Given the post-war mood in Iraq, one might question the effects of the coalition's psychological operations that we heard so much about leading up to and during the war. Military psychologists now admit they made some miscalculations. So exactly how were these operations designed and how did they go wrong?
A psychological operation is similar to an advertising campaign, experts admit. The goal is to make the message personal, persuasive and permanent. As far as possible, the communication has to be what people want to hear. So it is crucial to know your customer. In the case of Iraq, the coalition seems to have seriously misinterpreted the particular target customer. Coalition forces have had to admit that they misjudged how the Iraqi people would react to an invasion.
What is of particular interest about this failure is that American military psychologists seem to have ascribed too much significance to cultural differences. This contrasts with previous military misadventures in which, in retrospect, cultural differences were not taken sufficiently into account. It is true that an outsider, if he or she takes the trouble, is in a good position to notice the particular characteristics of another group's collective psyche. But it is one thing to pick up on contrasts in attitudes and quite another to use this information to predict future behaviour.
Based on a 'target analysis', the coalition decided to persuade Iraqis through propaganda that fighting for Saddam Hussein was against the interests of their family. The Americans thought the family-versus-regime argument would work well because they saw Iraq as a developing, collectivist society (relative to the United States), in which family would normally take precedence over any national loyalties. How wrong that was.
Subsequent events have demonstrated that Iraq is quite unlike the less cohesive Afghani society, for example, in which people are more oriented towards their family and region than their nation. In fact, the Iraqis reacted in much the way one would expect the Americans or the British to react if their country was invaded: they stuck together. This is precisely how Americans reacted after September 11.
This rule of behaviour is straight out of Group Dynamics 101, which shows how groups can work effectively. But, given the culture and harsh regime in Iraq, the Americans figured it would not apply. In fact, the coalition seemed to have practised some self-inflicted psychological operations, convincing themselves that the Iraqi people could not fail to want to be saved (or 'liberated'). Meanwhile, Iraqis clearly baulked at the idea of accepting the invasion on the simplistic terms set by their invaders.