If You Think This Is A Tinfoil Hat Story...

...then you'll have to buy the fact that the BBC Pentagon correspondent paid a visit to the Alcoa Haberdashery. This transcends being called a "Holy Shit" story. Try "Holy Motherf***ing Shit on a Nuclear Chariot Driven Sidecar."

Okay. Maybe it's too much for you to read. So for GOD'S sake, read the bold print. But sit down first.

US plans to 'fight the net' revealed
By Adam Brookes
BBC Pentagon correspondent

A newly declassified document gives a fascinating glimpse into the US military's plans for "information operations" - from psychological operations, to attacks on hostile computer networks.

Bloggers beware.

As the world turns networked, the Pentagon is calculating the military opportunities that computer networks, wireless technologies and the modern media offer.

From influencing public opinion through new media to designing "computer network attack" weapons, the US military is learning to fight an electronic war.

The declassified document is called "Information Operations Roadmap". It was obtained by the National Security Archive at George Washington University using the Freedom of Information Act.

Officials in the Pentagon wrote it in 2003. The Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, signed it.

The "roadmap" calls for a far-reaching overhaul of the military's ability to conduct information operations and electronic warfare. And, in some detail, it makes recommendations for how the US armed forces should think about this new, virtual warfare.

The document says that information is "critical to military success". Computer and telecommunications networks are of vital operational importance.

Propaganda

The operations described in the document include a surprising range of military activities: public affairs officers who brief journalists, psychological operations troops who try to manipulate the thoughts and beliefs of an enemy, computer network attack specialists who seek to destroy enemy networks.

All these are engaged in information operations.

Perhaps the most startling aspect of the roadmap is its acknowledgement that information put out as part of the military's psychological operations, or Psyops, is finding its way onto the computer and television screens of ordinary Americans.

"Information intended for foreign audiences, including public diplomacy and Psyops, is increasingly consumed by our domestic audience," it reads.

"Psyops messages will often be replayed by the news media for much larger audiences, including the American public," it goes on.

The document's authors acknowledge that American news media should not unwittingly broadcast military propaganda. "Specific boundaries should be established," they write. But they don't seem to explain how.

"In this day and age it is impossible to prevent stories that are fed abroad as part of psychological operations propaganda from blowing back into the United States - even though they were directed abroad," says Kristin Adair of the National Security Archive.

Credibility problem

Public awareness of the US military's information operations is low, but it's growing - thanks to some operational clumsiness.

When it describes plans for electronic warfare, or EW, the document takes on an extraordinary tone. It seems to see the internet as being equivalent to an enemy weapons system.

Late last year, it emerged that the Pentagon had paid a private company, the Lincoln Group, to plant hundreds of stories in Iraqi newspapers. The stories - all supportive of US policy - were written by military personnel and then placed in Iraqi publications.

And websites that appeared to be information sites on the politics of Africa and the Balkans were found to be run by the Pentagon.

But the true extent of the Pentagon's information operations, how they work, who they're aimed at, and at what point they turn from informing the public to influencing populations, is far from clear.

The roadmap, however, gives a flavour of what the US military is up to - and the grand scale on which it's thinking.

It reveals that Psyops personnel "support" the American government's international broadcasting. It singles out TV Marti - a station which broadcasts to Cuba - as receiving such support.

It recommends that a global website be established that supports America's strategic objectives. But no American diplomats here, thank you. The website would use content from "third parties with greater credibility to foreign audiences than US officials".

It also recommends that Psyops personnel should consider a range of technologies to disseminate propaganda in enemy territory: unmanned aerial vehicles, "miniaturized, scatterable public address systems", wireless devices, cellular phones and the internet.

'Fight the net'

When it describes plans for electronic warfare, or EW, the document takes on an extraordinary tone.

It seems to see the internet as being equivalent to an enemy weapons system.

"Strategy should be based on the premise that the Department [of Defense] will 'fight the net' as it would an enemy weapons system," it reads.

The slogan "fight the net" appears several times throughout the roadmap.

The authors warn that US networks are very vulnerable to attack by hackers, enemies seeking to disable them, or spies looking for intelligence.

"Networks are growing faster than we can defend them... Attack sophistication is increasing... Number of events is increasing."

And, in a grand finale, the document recommends that the United States should seek the ability to "provide maximum control of the entire electromagnetic spectrum".

US forces should be able to "disrupt or destroy the full spectrum of globally emerging communications systems, sensors, and weapons systems dependent on the electromagnetic spectrum".

Consider that for a moment.

The US military seeks the capability to knock out every telephone, every networked computer, every radar system on the planet.

Are these plans the pipe dreams of self-aggrandising bureaucrats? Or are they real?

The fact that the "Information Operations Roadmap" is approved by the Secretary of Defense suggests that these plans are taken very seriously indeed in the Pentagon.

And that the scale and grandeur of the digital revolution is matched only by the US military's ambitions for it.

How insane has this country gone? Seems never insane enough with these crackheads at the wheel. Suddenly, the cartoon in the post below doesn't seem so funny anymore.

Thanks, Mark Richards - we think...

Comments

[darms, Austin, TX]

Hoff, can we please have a link to the original document? Thanx in any case, in advance

[Thomas Ware]

Ah...lots of newbies from Atrios. Click the story's headline.

[Jeff Puyallup]

Did Ya'll realy think the Defense Dept. would not try to Infiltrate "The internet" and use it as a PSYOPS Opportunity? Where in the fuck have you been? Jesus Christ youngins, Read the book "COINTELPRO" from 19 fucking 70....

[Ray Radlein]

Heck, if the Pentagon really wants to take out the internet, all they need is three or four strategically-placed backhoes. They're the natural predator of the internets.

[Jennifer]

The good news is that when they do knock out every communications system on planet Earth, that'll be it. Enter the Four Horseman and Jessica Alba in those tight leather pants!

[ebw]

Posts:
http://wampum.wabanaki.net/vault/2005/12/002190.html
http://wampum.wabanaki.net/vault/2005/12/002197.html

email (excerpt) with NPS and Maxwel AFB librarians:
I was reading Greta Marlatt's 06/00 IO bibliography. All the URLs generate 404s,
so I wrote the NPS librarian. The NPS librarian replied that it appears that th
e Air University site has been re-configured.

The refering page is:
http://library.nps.navy.mil/home/bibs/IOtheses.htm

The URLs that now generate 404 messages are:
www.au.af.mil/au/database/projects/ay1999/max_pap/mp15.pdf
www.au.af.mil/au/database/research/ay1998/awc/98-059.htm
www.au.af.mil/au/database/projects/ay1998/awc/98-059.pdf
www.au.af.mil/au/2025/volume1/chap01/v1c1-1.htm
www.au.af.mil/au/2025/volume1/chap01/vol1ch01.pdf
www.au.af.mil/au/2025/volume3/chap02/v3c2-1.htm
www.au.af.mil/au/2025/volume3/chap02/vol3ch02.pdf
www.au.af.mil/au/2025/report.htm

email (excerpt) with Christopher Rhodes, Wall Street Journal, 01/25/06:
Its fair to say (a) a lot of guys in uniform don't know the size of the genie
they are letting out of the bottle, and (b) few people outside of the OSD's
IO groups are aware of the nature, and scale, of targeting of data networks
by military planners.

Let me know if you plan to work on IO.

[Mr.Murder]

The Roadmap to Peace, the roadmap to Oil, and now the Roadmap to Propaganda.

No wonder AWOL and Condi had such smirks when they said Roadmap. A funny inside joke it was. Heh.

[John]

Of course they have been doing psyops...I would say a good amount of troll traffic and some of the really crazy Rense Radio BS appearing on the web originates in the bowels of the Pentagon.
The best psyops mixes a lot of truth with actual nonsense, so that the true things are completely discredited. The whole 9/11 psyops operation has been a complete success in that so much wild shit has been said about it...any question outside the box is tin foil hat territory. Works great.
BTW...as a lowly enlisted man, I spent the better part of the summer of 1971 writing false financial documentation for an illegal intelligence operation...it was no big deal, the operation was totally useless and inconsequential, but the SOP was if you can't do it legit, fake it.
Wake up folks, we have criminality and corruption running thru all levels of our government.

[Mr. Bill]

It does kind of shine an interesting light on the latest Google/Washington fight, though, doesn't it?

[ThCapn]

Stay real, folks.

(a) The "Pentagon" (amazing things that hunk of poured concrete can do!) "gave" the world the Internet. It all began with the linking of the Dept of Defense laboratories around the country, then it expanded into the world-wide web as we know it today. Don't mention it - you're welcome.

(b) The Department of Defense no longer controls or can "take out" the Internet. It has too much redundancy and is too widely distributed. Actually, DoD now depends on the Internet for much of its interactions with its civilian support organizations. Much of the military's efforts go toward defending the integrity of the Internet from the "bad guys" (mostly hackers).

(c) The "bad guys" already use the Internet for their own Information Operations. Do you want YOUR DoD to ignore the vulnerabilities and opportunities in this powerful medium?

(d) MOST DoD policy documents are written by well-meaning, hard-working mid-level officers who are just trying to codify the common-sense required to conduct operations in the subject of the document. As the German general said in de-briefing at the end of WWII, "The problem with the Americans is that they never follow their doctrines."

[lawton watson]

This just falls into line with the Republican plan to annointe a corporate,dictatorial, facist regime. First the main stream media, elections' process , election results manipulation and now the web. I think we all knew it was coming down to this.

Does anyone with any common sense not think that very shortly we might be considered the enemy by the pentagon . Where do we get most of our information today ? The internet !

Who is the perpetrator of all this slaying of democracy . Corporate America ! Democracy is anathma to their influence and bottom line.

Democracy can only thrive in a nation comprised of three crucial ingredients : information , the rule of law and a thriving middle class. Democracy does not exist if any one of these ingredients is absent .Who in America breaks and circumvents the law daily , outources our livlyhood , imports and exploits millions for cheap labor and gives away our technological edge and intellectual license. In short the middle class is under a devestating assault as never before.

[Rev. Blogger]

The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, amended in 1972 and 1998, prohibits the U.S. government from propagandizing the American public with information and psychological operations directed at foreign audiences; and several presidential directives, including Reagan's NSD-77 in 1983, Clinton's PDD-68 in 1999, and Bush's NSPD-16 in July 2002 (the latter two still classified), have set up specific structures to carry out public diplomacy and information operations.

[Ben]

OK, so this suprises you how? And it's a problem why? Gathering intel, disrupting enemy comm, PSYOPS, and disinformation have been part of warcraft since Sun-Tu. And you act like we are the only ones chasing down this research. Grow up and deal with the fact the world is a nasty place sometimes.

Oh, and you like your internet? Thank the US DoD. They started it, not AL Gore. Your welcome.