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USAFSOS holds 20th Annual NATO Joint Psychological Operations Course

  • Published
  • By 1st Lt. Amy Cooper
  • AFSOC Public Affairs
HURLBURT FIELD, Fla. --  The U.S. Air Force Special Operations School hosted the 20th Annual NATO Joint Psychological Operations Conference here Dec. 11-14.

The NATO JSPOC provided an opportunity for senior military leaders from 11 NATO member and partner countries to hear from the foremost experts in the PSYOP community and discuss the field's pertinent issues.

The topic of this year's conference was "measures of effectiveness."

"We agree on the importance of measures of effectiveness is to maximize our scarce PSYOP resources," said Maj. Gunnar Siversten, NATO Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe representative and Norwegian army officer, during the event's welcome remarks. "Hopefully this week we will get new ideas on how to do this."

Traditionally, the PSYOP community relies on quantitative measures of performance, said Capt. Stephanie Allison, USAFSOS information operations course director.

"In the military, we want instant results," said Captain Allison. "That's hard to do with PSYOP because results take time."

An example of a measure of performance is analyzing how many leaflets were dropped during an operation and basing success off of that number. The problem with such analysis, Captain Allison said, is that it is difficult to interpret how the target audience's behavior changed. simply based on the number of leaflets dropped.

"Also, when conducting operations in foreign countries, you have the added barriers of language and culture," the captain said.

The first speaker, Army Col. Carl Ayers, Joint Staff Psychological Operations Division chief, began his presentation by stressing the importance of culture in PSYOP.

"Getting into the cultural wiring of an organization is more important than getting into the technical wiring," the colonel said.

The conference also gave the attendees a forum to discuss issues in public information, information operations and strategic communications, which are separate but related to PSYOP, said Captain Allison.

Another highlight of the week-long conference was the opportunity for the attendees to see first-hand the newest aircraft in the Air Force Special Operations Command inventory, the CV-22 Osprey. The military leaders were able to tour a static display of the aircraft and try their hand at flying it in the 19th Special Operations Squadron's CV-22 simulator.

At the end of the week, organizers took to heart the topic of the conference and measured the effectiveness of the event.

"The NATO JSPOC successfully facilitated critical discussion, built relationships, and left attendees with enhanced knowledge of measures of effectiveness in influence operations," said Captain Allison.