Military disinformation: A bodyguard of lies

Communist North Vietnam had 'bombarded our domestic opinion with continuing propaganda' until the American public, wearied by the media's focus on blood and carnage, balked at further sacrifice, turned against its political proponents, and demanded peace. Two years later, General Ronald Fogelman of the US Air Force formally identified information as 'the fifth dimension of war' while acknowledging that 'Dominating this information spectrum is going to be critical to military success in the future'. Military disinformation in Afghanistan and Iraq was driven by close cooperation between the US and British governments. The information arrangements for the second Gulf War offer a model disinformation campaign. Thus, the message 'cascaded down to the rest of the propaganda apparatus' from the White House. In Green's view, 'by overstating the role and value' of radio in the counter-insurgency, 15 Psy-Ops had been 'psy-oping the home team'.