Military Deception: Hiding the Real - Showing the Fake

摘要

Military deception is an umbrella term that includes both denial and deception. Denial hides the real and deception shows the fake. Denial and deception are operations; propaganda and disinformation are the products (DOD background Briefing:3). Joint doctrine says that military deception, as applied by a joint force commander, targets an adversary's decision-making process. ultimately, the intent is to shape the adversary's behavior in the JFC's favor or to cause an adversary to form an inaccurate impression of the battlespace. Consequently, planning for deception operations depends on intelligence and security for success. Obviously, a commander wants to conceal deception efforts from the enemy, but often he'll conceal all or some of his efforts from his own troops to prevent confusion and/or compromise of the plan (JP 3-13:II-4). During the early years of Soviet involvement in World War II, mishandling of information by soldiers and planners resulted in the compromise of many maskirovka (or deception) operations. As a result, the Soviets implemented aggressive security measures to protect their deception plans. Specifically, Soviet commanders restricted the number of planners and documents involved in the deception operations and communicated to subordinates only what they needed to know, when they needed to know it.