I don't appreciate your ruse, ma'am *

Dr. Joseph Caddell, an instructor of history at the North Carolina State University at Raleigh, has a new Strategic Studies Institute monograph worth checking out. In Deception 101-- Primer on Deception he compiles a useful examination of pros and cons of the use of deception in military operations across several levels of analysis. In particular, his warnings about the misuses of deception in a democracy are worth pondering. Read the whole thing.

Quasi-Non Sequitor: Perhaps it says something about my chosen profession, but I have always been fascinated/frightened with John Allen Mohammad's defense attorney's claims that he (read: JAM) orchestrated the entire DC sniper attacks as a strategem of unrelated attacks in order to conceal his true aim: the murder of his ex-wife in order to gain sole custody of his children. Applied to warfare this could cause severe headaches: multiple, non-connected, acts of seemingly random violence that use deception and obfuscation to hide the true objective until it is too late. This grows more worrisome in the current/emerging operational environment where multi-directional, sychronized swarming operations become more feasible.

* Delivered by Kevin Smith's sophomoric, yet brilliantly funny Randal Graves character from Clerks.