There is at least one contemporary theory of military deception, the theoretical framework that J. Bell and Barton Whaley call the “structure of deceit,” that is at odds with the understanding of military deception I have presented to this point. Instead of characterizing military deception as concealment of purpose, Bell and Whaley argue that the essence of deception is to show what is false. To demonstrate in what way this view is problematic, I shall briefly examine their theory in light of this fundamental difference.
Relying on the classical dissimulatio – simulatio distinction, Bell and Whaley
build their deception theory around the assumption that all deceptive acts can be characterized as either ‘hiding’ or ‘showing.’62 They describe the relationship between
these two concepts in the following way:
The basic purpose of hiding is to screen or cloak… by producing a cover. The basic purpose of showing is consciously to display the false which, perforce, must hide the real. In showing, the end result is to create an effect, an illusion of the false as real. All showing involves hiding, but hiding almost never involves showing.63
According to Bell and Whaley, the “end result” of all showing is to cause someone to have a false belief by creating an illusion. To accomplish this goal, a mix of hiding and showing may be used. Conversely, if the goal is to hide or conceal, Bell and Whaley argue that showing is rarely used.
62 J. Bowyer Bell and Barton Whaley, Cheating and Deception (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers,
1991), 61.
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This conceptual framework for what underlies all military deception is in tension with the claim has been advanced earlier in this chapter – that the concealment of one’s purposes (hiding) is the proper intention of all military deception. This requires
explanation. According to Bell and Whaley’s theory, the intention underlying most instances of hiding and showing is ultimately to show an illusion (ie. to cause someone to
have a false belief). In contrast, when the intention is to hide (which would include the
concealment of one’s purposes), showing, they say, is rarely used. If they are correct, then we would expect the four deceptive techniques described in military doctrine (ie. feint, demonstration, ruse, and display), because they all involve showing, would be intended to cause an enemy to have false beliefs rather than to hide one’s purposes. Yet this conclusion would suggest the previous claim about the essence of proper military deception (to conceal one’s purposes from the enemy) is mistaken.
Bell and Whaley’s assertion that concealment almost never involves showing, is also at odds with Donald Daniel and Katharine Herbig’s theory of A-type and M-type military deception. Not only would Daniel and Herbig argue it is incorrect to say that hiding is rarely accomplished by showing, but they would also say that in practice most
military deception involves showing, and it does so in order to achieve the ultimate goal of hiding.
Daniel and Herbig characterize military deception as either “misleading” (M- type) or “ambiguity-increasing” (A-type).64 M-type deceptions attempt to create (eg. by
showing) a single, most plausible course of action in the mind of the enemy that is
nonetheless contrary to what one intends (because the actual intention remains hidden).
64 Donald Daniel and Katharine Herbig, “Propositions on Military Deception” in Strategic Military Deception, eds. Donald Daniel and Katharine Herbig (New York: Pergamon Press, 1981), 5.
For example, a build-up of troops along the Saudi-Kuwaiti during the First Gulf War border might have signaled to Saddam Hussein that an attack was about to occur there rather than at the actual crossing point, which was hundreds of miles to the west.
If the main feature of M-type deception is that it shows one illusion, the central feature of A-type is that it shows many. A-type military deception creates the appearance (most often by showing) of many plausible alternatives to make one’s true intentions
impossible to detect (hiding). An example of A-type deception would be mobilizing
troops all along a border, one that might stretch hundreds of miles, in order to conceal plans for a localized raid to seize a single town. Because the picture painted for the enemy leaves room for countless possibilities, the enemy is left unable to detect that which is planned – the actual intention.
In both examples, something is shown in order to hide. M-type deceptions show
something (and thereby mislead) in order to conceal one’s actual purpose; A-type
deceptions show many things (and thereby create ambiguity) in order to conceal one’s
actual purpose. By classifying all forms of military deception in these terms, Daniel and Herbig suggest not only that Bell and Whaley’s framework is insufficient (since hiding can in fact be accomplished by showing), but that proper military deception always
involves showing in order to hide.
Daniel and Herbig support their theory by providing many historical examples, all of which show (or simulate) in order to hide one’s actual intentions.65 Perhaps the most
65 If the concealment of one’s plans is the ultimate goal, but if is nothing is shown, only hidden, it seems
that the act is more likely to fall under the title of ‘security’ rather than ‘military deception.’ One element of security is the use of safeguards to hide military plans and other sensitive material from the enemy. The military manual defines the doctrinal term ‘security’ as “the condition that prevents unauthorized persons from having access to official information that is safeguarded in the interests of national security.” U.S. Department of Defense, Joint Publication (JP) 2-0, Joint Intelligence (Washington, D.C., October, 2013),
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vivid example is the Fortitude South deception achieved by the allies during the 1944 Normandy invasion. In order to keep the actual location of the invasion hidden from Hitler and the German Army, Allied forces simulated the presence of a large invasion force across the English Channel from Calais. The allies assembled dummy landing craft, simulated the radio traffic of an entire army group,66 and ensured that there was nighttime
vehicle lighting in the port and beach areas to suggest “round-the-clock busyness.”67 In
doing so, the Allies presented misleading signs (M-type deception) to hide the actual invasion force and cause the Germans to think that the main invasion would come at Calais. In the event the Germans detected the actual invasion force (assuming the allied intentions remained hidden), these simulations would simply produce ambiguity and therefore become elements of ambiguity-increasing (A-type) deception.68
One final problem for Bell and Whaley’s theory is that the terminology they use seems to ignore to the moral tone regularly attached to deception-related words. For example, Bell and Whaley say deception and ruses are equivalent to “cheating.”69 Yet by
characterizing all forms of military deception as cheating (which has an entirely negative tone) while making a case for the merits of deception in war, they are suggesting that
GL-11. Thus, to hide in order to hide is more properly termed ‘security,’ whereas to show in order to hide, it seems, is what is meant by ‘deception.’
66 13,358 total simulated radio messages were sent by the Americans alone. Thaddeus Holt, The Deceivers: Allied Military Deception in the Second World War (NewYork: Scribner, 2004), 534.
67 Ibid., 540.
68 Daniel and Herbig admit that their own distinction is not entirely clear-cut, saying that Fortitude South
was 3/4ths misdirection (M-type) and 1/4th ambiguity-increasing (A-type). Daniel and Herbig, 7. The
Fortitude South ruse was so successful that Hitler, convinced that the main amphibious attack would come any day, kept his most capable forces in the Calais area six weeks after the Normandy invasion began. Holt notes, however, that in post-war interviews with German officers and a review of post-war documents, there was no evidence that the Germans detected any of the Allied simulations near the Calais crossing. Instead, the successful deception was likely the result of a wild overestimation of Allied strength and Hitler’s belief that the Normandy invasion was only a large-scale feint and that a second invasion would come any day. See Holt, 590.
moral principles relating to deception do not belong in the practice of waging war and the execution of sound military strategy. This approach, however, is incompatible with the belief that military professionals can remain virtuous in war, and it also seems to deny the possibility that the virtue of truthfulness can or should be a foundational element behind honorable military conduct.