Phil Taylor's papers
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BACK TO : The Balkans conflicts of the 1990s
Information Operations in Bosnia by Kenneth Allard 
Information Operations in Bosnia: A Soldier's Perspective Kenneth Allard My arrival at the headquarters of the US 1st Armored Division in Tuzla, Bosnia, in May 1996 came some 5 months following its deployment as the principal U.S. peacekeeping force committed to Operation Joint Endeavor. As the senior NATO observer for that sector, I participated in field and aviation operations in four of the five maneuver brigade areas, observing U.S. and allied contingents comprising MND(N) of the IFOR and paying particular attention to command and control issues. While no outside observer could acquire the in-depth knowledge possessed by the dedicated men and women who had lived this mission from its inception, the tradeoff lay in the insights gathered from soldiers at many levels, from the division to the foxhole and from units deployed throughout the area of operations. While these observations were inevitably snapshots, the issues highlighted here seem especially relevant as lessons for the future. In assessing these very preliminary findings, however, it is important to provide an operational context, since heat rather than cold, and dust rather than mud, now affected the missions of Operation Joint Endeavor. Even more remarkable were the "life support systems" which had transformed the primitive mud pits of January into the elaborate base camps of May-some of which rivaled or surpassed the facilities in Germany from which the troops had come. Above all, the political and social atmosphere of Bosnia itself was the constant backdrop to the mission. An uneasy calm prevailed throughout the region, with shooting largely confined to occasional incidents of "celebratory firing" by drunken members of the local populace, factional demonstrations in the form of cemetery visits or soccer rallies, and constant tension over the issue of apprehending war criminals. All the forces participating in Operation Joint Endeavor supported the various international teams delivering humanitarian relief, investigating war crimes, supervising elections, and preparing for the long process of reconstruction. But the principal IFOR military functions were to provide the security forces that controlled the countryside, patrolling the zone of separation between the former warring factions, and carrying out the force demobilization and weapons cantonment provisions of the Dayton Accords. Inspections of each declared weapons site were ordered in specific instructions issued to the brigades. The results of those inspections (and weapons totals) were tracked through databases maintained by the division G-2. Despite this systematic approach, there were almost daily instances in which weapons-sometimes major ones, like tanks and air defense guns-were discovered outside cantonment areas. Some of these occurrences appeared to be the result of honest mistakes, but in others there appeared to be either creative bookkeeping by the factions or outright attempts at concealment. The most consistent estimate was that possibly 70 percent of these weapons holdings had been accounted for, since Bosnia has a history, culture, and geography favoring concealment from outside powers. In carrying out these missions, the U.S. force commander was explicit in ordering that "all operations be deliberate, coordinated and documented." This guidance was strictly followed, with more similarities between the brigades than differences. Each patrol featured an effective combination of combat power, pre-planned air and fire support, multilevel communications, area knowledge, and at least some effort to appreciate the situation of the local populace. The only real differences were in the application of the principle of force protection. The four-vehicle convoy rule was rigidly enforced in every U.S. unit, but somewhat more relaxed in the multinational units, where one- or two-vehicle administrative movements were the norm. On patrols, however, three-vehicle convoys regularly featured at least three armored vehicles for consistent firepower and personal protection. And in both the U.S. and the multinational units, patrols consistently wore Kevlar helmets, flak jackets, and personal sidearms with magazines inserted. Reality Versus Perception The military tasks flowing from the varied functions of IFOR underlined both the importance of information in modern military operations and the difficulties of adapting traditional structures to new missions and technologies. The reality of Bosnia presented an uneven picture of progress and problems that contrasted sharply with inside-the-Beltway perceptions. Defense trade publications regularly featured stories about the high technology supporting the Bosnian operation-complete with seductive images of electronic maps, gigabytes of computer-transmitted information, and live imagery from UAVs. As one Washington-based official exclaimed, "...with huge bandwidths and powerful computers, we can get intelligence to where it is needed-Humvees, cockpits, ships." Because information is the lifeblood of any modern military operation, an unprecedented amount of data indeed flowed from Washington to European headquarters and intermediate staging bases. A family of wide-area networks, for example, connected NATO headquarters with the IFOR in Bosnia, passing operational and intelligence messages to the 33 nationalities comprising the coalition. The Internet was also used for everything from "morale messages" exchanged between the troops and their families to home pages carrying frequent public affairs updates. A generation of painstaking efforts in the arena of NATO communications standardization had paid off as well, with systems that provided an essential baseline of interoperability for IFOR's coalition partners. In one memorable nighttime mission that I witnessed, a close air support mission over northern Bosnia featured British Harriers vectored by offshore NATO AWACS aircraft to Norwegian forward air controllers providing direct support to a Swedish-led brigade. But elaborate information flows between higher command levels did not always translate into better support for the warfighter. In fact, life in Bosnia had not changed very much for the American soldier, because the information revolution largely seemed to stop at division level. Despite the techno-hype, subordinate brigades and battalions typically conducted operations much as they had 20 years before, with acetate-covered 1:50,000 maps, outdated communications gear, and only those sensor or reconnaissance systems organic to ground units. Unlike the popular image of a Tom Clancy "Ops Center," most tactical command centers (see figure 10-1) looked much as they had in other wars-usually housed in tents, semi-destroyed buildings, or the back ends of armored vehicles. To add in the effects of mountainous terrain (limiting line-of-sight communications), weather (either cold and muddy or hot and dusty), and computer viruses (sophisticated and ubiquitous) was to confront the new as well as the enduring qualities of military life in the field. In the apt summation of one U.S. Army general in Bosnia, "Soldiering is still an outdoor sport." And as always, the ingenuity and dedication of U.S. and NATO soldiers were critical in coping with these challenges. Command and Control It is important to recognize that the specter of the failed peacekeeping mission in Somalia pervaded much of what went on in Bosnia. In its aftermath, the fundamental question of "Who's in charge?" had become virtually synonymous with the dread specter of U.S. troops serving under foreign command. In practice, the 40-year history of NATO command arrangements had long since produced the compromise of OPCON-a kind of leasing arrangement in which the designated NATO commander directed the actions of national elements while not interfering in their internal functions. NATO's first out-of-area operation nevertheless raised almost daily "rendering unto Caesar" questions as various national elements-the United States among them-carefully weighed alliance perspectives against national interests. But on the whole, these issues were well managed through military professionalism, with newly established soldier-to-soldier relationships being especially important in the integration of the Russian brigade attached to IFOR (see below). In contrast, the largest single command and control problem in Bosnia was the failure of the Dayton Accords to designate a single authority to synchronize the military, political, and humanitarian aspects of the mission. As shown in figure 10-2, the relatively clean lines of NATO command and control contrasted sharply with the complicated and ambiguous arrangements handicapping the already difficult tasks of reconciliation and reconstruction. Especially in the American sector, civil affairs units (largely drawn from Reserve components) were used to good effect by brigade and battalion commanders whose culture emphasized initiative, accountability, and deadlines. Lacking either corresponding capabilities or these cultural attributes, their civilian counterparts were painfully slow in organizing the reconstruction efforts on which reconciliation ultimately depends. Not surprisingly, the humanitarian side of the mission consistently failed to keep pace with the improved security situation. The Russian Brigade I began an interview with the deputy commander of the Russian brigade by asking about the integration of Russian forces within IFOR. His indignant answer was, "What do you mean, integration?!" Rather than being integrated, the Russians regarded the formal relationship between the Russian brigade and the U.S.-led division as a friendly affiliation between equals. "They ask us to do things and we do them." This comment illustrates a not-well-understood aspect of Russian participation. The accompanying illustration (see figure 10-3a) of the NATO version of those command relationships shows an OPCON relationship connecting the Russian brigade to the SACEUR through his Deputy for Russian Forces. The relationship between the brigade and the U.S. division was described in the NATO documents as TACON, essentially the authority to direct tactical movements and missions. Also shown, however, is the Russian version (figure 10-3b) of this same relationship. Their word for OPCON is "operativny kontrol"-the same term used in Soviet military science to define military control at the operational level, particularly the control of those formations known as "operational maneuver groups." What NATO understands as TACON is translated by the Russians as "vzaimodestvya" or "interoperability"-connoting a relationship based on equality. As a practical matter, however, day-to-day operational matters were handled informally and effectively between Major General William Nash, the U.S. division commander, and Major General Alexander Lentsov-through a close personal relationship based on their common professionalism as soldiers. More difficult questions, such as the assignment of Russian soldiers away from their assigned sector, were resolved through the illustrated command relationships. Whatever term might have been strictly applied, there was a high degree of operational integration between the Russian brigade and other divisional units. Aviation support, intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance were tightly coordinated as well as requirements for inspections and other missions. The Russians appeared to respond best to written orders, which they considered more binding than verbal instructions. And while many NATO armies routinely perform "implied and specified tasks" in any mission, this was emphatically not standard Russian practice. From General Lentsov on down, there was a notably "strict construction" in the way the Russian brigade defined and performed its military tasks. Given this emphasis, there were some otherwise routine civil affairs functions that either were not performed or not reported because the Russians saw no reason to do so, including water supply, home reconstruction, and personality profiles of key local leaders. Indeed, the ubiquitous American reporting style (up to six daily medical reports, for example) and paperwork burden had to be greatly simplified for the Russians-something which their U.S. counterparts could only envy. Because they were hand-picked for this mission, the Russian brigade projected themselves as a tough, competent force. Their base camps were invariably well-chosen with competently sighted weapons and comprehensive entrenchments. In the field, their tactical communications tended to be slow and unreliable. The FM radios were made compatible with the American SINCGARS system by the simple expedient of turning the squelch off, an arrangement similar to that used between the Army and the Marines during Somalia. Oddly enough, the Russians typically featured less frequent and more decentralized reporting requirements, so that it was standard practice on some key missions to deploy a U.S. liaison officer equipped with a TACSAT radio with a direct link to division headquarters. On joint patrols, Russian junior officers were well organized and tactically proficient (see figure 10-4). However, they were often matter-of-fact about some things the United States takes more seriously: mission planning and briefings; delineation of specific objectives; integration of combined arms at the lowest levels; and after action reviews. Their cooperation and enthusiasm for working with NATO, were beyond reproach. Use of Information In both the NATO and U.S. contingents, reductions in headquarters and staffs have not matched post-Cold War cutbacks in force structures. While organizational featherbedding is often the first rule of combined operations, redundant hierarchies are no match for the speed and efficiency of decentralized electronic networks. Therefore, it was not unusual for information broadcast by these networks to be shared far faster than corroborating data successively reported through each layer in the chain of command. In a practice known as "skip-echeloning," both Washington-based commands and IFOR headquarters elements occasionally used these networks to bypass intervening organizations in order to exchange information requirements firsthand-sometimes leaving the broader community in the dark. The Division Chief of Staff described how on several occasions watch officers at the headquarters were directly called by the White House Situation Room and other higher headquarters to confirm information apparently available at those levels but not until that moment known by the on-scene commander. These hierarchical structures and the intensely political nature of Operation Joint Endeavor prompted floods of information at the operational level. Put simply, data was the preferred means of disciplining American forces, often to the point of micro-management. By the mid-point of the operation, some 1,200 "fragmentary orders" had been transmitted by the division to its subordinate units. And each evening at the U.S. headquarters in Tuzla, a "battle update briefing" prepared by the division staff covered the day's events in excruciating detail. More than 120 PowerPoint slides were typically used to highlight the latest operational and intelligence developments as well as to pinpoint a host of administrative issues, such as the number of sandbags used to protect base camps. These briefings and the accompanying slides were regularly transmitted back to the higher U.S. headquarters monitoring the operations. These set-piece briefings, so reminiscent of the "Five O'Clock Follies" of the Vietnam era, promoted a ubiquitous and even hyperactive reporting regime which regularly led to cultural clashes, only some of which were a function of different nationalities. According to one harried executive officer at a U.S. brigade: "During the last incident in our sector, seven of our nine phone lines were tied up answering questions from the division staff." Multiple taskings and overlapping reports were similarly cited as problems in both the U.S. and coalition brigades. However the multinational units at least found ways to cope with what they regarded as a uniquely American addiction to data requirements. "We take what we need," one allied brigade commander pointed out with exquisite tact. Media and Public Affairs The media-the quintessential network-suffused the entire Bosnian mission, provoking ambitious efforts by NATO and U.S. public affairs officers to make full use of information as a weapon of peace. Especially in the U.S. sector, with its 12-nation contingent, the formation of a joint information bureau was an important step in using information as a means to provide timely and accurate information as well as to influence compliance with the Dayton Accords. Not only was this bureau run with an international staff, but its director became central to the functioning of the command group, providing daily advice to the division commander and operating in close partnership with the operations, intelligence, and civic affairs elements. The importance of these relationships could be seen in a June 1996 incident, when the Associated Press wrongly reported that Serb General Ratko Mladic (an indicted war criminal) had faced down IFOR soldiers, forcing them to withdraw. Within minutes of the story's filing on the AP wire, alarm bells went off at headquarters from Sarajevo to Washington. Although the U.S. commander in Tuzla and his public affairs staff were instantly besieged with phone calls, it took more than 24 hours to ensure that an accurate version of this event had been reported. Because such an act of deliberate or accidental "disinformation" could take on a life of its own through a tightly wired global information grid, the management of perceptions became an important and continuing mission. Precisely for that reason, hard-pressed U.S. commanders regularly sought out local media opportunities, including, in one instance, a regular guest slot on a Bosnian radio call-in show. The lesson learned: in peace operations, as in other politically charged conflicts, perception is the reality. Communications and Automation The Army communications system generally worked well in Bosnia, but only at great costs in manpower and effort. As in the past, radio transmissions dominated tactical communications. Because most Army tactical radios operate on line-of-sight transmissions, it was essential to place repeaters and relays on mountain tops. But with large numbers of radio nets required for the 15 brigades operating in the U.S. sector, there was a real problem with interference ("signal fratricide"). Ironically, even in one of the world's most mountainous regions there was only so much high ground to go around. Since these critical relay sites had to be fortified and defended, support requirements typically consume 7-8 percent of combat manpower in addition to the U.S. signal brigade of over 1,100 soldiers. There was a sharp contrast between this "tooth-to-tail" ratio and the AT&T satellite phone system operated in U.S. base camps by roughly 24 company employees. Although the military communications system featured free morale calls, most U.S. soldiers phoned home with AT&T prepaid credit cards-expense outweighed by clarity and convenience. Their commanders often had similar feelings, in part because of the drain on already strapped combat manpower. "The former warring factions have better communications," snapped one U.S. brigade commander, "because they have cellular phones and I don't." The brigades and battalions in the U.S. sector-(including the multinational units) were linked to the headquarters and each other by several baseline automation systems. The Maneuver Control System (MCS) is a vintage Army system that provided a secure means of transmitting orders, maps, diagrams, and classified e-mail. WARLORD, an intelligence terminal specially configured for this operation, handled most intelligence products, including imagery. However, a plethora of other automated logistical and administrative systems were also present, representing more a kludged-together operating environment than a "system of systems." Such ad hoc arrangements made it correspondingly more difficult to maintain computers and electronic equipment or to defend them. Heat, cold, humidity, and dust are traditional enemies of automation; but these challenges were magnified in Bosnia because there were so many computers, military supply lines were long, and there was little commercial infrastructure to take up the slack. A closely related and ominous development was the fast-growing problem of computer viruses. While it is difficult to be precise, conventional wisdom among U.S. units was that 50 percent of their personal computers suffered from viruses of one kind or another. Another problem was that large numbers of single-purpose, stand-alone databases made the integration of information incomparably more difficult, especially in the intelligence arena. Work-arounds were the order of the day, with heroic contributions coming from the most junior ranks, often augmented by technical virtuosos drawn from the Reserve components. The most common refrain: "Sir, this system was not designed for the job we're doing here. So we messed around with it a little, and it's not perfect, but we made it work." Support to the Warfighter Despite the imperative of supporting the warfighter, the river of information available to U.S. military forces in Bosnia often diminished to a trickle by the time it reached the soldiers actually executing peacekeeping missions. In one operation, a brigade commander who had requested overhead imagery of his area complained that "the system" took 3 weeks to provide photographs that eventually turned out to be 6 months old. The reasons are many: communications pipelines too narrow for efficient digital data transmission to the lowest levels; outmoded tactical equipment; and automation resources easily overwhelmed by what data was available. But these were only some of the more pernicious effects of an unwritten but well-understood rule: the higher the headquarters, the more elaborate the information trappings and vice versa. Such priorities meant, for example, that the decision to deploy a state-of-the-art intelligence system known as Trojan Spirit with the U.S. brigades was delayed until shortly before those units left for Bosnia. Although technology can provide a compelling way to enlarge the information highway to the lower echelons, such well-intended "fixes" must be balanced against the realities of Bosnia's 24-hours-a-day operations. As one tactical intelligence officer said, "We just don't have time over here for any more visits by the Good Idea Fairy." The larger point is that advances in information technology are of military value only to the extent that they are accompanied by coherent doctrine, organizations, equipment, and people, to say nothing of the time needed to make them function as a team. One of the bright spots in this picture, however, was the stunning success of Army tactical aviation in Bosnia. The helicopters of the 1st Armored Division's Fourth Brigade combined speed and mobility in mountainous terrain-critical advantages in a region where every other factor conspired any external force. But innovations by Army aviation and intelligence soldiers also led to a new method of digitizing the Apache attack helicopter's gun-camera footage-all for an investment of less than $1,000 in commercial software and off-the-shelf equipment. The resulting photographs (see figure 10-5) documented Dayton Accord violations and-as unclassified imagery-were occasionally handed over to the former warring factions. Not only did these pictures display the exact time and location of such typical violations as tanks in the zone of separation, but they also featured targeting cross-hairs centered on the offending equipment-an unsubtle but highly effective means of compelling compliance. Figure 10-5. Apache Gunship Camera Photo Conclusions There can be no question that the military mission in Bosnia has been a success and that the American soldier, supported by his Air Force, Navy, and Marine counterparts, has been the primary reason why it has been so. But the Bosnian experience should also remind us that our worship of technology in warfare must be tempered by a stronger sense of the human factor. Information technology is uniquely affected by people, their training, their procedures, and the time they take to perform them. But the combination of these factors in combat or operational settings is constantly and curiously underestimated. We have barely begun to address the organizational implications of modern information technology in synchronizing the political and military sides of a peacekeeping operation, in reducing top-heavy headquarters, and in substituting commercial products and services for outmoded military equipment and redundant support structures. These are daunting tasks; but until they result in unshakable leadership commitments, our hard-won progress in Bosnia will fall short of the "sensor-to-shooter" potential that Information Age operations will demand on other fields and in other years. |