November 25, 2025 • 22 mins
In this episode of One CA Podcast, LTC Brian Hancock sits down with Sergeant First Class Chase Penner—Information Operations planner at USAREUR-AF and former PSYOP Team Sergeant—to explore the art and science of military deception.
From ambiguity techniques to tactical deception, SFC Penner's decision-making is from Moldova. With a background in strategic communication, Penner offers a rare look into the cognitive domain of modern warfare.
Whether you're a Civil Affairs operator, strategic planner, or just curious about the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations, this episode delivers actionable lessons on influence, deception, and the human terrain.
📌 Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the presenters and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the United States Army or Department of Defense.
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🎵 Music Credit: Special Thanks to OriginalSoundtracks for the sample of Happy Thanksgiving Day. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/vJPDcL49578?si=-c2N_xkOc8WjfscS#PsychologicalOperations #MilitaryDeception #CivilAffairs #IrregularWarfare #InformationWarfare #HumanDomain #SOFTraining #DefenseInnovation #USAREURAF #USASOC #StrategicInfluence #TacticalPsychology #MissionPreparation
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to one civil affairs podcast.
I'm Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Hancock and I will be a host for
the session today. We have with us Sergeant First
Class Chase Penner to discuss psychological operations and
military deception. We are now a wacky sound effect
show one CA up there in the stars.
(00:22):
Sergeant Penner, welcome to the show.
Thank you, Brian. It's really glad to be here.
I appreciate the opportunity. Sergeant First Class Chase
Banner has served in the United States Army for over 10 years,
including five years as a Psychological Operations
Specialist and Team Sergeant in the 6th Battalion.
He is deployed twice to Moldova,leveraging his fluency in
(00:42):
Russian and expertise in cross cultural influence to support US
objectives. Currently serving as an
Information Operations Planner in the United States, Army,
Europe and Africa, he develops and coordinates complex
operations across the European Theater.
Sergeant First Class Chase Penner holds a degree in
Marketing from Southern New Hampshire University, blending
(01:05):
his operational experience with a deep understanding of
strategic communication and influence.
Quick Disclaimer, A reminder to everyone in the audience that
all remarks are solely those of the presenters and do not
necessarily represent the views of the United States Army or the
Department of Defense. Now Chase, we've worked together
for a few years now and you've avoided me fairly successfully,
(01:27):
but I'm glad I could finally getyou on the show.
Thanks, Bry. I know we had some great
conversations behind the scenes.So Aiden, looking forward to
sharing a bit of that with your audience today.
I know aside and mill deck, it'snot really a dinner table topic
for most people, so I think it'sgoing to be a good chance to
kind of pull back the curtain and talk about what it means.
(01:48):
I appreciate you saying that because a lot of people hear the
word sia, or psychological operations.
They say, what exactly do you do?
And I think we're still officially part of the
psychological warfare branch if we trace the doctrine all the
way back. And trying to explain that to
your friends or as an elevator pit has always been very
difficult. So I'm going to be listening
(02:08):
with wrapped ears at how you canbriefly and succinctly describe
what PSYOP is for our listeners because I have continued to
struggle with it. It's funny, I actually get asked
this question all the time. Or I did.
Before PSYOP I was a parachute rigger.
It was a tough job I knew I was getting into.
When I joined the Army, I was one of those where they offered
(02:29):
me a very fat bonus. That's what I was about to say
is, is, is you're probably pretty good at that too.
And, and I guess as part of thattraining, they make you rig your
own shoots so that you have a vested interest in doing it
right. They do, actually, yeah, yeah.
I've rigged my own shoes, jump with them.
And I to be honest, like I trusted myself.
I was parachute rigger. It was a great job but one day
(02:50):
recruiter showed up and he was like are you guys tired doing PT
on the ice? That was his approach.
Were you at Fort Bragg at the time?
Was touching Alaska? In Alaska?
Oh my word. It is cold, yes.
As a private doing PT on 4 device every day, yeah.
Now part of that OC i.e. we all get is that giant snowbird
(03:12):
Eskimo 5 layer thick moon suit that they issue us in OC i.e.
I've never worn that once in my military career.
Are you telling me that is issued for folks like you stuck
in Alaska? We called Michelin Man suit the
Michelin Man suit. OK, I think I still have it in
my attic somewhere. It never wants you to, but you
did. So yeah, it's cold.
(03:33):
And there was a recruiter comes on by with a magical offer.
And how does it go from there? When I did before joining the
Army, I always knew I wanted to do something, war right, do
something with a bigger impacts,the end.
So I have just kind of seen withthe perfect opportunity when he
stepped to the door. I think it was a chance to
challenge myself in a complete different way, to be the
parachute rigger. And I want to be part of like
(03:53):
operations where influencing communication could like shake
the battlefield. Yes, it's as much as the
physical force. Good.
Perhaps more so, right, because no matter how good you are with
the rifle, you're 1 target at a time.
But as we've seen some of the famous propagandists in history,
El Duche Goebbels, others, theirability to mobilize large masses
of people on to the point that they're willing to sacrifice
(04:16):
their lives in armed conflict, that is a tremendous force
multiplier. I would say that these things
are in slightly different league.
And I understand your desire to increase your personal potential
impact. You've got a lot of gifts.
So it's nice that this gentlemancame by.
So besides not being out freezing anymore, how did he
explain to you what what you'd be doing in SIOP?
(04:37):
I think when you do join, they help you practice your 10 second
elevator pitch and over and overand over again, right?
And So what I always thought SIOP was after going through the
training for so long and going through the schooling was I'd
like to quit it. It's very similar to marketing.
It's not bad guy propaganda likesome siblings would think it is,
(04:57):
but it's very similar to marketing because we have
different levels of SIOP. We have black SIOP, there is
grey SIOP, the white SIOP and most of the time new guy
especially you're going to be working a white SIOP, which is
going to be a good kind of marketing you showing US and a
good luck and that could also beshowing the bad guys and a bad
like. And that's fully attributable,
right? So the white SIOP is US clearly
(05:19):
stating This Is Us putting this.Message out OK.
Go ahead. What's Gray?
What does that mean? Gray is going to be more where
it is still attributed to the US.
It's kind of harder to find out that it is.
So maybe the PIO releases a message just somewhere where it
says, yes, that released this message.
So it's still up out there that we did it.
(05:40):
It's just not as easy to find. And then black side is going to
be very non attributed to the US.
So that's kind of more rare of what we do, putting out messages
or like some would actually callit, it is propaganda, but you
just don't know it comes from us.
Right. When I was a SIOP or you know,
elicited officer, I thought thatthe majority of what we'd be
(06:01):
doing this black SIOP, but it's really not the case.
I would say 70% of what we did was white SIOP, about 20% Gray
SIOP, and maybe only 10% and only a few people were involved
in black SIOP. But for the audience who may not
have a background in military deception, this is something
that you have done in the past and know a bit about.
(06:24):
Can we start with some definitions?
Just a quick Google search and you'll see that military
deception or mill deck is the deliberate act of misleading and
adversaries decision makers. And I think that's key decision
makers about friendly military capabilities, intentions and
operations. I think to me, Nail Deck is
(06:45):
really about creating conditionswhere the enemy makes decisions
that help us right, But really they believe those decisions are
entirely of their own, and that's the trick.
It's not just about lying or throwing out false information
for us to get it right, but a good deception said.
It's really deliberate, it's calculated, but you always kind
of tie it back to a specific operational objective.
(07:08):
When you say operational, I'm starting to think of deception
in support of operations or Daiso.
Clearly there's a relationship just like we have the tactical
level of war, the operational level of war and the strategic
level of war in American military doctrine.
Russians, by the way, don't theyonly have tactical and
strategic, there's no operational level.
(07:29):
And if I understand you correctly, we're influencing
these decision makers in supportof a specific operation.
If that's the case, what's the difference between Mildeck and
Daiso deception and supportive operations?
So deception and support of operations or Daiso, it's
primarily aimed at influencing foreign intelligence agencies.
(07:49):
You're not going for that one guy who can make a decision,
right? So it's kind of a long term
shaping effort when you're trying to get into the mind of
these guys and the process so that can they can report and act
like on a false picture. It's really focused like on the
immediate fight when you're fooling enemy forces and direct
contact so they can kind of react the way you want them to
in real time. Or is Daisos more like playing
(08:11):
the chess game? Playing news that'll pay off
much later. Tag DS like for the fight right
now. OK.
So now we're we've brought up the third level of this option.
I think our audience is, is reeling.
They didn't realize that there are so many nuances to
deception. We have Mildak at the highest
strategic level, which is attempting to fool folks like Xi
Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, etcetera, OK, so that
(08:34):
they don't make moves which are antithetical to freedom of
maneuver, freedom of the Seas and other values that we stand
for in democratic W Then we've got deception and sort of
operations where friendly forcesare intending to do something.
And it's probably something fairly large, right?
So if we're thinking about say, the D-Day landings in World War
(08:55):
2, where they're planning to land at Normandy, but they want
Hitler to think we're going to the closest point between the
coast, which is the Padu Calais.All we're doing a specific
deception there to make them focus their ISR, their
attention, etcetera on the Padu Calais and maneuver to defend
that as opposed to Normandy where we actually intend to
(09:16):
land. And then you have tactical
deception, which sounds to me isa lot like camouflage,
concealment, decoys, things likethat.
Can you kind of give us some an example maybe of past historic
mill deck operation, a Daiso operation and a tactical
deception so that we can understand this a little bit
(09:37):
better? So it's a great question, Ryan.
I think one of the most famous examples of a Daiso would be
Operation 4/2. Definitely one of my favorite
mill deck operations in history.So when they created their, I
guess he was call it the Ghost Army that looked like they were
going to invade Pada Kaling and said of them actually going to
(09:58):
Normandy. They had inflatable tanks and
inflatable planes. And I could just imagine all
these privates running around this big inflatable tent city.
Oh my God. Not to keep it alive.
The right like there's a patternof life.
I think they even had, if I'm wrong, not correct if I'm wrong,
but they had fake unit patches for Patton that they were all
showing around town. They had a parade for him to
(10:20):
amplify the media coverage of this.
They had fake radio signal traffic to be picked.
I mean, it was pretty extensive,right?
To sell the foreign intelligenceentities that we're not going to
the easiest, closest point to Padukai.
Exactly, I think even at one point they released a Nazi
prisoner, drove them through thefake tent city with all.
(10:41):
The Oh, that's right. Thanks.
And then he reported. Of course he did right Now.
Wasn't there also a haversack ruse involved in this too?
A haversack ruse is where you plant information that you
intend the enemy to find. It was called Operation Men's
Mates. I know there was a couple films
out about this, and it's the oneon Netflix.
(11:02):
It's really good. Yeah.
And shows the mill that Claire'sgoing through the process.
And it took years to make, but they washed up.
They had to find a dead body, plants false info inside his
case, and made it look like an actual officer.
Right. So this is like a pilot or
somebody who would have had to have reason to have potentially
crashed into the sea. So it had to pass the sniff test
(11:24):
for the Nazis, right? They have to see this person as
a legitimate Allied pilot and officer who would be authorized
to carry authoritative information.
They washed his body on the Spanish coast because you back
up in that the Spanish would probably lead info to the Nazis.
Right. Well, we'll remember the Spanish
Civil War, the highly conservative action which was
(11:46):
pro Nazi, had won. Their government was in power,
so they were actually a great interlocutor.
All right, what do they put on this body to sell this?
Oh, just official documents that's showing another fake
landings of actually coincident norming.
It all right, so they cook up some fake plans.
They dump it on this body, it washes up on the shore.
Spanish fishermen probably find this thing and turn it in for a
(12:07):
reward because I bet they had a tips line back then, right?
I don't think we embedded that in the coin fights.
But so they turn this in and knowing it's going to go back to
the Nazis who find probably these very official looking type
plans with all the right markings, all the right
signatures and all the right places.
And these were all just little mill decisions, all gathering
(12:27):
collective, the real deception. I see.
We were not going to land in Normandy.
And it worked so well that just weeks after we had hardly landed
in Normandy, Hitler still thought this was the thanks.
That's right. He didn't release those Panzer
divisions until it was far too late, and this was probably one
of the most successful deceptions in history, both at
(12:48):
the mill deck and at the Daiso level.
Fantastic example. Can you give an example of
successful tactical deception? I think famous one that most
people might know about would beduring Operation Desert Storm,
we made this deception plan thatthe Marines are going to invade
from the coast. Now, did Storm and Norman come
(13:09):
up with that or did one of his staff do you know?
I'm not quite sure, you know, itcould have been a private.
He took the other. Course he did.
All right, so in any. Case Yeah, that's why I brought
it up. But OK, so this is the plan,
right? The the Marines are going to do
what? A demonstration.
Yeah, so they were on, they're in the sea, on the boats, and
they're basically doing a demonstration.
(13:30):
I think they call it a MEW, a Marine Expeditionary Unit, and
we're out there ready to land. Yeah, yeah.
No offense to our Marine Corps brothers.
We love you. Go ahead.
They even got like it was local news channels and the PAO
involves at that bite like sold it that they're going to land
and that probably all legal questions to Eber get PAO in
news streams involved in actual Mildek correct.
(13:52):
Technically, no. But if you invite all of the
pool and you happen to know thatSaddam Hussein gets most of his
information from CNN and CNN reporter just happens to show up
there and you're rehearsing amphibious operations in the
background. I mean, they chose to report
what they chose to report, right?
Is that always saying he did getall of his information just from
like American news source, if you have the time, Right.
(14:14):
So that we knew that's how we'regoing to sell this and get that
information straight to his eyesand then pass like his different
conduits that might get all thismight be false.
So as they were selling that nildeck, yeah, we had our forces
kind of go West. Yeah, as he moved all his E for
the coast. Right.
To protect against the landing that never came.
That's brilliant. It's really great.
(14:35):
Anyone who says that the Marine Corps isn't brilliant till you
haven't worked with the officersI worked with Edmund Talk,
they're amazing and I'm sure they had a large part to play in
in planning that out. So that was fantastic.
OK, we've talked a bit about thedifferent levels of deception.
Another key definitional type item is involving methodology.
We have two basic methodologies that are commonly employed in
(14:58):
deception. We have ambiguity increasing and
ambiguity decreasing. What does that mean?
So ambiguity increasing is really about you want to cloud
the picture, you want that adversary or bad guys really
uncertain about what's real, where the threat is, or what's
coming next. While ambiguity reducing, it's
(15:21):
pretty much the complete opposite.
You present such a clear like believable narrative that they
stopped questioning it and they just hacked on it, right?
You really use either or. It kind of depends on your goal.
So sometimes it's better to to confuse them, but sometimes it's
also better just to hand them a believable but false truth.
And that can drive them exactly where you want them to go.
That's what Mildat's about, is getting adverse on to think,
(15:43):
believe and act something completely different.
Do something prejudicial to themselves.
That works well for you, right? So we talked about Daiso and
Patton's Ghost Army. Was that an operation that was
ambiguity increasing or decreasing?
That was decreasing on them to believe that we're going to
invade this one spot. Padre Kelly, we wanted Hitler to
(16:05):
go ahead and make a very decisive decision to his
answered Commission. Right.
And focus all his ISR there too.Exactly.
We want to run to make one clearcut decision.
So that was decreasing the ambiguity.
OK, can you give an example of an ambiguity increasing
operation? Ambiguity increasing would be
maybe during the time there would be.
(16:26):
We use a lot of inflatables through more to show up and you
made the force look bigger than it was.
And thank you to the engineers, by the way, all you engineers in
the audience, because they're the magic companies and the
people who produce that. They're the real heroes.
So increasing would be having this fake army right here to
left where the real armies to the right and right even more
one fake army over to the side. You have two or three fake
(16:49):
armies or these platoons, whatever it is, and the army or
the atmosphere doesn't know which one is the real one or I
said one is the one that's goingto attack.
So they have to drop bombs on all of them.
What's worse having like a blow of tank than a gunshot?
Or had it like when your soldiers fall?
Yeah, well said. I think that's a really useful.
We'll conclude our conversation on the tradecraft of that.
(17:10):
Let's talk a little bit more about engineering companies.
We brought them up. Certainly they were a big part
of the ghost army. I think they had a big role in
protecting some of our ports in Northern Africa during the torch
landings and other things. What is the role of our faithful
engineers in deception operations and what types of
(17:31):
contributions do they make? So engineers, they've always
been like the most critical partof a session because they make
the physical story believable. The enemy sees something, they
have to see something, right? To made it to believe the actual
deception story. Like we're talking, I think of
War 2, for example, the engineers, they just build
things. They built these illusions.
Like we're talking about big tanks, the fake airplanes,
(17:53):
everything. They even laid out different
vehicle tracks in fields to makeit seem like heavy honour had to
moving through right right of life, which I can imagine, you
know, like it's really the privates walking around making
all this happen, making a word. I love that because the first
thing, basic branch Intel, the first thing that I do, some well
meaning battalion throws up a few decoys thinking that they're
(18:16):
going to fool me is the first thing I do is I look to see if
there's any tracks around those decoys.
If they're not, I know it's a fake and I don't waste
ammunition on it, right. So I appreciate what you're
saying. This is a pretty clever
deception that creating an actual pattern of life because
vehicles, they don't just stay in one place, right?
So it goes into it exactly. And with technology advancing,
there's so much more. And a lot of people think, OK,
(18:37):
well, technology is advanced so far now we can't make this
happen anymore. But right, no, it's not true.
The advance with technology, yes, move forward with
everything. Hey, being a any kind of
military deception planner, you have to be creative.
Anything you do, you have to think outside the box.
See, you have to think about everything that goes into one
operation. It's very, very detailed and
very, very complex. I understand that some of these
(19:00):
operations have hundreds of different executables to try and
sell the deception, right? Imagine being that guy when I
was in NCOI had you know, small checklist for PCCPCIS, things
like that. I meant having a checklist of
hundreds of things, each of which is complicated and
requires a lot of coordination and follow up.
These things are not easy to plan.
How long does it take to do thisroughly?
(19:22):
Well I know for War 2 Operation 42, that took two years to plan
the plan. That's oh boy, I think he would
just have plan. OK, so is deception then off the
table if you don't have two years?
No, Deception can work fast, butyou can't always get every
detail right. I believe in the modern
battlefield, deception can go get planned and moved and
(19:45):
executed very quickly if you wanted to.
But also the modern battlefield,there's so much more that the
enemy could see and think right?And you have to check off every
blocks. You've been in the military for
more than a day. You've done a number of things.
You've had some unique experience and training in both
psychological operations and military deception.
(20:06):
Can you share with the audience a lesson about influence or
deception, your choice that you feel is just as valuable in
everyday life as it is in military operations and.
Well, what I'd like to say is I think cyber and all that, it's
really often misunderstood by people.
So I think it's scary words scared jobs, right?
So don't let people think to think of it like trickery or
(20:28):
some kind of stunt. But in reality, what you're
doing is you're trying to understand, like human decision
making at its core, especially with SIOP.
And it's not enough to just comeup with a false story.
You have to know what your audience like, values, what they
fear and respect so you can craft something that they'll
believe. You have to customize it to
them, right? How do they consume information?
What do they consider authoritative?
(20:49):
What are their conduits of trusted information, exactly?
Yeah. And I think that applies whether
like you're influencing an adversary, you're working with
allied partners, or even in the office negotiating like some
contract. The process, it always starts
with building like a complete fish of your audience with their
culture, their history, with their operating platforms, and
even their biases. If you can understand that and
(21:11):
you know it, and then you want to crap the plan, that speaks
directly just to that mindset. But it has to be believable in
every layer. I mean, like we said in LA, you
have physical actions, information streams and timing
and everything just has to reinforce it.
So, but I think the other point people sometimes miss is that
good influence work, it's proactive, it's not reactive,
which unfortunately I think we fall into this step of just
(21:33):
being a very reactive army rightnow.
So this has really been a great session.
I've enjoyed this and I know that we can continue with our
audiences and things that they have to get to as well.
Yeah, so. I just really appreciate being
on. I think whether you see all
this, if you use these skills and every day in a life, it's
incredibly rewarding either on the battlefield or just
(21:54):
relationships or negotiations. It's a rewarding job and I
recommend these kind of jobs to anybody in the.
Visual liners. Save for something better in the
future. Definitely come to SIOP and move
on to your career things if that's what you want.
Thanks for listening. If you get a chance, please like
and subscribe and rate the show on your favorite podcast
platform. Also, if you're interested in
(22:16):
coming on the show or hosting anepisode, e-mail us at
ca.podcasting@gmail.com. I'll have the e-mail and CA
Association website in the show notes.
And now, most importantly, to those currently out in the
field, working with a partner nation's people or leadership to
forward US relations, thank you all for what you're doing.
(22:36):
This is Jack, your host. Stay tuned for more great
episodes one CA podcast.
Welcome to one civil affairs podcast.
I'm Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Hancock and I will be a host for
the session today. We have with us Sergeant First
Class Chase Penner to discuss psychological operations and
military deception. We are now a wacky sound effect
show one CA up there in the stars.
(00:22):
Sergeant Penner, welcome to the show.
Thank you, Brian. It's really glad to be here.
I appreciate the opportunity. Sergeant First Class Chase
Banner has served in the United States Army for over 10 years,
including five years as a Psychological Operations
Specialist and Team Sergeant in the 6th Battalion.
He is deployed twice to Moldova,leveraging his fluency in
(00:42):
Russian and expertise in cross cultural influence to support US
objectives. Currently serving as an
Information Operations Planner in the United States, Army,
Europe and Africa, he develops and coordinates complex
operations across the European Theater.
Sergeant First Class Chase Penner holds a degree in
Marketing from Southern New Hampshire University, blending
(01:05):
his operational experience with a deep understanding of
strategic communication and influence.
Quick Disclaimer, A reminder to everyone in the audience that
all remarks are solely those of the presenters and do not
necessarily represent the views of the United States Army or the
Department of Defense. Now Chase, we've worked together
for a few years now and you've avoided me fairly successfully,
(01:27):
but I'm glad I could finally getyou on the show.
Thanks, Bry. I know we had some great
conversations behind the scenes.So Aiden, looking forward to
sharing a bit of that with your audience today.
I know aside and mill deck, it'snot really a dinner table topic
for most people, so I think it'sgoing to be a good chance to
kind of pull back the curtain and talk about what it means.
(01:48):
I appreciate you saying that because a lot of people hear the
word sia, or psychological operations.
They say, what exactly do you do?
And I think we're still officially part of the
psychological warfare branch if we trace the doctrine all the
way back. And trying to explain that to
your friends or as an elevator pit has always been very
difficult. So I'm going to be listening
(02:08):
with wrapped ears at how you canbriefly and succinctly describe
what PSYOP is for our listeners because I have continued to
struggle with it. It's funny, I actually get asked
this question all the time. Or I did.
Before PSYOP I was a parachute rigger.
It was a tough job I knew I was getting into.
When I joined the Army, I was one of those where they offered
(02:29):
me a very fat bonus. That's what I was about to say
is, is, is you're probably pretty good at that too.
And, and I guess as part of thattraining, they make you rig your
own shoots so that you have a vested interest in doing it
right. They do, actually, yeah, yeah.
I've rigged my own shoes, jump with them.
And I to be honest, like I trusted myself.
I was parachute rigger. It was a great job but one day
(02:50):
recruiter showed up and he was like are you guys tired doing PT
on the ice? That was his approach.
Were you at Fort Bragg at the time?
Was touching Alaska? In Alaska?
Oh my word. It is cold, yes.
As a private doing PT on 4 device every day, yeah.
Now part of that OC i.e. we all get is that giant snowbird
(03:12):
Eskimo 5 layer thick moon suit that they issue us in OC i.e.
I've never worn that once in my military career.
Are you telling me that is issued for folks like you stuck
in Alaska? We called Michelin Man suit the
Michelin Man suit. OK, I think I still have it in
my attic somewhere. It never wants you to, but you
did. So yeah, it's cold.
(03:33):
And there was a recruiter comes on by with a magical offer.
And how does it go from there? When I did before joining the
Army, I always knew I wanted to do something, war right, do
something with a bigger impacts,the end.
So I have just kind of seen withthe perfect opportunity when he
stepped to the door. I think it was a chance to
challenge myself in a complete different way, to be the
parachute rigger. And I want to be part of like
(03:53):
operations where influencing communication could like shake
the battlefield. Yes, it's as much as the
physical force. Good.
Perhaps more so, right, because no matter how good you are with
the rifle, you're 1 target at a time.
But as we've seen some of the famous propagandists in history,
El Duche Goebbels, others, theirability to mobilize large masses
of people on to the point that they're willing to sacrifice
(04:16):
their lives in armed conflict, that is a tremendous force
multiplier. I would say that these things
are in slightly different league.
And I understand your desire to increase your personal potential
impact. You've got a lot of gifts.
So it's nice that this gentlemancame by.
So besides not being out freezing anymore, how did he
explain to you what what you'd be doing in SIOP?
(04:37):
I think when you do join, they help you practice your 10 second
elevator pitch and over and overand over again, right?
And So what I always thought SIOP was after going through the
training for so long and going through the schooling was I'd
like to quit it. It's very similar to marketing.
It's not bad guy propaganda likesome siblings would think it is,
(04:57):
but it's very similar to marketing because we have
different levels of SIOP. We have black SIOP, there is
grey SIOP, the white SIOP and most of the time new guy
especially you're going to be working a white SIOP, which is
going to be a good kind of marketing you showing US and a
good luck and that could also beshowing the bad guys and a bad
like. And that's fully attributable,
right? So the white SIOP is US clearly
(05:19):
stating This Is Us putting this.Message out OK.
Go ahead. What's Gray?
What does that mean? Gray is going to be more where
it is still attributed to the US.
It's kind of harder to find out that it is.
So maybe the PIO releases a message just somewhere where it
says, yes, that released this message.
So it's still up out there that we did it.
(05:40):
It's just not as easy to find. And then black side is going to
be very non attributed to the US.
So that's kind of more rare of what we do, putting out messages
or like some would actually callit, it is propaganda, but you
just don't know it comes from us.
Right. When I was a SIOP or you know,
elicited officer, I thought thatthe majority of what we'd be
(06:01):
doing this black SIOP, but it's really not the case.
I would say 70% of what we did was white SIOP, about 20% Gray
SIOP, and maybe only 10% and only a few people were involved
in black SIOP. But for the audience who may not
have a background in military deception, this is something
that you have done in the past and know a bit about.
(06:24):
Can we start with some definitions?
Just a quick Google search and you'll see that military
deception or mill deck is the deliberate act of misleading and
adversaries decision makers. And I think that's key decision
makers about friendly military capabilities, intentions and
operations. I think to me, Nail Deck is
(06:45):
really about creating conditionswhere the enemy makes decisions
that help us right, But really they believe those decisions are
entirely of their own, and that's the trick.
It's not just about lying or throwing out false information
for us to get it right, but a good deception said.
It's really deliberate, it's calculated, but you always kind
of tie it back to a specific operational objective.
(07:08):
When you say operational, I'm starting to think of deception
in support of operations or Daiso.
Clearly there's a relationship just like we have the tactical
level of war, the operational level of war and the strategic
level of war in American military doctrine.
Russians, by the way, don't theyonly have tactical and
strategic, there's no operational level.
(07:29):
And if I understand you correctly, we're influencing
these decision makers in supportof a specific operation.
If that's the case, what's the difference between Mildeck and
Daiso deception and supportive operations?
So deception and support of operations or Daiso, it's
primarily aimed at influencing foreign intelligence agencies.
(07:49):
You're not going for that one guy who can make a decision,
right? So it's kind of a long term
shaping effort when you're trying to get into the mind of
these guys and the process so that can they can report and act
like on a false picture. It's really focused like on the
immediate fight when you're fooling enemy forces and direct
contact so they can kind of react the way you want them to
in real time. Or is Daisos more like playing
(08:11):
the chess game? Playing news that'll pay off
much later. Tag DS like for the fight right
now. OK.
So now we're we've brought up the third level of this option.
I think our audience is, is reeling.
They didn't realize that there are so many nuances to
deception. We have Mildak at the highest
strategic level, which is attempting to fool folks like Xi
Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, etcetera, OK, so that
(08:34):
they don't make moves which are antithetical to freedom of
maneuver, freedom of the Seas and other values that we stand
for in democratic W Then we've got deception and sort of
operations where friendly forcesare intending to do something.
And it's probably something fairly large, right?
So if we're thinking about say, the D-Day landings in World War
(08:55):
2, where they're planning to land at Normandy, but they want
Hitler to think we're going to the closest point between the
coast, which is the Padu Calais.All we're doing a specific
deception there to make them focus their ISR, their
attention, etcetera on the Padu Calais and maneuver to defend
that as opposed to Normandy where we actually intend to
(09:16):
land. And then you have tactical
deception, which sounds to me isa lot like camouflage,
concealment, decoys, things likethat.
Can you kind of give us some an example maybe of past historic
mill deck operation, a Daiso operation and a tactical
deception so that we can understand this a little bit
(09:37):
better? So it's a great question, Ryan.
I think one of the most famous examples of a Daiso would be
Operation 4/2. Definitely one of my favorite
mill deck operations in history.So when they created their, I
guess he was call it the Ghost Army that looked like they were
going to invade Pada Kaling and said of them actually going to
(09:58):
Normandy. They had inflatable tanks and
inflatable planes. And I could just imagine all
these privates running around this big inflatable tent city.
Oh my God. Not to keep it alive.
The right like there's a patternof life.
I think they even had, if I'm wrong, not correct if I'm wrong,
but they had fake unit patches for Patton that they were all
showing around town. They had a parade for him to
(10:20):
amplify the media coverage of this.
They had fake radio signal traffic to be picked.
I mean, it was pretty extensive,right?
To sell the foreign intelligenceentities that we're not going to
the easiest, closest point to Padukai.
Exactly, I think even at one point they released a Nazi
prisoner, drove them through thefake tent city with all.
(10:41):
The Oh, that's right. Thanks.
And then he reported. Of course he did right Now.
Wasn't there also a haversack ruse involved in this too?
A haversack ruse is where you plant information that you
intend the enemy to find. It was called Operation Men's
Mates. I know there was a couple films
out about this, and it's the oneon Netflix.
(11:02):
It's really good. Yeah.
And shows the mill that Claire'sgoing through the process.
And it took years to make, but they washed up.
They had to find a dead body, plants false info inside his
case, and made it look like an actual officer.
Right. So this is like a pilot or
somebody who would have had to have reason to have potentially
crashed into the sea. So it had to pass the sniff test
(11:24):
for the Nazis, right? They have to see this person as
a legitimate Allied pilot and officer who would be authorized
to carry authoritative information.
They washed his body on the Spanish coast because you back
up in that the Spanish would probably lead info to the Nazis.
Right. Well, we'll remember the Spanish
Civil War, the highly conservative action which was
(11:46):
pro Nazi, had won. Their government was in power,
so they were actually a great interlocutor.
All right, what do they put on this body to sell this?
Oh, just official documents that's showing another fake
landings of actually coincident norming.
It all right, so they cook up some fake plans.
They dump it on this body, it washes up on the shore.
Spanish fishermen probably find this thing and turn it in for a
(12:07):
reward because I bet they had a tips line back then, right?
I don't think we embedded that in the coin fights.
But so they turn this in and knowing it's going to go back to
the Nazis who find probably these very official looking type
plans with all the right markings, all the right
signatures and all the right places.
And these were all just little mill decisions, all gathering
(12:27):
collective, the real deception. I see.
We were not going to land in Normandy.
And it worked so well that just weeks after we had hardly landed
in Normandy, Hitler still thought this was the thanks.
That's right. He didn't release those Panzer
divisions until it was far too late, and this was probably one
of the most successful deceptions in history, both at
(12:48):
the mill deck and at the Daiso level.
Fantastic example. Can you give an example of
successful tactical deception? I think famous one that most
people might know about would beduring Operation Desert Storm,
we made this deception plan thatthe Marines are going to invade
from the coast. Now, did Storm and Norman come
(13:09):
up with that or did one of his staff do you know?
I'm not quite sure, you know, itcould have been a private.
He took the other. Course he did.
All right, so in any. Case Yeah, that's why I brought
it up. But OK, so this is the plan,
right? The the Marines are going to do
what? A demonstration.
Yeah, so they were on, they're in the sea, on the boats, and
they're basically doing a demonstration.
(13:30):
I think they call it a MEW, a Marine Expeditionary Unit, and
we're out there ready to land. Yeah, yeah.
No offense to our Marine Corps brothers.
We love you. Go ahead.
They even got like it was local news channels and the PAO
involves at that bite like sold it that they're going to land
and that probably all legal questions to Eber get PAO in
news streams involved in actual Mildek correct.
(13:52):
Technically, no. But if you invite all of the
pool and you happen to know thatSaddam Hussein gets most of his
information from CNN and CNN reporter just happens to show up
there and you're rehearsing amphibious operations in the
background. I mean, they chose to report
what they chose to report, right?
Is that always saying he did getall of his information just from
like American news source, if you have the time, Right.
(14:14):
So that we knew that's how we'regoing to sell this and get that
information straight to his eyesand then pass like his different
conduits that might get all thismight be false.
So as they were selling that nildeck, yeah, we had our forces
kind of go West. Yeah, as he moved all his E for
the coast. Right.
To protect against the landing that never came.
That's brilliant. It's really great.
(14:35):
Anyone who says that the Marine Corps isn't brilliant till you
haven't worked with the officersI worked with Edmund Talk,
they're amazing and I'm sure they had a large part to play in
in planning that out. So that was fantastic.
OK, we've talked a bit about thedifferent levels of deception.
Another key definitional type item is involving methodology.
We have two basic methodologies that are commonly employed in
(14:58):
deception. We have ambiguity increasing and
ambiguity decreasing. What does that mean?
So ambiguity increasing is really about you want to cloud
the picture, you want that adversary or bad guys really
uncertain about what's real, where the threat is, or what's
coming next. While ambiguity reducing, it's
(15:21):
pretty much the complete opposite.
You present such a clear like believable narrative that they
stopped questioning it and they just hacked on it, right?
You really use either or. It kind of depends on your goal.
So sometimes it's better to to confuse them, but sometimes it's
also better just to hand them a believable but false truth.
And that can drive them exactly where you want them to go.
That's what Mildat's about, is getting adverse on to think,
(15:43):
believe and act something completely different.
Do something prejudicial to themselves.
That works well for you, right? So we talked about Daiso and
Patton's Ghost Army. Was that an operation that was
ambiguity increasing or decreasing?
That was decreasing on them to believe that we're going to
invade this one spot. Padre Kelly, we wanted Hitler to
(16:05):
go ahead and make a very decisive decision to his
answered Commission. Right.
And focus all his ISR there too.Exactly.
We want to run to make one clearcut decision.
So that was decreasing the ambiguity.
OK, can you give an example of an ambiguity increasing
operation? Ambiguity increasing would be
maybe during the time there would be.
(16:26):
We use a lot of inflatables through more to show up and you
made the force look bigger than it was.
And thank you to the engineers, by the way, all you engineers in
the audience, because they're the magic companies and the
people who produce that. They're the real heroes.
So increasing would be having this fake army right here to
left where the real armies to the right and right even more
one fake army over to the side. You have two or three fake
(16:49):
armies or these platoons, whatever it is, and the army or
the atmosphere doesn't know which one is the real one or I
said one is the one that's goingto attack.
So they have to drop bombs on all of them.
What's worse having like a blow of tank than a gunshot?
Or had it like when your soldiers fall?
Yeah, well said. I think that's a really useful.
We'll conclude our conversation on the tradecraft of that.
(17:10):
Let's talk a little bit more about engineering companies.
We brought them up. Certainly they were a big part
of the ghost army. I think they had a big role in
protecting some of our ports in Northern Africa during the torch
landings and other things. What is the role of our faithful
engineers in deception operations and what types of
(17:31):
contributions do they make? So engineers, they've always
been like the most critical partof a session because they make
the physical story believable. The enemy sees something, they
have to see something, right? To made it to believe the actual
deception story. Like we're talking, I think of
War 2, for example, the engineers, they just build
things. They built these illusions.
Like we're talking about big tanks, the fake airplanes,
(17:53):
everything. They even laid out different
vehicle tracks in fields to makeit seem like heavy honour had to
moving through right right of life, which I can imagine, you
know, like it's really the privates walking around making
all this happen, making a word. I love that because the first
thing, basic branch Intel, the first thing that I do, some well
meaning battalion throws up a few decoys thinking that they're
(18:16):
going to fool me is the first thing I do is I look to see if
there's any tracks around those decoys.
If they're not, I know it's a fake and I don't waste
ammunition on it, right. So I appreciate what you're
saying. This is a pretty clever
deception that creating an actual pattern of life because
vehicles, they don't just stay in one place, right?
So it goes into it exactly. And with technology advancing,
there's so much more. And a lot of people think, OK,
(18:37):
well, technology is advanced so far now we can't make this
happen anymore. But right, no, it's not true.
The advance with technology, yes, move forward with
everything. Hey, being a any kind of
military deception planner, you have to be creative.
Anything you do, you have to think outside the box.
See, you have to think about everything that goes into one
operation. It's very, very detailed and
very, very complex. I understand that some of these
(19:00):
operations have hundreds of different executables to try and
sell the deception, right? Imagine being that guy when I
was in NCOI had you know, small checklist for PCCPCIS, things
like that. I meant having a checklist of
hundreds of things, each of which is complicated and
requires a lot of coordination and follow up.
These things are not easy to plan.
How long does it take to do thisroughly?
(19:22):
Well I know for War 2 Operation 42, that took two years to plan
the plan. That's oh boy, I think he would
just have plan. OK, so is deception then off the
table if you don't have two years?
No, Deception can work fast, butyou can't always get every
detail right. I believe in the modern
battlefield, deception can go get planned and moved and
(19:45):
executed very quickly if you wanted to.
But also the modern battlefield,there's so much more that the
enemy could see and think right?And you have to check off every
blocks. You've been in the military for
more than a day. You've done a number of things.
You've had some unique experience and training in both
psychological operations and military deception.
(20:06):
Can you share with the audience a lesson about influence or
deception, your choice that you feel is just as valuable in
everyday life as it is in military operations and.
Well, what I'd like to say is I think cyber and all that, it's
really often misunderstood by people.
So I think it's scary words scared jobs, right?
So don't let people think to think of it like trickery or
(20:28):
some kind of stunt. But in reality, what you're
doing is you're trying to understand, like human decision
making at its core, especially with SIOP.
And it's not enough to just comeup with a false story.
You have to know what your audience like, values, what they
fear and respect so you can craft something that they'll
believe. You have to customize it to
them, right? How do they consume information?
What do they consider authoritative?
(20:49):
What are their conduits of trusted information, exactly?
Yeah. And I think that applies whether
like you're influencing an adversary, you're working with
allied partners, or even in the office negotiating like some
contract. The process, it always starts
with building like a complete fish of your audience with their
culture, their history, with their operating platforms, and
even their biases. If you can understand that and
(21:11):
you know it, and then you want to crap the plan, that speaks
directly just to that mindset. But it has to be believable in
every layer. I mean, like we said in LA, you
have physical actions, information streams and timing
and everything just has to reinforce it.
So, but I think the other point people sometimes miss is that
good influence work, it's proactive, it's not reactive,
which unfortunately I think we fall into this step of just
(21:33):
being a very reactive army rightnow.
So this has really been a great session.
I've enjoyed this and I know that we can continue with our
audiences and things that they have to get to as well.
Yeah, so. I just really appreciate being
on. I think whether you see all
this, if you use these skills and every day in a life, it's
incredibly rewarding either on the battlefield or just
(21:54):
relationships or negotiations. It's a rewarding job and I
recommend these kind of jobs to anybody in the.
Visual liners. Save for something better in the
future. Definitely come to SIOP and move
on to your career things if that's what you want.
Thanks for listening. If you get a chance, please like
and subscribe and rate the show on your favorite podcast
platform. Also, if you're interested in
(22:16):
coming on the show or hosting anepisode, e-mail us at
ca.podcasting@gmail.com. I'll have the e-mail and CA
Association website in the show notes.
And now, most importantly, to those currently out in the
field, working with a partner nation's people or leadership to
forward US relations, thank you all for what you're doing.
(22:36):
This is Jack, your host. Stay tuned for more great
episodes one CA podcast.
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