o 1d passenger and cargo ships werequickly selected and reconstruction wasbegun that same month. Although size wasnot a cruci a 1 factor, it was importantthat each ship's silhouette resemble thewarship it was to simulate. Accordingly,they were fitted out with broader decks,and were given greater length, warshiplike [sic] bows and sterns, fire-controltowers, turrets and guns, and the appropriate number of smokestacks, ones thatbelched real smoke from small concealedsmoke gene raters. Because merchantmen without cargo ride higher i'n the waterthan warships' each was ba11 asted downwith 9,000 tons of stone.~ By 1915, sufficiently impressed with the phantom fleet, the Admiralty tried an even bolder ruse. This time the intention was to arm the ships for antisubmarine warfare while making them appear harmless to lure U-boats. '"As a U-boat carried few torpedoes, the hope was that its commander would waste no more than one before 36 surfacing to finish off the 'helpless' vessel with his deck gun. If the commander was suspicious, he would stay safely submerged and fire enough additional torpedoes to destroy the [steamer] and its remaining crew. "10 · In any case, the ruse either lured the U-boat to the surface or caused it to use torpedoes that otherwise might have been saved for "real" warships. Real isti.cally, the Royal Navy's attempt at deception played a minor part in World War I. Strategic deception, as represented by the "Mystery Ships," helped only in smal 1, local engagements. There were other efforts including large-scale attempts on the western front to gain victories other tnan by direct assault. Undertaken were surprise withdrawals, sudden attacks, and shifts in the axis of attack. "Even then there was never the elegance to be found in many of the battle maneuvers of the American Civil War or of Napoleon's pre-imperial days. In fact, the only long-term use of decoying---the key major military RUSE---came, as might have been expected, away from the main center of confrontation in World War One, away from the cont.ro1 of the conventiona 1. ": 1 The Third Battle of Gaza It was in 1917, in the Middle East, that marked the beginning of modern deception operations. T. E. Lawrence, "Lawrence of Arabia," said that for General Allenby, the British commander in the region, deception had become a main point in strategy.12 An example that remains a classic occurred in the Third Battle of 37 Gaza. In it, Allenby chose to launch his attack on the right instead of on the left as the Germans and Turks expected. Various active and passive clues left by Allenby reinforced these perceptions. The best known of these was the "haversack" ruse. It was so successful that it inspired other similar operations in World War II, most notably, Operation MINCEMEAT--the "man who never was. In a staged contact with a Turkish patrol, the haversack, containing carefully prepared documents, was "lost." Among the items inside were staff papers outlining the main attack as occurring at Gaza (on the left); an officer's notebook listing "unsolvable'' logistic difficulties on the British right; and "Orders of the Day" instructing officers and soldiers to comp 1ete the study of the Gaza defenses by mid-November, after the scheduled 31 October attack. This last point·, deceiving the enemy of the time of the attack, would show up in a number of World War II deceptions. Lastly, to fully convince the Turks, radio communications about the loss were sent from .the British Headquarters. Intercepted by the Turks as expected, the first message ordered an immediate search for the lost haversack. A second signa1 complained of the guilty officer's incompetence, and a third ordered him to Headquarters for a Court of Inquiry and warned him to return in time for the attack on 19 November. 12 Realizing that the Turks would observe him as he moved on the right flank, Allenby leaked other clues that there would be an 38 attack on the right, but that it was to be a diversion. The Germans then expected an attack on the right but chose to ignore it because their intelligence had deduced that it was a diversion. The rna in attack, when it finally came on the right, surprised the Germans, routed the Turkish Army, and led to the British capture of Jerusalem. Allenby's success can be attributed to the "meticulous planning of all details, the extensive use of real military formations whenever possible, adequate material. support, and secrecy."14 The factors most often cited as being critical to the success of any deception operation were the achievement of air superiority to deny the enemy observation, adequate time to execute the plan, and a good intelligence system that could provide about the enemy's reaction to the ruse. "Allenby's feedback skillful use of stratagem represents a transition from earlier periods of either non-existent or ad hoc deception at its zenith .. 15 during the ... War. In the end, however, World War I saw too few attempts at deception. When commanders did resort to deception, their experience was usua11 y forgotten. "None of the nation's i nvo 1ved had any sort of institutional memory, but a great many of those who had suffered . sought 1ess pai nfu 1 means to fight any future war. Some, [like General Billy Mitchell of the U.S. Army Air Corps,] saw the airplane as the new swift strategic weapon. 39 Others sought to protect their troops by constructing deep underground fortifications along their threatened borders. Many advocated disarmament and others the virtues of armor. " 15 (' Deception operations in World War I had finally out-grown the tactical level. Allenby's use of operational deception and Churchill's use of strategic deception opened new doors and eyes. One man, British Army Captain B.H. Liddell Hart, produced a theory on the virtues of the strategic indirect approach. "He found that the indirect, de0ous way was almost always preferable to the direct approach (emphasis add.ed). " 15 It seemed anything was preferable to the direct approach. Something clearly had to be done to ste~ the flow of casualties. The French, for one, had an entire generation decimated. They had 20 years to find an answer. 40 Endnotes 1. Robert D.-.Heinl, Jr., Dictionary of Mi 1itarv and Naval Quotations, (Annapolis: United States Naval Institute, 1966), p. 124. 2. Reginald V. Jones, "Intelligence and Deception," Intelligence Policy and National Security, Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr. and Uri Ra'anan, ed., (Hamden, Connecticut: The Shoestring Press Inc., 1981), p. 8. 3. J. Barton Bowyer, Cheating: Deception in War and Magic. Games and Sports, Sex and Religion. Business and QQn Games. Politics and Espionage, Art and Science, (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982), p. 76. 4. Michael I. Handel, "Introduction: Strategic and Operational Deception in Historical Perspective," Michael I. Handel, ed., Strategic and Operational Deception in the Second World War, (London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd, 1987), p. 5 . 5. Bernard E. Trainor, "Deception," Marine Corps Gazette, (Volume 70, Number 10: October 1986), p. 59. 6. Bowyer, p.76. 7. Ibid., p. 77. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid. I p. 79. 11 . Ibid. , p. 80. 12. B.H. Liddell Hart, Colonel Lawrence, (New York: Halycon House, 1937), p. 249., as cited in Handel, p. 14. 13. Handel, p. 8. 14. Ibid., p. 14. 15. Ibid., p. 15. 16. Bowyer, p. 83. 17. Ibid. 41 CHAPTER ! World War ll "The Man Who Never Was ..:.. ..:.. From the first recorded efforts at deception in ancient Egypt to the end of World War I, deception was left to the initiative and creativity of individual commanders. These leaders usually operated at the lower tactical level and only occasionally, at the operational level. Deception was not a continuous activity and required little or no coordination. All of this changed during World War II when deception became the focus of formal staff work. The story of allied deception in WorldWar II is quite simply an astonishingone, and in many respects represents a fundamentally new development in the history of warfare. For the first time,systematic., organized, and continuousdeception operations were conducted fromthe highest levels of government of major powers ove:r a period of years. And forthe first :time as well, intelligence and counterint~lligence methods,were used toprovide mbnitoring and ·feed~ack thatpermitted ~eliberate manipula~ion of theperceptions of the enemy leadership on acontinuing: basis. Some of this was madepossible bY the electronic technologiesof the 20th century; but a no less important condi~ion was the creatioM of highlydisci p 1i ne~ staff organizations and intricate coordinating mechanisms of a kindnot previdusly seen in the history ofwar.1 1'. 42 Largely ignored at the strategic and operational level in World War I, deception came to be appreciated as an essential part The principles may not have of planning in the Second world War. changed, but its scope, means, organization, and methods had. 2 If nothing e 1se, it is worth noting that there is a direct 1ink between deception operations conducted in the First World War and those of the Second. That link was General Sir Archibald Wavell, the British Commander-in-Chief in the Middle East (1939-1941), who had served in Allenby's headquarters. After the fa11 of France, Genera1 ·Wave 11 put theory into practice in the North African desert. Certain factors in the desert campaign presented the opportunity. The first was the dependence on radio communication. I nte11 i gence on both sides relied heavily on intercepting radio messages to obtain information on the enemy's order of battle, dispositions, and intentions. The second was the nature of the terrain. Desert warfare put a high premium on aerial photographic reconnaissance. 3 proved the va1ue of deception by In December 1940, Wave 11 gaining the first British strategic surprise and victory of the war. Putting theory into practice, Wavell successfully used deception in a rear guard defense against a larger Italian Army in the western desert. Next, he sent his deception planning officer, Brigadier Dudley Clarke, to London to argue for centralized inter theater planning and coordination of strategic deception. Wavell's --., I / 43 recommendation was accepted because of the good luck that Churchill, the advocate of guile in World War One, was prime minister. The resu 1t was the formation of the London Centro11 i ng Section ( LCS). Headed by Co 1one 1 J. H. "Johnny" Bevan, the LCS coordinated small deception planning staffs among all military echelons from corps to theater leve1. 4 (For more on the development of deception organizations, see Chapter 7.) As they had in the First World War, the British took the lead in establishing deception doctrine and organization. The United States continued to show little interest. As late as 1943, Admiral Ernest J. King, the United States Chief of Naval Operations, wrote that the element of surprise had lost its significance. Surprise apparent1y was the "despair of have-not nati ens [and] not for us."5 It was, after all, the. Japanese who conducted the "sneak" attack, not the United States. Other Americans, however, were not so stubborn. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), General George C. Marshall, who had been one of General John Pershing's deception planners on the Western Front, saw the wisdom of "special p 1ans." Marsha11 added a sub-committee of the Joint Staff P1anners called the Joint Security Control (JSC). The JSC section was soon designated the·coordinating agency for all U.S. deception related developments. Additionally, the JSC established liaison with the British LCS. 6 There was still no theory, no full understanding of the various categories of deception. It did not matter. The Allies had their deception staff in place.7 44 The rest of this chapter is devoted to examples. Offered chronologically, these are perhaps the best known U.S., British, and German attempts at strategic and operational deception during World War II. Those operations conducted by the Soviet Union are "Threat Theory and Practice." While not included in Chapter 8, all inclusive, they do give the reader an idea of the complexity and scope of strategic and operational deception. Inc1uded are both successes and failures. It is possible to learn from both. The reader shou1d a 1so consider the ro 1e i nte11i gence p 1ays in deceiv1ng the enemy. "Throughout the history of warfare there has been no other period in which intelligence and deception occupied such a crucial position."8 Barbarossa Operation BARBAROSSA was the German plan to attack the Soviet Union. The final, overall deception plan included two events that began before Hitler had even mad~ the decision to attack the Soviet Union and did not originally exist to serve as deceptions. First The second was the existence was Germany's war against Britain. of the 1939 Russo-German Nonaggression Pact. To the Soviets, the strategic picture appeared stable with the Germans continuing to cooperate under the Nonaggression Pact and also engaged in a war with Britain. That the Germans were able to concentrate about 150 divisions supported by 2,000 combat aircraft against the Soviet 45 I borders in Poland and East Prussia attests to the success of the deception plans for BARBAROSSA. 9 Operation BARBAROSSA encompassed long-term strategic deception, operational deception, and finally, tactical deception. The strategic deception was supported by planting misleading information through radio, rumor, press, foreign clubs, troop orders, and state receptions. 10 Planned operations furthered the strategic goals by diverting Soviet attention. . The Germans planned or executed at least 11 major operations between November 1940 and May 1941, every one intended or used to focus attention on the war with Britain. 11 These planned operations included SEA LION (a 1940 invasion of Great Britain, later postponed, and still later continued to maintain political and military pressure on Britain); HARPOON and SHARK (elaborately staged deceptions intended to show that a German invasion of Britain was to occur during August, 1941); and, lastly, a bomber offensive aga,inst Britain in early 1 941 • !2 The Ba 1kans campaign, though not p1anned as part of the overall deception effort, proved enormously valuable to the Germans. The presence of several hundred thousand German troops in eastern Europe and the activity along the lines of communication associated with them, helped conceal preparations for BARBAROSSA. It provided the explanation that the activity was in support of the German occupation of Yugoslavia and Greece. 13 This operation helped 46 to secure the southern flank of the forces secretly massing for the to keep BAR BAROS SA on its 1941 time BARBAROSSA offensive, and the Balkans schedule. There was some negative fallout from campaign. It focused attention i~ southeast Europe, close to the build up for BARBAROSSA in Poland. By prompting the Soviets to demand a clarification of German intentions, it contributed to Soviet deployments in the Ukraine, all of which endangered BARBAR OSSA.14 Oeception of the German pub 1i c, and indirect1y the Soviet Government, was planned and directed by the Propaganda Branch of I nte11 i gence Group, the OKW. In conjunction with the Foreign their mission was to convince the German public that Germany planned to invade Britain. Musical request radio programs were utilized to deceive the public by showing that elite troops were on the western front and lower quality troops were stationed in the east. [This] style of deception is illu~trated by the following request inserted by the Germans into bona fide material: "Members of the Leibstandarte send their wounded company commander three bottles of Hennessey and wish him quick recovery." The Lei bstandarte was an e 1i te Waffen SS formation and Hennessey a wellknown French brandy. German civilians, and foreign military intelligence services, listening to the program were able to deduce that the elite Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler was locati~ somewhere in the west, possibly France. 47 Other efforts at deception included: 1) statements that no civilian through trains were allowed to the west (implying that an attack on Britain is pending); 2) state receptions for Soviet dignitaries; and 3) an article by Josef Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda. Published and widely distributed, the article, "Crete as a Model," reinforced the ideception that an invasion of Britain was imminent. 16 As late as May 1941, the troops were given instruction in English language and geography. Only a few weeks before the start of the campaign, all units received a secret message calling for a report on all soldiers with a knowledge of English. The Germans began moving the 96 infantry divisions scheduled for the first wave ' of the attack into their frontier assembly areas just 12 days before the attack. The divisions marched forward during the hours of darkness and lay concealed in the forests during the day. The 31 Panzer and motorized infantry div1sions of the first wave moved up only four days before the opening of hostilities. The nightmovement, tight tactical control over the troops, and resting during daylight minimized J contact with the local population. 17 These steps limited the information available to the Soviets from agents and informers and made observation by Soviet ground border units and Soviet Air Force reconnaissance aHrcraft ineffective. As B-Day (for BAR BAROS SA) approached, :the Germans rea1 i zed, to their good fortune, that the attack was going to catch the Red 48 Army close to the western borders of the Soviet Union and heavily concentrated in the Ukraine. In addition, Soviet aircraft were dep1oyed in peacetime fashion on the runways of air fie1ds and The success of the strategic decep concentrated well to the west. tion provided the Germans with the opportunity to achieve tactical As a result, 18 surprise at hundreds of points along the border. 18 hours after the start of hostilities, the Germans had advance 80 kilometers into the Soviet Union along several axes of advance and destroyed 2,000 Soviet aircraft. 19 The German deception was not entirely successful. Stalin had been well informed about the existence of the German build up and mi 1i tary forces to interpreted it as part of a move backed by extract po 1iti ca1 concessions. Sta1in apparent1y accepted the hypothesis that the Germans were heavily engaged in the west and would not risk opening another front. The Soviets also seem to Finally, Stalin have underestimated the strength of the Germans. remembered Hitler's behavior in the pre-war Czech and Polish crisis, where the Germans gradually increased political demands and supported them with military preparations. At a minimum, he expected the same treatment. A11 of this weighed heav i 1y on Stalin. He interpreted the information about the German attack and the evidence of the troop build up in the east as part of a military demonstration or, at worst, a limited attack in support of forth-coming political demands. 20 49 Cockade A large-scale Allied deception plan, conceived in July 1943, its aim was to re1 i eve the Russi an and Mediterranean fronts by pinning enemy forces in northwest France and Norway. This was done by threatening an invasion of the continent. The overall plan, Operation COCKADE, had a target date of September 1943. COCKADEwas divided into three parts: an invasion of Norway, a main assault at the Pas de Calais, and an American invasion of the Brest Peninsula. COCKADE employed several means to deceive the enemy. One was the display of dummy landing craft and aircraft to mislead enemy aerial reconnaissance. Another maneuvered real aircraft against enemy radar. In still another, large training exercises were held using rea1 troops. These culminated in embarkation exercises preceded by heavy Royal Air Force aerial bombardment of the coast. During the exercise, boats and ships sailed to within range of .. enemy guns at the Pas de Calais.~· In spite of all this activity, Operation COCKADE was a failure. The enemy did not reinforce northwest France. In fact, some troops moved from the area during the last month before the notional assault. The assault exercise was supposed to elicit strong enemy air reaction. This too failed to materialize. ·The lesson learned by the Americans was that, to succeed, a deception 50 ' operation must be in scale with the facts. The notional COCKADE assault was significantly out of proportion to the actual forces force in the entire theater avail~ble. The only available U.S. was one corps consisting of one division. The enemy ana1yzed COCKADE (at the very most) as a large scale exercise which posed little threat. 22 Once again, "experience suggests that deception succeeds only when it helps confirm some existing preconception."23 Mincemeat Designed in 1943, this famous deception helped fool the Germans regarding the location of the Allied invasion of Sicily. Part of a larger plan, BARCLAY, and later made into a movie, the deception centered on allowing the Germans to capture a briefcase. This time, it was found with a body disguised as a drowned Royal Marine major. The body washed up on the coast of Spain and the briefcase contained false plans for the invasion of Greece rather than Sicily, the genuine target. The deception was so successful that the Germans diverted an armored division to Greece, not rea1i zing until it was too 1ate the importance of the major Such a deception is easy to conceive, but operation in Sicily. much more difficult to execute successfully. The man who masterminded the scheme wore the uniform of the supposed Marine major to age it suitably. He also carried various incidental papers such as theater tickets in his pockets to get them worn to a state consistent with their dates. 24 51 It was these touches of detail that helped. If they did not convince the Germans, they certainly added to their confusion. MINCEMEAT, after all, was not conducted in isolation and was complemented by other deception operations. For example, another deception operation had considerable influence on the German decision to concentrate troops in the Balkans. These "order of battle" deceptions were less glamorous than MINCEMEAT, but helped to convince the Germans that in addition to the British 8th Army, there was the 12th. These formations partially explain the German fear of a threat to the Balkans. It was operations like MINCEMEAT that helped focus the German attention on potential landings in Greece. 25 Bodyguard The overall Allied deception plan for early 1944 was Plan BODYGUARD. It was to coordinate British, American, and Soviet strategic diversions throughout the European theater of operations. The plan was to draw the attention and military resources of Hitler and his supreme command away from Normandy. 26 The strategic goal for operation OVERLORD, the invasion of Normandy, was to land the maximum force with the minimum resistance. That became the strategic goal for BODYGUARD. 52 Many separate deception plans were drawn up to support BODYGUARD and minimize resistance. For example, the Soviets contributed feints in Karelia and against the Black Sea coast of Rumania. They simulated an early buildup for a general offensive on the eastern front. All these moves were intended to keep the German units pinned in the East. P1an BODYGUARD a 1so took advantage of deception operations already conceived and underway. Operation CASCADE was one example. Originally conceived to support Allied landings in Sicily, CASCADE was the British Middle East Command's stratagem to simulate a large-scale invasion of the Balkans. Plan FORTITUDE was the Anglo-American ruse to draw attention away from Normandy and to direct the coasts of northwestern attention to optional targets along Europe. 2i The object of Operation FORTITUDE was two-fold. First was to pin enemy forces as far as possible from the OVERLORD area. Second, it was to convince the Germans that the invasion, when it came, would not begin until late summer. The story was that we would not be in a position to attack by spring but that, pressed by the Russians, we had agreed to mount two moderately scaled assaults against Norway during April and May. The Northern-most of these assaults would clear the Murmansk supp1y line. The other assau1 t would set up an attack on Southern Norway and/or Denmark, to draw German forces to· this area in preparation for 1ater as 53 sault on France. This main assault wouldfollow in July or August. This part o~the story was known as FORTITUDE NORTH. 2 The second part of the story ~as known as FORTITUDE SOUTH. This story was that the Allies, in addition to operations in the north, were a 1so p1ann i ng a very 1arge sea1e assau1 t on the continent. This attack would come in two phases. The first, and smaller, was directed near Normandy. Once this assault had established itself and drawn enemy reserves from the Pas de Calais area, the rna in assau 1t wou 1d be against the Pas de Ca 1a is. The first assault would be launched in July, the second as soon as -~ practical.'· The linchpin of Plan FORTITUDE was an effort to simulate a complete army group, the First U.S. Army Group or FUSAG. It was positioned in East Anglia opposite.the Pas de Calais and commanded by General Patton. The Allies knew the German Command expected the FUSAG to spearhead the main Allied invasion of Hitler's "Fortress Europe." The immediate purpose of the FUSAG ruse was to convince German i nte11 i gence there was a large A11 i ed force in Eng 1and, commanded by Patton, and poised to strike. The ruse was to persuade them that the rna in 0-Day 1 and i ng wou 1d be at the Pas de Calais. The ultimate goal was to make the Germans divert much of their resources to the useless defense of this deception target. 30 54 Operation FORTITUDE results: Even as 1ate as D-Day, the Germans were more concerned about the Pas de Calais area than about the OVERLORD beaches. This was obvious by the disposition of their A measure of the success of tactical preparations is that forces. the enemy did not notice anything peculiar about the pattern of radio traffic in the United Kingdom until the very hour of the landing in France. Despite some last minute reinforcements of the surprise was almost complete. Almost Carentan area, tactical immediately after D-Day, evidence from intelligence sources began to confirm that the German's were paralyzed by the existence of the FORTITUDE SOUTH army, which they believed would invade the Pas de Calais any day. 3' SOUTH did not end on D-Day because the Operation FORTITUDE assault on the OVERLORD beaches had always been presented to the Germans as the lesser of two impending amphibious attacks. FORTITUDE SOUTH, therefore, remained in effect unti 1 so many of the real formations employed were either on the continent or en route to it that the threat could not be continued without revision. 32 In order to continue the successful threat to the Pas de Calais area, FORTITUDE SOUTH II was devised. The object of this large reserve in deception plan was to cause the enemy to keep a the Pas de Calais area as long as possible. The story to support this deception included the following ruses: 33 I 55 ~> First, to cover the continuing landings at Normandy, the Germans were led to believe General Eisenhower would divert forces from FORTITUDE SOUTH to the beachhead in Normandy. These forces would be replaced by fresh troops from the u.s. c::=::-> Next, the Germans were to1d that as a resu1t of an indiscretion which had added to his unpopularity, General Patton was rem6ved from command of FORTITUDE SOUTH Army Group. Following his removal and reduction from an army group commander to an army commander, Patton was given the Third U.S. Army under General Bradley. This would account for Patton's appearance in France. ~> Fourth, the FORTITUDE SOUTH force, still directed by the same Army Group Headquarters (FUSAG) remained poised to invade the Pas de Calais area. Its ranks rebuilt with fresh units from the United States, it was waiting for the success at Normandy to I draw enemy reinforcements awar from its path. The date of its invasion was any day after 15 August. The final decision was General Eisenhower's. He would make that decision when he thought best. This ruse helped fix the German's attention on the Pas de Calais. 56 ~ Last1y, the Germans were 1ed to be 1 i eve that the President of the United States and his Chief of Staff had selected one of their foremo$t generals to replace General Patton in command This general was relieved of a very important of the FUSAG. to Eng 1and. The command in the United States and sent hasti 1y the Twelfth, had been Germans were told that a new Army Group, formed on the continent to assist General Bradley. same means as FORTITUDE SOUTH I I was imp1emented by the There was only one important difference between FORTITUDE SOUTH I. imp 1ementation the two p 1ans. For FORTITUDE SOUTH I I it was no longer possible to create an order of battle composed almost entirely of real formations. Fresh U.S. units were arriving in England, but all were destined for reinforcement of the beachhead If any of these units were put in the FORTITUDE area at Normandy. one by one, have to withdrawn SOUTH assault force they would, This would lead the enemy to conclude that FORTITUDE SOUTH again. Army was not an assault force at all, but simply a training or forces for the beachhead continually staging area through which passed. The assault force of FORTITUDE SOUTH II had to be The build up force came from notional divisions of the notional. 14th u.s. Army and the 4th British Army. The notional assault formations underwent intensive amphibious exercises in conjunction with the Royal Navy.H 57 The purpose of both FORTITUDE NORTH and SOUTH was to he1p achieve the strategic objective. That was to land the greatest number of troops against the least resistance. A review of plan BODYGUARD shows that Allied deception planners could not have hoped to deceive the Germans about their main enemy (the Allies). They did attempt to convince the Germans that Turkey would enter the war on the A11 i ed side. This succeeded in diverting some German attention to the southeast. Less could be done to cover Allied intentions, specifically their intention to invade. A bit more was able to be done to cover operational capabi 1ities such as the portable Mulberry Harbour. The biggest deception opportunities for Allied planners lay in their ability to fool the Germans about the real time, real place, and real strength of the invasion. 35 Battle of the Bulge The Americans finally had a chance to try their own hand at deception. In December 1944, a German surprise offensive was beginning to. have an effect. General Patton was ordered to move his Third Army north to stop the enemy advance. Because time was of the essence, Patton passed his warning orders in the clear despite the certainty that the Germans wou 1d intercept them. Although it was too late to mount a conventional deception operation, Patton's boss, General Bradley, tasked his "special" plans section with coming up with "something." Rather than trying to deceive the Germans about Patton's compromised movement, 58 Bradley's deception planners chose to make the enemy uncertain and confused. 36 Normally, the "special" plans section spent their time imitating notional units. For this ruse, they imitated real units~ specifically the nine divisi_onal, three corps, and one army headquarters under Patton. And they did this four times over for each headquarters. In effect, they presented German intelligence with five General Pattons, each approaching from a different direction. Of course, the Germans immediately realized what was being done, but they were still dazzled by the four fake armies weaving around the rea1 one. In the event the Germans were able to keep track of only one. of Patton's advancing divisions. The others were either lost entirely on the German battle maps or, worse mislocated [sic]. Consequently Patton was able to gain substantial tactical advantage and he went on to break the 3pack of the Wehrmacht~ last offensive. Deception in ~Pacific The scope of deception as employed by the United States in the Pacific always remained small in comparison with those in the It should be recognized European Theater and on the Eastern Front. that the deception operations in the Pacific undertaken by the United States never had a decisive impact. 59 Not that the U.S. did not· try. During 1942 there was a . little-known chapter of the war against Japan. These efforts revolved around an attempt to generate an American threat to the Japanese-held Kurile Islands. Although these deception operations never had a decisive effect, the were sufficient to siphon off significant and increasingly scarce Japanese resources at very 1itt1e cost to the United States. 38 From the beginning of the war, deception played a part in the American effort to regain the initiative in the Pacific. Deception was limited to the operational level, linked to a specific campaign, with local or short-term significance. 39 Midway After Pearl Harbor, all U.S. operations were designed to regain the initiative in the. Pacific. Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet, began cautious raids on Japanese positions to develop confidence in his units. He favored any means that promised to increase his sma11 forces and get resu1ts. This inc1uded deception. ' 0 Given several weeks warning by his intelligence staff of the pending Japanese attack at Midway Island, Nimitz took the opportunity to develop several ruses to guard his preparations. Before he ordered Vice Admiral William (Bull) Halsey's Carrier Task Force 60 to leave the Solomon Islands and meet near Midway, Nimitz told Halsey to reveal himself to Japanese patrol planes. After.being sighted, Halsey turned north east and withdrew. The sighting of Halsey's task force set off a flurry of activity within the Japanese High Command. Operations planned for the Solomon Islands area were called off because of the reported presence of Halsey's carriers.41 To support the Japanese perception that Halsey remained in the South Pacific, two ships sent dummy radio traffic as they steamed back and forth near the Solomons. Shore traffic returned from Australia. Japanese traffic analysts thought Halsey's task force, with two carriers, remained east of the Solomons where it had so recent1y been seen. "The Nava1 Genera1 Staff in Tokyo remained convinced that two American carriers were still off the Solomons and that the surprise attack on Midway was secure. "42 Nimitz's ambush north-east of Midway caught the Japanese by is an examp 1e of how a surprise. The deception used at Midway small-scale, theater-level deception could contribute to a result of their defeat at Midway, the strategic victory. As a Japanese never resumed the offensive in the Pacific.43 Jaoanese Cover ~Deceotion At Midway Japan's goals for the Midway operation were ambitious and called for a complex operation. The success hinged on the 61 attainment of complete surprise. To get it, the Combined Fleet used cover and deception measures that would conceal its intentions and preparations for the Midway operation. As it turned out, the Americans detected their preparations and uncovered their intentions early in the operation. 44 To deceive the United States regarding the primary target of their operations in the Pacific, the Combined Fleet carried out a series of diversionary raids across the Pacific using communications deception. To cover its preparations for the Midway campaign and other operations, the Japanese implemented a series of operational security measures. They curtailed the use of longrange radio communications, made extensive use of codes and ciphers, and ultimately imposed a strict radio silence on the forces participating in the Midway campaign. 45 While Japanese deception itself was largely ineffective, American suspicion of Japanese deception, particularly of communications deception, actually came close to achieving that result. Many worried that the information obtained by the Counterintelligence units was misleading information deliberately p1anted by the Japanese. 46 62 Wedlock: Deceotjon in ~North Pacific In September 1943, the Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed to a general policy for deception against the Japanese. In November, Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr., Commanding General of the Alaska Department, was tasked to develop a deception plan for the North Pacific. Alaska had become an attractive sit~ for deception operations for several reasons. First, the Japanese no longer occupied the the Joint Chiefs had Aleutian Islands of Attu and Kiska. Second, decided to approach Japan from the south, building on the successes of the New Guinea and Solomon Islands campaigns. They abandoned earlier p 1 ans to converge on Japan vi a the shorter northern route, 47 moved across As MacArthur moved from the South and Nimitz was the center of the Pacific, the objective of Operation WEDLOCK to convince the Japanese of a build up intended to invade the Kurile Islands. The plan called for the creation of a notional force consisting of five American infantry divisions and two Canadian divisions (some of whom were training in the Aleutians for another purpose). The phantom U.S. Ninth Fleet was activated to send and receive messages from the very real Third and Fifth Fleets. Press releases to U.S. newspapers amplified the story. U.S. analysts knew from their reading of ULTRA traffic that the Japanese often used the press to verify their leads. The press began stressing the advantages of the shorter northern route to 63 Japan. Newspapers speculated about what was happening in Alaska and they duti fu 11 y reported and commented upon a San Franc; sco meeting between Admiral Nimitz and lieutenant General Buckner. 48 Via these and other channels, including diplomatic ones, the Japanese began to see a pattern develop. U.S. divisions and their probable objectives were identified by Japanese analysts. Canadian troops were observed training in the Alaskan Theater. Schedules of supplies arrived in growing numbers. There were reports of new advances in technology that would allow better use of the poor terrain associated with campaigns in the North Pacific. Lastly, frequent bulletins appeared on future operations planned for these forces. 49 Given this i nte11 i gence picture:, the Japanese made severa 1 I' 'I changes to their military disposition~. They increased the number II '1: of troops in the Kuriles from 25,000 ;h January 1944 to 70,obo just six months later. The number of airplanes rose from 38 to 589 in the same period. Their estimate of U.S. strength was 400,000 troops and 700 planes against an a6tual U.S. strength of 64,000 troops and 373 planes. 50 While important, the WEDLOCK ioperation was not totally I successful. The Japanese never considered the northern threat to be the primary one. "Thus while the deception succeeded in convincing the enemy that the u. s. did 1have menacing forces in the 64 north, it did not convince him that the menace was .of immediate importance or of primary importance. Rather than misleading the Japanese into reordering their priorities for the threats which faced them, the deception added another p 1 a us i b 1 e threat to an already ambigLJOUS situation."51 The Invasion of Jaoan After the defeat of Germany in Apri 1 1945, A11 i ed 1eaders turned to the defeat of the Japanese. Recognizing that the Japanese homeland would have to be invaded, operations OLYMPIC and CORONET were designated as the landings bn Kyushu and the Tokyo Plain respectively. Representing the largest amphibious invasions ever planned, initial estimates of casualties approached one million. "To reduce these expected high casualties and to guarantee success, planners felt it essential that the operations not be anticipated. Therefore, deception plans were developed to shield Olympic and Coronet from detection. "52 Originally code named. PASTEL, the final version of the deception plan to shield Operation Olympic was called PASTEL TWO. Figure 4.1 depicts the two fictional assaults that would serve as a strategic deception.53 Supporting the strategic deception story were leaflet drops, psychological warfare radio broadcasts, air reconnaissance, bombing and strafing, and a submarine-borne beach. 1andi ng. 54 65 0 fO :)£.4 OFKOREA JAP.-'..V PACIFIC OCEAN F.AST CHJNA SEA LEGEND 0• .. Planned real assault. Olymp1c ~(~~~ F1cuonal assault. Pas1e1 <~=::::l 0 100 200 MILES SCALE Figure 4.1 Planned assaults in the Kyushu and Shanghai areas Fictitious large-scale airborne assaults into the interior of Kyushu on the nights before and after the rea1 1and i ngs. wou 1d serve as the cornerstone of the operational deception plan. These landings were tipped to· the Japanese by placing large numbers of gliders and a false airborne corps and division headquarters on Okinawa, and by dropping supplies for the airborne troops both before and after the first day of the invasion. 55 66 In summary, Pastel Two covered both strategic and operational deception. The stories were disseminated using military operations (beach landings, air reconnaissance, dummy gliders, etc.); radio deception; and media deception (giving misleading information to the public media or other sources the Japanese routinely monitored) . 56 Plans for the second landing on the Tokyo Plain, Operation Coronet, were also being developed, though several months behind those of Olympic. At the war's end, this deception had no code name, but operations supporting both strategic and operational deception had been c 1ear1 y 1aid out. ST As in Pastel Two, Coronet would be supported by fictional the planned real and fictional landings. Figure 4.2 shows assau 1ts.58 Besides the fictional assaults, local feints would be used for tactical deception. Explaining the landings away from the mainland was the story that the u.s. needed to tighten its naval blockade and intensify the aerial bombardment of Japan. 59 Ground forces would be manipulated to give the impression that a force was about to invade Shikoku, intelligence studies of Shikoku were prepared, troops were briefed, and the Far East Air 67 CHI~A S£.4. OFJ.4PAN EAST CHINA SEA l.EGEND Planned real assault. :( Coronet F the genera1 ineptness of Arab mi 1 i tary forces c:=:::::> the Arabs' i nab i 1 i ty to p1an or conduct any sort of coordinated military action. The deception objective was to confuse Israeli and Western analysts providing them with plausible, but wrong, conclusions as to what the concentration of men and equipment along the canal and in the Golan really meant. 14 One strategy was to increase the noise level with which the Israelis had to contend. This was done through a series of alerts. As a result, the By Egyptian accounts there were at least three. Israelis mobilized at least twice and one of those cost them $10 The continued alerts split Israeli opinion concerning the million. "real" intentions of the Egyptians and Syrians. A constant stream of Egyptian rhetoric accompanied these mobi 1 i zations and a 1erts which added to the noise level and further desensitized Israeli 81 ana1ysts .. The effect of these a 1erts was to create a "cry-wo1f syndrome. " 15 Aimed at increasing the uncertainty of the situation, a number of Arab ruses made the high level of threat and crisis appear normal. Others were des1gned to create alternative explanations for the massing of troops. The overall theme of these actions was that the Egyptians were unable to fight a war and that they would prefer, and were working for, some sort of diplomatic solution. Therefore, to the Israel is, the troop build up was "saber rattling" designed to satisfy internal Egyptian critics. 16 The Egyptians did "at least six studies of Israeli military doctrine and perceptions, and Egyptian deception, especially toward the end, was tai 1ored to mesh with these perceptions. "1i Arab deception strategists were aided by Western and Israeli images of Arabs incompetence. This self-deceptlon by the Israelis manifested i tse1 f in the I srae 1 1 concept of defense for the Suez Can a 1 • First, the Israelis assumed that 48 hours warning would be sufficient to mobilize enough reserves to halt any Egyptian thrust into the Sinai. Second, Egyptian forces would deploy so slowly that only a small number could cross the Canal. Third, those forces that did make it to the Israeli side would be disorganized and easy prey for Israeli units. Add the Israeli notion that Egypt and Syria were incapable of coordinating any military operation and you had the makings for d~saster. Moreover, the Israelis believed 82 the Arabs were incapable of keeping a secret and, lastly, no Arab attack would be contemplated without adequate air cover. As October drew nearer, the Egyptians developed deception themes in a more obvious and intensified manner. Their purpose was to add bits of information to increase the Israeli confusion or provide alternative explanations. 18 The actual solutions included items borrowed from the Normandy deception in World War II and some from the Israeli preemptive strike in 1967. The actual build up along the Canal was the product of an incremental strategy. Fortifications began almost immediately after the 1967 War and were still being worked on in 1972, but the slowness of this construction actually desensitized the Israeli observers to its mi 1itary potential. 19 In late September, using the annual fall exercises as an excuse, the Egyptians began moving forward a number of troops, armor, and artillery~ But even here, the Egyptians were careful to confuse the issue. For examp 1e, ammunition was not sent forward. The ammunition trucks were empty because the necessary munitions had moved up by rail during an earlier mobilization. To further confuse the Israeli analysts, the ammunition was stored in underground storage sites, making the inventory difficult to determine. Troops moved up during the day for exercises and only half returned to their barracks at night. This.allowed a gradual massing of units at the front. Bridging equipment was moved in 83 crates to hide its identity. Transport of special equipment that would tip-off Egyptian intentions was delayed until the last moment. Water cannons for blasting Israeli sand ramparts and flame retardant materia1s to be sprayed on uniforms were sent to the Canal at the last possible moment. 20 This general picture of "noth1ng more than exercises" was complemented by stories of arguments within the Egyptian High Command. Even the troops were misled. "After the war, Israeli interrogators discovered that some 85 ·percent of a 11 Egyptians captured and no prior knowledge of the attack. Almost all orders were issued fewer than 48 hours beforehand, and some of pi 1ots received theirs as they got into their cockpits. Some troops in the 3rd Army had only 15 minutes warning ...."21 After the war started, the main surprises were of two sorts: techn i ca1 and nontechn i ca1 . Techn i ca1 surprise "was most1y ·due to the use of water hoses to cut Canal-crossing time, and the extensive use of antitank rockets by Egyptian and Syrian infantry. Some tactical deception designed to enhance ex1sting air defense technology was attempted by the use (mostly Egyptian) of dummy SAM sites and dummy aircraft; the Syrians apparent1y prefer\ed to utilize mobile sites to confuse Israeli targeting."22 The truly unexpected !element was the nontechnical surprise of increased troop performande and morale. "Both Egyptian and Syrian I 84 troops were drilled over and over again on their respective tasks, and the result during the early stages of the war at least was unexpectedly good performance. In addition, both Egyptian and Syrian tr·oops were extremely motivated, an almost 100 percent turnabout from their 1967 attitude. Morale was so high that some troops actually broke ranks in their eagerness to attack ... 23 In the end, Israeli self-deception had as much to do with the initial successes of the Arabs as anything else. To their credit, however, the Egyptians and Syrians were able to plan their deception operations around these preconceived ideas. These are lessons for both sides. Falklands (April-June 1982) Even in "small wars" deception has a role. Consider what occurred just before the British landing: "At a May 20 Ministry of Defence briefing, it was stated that British forces were not planning a full-scale invasion of the islands, but rather looking to a continuing series of hit and run raids. Even as the briefer spoke---not for attribution, of course---a major amphibious landing was in fact getting under way."24 Why did the British resort to deception? One reason was the sheer distance. The Falklands are 8000 miles from England. Argentina, by comparison, was right next door. Hard pressed to 85 develop any military superiority at the point of attack, the British used cunning to overcome their lack of capabilities. "Indeed, the motto of the Royal Navy's elite special warfare group, the Special Boat Squadron (SBS), adequately describes the amphibious operations in the Falklands: 'Not by force, but by gu i 1e' . "25 To help achieve surprise and compensate for their limited numbers, the British developed a many-faceted cover and dec~ption plan. It was aimed at exaggerating their own strength, encouraging misleading assumptions as to their ;plans, and instilling fear among the Argentines. "Aircraft and troop numbers were inflated, the professionalism and ferocity of the troops stressed. Censorship was rigorous, and on occasion news was held up. Some of thls plan was orchestrated·in London. Other aspects were improvised and local . " 25 Three separate but coordinated activities were used to achieve these goals. First, deception operations conducted by both sides were significant. One report said that Argentine deception accounted for inaccurate British assessments of the damage done to Stanley airfield. It also appears that the Brit1 sh engaged in deception operations regarding the strength of their forces in the Falklands theater. The s'uccess of these efforts, especi a 11 y ' against satellite surveillance resources has significant ramifications on the future employment of deception operations. 86 Second was the manipulation of the mass media. The British efforts to control the release of information was considerable. The government effectively controlled the release of information about nava1 operati ens.27 The ab i 1i ty of the British Government to remain ambiguous, or selectively silent, contributed to the success of the forces on the ground. Third, psychological operations were used as a passive method of engaging in combat. Though parts of this particular program are still classified, this field has particular application for the United States Marine Corps. Naval amphibious task force assets can assist in psychological warfare operations from afloat by using ship-borne communication assets.29 The~ Israeli Invasion of Lebanon Surrounded by hostile neighbors and lacking strategic depth, the Israelis have long been considered masters of surprise. Beits sma11 popu 1ation and re1ati ve 1y meager resources, cause of Israel must achieve surprise and change the battlefield ratio by in destroying, enveloping, or paralyzing an enemy quickly. Thus, both the 1956 and in 1967 Arab-Israeli wars, the Israeli Defense Force ( IDF) used the advantages gained from surprise to defeat Yet,. in the 1973 war the Israelis numerically larger enemy forces. did not achieve surprise and, instead, were themselves surprised.29 87 By the 1980's, the Israelis had absorbed the lessons of both success and failure. "To exploit surprise fully, Israeli strategic doctrine emphasizes offensive operations that seek quick, decisive, and unequivocal victory on the battlefield. This strategy uses indirect approach, deception, speed and mob i 1 i ty, and secrecy in order to obtain its objectives ... ::o During the spring and early summer of 1982, the Palestinians expected an Israeli attack. Syrian forces in Lebanon also braced for possible confrontation with the Israelis. Despite these and other warnings, the Palestinian forces fell to the Israelis in less than seven days. The Syrians lost more than eighty aircraft and twenty advanced surface-to-air missile (SAM) batteries, while the Israelis admitted losing only two aircraft. A major reason for the Israeli victory was their achievement of political and military surprise."' ., When the Israelis launched their sudden attack into Lebanon, one of the reasons for the Palestinian surprise came from "alert fatigue" or the "cry-wolf syndrome." Because threatened attacks or events often did not occur, Palestinian forces became desensitized. On as many as four occasions before the June attack, Palestinian forces predicted and then prepared for an expected Israeli attack. The attack never came. When it did, the Arab forces were caught off-guard. 88 Another "reason for the PLO surprise was that the Palestinians incorrectly assumed they had developed a deterrent to an Israeli invasion. Whether in the form of the expected military participation of Syria in the conflict or of the threatened massive rocket attack against Israeli settlements, they believed these circumstances constituted capabilities that might deter an Israeli strike." 32 There is an interesting parallel between the PLO deterrence and the deterrence of the United States nava1 forces at Pearl Harbor immediate1 y before December 1941 . Had the PLO not provided a target, or been a threat, the Israelis might never have attacked. A fine deterrent often makes a superb target. In the end, a combined arms operation by what Chaim Herzog calls "the best force fielded by Israel in battle to date" made a lightening attack into southern Lebanon. Meticulous execution of plans using enhanced mobility and rear-area heliborne and amphib ., ious operations made for an easy Israeli victory.;. Unlike the Palestinians, the Syrian forces did not appear to be totally inferior to the Israelis. They may have had the best military capabilities ever faced by the IDF. "Nevertheless, the Syrians lost more than eighty aircraft, while Syrian SAM sites in the Bekaa Va 1 1 ey were destroyed by a br i 1 1 i ant1 y p 1 anned and executed Israeli operation that achieved technical and doctrinal surprise. "34 89 Until the 1982 invasion, Syrian SAM sites had been off 1imits to Israeli air strikes. As a result, the Syrians mayhave concluded that the Israelis considered an attack on these batteries too risky. This mind-set psychologicallydisarmed the Syrians. With their opponents so disarmed, the Israel is used the advantages of their superb intelligenceand their mastery of electronic warfare to smash the Syrian batteries in lightning-like attacks. In these actions, the Israelis masterfully employed remotelypiloted vehicles not only to gather realtime intelligence data but also to serve as decoys just prior to the real attack. A wide array of intense Israeli electron; c warfare operations confused and deceived Syrian communications, thus blinding Syrian SAM radar units. Once blinded, Syrian target acquisition and tracking radars were attacked arid destroyed byIsraeli aircraft using anti-radiation missiles. The missile batteries themselves, at this point virtually helpless, were then destroyed by cluster munitions. The Syrians had either known about or seen most of the Israeli equipment and munitions in combat. The tacti ca1 and technical surprise came in the unique waythe Israelis employed the equipment and munitions against the Bekaa Val ley SAM sites. The Syrians failed to anticipatethe sometimes small doctrinal and technical changes that can be critical., in ensuring victory on the battlefield.J. Collectively, the Arabs had made many of the same mistakes the Israelis had in 1973. They misread Israeli intentions and capabilities. Incorrect political assumptions led to tactical and diplomatic surprise. 90 CONCLUSION Some have argued that strategic and operational military deception is no longer feasible in the modern era. They ask about "smart" weapons, satellite surveillance, and "real time" intell igence. Technological advances in intelligence collection have made surveillance so sophisticated that it is no longer possible to "hide" anything from an adversary. There are more sensors. They are more sensitive, reliable, and fast. During the Vietnam War, the U.S. limited itsel.f to tactical deception, and then on 1y occasiona 11 y. That may have been the result of poor strategy and our generally low opinion of the enemy. The recent evidence from the Israeli 1982 1nvasion of Lebanon and the British experience in the Falklands seems to indicate that there is room for strategic and operational deception 1n our nation's arsenal. It may be poss i b 1e to make an adversary see something that is not there, or to shield from him something that is there (show the false, hide the real). In fact, increased surveillance by the enemy may provide the additional communication channels needed to reach him. Additionally, this type of scrutiny may improve some types of deception and make others obso1ete. For examp 1e, recent evidence shows that modern codes and ciphers may not be any more secure than those available in the past. The Walker spy case showed that secret 91 submarine operations, some of the most protected operations, were 35 not so secret after a 1 1 . Do not be misled. Deception is not a panacea that can replace other military actions. It can fa i 1 to achieve the intended goa1s. 37 The enemy might not be deceived simp1 y because he did not see the evidence. This is especially a possibility in Third World countries whose perceptions or intelligence and collection assets were mismatched, overwhelmed, or failed. Like everything else in war, deceptionrequires that you know your enemy. If you are to deceive him, you must know everything about him. You must know his tactics, techniques, and pred i 1 ections;what he knows and what he does not know. Finally, you must know what he believes, what he wishes to believe, and what he is prepared to be1i eve. Answers to these questions will often determine the sue~ cess or failure of the deception plan . .ltl 92 Endnotes 1. J. Barton Bowyer, Cheating: Decection in War and Magic, Games and Scorts. Sex and Religion, Business and Con Games, Politics and Espionage, Art and Science, (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982), p. 94. 2. Ibid. 3. Ibid., p. 95. 4. Katherine L. Herbig, "American Strategic Deception in the Pacific: 1942-44," Strategic and Operational Deception in the Second World War, Michael I. Handel, ed., (London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd, 1987), p. 261. 5. H.A. DeWeerd, Strategic Surprise in the Korean War, (Santa Monica: The RAND Corporation, June, 1962), p. -3. 6. Ibid., p. 10 . 7 . Ibid., p. 22. 8. Ibid. , p. 33. 9. Ibid., p. 34. 10. John Amos, "Deception and the 1973 Middle East War," Strategic Military Deception, Daniel and Herbig, ed., (New York: Per~amon Press, 1982), p. 317. 11 . Ibid., p, 318. 12. Ibid., p, 322. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid., p. 323. 16 . Ibid., p. 324. 17 . Ibid., p. 325. 18 . Ibid., p. 326. 19. Ibid., p. 327. 20. Ibid. 21 . Ibid., p. 328. 93 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid., p. 329. 24. C.W. Koburger, Jr., "The Falklands: Lessons in Modern Naval Warfare," Navy International, (January 1983), p. 9. 25. Gary M. Holst, Potential Naval Lessons Learned from the Falkland Islands War, (Monterey, California: Naval Post Graduate School, December, 1982), p. 280. 26. Koburger, p. 8. 27. Holst, p. 283. 28. Ibid., p. 281. 29. Mark G. Ewig, "Surprise from Zion," Air University Review, (Vol. XXXV, No. 6: September-October 1984), p. 50. 30. Ibid. 31 . Ibid., p. 49. 32. Ibid., p. 53. 33. Ibid. 34. Ibid. I p. 54. 35. Ibid. I p. 55. 36. John D. LeHockey, "Over-the-Her i zen Assau 1ts: Are We Deceiving Anyone?" Proceedings, (Annapolis: United States Naval Institute Press), pending publication. 37. Michael I. Handel, "Intelligence and Deception," The Journal of Strategic Studies, (Vol. 5, No. 1, March, 1982), p. 145. 38. LeHockey, publication pending. 94 CHAPTER .§. ~Theories of Deception, Counter-Deception, and Self-Deceotion" This chapter acquaints the reader with several theories and concepts of deception, counter-deception, and self-deception. While not intended to provide an in-depth analysis nor a complete listing of all deception theory, it is an effort to summarize current thoughts on the subject. Deception As identified by several writers, most notably Roberta Wohlstetter, Barton Whaley, and Michael Handel, perceptions intervene in the realities of the environment. They emphasize that perceptions do not distort reality, but act as filters. In the terminology of information theory, these filters blur the distinction between signals and noise. The determination of what is a signal (and important) and what is noise (and therefore irrelevant) "is a psychological process which occurs consciously, subconsciously, and perhaps unconsciously according to individual tendencies and predispositions that in turn depend on perceptions and expectations. "1 "Signals" are defined as clues, signs, or pieces of evidence that tell about a particular danger or enemy move or intention.2 95 "Noise" is the backdrop of irrelevant or inconsistent signals. It points in the wrong direction and tends to obscure the relevant data.3 This b 1 ending of signa1s into noise 1eads to the . i dentification of factors in intelligence failures. Fai 1ures that allow targets to be deceived. The factors that influence the ability to adequately and accurately identify signals are:4 .::::::=::::> Noise and Ambiguity: Analysts are often faced with conf1i cti ng evidence that supports a 1ternati ve and equa11 y reasonable hypotheses . .::::::=::::> Expectations and Preferences: There is a tendency to select hypotheses which meet analysts expectations or preferences and favors supporting evidence. c:::~> Security and Deception:. Enemy security reduces the signals (or evidence)_ of intentions while deception creates noise that appear as signals . .::::::=::::> Cry-Wolf Phenomena: High tension levels and repeated false alarms often numb analyst attention and vigilance. The high costs of acting on these warnings reduces the motivation to respond. / \ 96 c::::::::> Impact of Po 1icy: Other areas of interest may capture the attention of the policy maker. Cautious policies lead to cautious and ambiguous warnings. c::::::::> Technical Surprises: Rapidly changing or concealed technical and logistic capabilities obscure enemy intentions and capabilities. C:::::' Organ i zati ana1 B1ocks: Delays in the transmis sian, retransmission, or evaluation of intelligence warnings. Restrictions on dissemination, organizational inefficiencies and rivalries, and the low status of the intelligence service all impede effective analysis and dissemination. Policy makers may be uninformed of military vulnerabilities. C:::::, Underestimation of Enemy's Willingness to take Risks: Analysts use their own willingness to take risk to estimate the enemy's intentions. How do these eight factors affect our abi 1ity to deceive? What specifically can be done?~~ Barton Whaley, a former Associate Professor of World Politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, said' there are only two ways to deceive. 6 First is dissimulation---hiding the real. These are covert operations or 97 operational security (OPSEC) measures taken to prevent the enemy from seeing your plans. The second method is the corollary of the first: simulation---showing the false. These are overt actions intended to distract the attention and energy of the adversary. In the military, we often use the terms "cover and deception" to mean "hide and deceive." Whaley said there are only three ways to cover ( "hi de the rea1" ) and three ways to deceive ( "show the false"). Deceivers cover something by masking, repackaging, or dazzling. Masking entails making the plan or operation invisible through camouflage or electronic measures. It may conceal all the characteristics or cause them to blend in with the surrounding environment. This environment may be physical, electromagnetic, or spatial. One form of mi 1itary deception, Department/ Service deception, 5 might be used in the Research and Development (R&D) of OTH capabilities, force structures, and tactics. In novelist Tom Clancy's book, The Hunt for Red October, the Soviets "masked" the development of a prototype propulsion system. In the same manner, could U.S. military services use deception in the R&D of OTH capabilities? As a "Competitive Strategy," planners might use deception in reporting OTH program development, schedules, test results, and operational successes or failures. Reoackaging, by adding or subtracting features, disguises an operation as something else. Warships made to look like freight 98 ers would be an example. In World War I, "mystery ships" allowed themselves to be torpedoed and then uncovered their guns to destroy surfacing enemy submarines. Placing canvas or rubber trucks over tanks would be another. (As you will see, this is different from using canvas or rubber tanks.) As a repackaging scheme, Maritime Pre-positioning Forces (MPF) and OTH developments might compliment one another. Whaley Dazzling hides the real by confusing the observer. uses the example of military codes and ciphers. Randomly generated, though unreadable, they are fully recognizable for what they are: encoded traffic. Could we dazzle an adversary by intentionally overloading his intelligence collection assets? Roberta Wohlstetter, in her work on Pearl Harbor, 7 discussed "noise" and its impact on intelligence collection and analysis. Generated to submerge, or hide, tell-tale signals, "noise" prevents the enemy from clearly seeing preparations and activities. A "Competitive Strategy" might involve other government agencies generating "noise" to achieve a synergistic effect. Appendix B lists some examples of dissimulation for deception planners. Having hidden the real, how can we show the false? Again, Whaley said there are three methods to accomplish this: mimicking, inventing, and decovjng. 99 Mimicking entails using a double, having one thi~g imitate another. Whaley used this example: General Otto von Emmich attacked the greatBelgian fortress of Liege in 1914 with sixbrigades totally only 20,000 troops; but,because this was a mixed force drawn fromfive corps, Belgian intelligence concluded from prisoners taken that they faced allfive corps, an overwhelming force of150,000 and accordingly withdrew theirinfantry scre.en. A tactical example occurred in the Vietnam air war. Wh i 1e electronically disguised, F-4 Phantoms imitated slower, lumbering F-105's on a standard bombing mission into North Vietnam. Enemy MIGs took the bait and seven fell in twelve minutes. 9 Inventing shows the false by creating something entirely new. Rubber tanks, false radio traffic and radar emissions, notional units, orders of battle, and the like. Deployed opposite the Pas de Calais during World War II, Patton and a fictitious army_ (com plete with fake loading docks, support facilities, and communications traffic) were part ,of a I 1arger deception effort for the Normandy invasion. Decoving diverts attention. It offers misleading or multiple options to the enemy. Deception, as a "Competitive Strategy," .can 100 play an important role. In this sense, the presence of forward deployed Amphibious Task Forces is a classic example. Will they or won't they land? If so, where and in what strength? Similarly, an off-shore carrier battle group could launch a diversionary alpha-strike, complete with electronic jamming and radar, to divert attention from an insertion elsewhere. The involvement of other government agencies to give pJausible explanations for otherwise visible events is critical. Maneuver warfare is another example (though maneuver warfare is much more than this). By maneuvering first one way and then the other, the-enemy faces unreconcilable choices. Consider Sherman's 180-mile march to Atlanta in the Civil War. Tied to one line of communication, he maneuvered his two corps on either side of the single, narrow railway line. Although he was narrowly constrained, Sherman retained the initiative because he had the option of attacking to his right or to his left. He placed his adversary on the proverbial horns of a dilemma. This had an impact beyond the tactical level. His enemies found themselves continually in danger of being outflanked and therefore were never able to' establish a fixed defensive position to confront him. The Southern generals were unable to discern his operational objectives. Appendix c lists some examples of simulation for deception planners. 101 ~ Model This straightforward idea of hiding the real and showing the false finally gtves substance to the vague list of steps in existing doctrine. Missing has been the thought process that must accompany the development of a deception plan. Too often, deception is considered a requirement and looked upon as something accomp 1i shed with a check 1i st. A p1anner once said the very capabilities inherent in OTH techniques relieve us of much of the requirement to conduct deception operations. 10 Deception is not a requirement, it is an opportunity. It is a "Competitive Strategy" used to prolong the enemy's indecision until any decision he makes is too late to have significance. Planners must consider deception early and continuously. That is why this typology is so important. It gives us some idea of which types of deception to use and in what order. It gives us a model for deception planning. Deciding what to use and when to use it is "The Process of Deception. "11 Figure 6.1 is a model of, this approach. In it, the planner must ask himself a series of questions. First, as in any plan, the deceiver must start with his strategic goal. What is it he intends to accomplish? "It may be to launch a surprise invasion ...land on an enemy beach with minimum initial opposi tion . or simply get a reconnaissance o~ rescue party in and out of hostile territory with sufficientl'y low casualties to assure success. "12 102 i ST! Never re1y so1e 1 y on non-materia1 evidence. "A 11 information from sources such as agents' messages or radio traffic must be checked against phys i ca1 evidence and positively verified. "57 c:::=::::> Never rely on agents or civilian informers who have not been seen or directly interviewed. Controllers must not to fall into the trap of identifying too closely with their agents. This might cause them to protect questionable agents whose activities need closer examination. This is especially critical if the information obtained fits nicely with one's own preferences or needs. Also, defenders must be wary when it fits without contradiction into other reports. This rule holds equally well when dealing with local civilians who may appear willing to give information. 58 122 c::=:::> Check and double-check all instances in which re ports on an important issue initially appear correct, but turn out to be wrong. Even more care must be taken when there always seems to be a good explanation for the discrepancy. Conduct spec i a 1 investigations when first-rate information is provided ·~n/y when it is too late to be of any use -even if it arrives before the action it warns against has taken p 1 ace. "59 Remember, this was the most device used by the British to build the credibility of their common own agents. c::=:::> Heed closely the opinions of lower-level intel ligence analysts. Deception has a better chance of being detected by lower-level intelligence analysts because they are less attached to any specific strategy or operation. Wishful thinking is not as likely to sway their judgment. Deception operations are often designed to appeal to the top to intelligence, political, and military leaders. "It is easier identify deception at lower levels, where the experts have different and narrower concerns and are less likely to fall for specific deception baits. "so For example, lower-level German an intelligence analysts questioned the trust worthiness of independent agent, Josephine; lower-level Turks uncovered some of the British deception measures at the Third Battle of Gaza; and a 123 junior Israeli intelligence analyst warned of an impending Egyptian attack in September 1973. All were ignored.52 c=:::::;> Know both the enemy's 1imitations and his capabilities. Again, let us turn to the Allied experience in World War I I. The Germans "consistently everesti mated the number to divisions available to the A11 ies, as well as their capacity to move. troops, their number of landing craft, and the like. The German's most common perceptual mistake was to project not only their own preferences and fears on the enemy, but also their own :Imilitary doctrine."•· Lastly, the German failure to understand the political dimens ions of higher strategy resu 1ted from the incorporation of their military doctrine into their intelligence estimates of what the Allies intended to do. "The principle motivation behind the Allied strategy in World War II was more political than military. The German's failed to understand this. As a res;,;lt., their capacity to uncover Allied deception plans was severely undermined. To unmask deception, you must do one of two things. One is to open up new cnannels of communication. This allows the defender to receive other information that may help to verify the enemy's capability or intent. It is impossible for deceivers to cover 100 per cent of the available channels. It is up to the defender to 124 find those over1coked. 56 The other is to work the existing channels to a greater depth than the deceiver has. The objective is to detect inconsistencies in the clues given by the deceiver. One reason why 'The Man Who Never Was' operation succeeded was that the consistency of the c 1ues on the corpse was maintained down to the great'est depth that the Germans could check: the corpse had died from pneumonia, so the condition of the lungs was consistent with drowning, and the dog-eared tickets were consistent with the supposed officer being in Lo~don at the right time, and so forth. o: In theory, it should be always be possible to unmask a deception. Unfortunate 1y, we are often overcome by events and the stress and speed of operations. "It is a well-known principle increase accuracy it is necessaryof observation in science that to to observe for a 1onge r time, and successfu 1 deception does not allow the victim a long enough time to establ1sh the truth ... ~~ Self-Deception Also of concern to the military planner is self-deception. This is especially important between wars, where it may take years to recognize what an adversary is up may to. Perceptions are 125 shaped by extended negotiations and the assumed common interests of the opposing sides. 67 Pear1 Harbor is perhaps the best known of the examples of self-deception. Others are:68 c-=:J In the 1930's, the British and Allies were slow to realize Hitler was conducting a one-sided arms race. r:=::=:) A slow recognition by the Arne r i cans that the Soviet Union was not interested in having a minimum deterrent force of ICBMs, but instead, thought it would ,be nice to have 50% more. r:=::=:~ The U.S. failure to recognize India's military nuclear preparations. In all of these, "cherished beliefs and comforting assumptions about the good faith and common interest of a potential adversary play a very large role. "69 The victims themselves turned out to be the deceivers. The adversaries only had to help them along with their be 1i efs. Hitler and Chamberlain promised "Peace in our time." For over a decade, the Americans consistently underestimated the number of ICBMs, SLBMs, and bombers that the Soviets had in their strategic arsenal. 126 While there are dangers of underestimating the enemy, there are equal dangers of overestimating them. Exaggerated fears lead to timid diplomacy and generous concessions and provide the opponent with undeserved bargaining power. These fears 1ead to reckless military policy (before World war I, overestimation of the offense led to inflexible and explosive mobilization plans), and lost opportunities (British fear of gas attacks led to a shortage of antiaircraft guns and shelters; today, the price of strategic weapons means fewer conventional forces). 72 Overestimates reduce the options available in crises. Once Germany and Russia had decided to mobilize in World War I, both the Kaiser and the Czar requested partial mobi 1 i zations. They were told that only full mobilization was possible ---partial mobilization would disrupt the timetable, give the advantage of the offense to the enemy, and lead to catastrophe. The British Genera1 Staff appraisal of the consequences of standing up to Hitler at Mun1ch left,~he cabinet no option but to capitulate.'J Worse, overestimates can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. "Reactions to everesti mates can 1ead the opponent to counteractions that pose new, real threats. American acceleration of strategic weapons production and pronouncements of nuclear superiority following the bomber-and missile-gap scares were major incentives 7! for the Soviets to sneak missiles into Cuba."'~ 127 During World War I, the British Admiralty initially resisted the introduction of the convoy system because they were the vict1ms of a deception that they themselves had started. Its effects were two-fold. First, they thought there were so many ships requiring convoys that they could not provide enough escorts. Second, they believed their casualties were not serious enough to warrant the increased defensive measures. 75 The Admiralty believed this because they had deceived themselves. While statistics showed that some 5000 vessels entered or left British ports each week, the weekly damage done by U-boats did not look particularly serious. Unfortunate1y, the number "5000" was de 1 i berate propaganda put out by the Adm ira1ty to reassure the Allies and neutrals that there was no great danger. The figure was technically correct, but it included not only ocean going ships, but also the much smaller ships like the cross-channel steamers that might enter and leave port five or more times in a single week.~ If only oceangoing ships had been takeninto account, the weekly total was around260 instead of 5000. While in one sensethe Admiralty r1gures were true, theywere deliberately intended to misleadboth the neutrals and the Germans regarding the success of the U-boat campaign.As the war developed, the fact that thesefigures were propaganda was forgott~n, 1 and the Admi ra1s took them as gospe 1 • ' 128 Underestimates are no better. They can lead weaker nations to launch surprise attacks only to discover their underestimates too late. It becomes quickly clear when these estimates are wrong. 79 Analysts predict a low probability of attack, the adversary strikes and the error is obvious; the consequences often catastrophic. Experts can have even less confidence in the accuracy of their predictions when they consider an attack unlikely and an opponent does not strike. A challenger may have planned military action but cancelled the scheduled attack for reason unsuspected by the intelligence community. An inference that the cha11 enger planned no attack would, of course, be in considerable error. Or, suspicious that a defender has guessed and is prepared, a challenger.~ay postpone military action temporarily.~ 129 ENDNOTES 1. Frank Stech, Poiitical and Military Intention Estima tion: 8 Taxonometric Analysis, (Bethesda, MD: MATHTECH, Inc., November 1979), p. 75. 2. Ibid. 3. Ibid., p. 76. 4. Ibid. I p. 77. 5. This section on dissimulation and simmulation is takenfrom John D. LeHockey, "Over-the-Horizon Assaults: Are WeDeceiving Anyone?" Proceedings, ( Annapo 1is: United StatesNaval Institute Press), pending publication. 6. Barton Whaley, "Toward a General Theo~y of Deception," The Journal of Strateg1c Studies, (Vol. 5, No. 1: March 1982), p. 183. 7. JCS Pub 1 defines miiitary deception as actions intendedto cause foreign decision makers to "derive and acceptdesired appreciations of military capabilities, intentions, operations, or other activities that evoke foreign actionsthat contribute to the originator's objectives." The definition further lists three types of military deception.They are Strategic actions which support national policiesand objectives; Tactical actions which affect the outcome of battles or local engagements; and Deoartment/Serviceactions which affect deception in doctrine, tactics, and techniques. 8. Roberta Wohlstetter, Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962). 9. Whaley, p. 185. 10. Colonel H.L. Trimble, "Lecture on Deception," at theNational War College, Washington, D.C., (January 26, 1988). 11. interview with the author. 12. Whaley, p. 188. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 130 15. U. S. Marine Corps, Military Deception: Operational Handbook 7-13, (Quantico, Virginia: Marine Corps Development and Education Command, 1986), p. 5-4. 16. Whaley proposes a hypothesis that masking is the most effective way to dissimulate or cover an operation. If masking fails, the next resort is to repackage or disguise the operation. Dazzling would be a last ditch effort to at least confuse the enemy. Similarly, mimicking is the most effective way to simulate followed by inventing, and lastly, by decoying. Taking this to another level, Whaley says that masking and mimicking simultaneously would be the most effective combination, while potentially, the least effective would be dazzling and decoying. 17. Whaley, p. 189. 18. Mathtech, Inc, Thoughts QD the Cost-Effectiveness of Deception and Related Tactics in~ Air War 1939-1945, (Washington, D.C.: Office of Research and Development, Central Intelligence Agency, March 1979), pp. 15-39. 19. Ibid., p. 17. 20. Ibid., p. 29. 21. Ibid., p, 35. 22. Ibid., p. 17. 23. see especially, Strategic Military Deception, Daniel and Herbig, ed., (New York: Pergamon Press, 1982). 24. William Reese, "Deception in a Game Theoretic Frame work," Strategic Military Deceotion, Daniel and Herbig, ed., (New York: Pergamon Press, 1982), p. 115. 25. Ibid., p, 132. 26. Ibid. 27. Ibid., p. 99. 28. Ibid., p, 113. 29. Ronald, G. Sherwin, "The Organizational Approach to Strategic Deception: Implications for Theory and Policy," Strategic Military Deception, Daniel and Herbig, ed., (New York: Pergamon Press, 1982), p. 71. · 131 30. Ibid., p. 91. 31. Paul H. Moose, "A Systems View of Deception," Strategic Mi 1 itary Deception, Daniel and Herbig, ed., (New York: Pergamon Press, 1982), p. 136. 32. Ibid., p. 149. 33. Richard J. Heuer, Jr., "Cogn1tive Factors in Deception and Counterdeception," Strategic Military Deceotion, Danieland Herbig, ed., (New York: Pergamon Press, 1982), p. 31. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid., p. 59. 36. Richard W. Bloom, ''Mi 1itary Deception: A Clinical Psychological Analysis," Proceedings of the Ninth Sympos ium: Psychology in the Department of Defense, (USAF Acad emy, Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership, USAFA-TR-84-2, 18-20 April 1984), pp. 15-19. 37. Ibid., p. 18. 38. Reginald V. Jones, "Intelligence and Deception," Intelligence Policy and National Security, Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr. and Uri Ra'anan, ed., (Hamden, Connecticut: The Shoestring Press Inc., 1981), p. 17. 39. Ibid., p. 18. 40. Ibid. 41 . Ibid. 42. Ibid. 43. Ibid., p. 19. 44. Mathtech, Inc, p. 9. 45. Ibid. 46. Ibid. I p. 14. 47. Ibid. I p. 44. 48. Ibid. 49. Ibid. I p. 45. 50. Ibid., p. 3. 132 51 . Ibid. , p. 4. 52. Ibid., p. 7 . 53. Ibid., p. 8. 54. Ibid., p. 9. 55. Michael I. Handel, "Introduction," Strategic and Operational Oeceotion in~ Second World~. Michael I. Handel, ed., (London: Frank Cass, 1987), p. 35. 56. Ibid. 57. Ibid., pp. 36-38. 58. Ibid., p. 36. 59. Ibid. 60. Ibid. 61 . Ibid., p. 36. 62. Ibid., p. 37. 63. Ibid. 64. Ibid. 65. Ibid., p. 38. 66. Jones, p. 19 . 67. Ibid. 68. Ibid., p. 20. 69. Roberta Wohlstetter, "The Pleasures of Self-Deception," The Washington Quarterly, (Volume 2, Number 4: Autumn 1979), p. 55. 70. Ibid. 71. Ibid. 72. Frank J. Stech, "Self-Deception: The Other Side of the Coin," The Washington Quarterly, (Volume 3, Number 3: Summer 1980), p. 137. 73. Ibid. 133 74. Ibid., p. 138. 75. Jones, p. 11. 76. Ibid. 77. Ibid. 78. Stech, "Self-Deception: The Other Side of the Coin," p. 138. 79. Janice Gross Stein,"Military Deception, Strategic Surprise, and Conventional Deterrence: A Political Analysis ofEgypt and Israel, 1971-1973," The Journal of Strategic Studies, (Vol. 5, No. 1: March 1982), pp. 97-98. 134 CHAPTER 1 "Doctrine, Organization, and Training for Deception·: An old joke begins this chapter on deception doctrine. You remember the one about the book listing all of Jack Benny's chariThe same can be said about the table contributions---it was empty. book on U.S. mi 1 itary deception doctrine---unti 1 recently, it to has been empty. The 1986 publication of the Marine Corps' Operational Handbook, (OH 7-13) Military Deception, and the 1988 issue of the U.S. Army's FM 90-2, Battlefield Decep~ion, finally formalized doctrine beyond the tactical level. This chapter reviews existing service doctrine on military deception; discusses a suggested organization for research, development, and implementation of deception; reviews deception training; examines the role of deception in Campaign Planning; and relationship between deception and Psvcholog1cal points out the Operations (PSYOPS). Falsifying the picture of our preparations for battle to fool the enemy is as old as war itself. From the beginning, man has sought to disguise his military intentions. The development of stratagem as a specialty is a British contribution which dates from the pre-El Alamein days in the Western Desert. It is there that deception operations came to be planned and directed by high level 135 staffs that enjoyed the confidence of field commanders, and employed specially trained and equipped troops. As pointed out 1n Chapter 4, it was born out of necessity. Without enough force to overcome the enemy, the British concentrated on outwitting him.: Military deception, as a formal process, has always been neglected. Even in World War II, with the United States heavily involved with the British in deception operations, there was no official published doctrine. As discussed in Chapter 6, there were many reasons, not the least of which was cultural. Only recently has the Department of Defense has accorded deception a high priority. In 1985, the then new Joint Requirements and Management Board (made up of the service Vice Chiefs and the Director of the Joint Staff) took "tactical deception and associated concealment, camouflage, and deception devices (such as decoys) as a paramount joint requirement."" And, as discussed later, it was not unt i 1 Ju 1 y 1988 that strategic and operational decept1on was finally published as accepted U.S. Army doctrine. During this same period, the U.S. government has started a joint program to begin a deception and disinformation program; one designed to control and coordinate national efforts in this area. The "Control and Coordination" section in Chapter 9 discusses this aspect in more detail. 136 Doctrine We turn first to the Joint Chiefs of Staff Publication 1 (JCS PUB 1) for the doctrinal definition of mi 1 itary deception. As brief1Y discussed in Chapter 1 , any attempt to examine mi 1 i tary doctrine or concepts usually begins with the definition. That is the first stumbling block. The definitions that exist are vague and, in some cases, contradictory. JCS Pub 1 defines military deception as actions intended to cause foreign decision makers to "derive and accept desired appreciations of military capabilities, intentions, operations, or other activities that evoke foreign actions that contribute to the originator's objectives." The definition further lists three types of military deception. They are Strategic, which includes those actions which support national policies and objectives; Tactical, actions which affect the outcome of battles or local engagements; and Department/Service, actions affect1ng deception in doctrine, tactics, and techniques. Appendix D contains a "G 1ossary of Terms." Strategic deception, by definition, must support long-range national interests. The Doctrine for Amphibious Operations (LFM 01) says it is conducted "under the direction of a commander superior to the ATF commander" where the latter is "kept informed of their progress. Further, it states: 137 Operations to achieve strategic deceptionare sometimes based on intentional disclosures of information of operations notintended for execution, and may inc 1udeembarkation, rehearsal, and departuretherefor. [sic] Actual operations forpurposes of strategic deception, such asair strikes and naval gunfire, are conducted over a wide area with the sameintensity at several points. Sometimes,in order to create an incorrect reaction,there is complete omission of attacks oncertain areas for as long as the situa tion wi ll perm; t. 3 Tactical deception supports immediate battlefield require ments. LFM 01 says it is usually accomplished by the advance force or the main body. Certainly tactical deception should also support the achievement of strategic objectives. The JCS definition does not distinguish between strategic and operational deception. It should. Nor does it address the different levels on which they operate and the scope of their ef fects. LFM 01 confuses strategic and operational deception. The U.S. Army as discussed in Chapter 1, recently defined the rela tionships between the levels of deception. Figure 7.1 again por trays the relationship between the different levels of deception. 4 138 ENEMY I INFLUENCES STRATEGIC CONCEPTS DOCTRINE DECEPTION I TRAINING I I FORCE STRUCTURE I MATERIEL ENEMY INTElliGENCE 1 INFLUENCES COLLECTION AND DECISION CYCLE t IOPERATIONAL MANIPULATES DECEPTION TACTICAL ENEMY PRE-BATTLE DECEPTION OPERATIOl'iAL I AND INDUCES t i Sl:STAINME~T INFLUENCES 1 DECISIONS Figure 7.1 Recall from Chapter 1 that strategic deceptions affect the enemy's total capability to wage war. They influence the enemy's concepts, doctrine, training, force structure, and materiel procurement. This, in turn, influences operational deceptions that induce the enemy towards desired pre-battle operational and sustainment decisions. 5 Operational deception supports campaigns and major operations. The deception objective at this 1eve1 is "to influence the decisions of the enemy commanders before battle occurs so the tactical outcome of battles and engagements are favorable, and subsequently exploitable op~rationally."6 It can 139 often be the unexpected initiation or use of nove1 tactics or techniques. The Egyptian use of tank-killer teams in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War is an example of the latter. If operational deceptions influence the enemy's force composition, disposition, and distribution, then Tactical deceotion manipulates the enemy's intelligence, collection, and decision cycles. 7 It drives the conduct of friendly operations. 8 Often it is an unexpected attack or unexpected technique of engaging troops at a 1oca1 1eve1. Conducted on a sma 11 er sea1e, it affects on 1y the course of a particular engagement. Camouflage is perhaps the most common example. Manuals and fublications Aside from the pub 1i cations mentioned above, the pub 1i shed doctrine has for the most part dealt with tactical military deception. Rewritten in July 1988, the U.S. Army's FM 90-2 Tactical Deceotion is now titled Battlefield Deception. It provides the Army doctrinal concepts of deception from the theater to division levels. Chapter 7 addresses "Deception in Joint, Combined, and Contingency Operations." Distributed as a complement to FM 90-2, .Ar..m.:l Bulletin 3-88, entitled, "Deception," presents "insights, lessons learned, and emerging doctrine on battlefield deception."9 Designed to stimulate thought and discussion the bulletin "focuses on three aspects of deception: its conceptual framework; emerging 140 doctrinal requirements including tactics and techniques; and lessons learned on planning and coordination (emphasis added) ... :o The U.S. Marine Corps published an Operational Handbook, OH 7-13: Military Deception. The u.s. Navy has a classified publication, NWP-34: U.S. Navy Operational Deception. Neither of these adequately address the doctrinal relationships between strategic, operational, and tactical deception. Other references, too many to mention here, are found in the back of the service publications. These references include various JCS Publications (JCS PUB), Army Regulations (AR), Army Field Manuals (FM), Marine Corps Field Manuals (FMFM), Marine Corps Operational Handbooks (OH), Marine Corps Instructional Publications ( IP), Technical Bulletins (TB), Technical Manuals (TM), Miscellaneous Films (MF), Film Bulletins (FB), Recordings, Training Films (TF), Television Tapes (TVT), Training Circulars (TC), and applicable STANAGS. Informal publications include the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College's Reference Book Techniques of Deception (RB 31-40). The problem with all but the most recent of these publication~ is that the material contained in them is either common sense or be 1ongs in other tacti ca1 manua 1s. On the one hand, they cite historical examples that are far beyond the capability of regiments, brigades, divisions or even army corps to carry out. On the 141 other, they fail to adequately address the difference between strategic, operational, and tactical deception. "It is always difficult to use historical examples as a means of formulating policy, strategy, or tactics Most importantly, while they give the reader an often misleading and all too quick look at the techniques and craft of battlefield deception, the manual[s are] neither detailed nor complete enough to serve as a guide or set of directions on how a commander should go about using tactical deception on the modern battlefield."12 Obviously, the use of strategic and operational deception requires the integration of all four elements of national power (political, economic, psychological, and mi 1itary). Not only have we not done it at the service headquarters and higher levels, it is only recently, as mentioned above, that we have even discussed these levels of deception. Organization of the Deception Staff History Unt i 1 the end of the First Wor 1d War, deception was the purview of the individual commander. A~ it was, his improvised deceptions occurred on the lower tactical and, only occasionally, at the operational level. Commanders had :alway~ been able to give the task of making the deception plan to one person. The follow 142 ing table shows the relationship between past and present deception operations. 13 PAST Deception Operations PRESENT Deception Operations (Simple} (Complex} initiated by individual leaders initiated by specialized organizations improvised, ad hoc, did not requires extensive preparations require long preparations and coordination, material support, and long lead time short-ranged, "one time shot" long-range, continuous, not ended by one operation primarily tactical; little at on a 1 1 1eve1s the operational level and less so at the strategic did not depend on feedback from requires continuous feedback target; independent action and monitoring of the enemy It was World War II and the requirement to coordinate activities between different regions and commands; between the military services; and between nations that forced the development of special permanent organizations to control deception opera tions.14 At the operational level, deception operations had to be coordinated between those who planned the operations and those who implemented them. "Troop movements had to be carefully orchest~at 143 ed and camouflaged while dummy forces had to be positioned .. the complexity of strategic deceptions required a high degree of coordination among different commands and regions. "15 This quickly became a full-time job. Figure 7.2 portrays the United States deception organization during World War II. 16 The following notes apply: 1. No actual group went under the title "U.S. Planning Agencies." These "agencies" included one planner from each of the Army, Navy, and Army Air Force and a representative of the Joint Security Control (JSC). 2. P1anned by a sub-committee of the Joint Staff Planners, deception operations were implemented by the Joint Security Control. 3. u.s. deception staffs in the Pacific were established by the Theater Commanders. 144 us Joint C!Ueto of Stalf c----i- t;S ! Pluutinc Aceacieo .... Brilieh Liaison I l i I ,.---'------.. .---·--- . European I Pacific S.W. Cblna-llv'llla-Jadla '1. I : ! Pociflc Theater Tbtr AlricUl Tb!!ater Theater Theater I I / Liaison to Indian Command Figure 7.2 U.S. Cover and Deception Agencies In the War Department, the Joint Security Control (JSC), li was an inter-service section responsible directly to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It had the responsibility to coordinate and implement the cover and deception for U.S. forces in all theaters. 18 The British World War II organization is depicted in Figure 7.3.13 Liaison between the u.s. and Britain was effected at three points: First, at the JCS and British Chiefs of Staff level. Second, each country established a liaison in the planning 145 headquarters ( i e. the JSC of the U.S. and the LCS of Br; ta; n). Third, between the two India Commands. ~----British Chief of Staff I l_______l____--,.. : London Control Section t.:.S. liaison 4 • liaiaon ! Indian Middle Continer1al lo Command East Command China/ Ii Operat10ns Burma/ , India ·-------· Figure 7.3 British Cover and Deception Agencies By November 1943, the U.S.'s Joint Security Control (JSC) had begun ,a campaign to be declared the inter-servipe and interA11 i ed coordinating body for deception methods, information, trai'ning and devices. By' this time deception in the European t~eater had become widespread, although it was still consi~ered an offbeat technique by many. Enough American and British: officers had b~~n exposed to it to produce a booml et dff demand for deception projects and p~raphernalia. 146 The problem, as JSC described it, was that no one was keeping track of what was being deve1oped, decided and taught on deceptive techniques throughout the Allied military agencies. Nor was there an office to co-ordinate specifically between the US and Britain. The resu1 t had been a series of gaffes and delays, as more agencies plunged into the decep tion business without knowing what had already been done or what was afoot else where. JSC provided the Joint Chiefs many telling examples in a report which documented the extent of enthusiasm and disarray in. Allied deception research deve1opment. '0 For example: the British and Americans had produced thousands of dummy tanks for the North African and Sicily campaigns in mid 1943, yet just two months later, commanders in Europe and the Middle East were in Washington seeking information on what might be available in the way of dummy vehicles. The British Army and U.S. Navy both developed devices for sonic warfare. The Navy's were stronger and more compact; the British had better fidelity. Neither knew about a third project under development by the U.S. Army to produce a similar device. Even the Army's normal radio traffic in the U.S. did not parallel the Navy's or Air Force's. This allowed the normal radio traffic patterns of one service to compromise the planned deceptive traffic of another. 21 147 Control ~Coordination On 8 September 1944, the U.S. Army European Theater of Operations published a "Top Secret" Cover and Deception Report (since declassified) with exhibit 5 entitled "Cover and Deception, Recommended Organization." Contained in f i 1 es at the Ar:-my War College library in Carlisle Barracks, this report had the follow ing recommendations for the organization for cover and deception: 22 1. Cover and deception is a joint operation and requires representatives from each of the services. Technical problemsrequire the staff to have these representatives in each of thecommodity areas. For example, communications experts from each ofthe services should staff .the communications section. 2. To originate, execute and control cover and deception,carefully selected, specially trained and experienced personnel exclusive direction and to be in position to direct real are required to: · · a. have the commanders complete confidence b. work closel-y with both the G-2 and the G-3. security, c. be a separate organizationhave its own permanent staff. and, for reasons of d. have specially trained deception troops under its troops asrequired. e. be the only agency dealing in cover and deception in the field. 3. The basic organization of the staff should be similar to the organization of a corps artillery staff; organized as both a separate staff and capable of commanding troops. Within this staff there should be a Plans officer, an Operations Officer, and an Administrative Officer. Also available should be communications and engineer advisors. The section should be mobile enough toestablish a tactical headquarters and take to the field. The section head shou1 d be in dai 1 y contact with the CommandingGeneral, maintain a classified intelligence room containing theenemy's estimate of friendly capabilities, and during operations, a deception operation room. 148 Roger Fleetwood Hesketh, a major in British Intelligence during World War II, was the author of Fortitude: ~ History of Strategic Deception in North Western Europe, Apr i 1 1943 to May 1945. This work preserved "a detai 1ed record of the deception operations carried out in support of the Normandy invasion .. When completed, 50 cop~es of the work, classified as 'Top Secret,' were printed for official use. "21 Hesketh turned briefly to the question of the higher direction of major deception operation. Here he made clear his disagreement with SHAEFs refusal to give its own deception staff independent access to the Supreme Commander or his Chief of Staff. Unlike 'A' Force, which conducted deception operations in the Middle East, the Ops B Sub-Section formed a part of the G-3 division of SHAEF~ And, while it retained control of the double agents in concert with the LCS and B. LA., Ops B exercised no operational direction of the deception troops. That was delegated to the Joint Commanders along with responsibility for the actual conduct of FORTITUDE SOUTH I. 21 Army group did follow the Middle East pattern in that its deception staff known as G(R) answered directly to the Commander-in-Chief and was independent of the operational staff. The head of G(R) acted as deception adviser to the service commanders and was also Commander of Specialist Troops. The practice in 12 Army Group fell somewhere between these two; its deception staff (Spec i a 1 P 1 ans Section) came under the Army Group Commander but did not command specialist troops. These organizational anoma1 i es presented obvious and potentially serious difficulties. Fo~tunately, they did not interfere with 149 FORTITUDE's ultimate success, a fact that Hesketh attributed to the highly unusual background circumstances against which the story was p 1 ayed out. Unti 1 the Allied break-out from Normandy introduced a much more fluid operational situation, 'the conditions which governed [FORTITUDE's] execution remained constant.' The FORTITUDE battle was fought and virtually won during the six weeks immediately preceding the invasion. This meant that close and continual contact between the higher command and the operators of the deception plan was not always necessary. In the event, the momentum of FORTITUDE carried on unt i 1 the end of July, but after that strategic deceptionvirtually ceased to play a major part in the conduct of OVERLORD. It may be noted that, when in the early autumn of 1944 General Eisenhower established his headquarters at Rheims, the SHAEF deceptionstaff was stationed in Versailles, nearly a hundred miles away, and that remainfld the position until the end of the war. Hesketh himself went on to say "strategic deception, if it is to succeed, must be in constant touch with the commander's thoughts The ineffectiveness of strategic deception during the latter months of the war may be partly explained by the isolation of the deception staff from the real center of control .... Is it an exaggeration to say that a commander should be as closely and as constantly informed about his shadow armies as he is about his real ones?"25 In spite of all this, drafts of proposals to revamp and strengthen the deception organization~ still being circulated in Augyst 1945. The war had ended, and "the American high command 150 never granted its deception agency the access to top-level commanders and the sweeping authority enjoyed by the London Controlling Section, a fact bitterly resented by US deception planners. "25 What Should ~ Deception Staff Look Like? Much of the difficulty in determining the best organization for deception planning and implementation revolves around the relationships between operations and intelligence. Traditionally, intelligence agencies are characterized by large~' extensive 27 specialization, and centralized management. This kind of organization "dictates a heavy re1i ance on experts and high1 y cc .;;artmenta1 i zed efforts." 28 The large size of these organizations helps conceal or misrepresent information. Bad news does not flow easily upward. Low-level analysts are easily ignored or not heard. Large organizations inhibit innovation, narrow the range of ideas, foster defensive cliques, and self-serving coalitions. Severa1 of the cures for effective work in large organizations include the use of ad hoc teams and task forces, the use of informal communication networks, and speci a 1 advisors ·at the top. However, there are inherent difficulties with each of these solutions as well. They can be hard to centro1 or monitor. 29 151 Extensjye specialization encourages rivalries and further restricts the flow of information. As protectors of their par ticular mission, areas of interest, or "rice bowls," the special ists may allow parochialism to produce misleading or irrelevant information. A consequence of defending against specialization is that redundancy may result. Competing responsibilities may overwhelm resources or misallocate them. Shared efforts can also 30 1eave gaps in coverage. Lastly, the centralized management found in large organiza tions too often finds data collection physically far removed from users. It encourages consensus agreements that sometimes conceals disagreements or diverse opinions. It can foster competition for resources and can create an i 11 us ion of re1i abi 1 i ty and secur ity.31 What does all of this have to do with an organization for deception planning? It is necessary, therefore, that the single-purposeness [sic] of any deception machine shou1d be recogn i zed from the start · and its shape dictated by the overriding need to concentrate every ounce of its diverse efforts upon that one ultimate target. As a corollary it. follows that those who direct the deception machine must have an adequate knowledge of the small group of men on whom all their activities are focused, of their national characteristics, their 1anguages, thoughts and professi ona1 152 methods with all their strengths and their weaknesses. It is this note on personalities which leads to the next principle, which is a foundation stone in the successful appli cation of deception. Deception is essen tially an Art and not a Science, and those who practice it must be recognized as falling into the category of artists and not of artisans. This is difficult to accept in professional military cir cles where it is widely believed that the Art of War can be taught to the average educated man even though he may have 1itt1e aptitude for it. But, neverthe less, it is true that frequently highly qualified and highly intelligent staff officers fail to completely cope with the work, although they do brilliantly after wards on the Operations and other staffs. What they 1ack is the sheer abi 1 i ty to create, to make something o~t of nothing, to conceive their own original notion and then to,_clothe it with realities until eventua11 y it wou 1d appear as a 1 i vi ng fact. And, since that is precisely what the Deception Staff must do all the time, it follows that the art of creation is an essential attribute in all who are char ged with such work. To expect those who have not this art to produce the required results will 1~ad to risks beyond that of mere failure.J' Once personalities have been chosen, the next step 1s to determine their relationship with the commander. Part and parcel is the necessity to understand the tasks the commander w i 11 establish for his staff. One principle that must be adhered to is the selection of the object of the deception operation or the target. The Commander himself must decide what he wants the enemy to .QQ. It matte.rs little what the enemy thinks, only what he~. 153 The commander must be cautious when tasking his Deception Staff to work out a plan 'to make the enemy, think we are going to do so-and-so' . The plan might succeed but the enemy could react to it in an unexpected way. Remember Brigadier Clarke's experience with General Wavell in Abyssinia. The Commander often blames the Deception Staff who have in fact produced exactly the results requested. "It is this boomerang effect which has made many people apprehensive of using the Deception weapon, and it cannot be stressed too strongly that, if used the wrong way, it can prove a real danger. But there is one sure way to avoid any possible risk and that is to get the object right. Given a correct "object," the Deception Plan may fail but it cannot do any harm. Give it a wrong "object" and it will invariably give wrong results."33 It is up to the Commander to decide what he wants the enemy to do, and for the deception experts to decide what the enemy must think to induce them to act in the desired manner. Who Should Control the Deception Staff? In the final analysis, deception must be controlled and organized in one of two areas: operations or intelligence (G-3 or G-2). "Ope ratiens provide the reason and rati ana1e for deception while intelligence experts supply the means." 34 Generally, deception has four phases: first, the development of the deception plan; second, its execution; third, activities designed to be sure the movements become known ~o the enemy; and fourth, evaluation of feedback to determine the enemy's reaction. 35 Because deception 154 exists only to support operations, a case can be made that is where deception should reside. That does not mean that those in charge of developing and implementing a deception plan "cannot or should not be primarily intelligence experts. "36 Handel cites a number of reasons for this. Officers very rare1 y are experts in both operations and i nte11 i gence. Most officers are trained to be "operators" regardless of their military specialty. These officers often view deception as a last resort. "G-3 officers are otherwise preoccupied with the minutiae of running an operation, training the troops, and obtaining the necessary material support (ranging from soldiers and weapons to ammunition and food). The use of troops for pure1y deceptive operations strikes them as a waste of scarce resources. "37 Lastly, Handel remarked that operators with little intelligence background often believe, erroneously, that their own problems ~nd limitations are as well known by the enemy as by themselves. Intelligence experts have a different problem. Handel pointed out that having little operational experience may prevent them from knowing what is reasonable and what the enemy can be expected to believe. Further, if these specialists are not fully familiar with the plans they must support, they will not be able to integrate the deception plan with the real plan. "Such lack of familiarity with operational details may also ~nadvertently result in a deception plan that too clbsely re•emble~ the actual one."~ 155 Ideally then, those who head deception org~nizations should be equa11 y we 11-versed in i nte11 i gence and operations. These organizations should be relatively small (recall the problems discussed regarding large organizations) to ensure secrecy. They must be very close to the commander-in-chief and his staff. While establishing a close relationship with operations, the deception staff must be thoroughly acquainted with all the capabilities of the intelligence community which will provide the feedback necessary to evaluate deception activities.39 Dudley Clarke summarizes how he believes a successful deception staff should be organized: 40 1. arranged to direct the whole of its efforts to influencing the enemy's intelligence staff. 2. composed of senior officers with a real knowledge of the enemy intelligence staff that is the target. 3. directed, as specialists in an art, by a Commander andstaff who tell them what results they require and leave them aloneto arrange the best means of obtaining those results. 4. given the objective (the manner in which the enemy isrequired to act) to further the operational plan of their own commander. Clarke concludes: "Provided these four principles are faithfully observed, it ma~ters little how the organization is shaped and it can best take'the form most suited to the nationality concerned and the theatre of war affected."'1 III 156 In the final analysis, the deception staff, like the Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF), should be task organized and depen dent upon the circumstances. "The order of battle deceptions so prominent in the Second World War may be less feasible for smaller states, whose war potential is well-known, than it is for great powers. [Mid-and High-intensity conflicts] may require more technological deception and less camouflage, while [low intensity conflicts or] short wars will pose completely different problems and opportunities . Training History During World War II, the Joint Security Control (JSC) had some In a message success encouraging training in the use of deception. sent to Admiral Nimitz and Generals MacArthur and Stillwell on 5 August 1944, the Joint Chiefs decreed: Deception training would begin the fol lowing month for teams of three officers, one each from the army, navy, and army air force. Once trained they wou 1d be assigned to each major Pacific theatre for 60-90 days on temporary tours of duty. Commanders could expect that these deception officers 'would have the full knowledge of over-all and theatre deception planning, the coordination of deception activities on an inter-theatre and inter-service basis, and the most· 157 recent deve 1opments on devices, techn iques, and special tactical deceptionunits together with the availability thereof'. Commanders could either nominate three oftheir own staff members to proceed atonce to Washington for training, or ateam would be trained for them and assigned to their staffs. The determination to put more expertise in strategicdeception at the theatre level, despiteprevious foot-dragging by the commandingofficers, was clear. .: These deception teams chalked up mixed results. At CinCPAC Headquarters in Hawaii, a small deception staff was in place and a large new plan was ready for implementation. In the South-West Pacific, suggestions concerning deception from Pentagon (outsiders' received low-priority handling. Still, by January 1945, no deception staff had been designated, and cooperation in the South- Western theater seemed d iff i cu 1t. Further west, the war had already largely by-passed the Chinese-Burma-India theater. Besides, British deception operations were so sophisticated that they discouraged even the most passionate U.S. deception prac titioners from proposing a competing American operation.u Contemporary Training As I have done throughout this study, the review of training is limited to the operational and strategic level of military deception. This is not to say that Marine Ex~editionary Forces (MEFs) and Marine Expeditionary Brigades (MEBs) should not practice 158 tactical military deception. They should. The fact most Marines are not satisfied with the level of expertise at the tactical level does not mean we should not move forward in a parallel effort to improve our capability to conduct strategic and operational deception. While they are neither inclusive or exclusive of each other, it is important to understand that strategic and operationa 1 deception often must be supported by tactical deception to ensure the target "sees" the evidence supporting the ruse. That is, though it is technically possible to conduct one level of deception, but not another, they are more often conducted simultaneously and in support of one another. Formal Schools The training addressed in this study consists of those advanced courses taught at the military's command and staff-level colleges and the more senior war colleges.··': Provided below are is a compilation of the material presented and classified by type of school. Most of the students are familiar with tactical deception (ie. camouflage and smoke). The goal of these schools should be to raise the level of experience to the political-military level 159 of strategic and operational deception. It is provided without comment. Command and Staff Colleges: For the most part, Command and Staff courses include deception in an ancillary manner and then only at the tactical level. A graduate of one command and staff college found that deception plans are rarely prepared in concert with the operati ona1 p 1 ans and are often produced as an after thought. 46 He went on to say that because of this 1ack of emphasis on content, deception plans are often shallow and unimaginative, usually counting on a supporting attack to deceive the enemy about the 1ocation of the rna in attack. 47 Discussion of Combined and Joint doctrine on strategic and operational deception is nonexistent. War Colleges: Even at this 1eve1 , few students have participated in operational or strategic deception operations. As mentioned in Chapter 1, one senior war college provides instruction on theater-level deception in three hours. At another, a lecture and seminar on deception allows two hours. As at the command and staff colleges, the war colleges discuss deception in coniunction with the various case studies examined throughout the academic year. 160 Joint Schools: The U.S. Air Force Special Operations School conducts the only separate, formal course on deception. It high1i ghts tacti ca1 deception and does not specifi ca11y address the conceptual development of either operational or strategic deception. Its objective is to acquaint students with service deception programs, equipment, application, and national-level support for joint special operations. 48 This 29-hour, "Top Secret" course is limited to officers and U.S. government civilian employees assigned or scheduled to be assigned to a special operations billet or to those providing direct support for special operations. It is divided into six classes: Joint and Individual Service Programs, Foreign Capabilities/Vulnerabilities, Support to Deception Planning and Operations, Deception Plan Development, Deception Operations Review, and a course Prac • ~ Q t1 cum. · Finally, the Unified Command Commanders-in-Chief have been offered training for their battlefield deception elements at the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and School (USAICS). Whether or not this offer has been accepted is not known. If it is, Army doctrine will become more widely accepted. 50 161 Campaign Planning This section is not meant to enter the dialogue surrounding the resurgence of interest 1n Campaign Plans. There are many articles and publications that can expiain the relevance of these plans and their roles in the achievement of operational goals and objectives. 5 ~ Rather, the focus of this section is on the in tegration of deception into campaign planning. At the risk of violating the premise just put forth, the reader should remember that a campaign plan describes or outlines the sequence of operations conducted within a theater to achieve assigned objectives. 52 It should aim at the enemy's center of gravity. Its goal is the most rapid and least expensive victory. To accomplish this, a commander determines his theater strategy and employs all four elements of national power: political, economic, psychological, and military.=~ The Marine Corps' ability to train, organize, equ1p, and implement deception operations is dependent on a clear understanding of the purpose of campaign plans. Campaign plans should:·q 1. provide broad concepts of operations and sustainment toachieve strategic mi 1itary objectives in a theater of war ortheater of operations; serve as the basis for all other planningand clearly define what is success. 2. provide an orderly schedule of strategic military decisions; display the commander's vision and intent. 162 3. orient on the enemy's center of gravity. 4. phase a series of related major operations. 5. compose subordinate forces and designate command re1ationships. 6. provide operational direction and task subordinates. land, and sea efforts into a cohesive 7. synchronize air,and synergistic whole; be joint in nature. The key ingredients of campaign plans are the assumptions, theater objectives, missions, phasing, maneuver, fire support, control measures, logistics, and deception operations that go into These are the areas of substance that insure full understand it. ing and transmit the theater commander's intent.55 It is this last point that we address. Given the amount of mi 1 i tary resources i nvo 1ved in a campaign, deception is a necessity in order to concea1 the true intentions, capabilities, objectives, and locations of vulnerabilities within the theater. The campaign plan should direct the use of every available resource with; n the theater in order to project a plausible deception that conceals upcoming operations from the enemy. This will necessarily involve the use of some combat forces to make it convincing. Combat support units and reserve units are well~ sui ted to accomp 1ish deception measures. 50 While all of this may seem straight forward and a matter of common sense, the fact is "there exists today no properly sane 163 tioned doctrine for campaign planning in either the joint or . d .. 57 comb 1 ne arenas. Further, campaign plans are not an integral part of the joint planning process. Consider for a moment the impact these statements have on the development of a doctrine for strategic and operational deception. With no coordination between the services or the unified commands, how can deception doctrine be imp 1emented 1et a 1one deve1oped? Like the campaign p1an, deception operations cannot spring into existence only after a war starts, but "continues through time as the operational extension of the commander-in-chief's theater strategy for peace and crisis, as wel 1 as war. "58 Who shou1d prepare Campaign Pl ans?5'3 The theater of war Commanders-in-Chief are the principle developers of campaign plans. They are the ones who must transform ,, strategic military concepts into instructions for the next lower 1eve1: who, when, where, why, and how. Other joint force commanders may prepare campaign plans. "For example, the theater Special Operations Command, as a subordinate unified command of the theater of war CINC, may develop a campaign plan if assigned a broad continuing mission that includes a strategic objective. Also, a combined special operations command may develop a campaign p 1an. "50 What does this mean for the Marine Corps? Usually Joint Task Forces (JTFs) are established only to achieve specific and limited 164 objectives. They will write operations plans to support their activity. If, however, they are assigned a mission of sufficient scope that requires phased operations to achieve a strategic objective, JTFs may develop campaign plans. Joint command components with warf i ghti ng ro1es "deve1op ooeration p 1ans to direct major operations in support of war or theater of operations campaign plans. Components with sustainment (supply, services) roles prepare plans for support (emphasis added). 61 It is the campaign plan that coordinates all of these efforts. The Marine Corps and its forces, as command components, may not be directly involved in the preparation of campaign plans. Nevertheless, Marines should understand how a campaign plan is supported by subordinate operations plans and their associated deception operations. The Marine Corps provides contingents to unified and specif ied commands. These forces are normally assigned to the unified or specified commands or attached to Join Task Forces (JTFs). These forces operate within two distinct chains of command, one for operations and one for administrative and logistic matters. Figure 7.4 displays this relationship. 62 165 ~ ORGANIZATION FOR NATIONAL SECUHITY -"' I •cllllr ~ 0 >. I .f.) I I ..... ICS I L •c u ::J .&1111' VT ~ I _r=,....., CDIC I --___::]__ tl) c CDIC -OIUUDCIIIIlS -SftafDDCIGIS 0 ..... .f.) I r I I I z., -.ra c.. CW>I ama ~·CMD:I --ONriiD CIID5 10an T.&.9& ~· -