Tactical information operations in Kosovo

Military Review, Sept-Oct, 2004 by Marc J. Romanych, Kenneth Krumm

INFORMATION OPERATIONS (IO) are the employment of the core capabilities of electronic warfare, computer network operations, psychological operations (PSYOP), military deception, and operations security, along with specified supporting and related capabilities, to affect or defend information and information systems, and to influence decisionmaking. (1) Information operations are enabling operations that support offensive and defensive operations, stability operations, and support operations. Consequently, they are primarily shaping operations that create and preserve opportunities for decisive operations. Information operations are a key component of the commander's effort to achieve information superiority, which is an operational advantage derived from the ability to collect, process, and disseminate an uninterrupted flow of information while exploiting or denying the adversary's ability to do the same. (2)

In support of the Multi-National Brigade--East MNB(E) peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, the Army conducted information operations to affect the flow and content of information in the area of responsibility (AOR) and achieved information superiority by disseminating timely, truthful information to key local leaders and populace groups. The operational advantage gained by information superiority was the local populace's support for MNB(E) operations. (3)

The Operating Environment

The situation in Kosovo presented a challenge to the international community (IC). The UN Interim Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and NATO's Kosovo Force (KFOR) were faced with the absence of an effective, central government. Without state institutions, Kosovo's two primary ethnic groups--Albanians and Serbs--developed parallel but separate societies, each with its own institutions. These two societies were in direct conflict with each other along "ethnic fault lines," which were geographic areas where both ethnic groups separately existed but came into direct and often hostile contact. Extremist elements frequently used the friction created along such fault lines to instigate interethnic violence and to threaten Kosovo's fragile peace. The irreconcilable differences between these two societies affected every aspect of UNMIK's civilian and KFOR's military missions.

Within MNB(E)'s AOR, the populace was approximately 90 percent Albanian (around 400,000 people) and 10 percent Serb (perhaps 20,000 people). Kosovo's Albanians and Serbs had quite different perceptions of reality, particularly in regard to each other. For example, Albanians saw all Serbs as aggressors, occupiers, and war criminals who deliberately sought a greater Serbia. Kosovar-Albanians asserted that independence was the only possible solution to their problems.

For their part, Serbs saw Albanians as enemies who wanted to create a greater Albania at the expense of the Serbs. The Serbs claimed Albanians were criminals and terrorists responsible for civil war and intent on expelling all Serbs from Kosovo. Kosovar-Serbs wanted Kosovo to return to direct Serbian government control. Each group claimed victim status at the hands of the other, and both groups believed they had been unjustly persecuted in recent history. (4) These beliefs manifested themselves in various ways, from nationalistic rhetoric and propaganda to ethnic intimidation and even violence.

Without a functioning government, Albanians and Serbs relied on societal institutions to provide structure and direction. Political, religious, and criminal organizations served as a form of command and control for the populace. To influence the populace,

UNMIK and KFOR had to influence Albanian and Serb organizations and the individuals and groups within them. Depending on the extent and character of their influence, these individuals and groups were either supportive of or threatening to MNB(E)'s mission.

To further complicate the matter, neither Albanian nor Serbian societies were monolithic entities. Kosovo's Albanian society was individualistic and decentralized. At the local level, family relationships dominated formal and informal power structures. At the municipal and provincial levels, political, paramilitary, and organized crime organizations were influential. On the other hand, Kosovo's Serbian society was collectivist or centralized. Concentrated into ethnic enclaves, the populace lacked any formal structure other than the Serbian Orthodox Church.

Serbian and Albanian factions competed for control of their respective communities and, in the case of the Albanians, for the entire province as well. Armed Albanian insurgent groups, supported by extremist elements within Kosovo, desired to expand Kosovo's current boundaries to the east and south. The factionalism produced a complex, multidimensional operating environment.

Information was an important part of KFOR's operating environment, and the most significant characteristic of the information environment was people. Conceptually, Kosovo's populace (both Albanian and Serb) was considered the information environment's key terrain; that is, an entity the control of which afforded a marked advantage to either IC (that is, UNMIK and KFOR) or Albanian and Serb factions. The presence of the international community restrained Albanian and Serb factions and compelled them to compete in the information environment rather than on the battlefield.