The Defense Department needs to get better at lying and fooling people about its intentions. That’s the conclusion from an influential Pentagon panel, the Defense Science Board (DSB), which recommends that
the military and intelligence communities join in a new agency devoted
to “strategic surprise/deception.”

Tricking battlefield opponents has been a part of war since guys started beating each other with bones and sticks. But these days, such moves are harder to pull off, the DSB notes in a January report (.pdf) first unearthed by InsideDefense.com.
“In an era of ubiquitous information access, anonymous leaks and public
demands for transparency, deception operations are extraordinarily
difficult. Nevertheless, successful strategic deception has in the past
provided the United States with significant advantages that translated
into operational and tactical success. Successful deception also
minimizes U.S. vulnerabilities, while simultaneously setting conditions
to surprise adversaries.”

The U.S. can’t wait until it’s at war with a particular country or group before engaging in this strategic trickery, however. “Deception cannot succeed in wartime without developing theory and doctrine in
peacetime,” according to the DSB. “In order to mitigate or impart
surprise, the United States should [begin] deception planning and
action prior to the need for military operations.”

Doing that will not only requires an “understanding the enemy culture, standing beliefs, and intelligence-gathering process and decision cycle, as well as the soundness of its operational and
tactical doctrine,” the DSB adds. Deception is also “reliant … on the
close control of information, running agents (and double-agents) and
creating stories that adversaries will readily believe.”

Such wholesale obfuscation can’t be done on an ad-hoc basis, or by a loose coalition of existing agencies. The DSB writes that ”to be effective, a permanent standing office with strong professional
intelligence and operational expertise needs to be established.” I
wonder: what would you call that organization? The Military Deception
Agency? Or something a bit more … deceptive?