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CIA report into shoring up Afghan war support in
Western Europe
WikiLeaks release: March 26, 2010
keywords: WikiLeaks, U.S. intelligence, U.S. Army, National
Ground Intelligence Center, NGIC, classified, SE-
CRET, NOFORN
restraint: Classified CONFIDENTIAL//NOFORN (US)
title: CIA Red Cell Special Memorandum; Afghanistan:
Sustaining West European Support for the NATO-led
Mission-Why Counting on Apathy Might Not Be Enough
date: March 11, 2010
group: Central Intelligence Agency; Red Cell
author: CIA Red Cell
link: http://wikileaks.org/file/cia-afgthanistan.pdf
pages: 4
Description
By WikiLeaks staff (wl-office@sunshinepress.org)
This classified CIA analysis from March, outlines possible
PR-strategies to shore up public support in Germany
and France for a continued war in Afghanistan. After the Dutch
government fell on the issue of dutch troops in
Afghanistan last month, the CIA became worried that similar
events could happen in the countries that post the
third and fourth largest troop contingents to the
ISAF-mission. The proposed PR strategies focus on pressure
points
that have been identified within these countries. For France it
is the sympathy of the public for Afghan refugees
and women. For Germany it is the fear of the consequences of
defeat (drugs, more refugees, terrorism) as well as
for Germany’s standing in the NATO. The memo is an recipe for
the targeted manipulation of public opinion in two
NATO ally countries, written by the CIA. It is classified as
Confidential / No Foreign Nationals.
wikileaks.orghttp://wikileaks.org/file/cia-afgthanistan.pdf
CONFIDENTIAL//NOFORN
CONFIDENTIAL//NOFORN
CIA Red Cell
A Red Cell Special Memorandum 11 March
2010
Afghanistan: Sustaining West European Support for the
NATO-led
Mission—Why Counting on Apathy Might Not Be Enough (C//NF)
The fall of the Dutch Government over its troop commitment to
Afghanistan
demonstrates the fragility of European support for the
NATO-led ISAF mission.
Some NATO states, notably France and Germany, have counted on
public
apathy about Afghanistan to increase their contributions to
the mission, but
indifference might turn into active hostility if spring and
summer fighting
results in an upsurge in military or Afghan civilian
casualties and if a Dutch-
style debate spills over into other states contributing
troops. The Red Cell
invited a CIA expert on strategic communication and analysts
following public
opinion at the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and
Research (INR) to
consider information approaches that might better link the
Afghan mission to
the priorities of French, German, and other Western European
publics. (C//NF)
Public Apathy Enables Leaders To Ignore Voters. . .
(C//NF)
The Afghanistan mission’s low public salience has allowed
French and German leaders to
disregard popular opposition and steadily increase their troop
contributions to the
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Berlin and
Paris currently maintain the third
and fourth highest ISAF troop levels, despite the opposition
of 80 percent of German and
French respondents to increased ISAF deployments, according to
INR polling in fall 2009.
• Only a fraction (0.1-1.3 percent) of
French and German respondents identified
“Afghanistan” as the most urgent issue facing their nation in
an open-ended
question, according to the same polling.
These publics ranked
“stabilizing
Afghanistan” as among the lowest priorities for US and
European leaders,
according to polls by the German Marshall Fund (GMF) over the
past two years.
• According to INR polling in the fall of
2009, the view that the Afghanistan mission
is a waste of resources and “not our problem” was cited as the
most common
reason for opposing ISAF by German respondents and was the
second most
common reason by French respondents. But the “not our problem”
sentiment also
suggests that, so for, sending troops to Afghanistan is not
yet on most voters’
radar. (C//NF)
. . . But Casualties Could Precipitate Backlash (C//NF)
If some forecasts of a bloody summer in Afghanistan come to
pass, passive French and
German dislike of their troop presence could turn into active
and politically potent hostility.
The tone of previous debate suggests that a spike in French or
German casualties or in
Afghan civilian casualties could become a tipping point in
converting passive opposition
into active calls for immediate withdrawal. (C//NF)
French and German commitments to NATO are a safeguard against
a precipitous
departure, but leaders fearing a backlash ahead of spring
regional elections might become
unwilling to pay a political price for increasing troop levels
or extending deployments. If
This memo was prepared by
the CIA Red Cell, which has
been charged by the Director
of Intelligence with taking a
pronounced "out-of-the-box"
approach that will provoke
thought and offer an
alternative viewpoint on the
full range of analytic issues.
Comments and queries are
welcome and may be directed
to the CIA Red Cell at (703)
482-6918 / 482-0169 or
44462/50127, secure. (C)
CL BY: 0711195
CL REASON: 1.4 (d)
DECL ON: 20350303
DRV FRM: FOR C-06
http://wikileaks.org/file/cia-afgthanistan.pdf
CONFIDENTIAL//NOFORN
CONFIDENTIAL//NOFORN//20350303
domestic politics forces the Dutch to depart, politicians
elsewhere might cite a precedent for
“listening to the voters.” French and German
leaders have over the past two years taken
steps to preempt an upsurge of opposition but their
vulnerability may be higher now:
• To strengthen support, President Sarkozy
called on the National Assembly—whose
approval is not required for ISAF—to affirm the French mission
after the combat
deaths of 10 soldiers in August 2008. The government won the
vote handily,
defusing a potential crisis and giving Sarkozy cover to deploy
approximately 3,000
additional troops. Sarkozy, however, may now be more
vulnerable to an upsurge in
casualties because his party faces key regional elections this
March and the already
low support for ISAF has fallen by one-third since March 2009,
according to INR
polling in the fall of 2009.
• Political fallout from the German-ordered
Kunduz airstrike in September 2009 which
killed dozens of Afghan civilians, demonstrated the potential
pressure on the
German Government when Afghanistan issues come up on the
public radar.
Concern about the potential effects of Afghanistan issues on
the state-level election
in North Rhine-Westphalia in May 2010 could make Chancellor
Merkel—who has
shown an unwillingness to expend political capital on
Afghanistan—more hesitant
about increasing or even sustaining Germany’s ISAF
contributions. (C//NF)
Tailoring Messaging Could Forestall or At Least Contain
Backlash (C//NF)
Western European publics might be better prepared to tolerate
a spring and summer of
greater military and civilian casualties if they perceive
clear connections between outcomes
in Afghanistan and their own priorities. A
consistent and iterative strategic
communication
program across NATO troop contributors that taps into the key
concerns of specific Western
European audiences could provide a buffer if today’s apathy
becomes tomorrow’s opposition
to ISAF, giving politicians greater scope to support
deployments to Afghanistan. (C//NF)
French Focused On Civilians and Refugees.
Focusing on a message that ISAF
benefits
Afghan civilians and citing examples of concrete gains could
limit and perhaps even reverse
opposition to the mission. Such tailored messages could tap
into acute French concern for
civilians and refugees. Those who support
ISAF in INR surveys from fall 2009 most
frequently cited their perception that the mission helps
Afghan civilians, while opponents
most commonly argued that the mission hurts civilians.
Contradicting the “ISAF does more
harm than good” perception is clearly important, particularly
for France’s Muslim minority:
• Highlighting Afghans’ broad support for
ISAF could underscore the mission’s
positive impact on civilians. About two-thirds of Afghans
support the presence of
ISAF forces in Afghanistan, according to a reliable
ABC/BBC/ADR poll conducted in
December 2009. According to INR polling in
fall 2009, those French and German
respondents who believed that the Afghan people oppose ISAF—48
percent and 52
percent, respectively—were more likely than others to oppose
participation in the
mission.
• Conversely, messaging that dramatizes the
potential adverse consequences of an
ISAF defeat for Afghan civilians could leverage French (and
other European) guilt
for abandoning them. The prospect of the Taliban rolling back
hard-won progress
on girls’ education could provoke French indignation, become a
rallying point for
France’s largely secular public, and give voters a reason to
support a good and
necessary cause despite casualties.
http://wikileaks.org/file/cia-afgthanistan.pdf
CONFIDENTIAL//NOFORN
CONFIDENTIAL//NOFORN
• The media controversy generated by Paris’s
decision to expel 12 Afghan refugees in
late 2009 suggests that stories about the plight of Afghan
refugees are likely to
resonate with French audiences. The French government has
already made
combating Afghan human trafficking networks a priority and
would probably
support an information campaign that a NATO defeat in
Afghanistan could
precipitate a refugee crisis. (C//NF)
Germans Worried About Price And Principle Of ISAF Mission.
German opponents of
ISAF worry that a war in Afghanistan is a waste of resources,
not a German problem, and
objectionable in principle, judging from an INR poll in the
fall of 2009. Some German
opposition to ISAF might be muted by proof of progress on the
ground, warnings about the
potential consequences for Germany of a defeat, and
reassurances that Germany is a
valued partner in a necessary NATO-led
mission.
• Underscoring the contradiction between
German pessimism about ISAF and Afghan
optimism about the mission’s progress could challenge
skeptics’ assertions that the
mission is a waste of resources. The same ABC/BBC/ADR poll
revealed that 70
percent of Afghans thought their country was heading in the
right direction and
would improve in 2010, while a 2009 GMF poll showed that about
the same
proportion of German respondents were pessimistic about ever
stabilizing
Afghanistan.
• Messages that dramatize the consequences
of a NATO defeat for specific German
interests could counter the widely held perception that
Afghanistan is not
Germany’s problem. For example, messages
that illustrate how a defeat in
Afghanistan could heighten Germany’s exposure to terrorism,
opium, and refugees
might help to make the war more salient to skeptics.
• Emphasis on the mission’s multilateral and
humanitarian aspects could help ease
Germans’ concerns about waging any kind of war while appealing
to their desire to
support multilateral efforts. Despite their allergy to armed
conflict, Germans were
willing to break precedent and use force in the Balkans in the
1990s to show
commitment to their NATO allies. German respondents cited
helping their allies as
one of the most compelling reasons for supporting ISAF,
according to an INR poll in
the fall of 2009. (C//NF)
Appeals by President Obama and Afghan Women Might Gain
Traction (C//NF)
The confidence of the French and German publics in President
Obama’s ability to handle
foreign affairs in general and Afghanistan in particular
suggest that they would be receptive
to his direct affirmation of their importance to the ISAF
mission—and sensitive to direct
expressions of disappointment in allies who do not help.
1
• According to a GMF poll conducted in June
2009, about 90 percent of French and
German respondents were confident in the President’s ability
to handle foreign
policies. The same poll revealed that 82 percent of French and
74 percent of
German respondents were confident in the President’s ability
to stabilize
Afghanistan, although the subsequent wait for the US surge
strategy may have
eroded some of this confidence.
1
that his absence showed that Europe counted for less suggests
that worry about European standing
with Washington might provide at least some leverage for
sustaining contributions to ISAF. (C//NF)
http://wikileaks.org/file/cia-afgthanistan.pdf
CONFIDENTIAL//NOFORN
CONFIDENTIAL//NOFORN
• The same poll also found that, when
respondents were reminded that President
Obama himself had asked for increased deployments to
Afghanistan, their support
for granting this request increased dramatically, from 4 to 15
percent among
French respondents and from 7 to 13 percent among Germans. The
total
percentages may be small but they suggest significant
sensitivity to disappointing a
president seen as broadly in sync with European concerns.
(C//NF)
Afghan women could serve as ideal messengers in humanizing the
ISAF role in combating
the Taliban because of women’s ability to speak personally and
credibly about their
experiences under the Taliban, their aspirations for the
future, and their fears of a Taliban
victory. Outreach initiatives that create media opportunities
for Afghan women to share
their stories with French, German, and other European women
could help to overcome
pervasive skepticism among women in Western Europe toward the
ISAF mission.
• According to INR polling in the fall of
2009, French women are 8 percentage points
less likely to support the mission than are men, and German
women are 22
percentage points less likely to support the war than are men.
• Media events that feature testimonials by
Afghan women would probably be most
effective if broadcast on programs that have large and
disproportionately female
audiences. (C//NF)
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