This briefing derives from a study conducted on the role of information in peace operations, with NATO-led operations in Bosnia as the case study. Evidence Based Research (EBR) and National Defense University (NDU) sponsored this study.
At the request of the organizers, this brief focuses on information activities support to international organizations during the IFOR and SFOR missions. All opinions expressed in this brief are my own and do not necessarily represent an official viewpoint of the U.S. Government, NDU or EBR.
I will first give a brief overview of the overall information activities campaign, examine why it was important to support international organizations, give a brief typology of the support, analyse and assess in turn the public information support and the PSYOP support, and conclude with some thoughts for the future.
During Joint Endeavour and Joint Guard, IFOR ran an “information campaign” designed to “seize and maintain the initiative by imparting timely and effective information within the commander’s intent”. The campaign was articulated around three components:
The objectives of the campaign were threefold:
Cooperation with IOs was vital for establishing a viable peace. There will be no overall success without civilian success. There is no such thing as military success and civilian failure. They are intertwined, it is a civil-military operation after all. In that context, cooperation with the international organizations was as important for a successful exit-strategy as maintaining the ceasefire between the former belligerents. The objective of this support was thus selfish. NATO helped the IOs enhance their operations so that IOs would have a better chance to succeed. Civilian success would, in turn, facilitate IFOR/SFOR goals.
Thus, IFOR and SFOR PI were tasked with providing information support to various international organizations. PI was instructed to “maintain close cooperation with the numerous organizations involved in the civil implementation of the GFAP.” PSYOP was instructed to “support the OHR and other international civil organizations.”
To determine when and how to grant support, IFOR and SFOR established the following criteria:
Activities conducted as part of IFOR/SFOR normal operations that provide support to IOs
IFOR/SFOR activities conducted at the request of and for the IOs' benefit
Combined activities supporting NATO and IOs
IFOR and SFOR engaged in a wide variety of actions that supported (directly or indirectly) the IOs’ operations. These various actions fall into three categories: Indirect support, direct support and mutual support.
Indirect support refers to IFOR/SFOR activities conducted as part of normal operations and that provided support to the IOs. Indirect support is a fall-out of IFOR/SFOR normal activities and included:
Direct support refers to IFOR/SFOR activities coordinated with IOs and designed to enhance their information programs. Direct support is a proactive process, with IFOR/SFOR expanding normal activities to satisfy IO requirements. Direct support actions include:
Mutual support refers to activities undertaken by NATO and the PCOs in combination that support both NATO and the civilian organizations. Such activities serve NATO and PCOs’ interests and include:
IFOR and SFOR PI provided two types of support:
Such support activities yielded benefits for both IFOR/SFOR and the PCOs.
With the daily combined briefing, the international community sought to present itself as united in a common effort in support of DPA implementation. The participants did not pretend to agree on every issue. But by agreeing to brief together, the international community promoted the idea that, albeit with different perspectives, they were working together on behalf of B-H.
The close cooperation that resulted from these combined activities promoted mutual understanding and better comprehension of each other’s effort, thus reduced tensions, minimised the likelihood of contradictory or confrontational public statements and of public disagreements of one another.
Generally, benefits are offset by limits and problems. In that case, there were no major inconvenients or overburdening costs to the PI support to international organizations.
In the field of PSYOP, IFOR and SFOR information campaign task forces provided the following support:
The PSYOP support bore benefits for the international organizations who requested it as support enhanced their information campaigns. For example, neither the OSCE, nor the UNMAC could have run the campaigns they ran without PSYOP support.
However, there were some significant shortfalls in the PSYOP support to international organizations:
In all fairness, it is difficult to assess the effectiveness of the PSYOP campaign in support of IOs because the CJICTF faced a number of challenges in measuring the effectiveness of its activities. The CJICTF used basic measures of effectiveness. The CJIICTF documented the distribution of products and compiled anecdotal evidence on peoples’ reactions. But these measures gave scant insight into how the people perceived the issues raised and whether and how the IC influenced their perceptions. Not specific to this operation, the IC lacked adequate tools and resources to conduct systematic assessment of its impact.
To provide timely and effective support to the International Organizations, IFOR/SFOR needed to establish coordination mechanisms.
The PI main coordination mechanism occured just prior to the daily combined briefing. At the pre-briefing meeting, IFOR/SFOR and PCOs’ spokesmen presented what they intended to brief, exchanged information, and de-conflicted sensitive issues if needed. It was the best kind of meeting: short (15’) and effective. It allowed all organizations to work in a climate of trust and confidence, enabling them to de-conflict sensitive issues and to provide more accurate information.
The PI also initiated a weekly Joint Information Coordination Committee designed to gather all purveyors of information (civilians, PI, IC, civil information) to look at mid-to-long term issues. This coordination meeting was not as effective. First, several IOs found it redundant with the daily pre-brief mtg and felt they could do without. From the point of view of the PSYOP, the meeting was not very useful, mostly because it did not seem to enhance significantly the flow of information between the IOs and the CJICTF.
Thus to facilitate its coordination with IOs, IFOR CJICTF decided to establish a liaison. A young Sergeant, the LNO identified points of contacts within the IOs, presented PSYOP capabilities and detected opportunities for support. However, there were some shorfalls. The LNO worked without guidance and developed an unsophisticated and opportunistic approach to advertising support.
What conclusions can we draw from the Bosnia experience?
Support to IOs is critical to mission accomplishment in this type of operation. I repeat, there is no such thing as success without civilian success.
Information activities support is valuable because it bears positive benefits: It enhances PCO operations and promote an image of unity and cooperation which facilitates the military’s operations (less pressure on commanders, can affect how the ‘adversary’ maneuvers). It bears these benefits at a low-cost investment. Indeed, most of this support is indirect, thus most activities would be undertaken anyway. The marginal cost to do more is relatively low compared to benefits it can yield.
But, before yielding these benefits, some obstacles have to be overcome:
To go from the general to the particular, I would make the following recommendations:
The PIO support during Joint Endeavour and Joint Guard to date is a template for future operations. With two simple mechanisms (daily briefings, and pre-brief mtg), IFOR/SFOR disposed of the UNPROFOR’s legacy of confrontation and acrymonous civil-military relations. By accounts of civilian and military spokesmen, this was the most comprehensive and effective civilian-military cooperation process for PI in a multinational operation.
The PSYOP support does not quite get a thumbs up yet.
The support enhanced IO operations, in particular the OSCE information campaigns for the elections and the MAC campaign for mine awareness. Each time, PSYOP pulled the effort needed ‘to make things happen’.
But some improvements are needed: