Information Warfare Observations

The Bill Roggio reporting of NY Times reporter Stephen Farrell being kidnapped is an interesting discussion. It has become even more interesting as the fallout from the rescue of the reporter has hit the British press. The British press is asking questions whether military force should have been used to rescue the NY Times reporter after his assistant, two civilians, and a British soldier were killed in the rescue.

Hostage negotiators expressed anger at the raid, saying they were within days of securing the peaceful release of Farrell and his assistant Sultan Munadi from the Taliban, according to newspapers in London.

And the death of a soldier in the raid sparked anger in the British army here, the Daily Telegraph said, after claims Farrell brushed aside security advice by venturing into a Taliban stronghold.

"When you look at the number of warnings this person had it makes you really wonder whether he was worth rescuing, whether it was worth the cost of a soldier's life," a senior army source told the Telegraph.

The Times newspaper, quoting defence sources, said the raid was mounted after British forces feared Farrell could be moved, and there were no guarantees that the negotiations would have led to his and Munadi's release.

However, several sources quoted by the newspaper said that the kidnappers were, at worst, seeking a ransom.

"There was no immediate urgency that they were going to be beheaded or handed over to another group. You cannot move them easily. It's a very isolated area," a Western source involved in the talks told The Times.

Some of this is typical media Monday morning quarterbacking. Had the rescue gone smoothly, many of these issues would never have seen the light of day. Shit happens in war though, and this time people died.

Bill Roggio was not the first reporter to report the kidnapping of NY Times reporter Stephen Farrell. Afghan province governor Eng. Mohammaed Oma announced it as soon as it happened, and FOCUS reported the kidnapping a day before Bill Roggio did. Bill was the first US mainstream (sorry Bill, you graduated MSM U long ago) reporter to report the kidnapping, so he is taking the heat for it fairly or not. The ethical arguments are already in discussion here, here, and here. Bill's defense is pretty straight forward.

I speak as someone who has reported from both Iraq and Afghanistan since 2005. To me, this is simple. Either a kidnapping is news, or it isn't. When soldiers, contractors, etc. are kidnapped, it is news. When a reporter is kidnapped, it is also news.

I think these two stories are interesting when considered together, because it sort of looks like the British Army attempted the rescue instead of waiting for negotiations specifically because Stephen Farrell is a high profile NY Times reporter. It was a judgment call and the operation wasn't executed flawlessly, but regardless how negotiations were proceeding at the time of the raid, the celebrity of the kidnapping victim would almost certainly be one of many factors considered in whether the rescue would be attempted.

I am not an Afghanistan theater information warfare expert, but I do know quite a bit about information warfare, cyber warfare, and strategic communications in government, and I probably spend a bit too much time observing the way the Navy handles strategic communications.

I see this event as an example where our national approach to information warfare and strategic communications is not coordinated well. Bill Roggio's defense for reporting the kidnapping is centered around an equality argument between a reporter and a soldier in the war zone. There is nothing inappropriate behind his relative comparison, but in the context of information warfare a soldier and a reporter are not equal.

It may not be fair, but it is fact that when a reporter gets caught up in war, whether kidnapped or killed, there is a great deal more press coverage of the incident than when a soldier is kidnapped or killed. The enemy knows this; the tactic has long been part of their information war campaign. This isn't about equality of life, it is about the enemy seeking the inequity of publicity that favors the kidnapping of a high profile media individual relative to the lesser publicity given the kidnapping or killing of a soldier.

Did anyone notice that there are already more news articles written about the events surrounding the kidnapping of Stephen Farrell than articles discussing the death of Lance Corporal Joshua Bernard, and Lance Corporal Joshua Bernard's death includes all the publicity associated with the photo by Julie Jacobson - and the attention Secretary Gates gave the photo issue. No one says the inequity is fair; life, love and war never is.

We have gone from embedded reporters riding with the front line military units in Iraq to the way the press covers war today with their stringer army, and somehow in the information age an event like this gives the impression both the press and the military continue to struggle with the nature of information warfare. The kidnapping of the reporter is a fairly obvious propaganda effort intended to support the enemies information warfare campaign. Bill Roggio wasn't attempting to contribute to enemy propaganda by reporting the news, but that is exactly what he did.

There appears to be something preventing the press and military in developing a mutual understanding of how the enemy creates events for purposes of propaganda. The kidnapping of a reporter is a legitimate news story, but how do we reconcile it as a legitimate news story when the press reporting of the kidnapping is part of the enemies objective? This kidnapping highlights the deteriorating security situation in the northern province of Kunduz (and neighboring Baghlan), as Bill Roggio reported. That is important news and should not be censored, particularly at a time when the President is developing his policy for the war.

I think the incident highlights that for the purposes of information warfare, the enemy has intentionally made the press part of the war in Afghanistan, whether they want to be part of it or not. I do not see consistency in the press in adjusting to this reality, and I am not sure what the role of the military is in addressing the situation.

How do we address the skill used by the enemy in exploiting the press towards their strategic objective of creating political friction in our war policy while also protecting the press in the warzone from censorship? General McCrystals strategy appears to align promises, policy, words, and actions as a strategic communication effort to discredit the Taliban and convince the Afghanistan population that the ISAF and the Afghanistan government offers the people and the country the better future. I do wonder if our skill in information warfare is as effective in exploiting the enemy as they clearly are in exploiting us, because the success of our information warfare strategy in this counterinsurgency will be as critical as our success in combat.