IR 360 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: White Propaganda, Arms Control, Al-Qaeda
1 May 2018
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Strategic Denial & Deception
POSC/IR 360
Unit Eleven
What Is Strategic Denial and Deception?
Denial:
• Attempts by an opponent to block information which can be used to learn the truth
• Passive obscuring of critical information on intentions and capabilities
• Limit access to info
Deception:
• Attempts to cause an adversary to believe that something is not true – but is, or that
something is true – but isn’t
• An active effort to shape wrong conclusions within the thinking of an adversary
• Shape perceptions of information, shape fact to your convenience
Strategic:
• At the highest level
• Affects the nation’s fortunes
• If local the consequences will be exponentially greater
• Local demonstration is only because it has greater value
• Not tactical but may be operational
How Does It Work?
A. Denial and Deception Are Related
a. Hard to have one without the other
b. Cannot have good deception unless you limit info, and the other side will figure
out deception if they have too much info
B. Propaganda (latin meaning is “teaching”) and Deception
• White propaganda- official position, but it is true
• Black propaganda- not true
• Gray propaganda- some of it is true, some of it is not true
• Usually start with white, then gray, then when you are trusted you do black
The Role of Channels and Methods (relied on the way information is conveyed very heavily)
• Denial and channels
• Denial works best if you can just strangle the channel
• Blocking and then controlling existing channels will accomplish denial
• Closed societies, or denied areas (difficult to know, difficult to get into, difficult to see)
• Denied areas (many parts of the world that are no-go zones)
• Counter-deception- like the Iraqis engaged in heavy counterdeception campaign to make
the west think what was happening wasn’t really happening
• Intelligence channels- infect the other side through their own intelligence channels
• Diplomatic channels- if you can convince their diplomats that things are a certain way,
that is effective
• Propaganda channels- color their propaganda channels with your viewpoint
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Denial: attempts by an opponent to block information which can be used to learn the truth, passive obscuring of critical information on intentions and capabilities, limit access to info. Strategic: at the highest level, affects the nation"s fortunes. If local the consequences will be exponentially greater: local demonstration is only because it has greater value, not tactical but may be operational. In peace (maybe in the twilight between war and peace) We typically don"t have complete peace or complete war in the world, so there is probably another level because we still have dandd: training for the impossible (to try to understand this like trying to fly upside down) A taxonomy of strategic denial and deception: statistical challenges are hard to reconcile with. How is d&d practiced? opponents: action- undertake it, feedback- have to have in place a way (through intel analysis or intercepts) that tells you the other side took the bait, strategic coherence.
