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Russian efforts to influence the populations of the United States and its allies and partners — including such aggressive means as disinformation campaigns and social media "troll farms" — are a central element of the strategic competition taking place between the United States and Russia. Both countries use public communication campaigns, sometimes referred to as "information warfare," to try to gain advantage over the other. But how effective are these efforts? The authors of this report systematically reviewed rigorous evaluations of the effectiveness of communications campaigns to develop insights into what types of public communications campaigns and messages are most effective and in what contexts. The authors detail their findings and provide recommendations for how the United States can maximize the effectiveness of its public communications in competition with Russia.

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From 2001 to 2021, the United States pursued an unchanging policy objective in Afghanistan: to prevent a terrorist group from using the country as a safe haven in which to plan or launch an attack on the United States. However, despite deteriorating conditions and no apparent hope of military victory, the U.S. goal remained constant even as successive leaders experimented with different strategies to achieve it. The authors examined the reasons behind this policy inertia through interviews with the senior leaders involved in the policy deliberations between 2001 and 2016. They interviewed the decisionmakers involved in high-level discussions and policy formulation to establish the institutional, informational, and interpersonal dynamics that informed major decisions; capture common interpretations and assumptions; and reconstruct how the deliberative process functioned in practice. As this analysis details, decisions for how to navigate de-escalation from a conflict under conditions short of victory are tremendously difficult, both practically and politically. With no clear definition of success, bureaucratic inertia took hold, extending the conflict and enabling focus on mechanical details of its execution rather than its ultimate intent. The dynamics of the policy process further prevented dramatic policy change. Psychological factors promoted risk aversion and a continued escalation of commitment, even when the mission itself became poorly aligned with national priorities. Additionally, frictions between civilian and military leaders and with the Intelligence Community further prevented fundamental reassessments of the mission.

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The authors of this report assess the role of U.S. Army special operations forces (ARSOF) in great-power competition, focusing on the types of activities the United States will need to conduct in competition with Russia and ARSOF's effectiveness in conducting them, as well as ARSOF's advantages and disadvantages relative to conventional military forces and the efforts of nonmilitary agencies. The authors find that, under steady-state conditions, ARSOF can help to strengthen the resilience of allies and partners while improving the United States' situational awareness. When the risk of armed conflict is high, ARSOF can help to defend against proxy forces used by U.S. adversaries and can be used to disrupt adversary operations in denied environments or to impose costs on adversaries. However, unconventional warfare intended to overthrow adversary governments has historically had low rates of success. Finally, ARSOF can be used to better target U.S. operations in the information environment and work with local surrogates to strengthen the impact of such efforts.

Special forces (Military science) --- Great powers. --- Evaluation.