OPINION — U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) is expanding its Military Information Support Operations (MISO) because in the current environment, “great power competition is about influence, and SOF [Special Operations Forces] has a unique and valuable role in this."
Those were the words of SOCOM Commander, Army Gen. Richard D. Clarke, last Tuesday as he keynoted the National Defense Industrial Association’s Special Operations Forces Industry Conference.
“If we look at the ability to influence and shape this environment, we are going to have artificial intelligence and machine learning tools specifically for information operations,” Clarke told an online audience of some 4,000 signed-up participants for the five-day conference that, because of the coronavirus, was being held online.
In 2018, SOCOM was assigned the mission to field the Defense Department’s worldwide MISO capability to “address the opportunities and risks of global information space.”
SOCOM’s website describes the ultimate objective of MISO “to convince enemy, neutral, and friendly nations and forces to take actions favorable to the United States and its allies.”
In February 2019, Clarke’s predecessor, Army Gen. General Raymond A. Thomas, III, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that MISO’s campaign efforts were “focused on disrupting the financial, messaging, and foreign terrorist fighter networks that enable and sustain VEOs [violent extremist operations]. Severing these conduits will degrade and disrupt VEO attacks against the US homeland.”
Clarke told his audience last week that the war on terrorists remains a long-term priority. "This is a generational fight that SOCOM is going to be involved in for the long haul," he said.
During a recent trip to Afghanistan, Clarke said he found that commanders now spend 60 percent of their time working in the information battlefield. “Commanders think about how to use the information space to influence the Taliban’s thought processes and how to influence the Afghan population,” Clarke said.
Broadening that out, Clarke suggested, “So, as we think about the information [war], how we do this locally, but we also think about it regionally; it’s going to be critical to the US ability to be able to be successful in future fights.”
In the past, SOCOM’s influence depended on the physical presence of small teams of special operations forces spread across 85 countries throughout the world. Now, Clarke says, “I am convinced working in information space can have the greatest impact in the coming year.”
Clarke admitted, “We still need guys that can kick down the door, that can shoot well, can jump out of airplanes, can fly our special operators. We need all those men and women in our formations…But we also need coders. We also need leaders who can apply artificial intelligence.”
He described how artificial intelligence had developed predictive maintenance for helicopters and as a result “we’ve increased their readiness and their lethality.” AI teams are also working with forward forces and feeding data for quicker decision making. AI is also being used to keep a record of information that the enemy puts out publicly so the US can counter it and tap Special Forces to respond when needed.
It’s also possible in the future, Clarke said, that “The most important person on a mission may not be the special operator who kicks in the door, but it could be the cyber operator, who can work his or her cyber tools into the fight.” The new tools will help determine “how the adversary is thinking and how populations are thinking” and allow SOCOM to “work in those spaces” making sure “messages resonate,” he added.
To a degree, Clarke’s words echoed SOCOM’s website definition of MISO as a way of using information operations during peacetime, in contingencies, or even wartime, as “force multipliers that use nonviolent means in often violent environments. Persuading rather than compelling physically, they rely on logic, fear, desire or other mental factors to promote specific emotions, attitudes or behaviors.”
MISO growth in SOCOM has been steady.
Two active duty Military Information Support Groups (MISGs)—the 4th Military information Support Group (MISG) (Airborne) and 8th Military Information Support Group (MISG) (Airborne)—are stationed at Fort Bragg, and their subordinate units are aligned with Geographic Combatant Commands around the world.
A Joint MISO WebOps Center (JMWC) has been created to replace SOCOM’s previous Global Messaging/Counter Messaging Center and plans call for it to achieve full operating capability by the end of fiscal year 2025. Its ranks include regional experts and linguists who understand political, cultural, ethnic and religious subtleties with abilities to use persuasion to influence perceptions and encourage desired behavior.
Newest to be formed are Social Media Analysis Cells (SMAC) within the JMWC. In February 2019, the then-Pentagon deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations and combating terrorism, Andrew Knaggs, said at a symposium, “We need to move beyond our 20th century approach to messaging and start looking at influence as an integral aspect of modern irregular warfare.”
He was talking about what he described as “technologies that enable us to operate in bandwidth-constrained environments…that enable us to do more locally, rather than having an extended, highly robust logistical tail."
In short, the SMACs appear to be the US version of Russian GRU intelligence units whose social media operations interfered with the US’ 2016 presidential elections, the 2018 congressional elections and are still working today.
These new SMAC elements are to be country specific, according to current online advertisements for personnel to staff them. Northrop Grumman is seeking someone for SMAC with “applied experience in social/new media engagement, social and cultural understanding, linguistic skills, and geo-political knowledge (including USG policy) of the following areas/problem sets: China.” That person, among other things will “Produce predictive recommendations and identify anticipated strategic communications opportunities,” and “collaborate with cross functional teams to develop strategies to reach local target audiences and support communications plans.”
One other geographic area specifically mentioned in another Northrop Grumman ad was the Korean Peninsula. The company is also seeking a manager for “the SMAC team” with a background in the areas of Venezuela/Northwestern Hemisphere; China; Russia; and Iran, according to another ad.
“We still need great people,” Clarke told his virtual audience, referring to traditional, special forces warriors. “But as we look at this, we have to look at how we’re recruiting [different] talent and how we’re bringing them in into SOCOM.”
To recruit candidates for information warfare jobs, he said he recently had visited Stanford, Navy post-graduate school, MIT, Harvard, and Tufts to drum up interest and to promote a SOFWERX internship program that brings security-cleared, college juniors and seniors to that organization to work on projects.
Internships will give young men and women exposure and a trial run. To meet competition from industry, Clarke said, “We are looking at contracts to bring in highly qualified experts into our formations so that they can infuse some of their knowledge of AI and machine learning into SOCOM.”
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