Throughout the recorded history of warfare, military planners and commanders have sought to deceive their adversary as to the size, timing, or location of an attack in order to gain a decisive advantage. From the famous Trojan Horse to modern efforts to use the electromagnetic Spectrum to "spoof" or jam sensors, deception in some form remains an essential component of military operations. Whether attacking an unsuspecting enemy on Christmas morning, as Washington did at Trenton, or emplacing "Quaker guns" (logs painted black to resemble cannons) to provide the impression of strength, U.S. forces have successfully built on a long legacy of military deception (MILDEC) in order to prevail in the Nations wars. While technology continues to advance at a dizzying pace, threatening to render previous lessons obsolete, MILDEC operations have successfully withstood previous developments and even incorporated new technologies to continue to form an important part of combat operations. While in some cases MILDEC is potentially capable of enabling military forces to prevail without a fight, as the theorist Sun Tzu postulated, more often it confers an advantage that helps the side that successfully harnesses it prevail, often at a much lower cost than it would have otherwise.1 Thus, MILDEC, and its long and successful history, remain an important, even vital, tool for any future leader.
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