ABSTRACT

In early 2004, a Department of Defense Information Operations Steering Committee decided that a review of psychological operations (PSYOP) lessons learned from Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) was needed. The National Defense University published a report in September 2005 that reviewed PSYOP in OIF as well as in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). The report found that PSYOP lessons learned were consistent with historic findings, namely, that PSYOP continues to suffer from a lack of national-level themes, a slow or unresponsive product approval process, questionable product quality, and an overall lack of resources, including sufficient force structure.1 Why do the same problems continue to undermine the effectiveness of PSYOP? Why is it that lessons learned seem more like lessons observed?