A C2 system for 'Winning hearts and minds': tools for Confrontation and Collaboration Analysis

Abstract : Asymmetric campaigns since the end of the Cold War have tended to have a brief war-fighting phase followed by a cultural phase in which victory is achieved by winning the hearts and minds of diverse ethnic and national groups that may side with us or with extremists. Actual fighting is limited to the tactical level; its strategic significance, like that of other operations, is in the political-psychological domain rather than the physical. It lies in whether it sends the right message to the right people, and makes it credible to them. This paper outlines a command and control system for managing the messages sent by a force (in words or in deeds) with the objective of winning hearts and minds. The system is supported by a new commercial, off-the-shelf software package called Confrontation Manager.