Naming Operations
Also see:
Update: "Operation Iraqi Freedom?" How about "Operation Give us oil or we'll blow the shit out of you sad little underdeveloped shitheads."
Ever wondered how the US gets those incredibly nifty names for its military excursions? Why the next war isn't going to be called Operation Pink Monkey? Why the British have such ridiculously dull names for their operations? Why the American names are just so damn cool? Then read on: ever since that fiasco with the name of the war in Afghanistan (I'll explain...) I've wondered how the names are picked and who approves them. A March 2002 article in The Times prompted my interest, but this was a short description of recent naming conventions. Doing some research I found that the history was pretty interesting. I'm not going to begin at the beginning though - see what happens when you get the naming wrong. Oh, and if you aren't interested in the history and just want to see how they get names these days the skip down to the bit at the end about computers.
You called it WHAT?
In 1989 Manuel Noriega was the dictator of Panama and he was giving the US a bit of a headache - supplying drugs and all that sort of stuff. George Bush had naturally had enough and he ordered the invasion (God, how times change...) of the country to topple the evil dictator (Insert your own joke here). Now comes the interesting part - word spread among Bush's cabinet and military advisers that Bush had ordered the invasion and people were beginning to learn of the name of the operation. Lieutenant General Thomas Kelly was at that time Operations Officer on the Joint Staff, and some time that day he picked up the phone: it was General James Lindsay who was Commander-in-Chief, Special Operations Command. These were two of the most important men involved in the invasion, and Lindsay uttered the immortal words:
"Do you want your grandchildren to say you were in Blue Spoon?"
Yes, that's right. Someone had actually decided to go and assign the invasion the codename Operation Blue Spoon. Clearly this was designed to strike fear into the heart of Panaman rebels - a strangely coloured culinary implement was coming at them with great force, and would show no mercy. Kelly got the point and soon after phoned the man directly under him: Brigadier General Joe Lopez. They agreed that the name wasn't quite suitable, and Kelly suggested the name "Just Action." Clearly deciding that this sounded like the slogan of a spurious sneakers company, Joe Lopez offered "Just Cause" and so it was that the 1989 invasion of Panama became known as "Operation Just Cause." According to many, this exchange marked the end of using computers to design codenames and the beginning of real PR for war.
Nowadays, at least in the US, names are chosen for the image they give off - it's all about PR, baby. In a time when war is coming under increased pressure (it always has, but this time it's really under pressure) helping to influence the public perception of the war is of crucial importance to governments who want to go and kill lots of foreign people. If Bush had called his 2003 war on Iraq "Operation Get some Oil" there would have been a domestic and international backlash (oh, wait...). Names soothe people's nerves - they simply try to change he image of the war. "Operation Provide Comfort" was the name used to describe an operation in Turkey and the whole point was that the US needed to stress the humanitarian aspects of the military presence. In the same way "Operation Iraqi Freedom" stresses the liberating aspects of the war: there is an intense need to convince people that your motives are good, and you are there for whatever reason except killing.
Major General Charles McClain (who is Chief of Public Affairs for the Army) said in a recent publication, "the perception of an operation can be as important to success as the execution of that operation." Professor Ray Eldon Hiebert also recently wrote a book called, "Public Relations as a Weapon of Modern War," (hey, we need him on E2) where he said "The effective use of words and media today . . . is just as important as the effective use of bullets and bombs. In the end, it is no longer enough just to be strong. Now it is necessary to communicate. To win a war today government not only has to win on the battlefield, it must also win the minds of its public." Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.
But who actually decided the names? Well it's a lot of people. It's not like Dubya sits at his desk doodling, and shouts across the Oval Office, "Hey, Colin, why can't I call it `Operation Cat in the Hat?' Dick and Condoleezza said I could!" What used to happen was that mid-level people in the Department of Defence would be assigned the seemingly trivial task of deciding a name - this was before computers came into the picture, and before PR was seen as a problem. In fact, all sorts of different people/things have made the decision as time goes by.
The World Wars
The idea of actually assigning a name for an operation was initiated by the Germans during the end of World War I where the use of names was actually for intelligence purposes - by using names instead of detailed descriptions of the operation, security was maintained and there was a smaller risk of leaks. The Germans, being German and as a result having the intrinsic capability to beat the British at most things, initially came up with great names that inspired confidence and helped morale. In 1918 when they began the Western Front offensive they began to use names that were dawn from religion and mythology calling their operations things like Mars, Castor, Pollux, Archangel and Valkyrie (Holy Shit! how cool can you get?).
While the Germans were coming up with this stuff, Americans sat there doing nothing and only during World War II did they start using codenames - again for security purposes only. The interesting thing is that they only used colours - not a great idea when you're fighting battles on multiple fronts. Once you get to "Operation Kinda-Pink-But-More-Like-Magenta-Really" you know there has to be a change. Before this, however, they managed the wonderfully named "Operation Indigo" which was a military activity in Iceland, and were going to do stuff in the Azores and Dakar using the names "Operation Gray" and "Operation Black" respectively.
Remember that scene from Reservoir Dogs? It must have been like that:
Defence Secretary: General Smith, you get Operation Blue. General Johnson, you'll be fighting Operation Pink
General Johnson: Hey, how come my operation is Operation Pink?
Defence Secretary: 'Cause you're a faggot, OK?
Anyway, the army soon ran out of names (pretty obviously) but they also had to change because randomly naming operations didn't help logistics - there was no system in place so names were totally unrelated and gave no information about the operation. In addition, the names didn't exactly promote unity and help morale - say you were fighting "Operation Brown," you fought in the knowledge your operation was the colour of faeces.
Dictionaries: and you thought Butterfinger McFlurry was random...
What happened next was that the War Department (in those days they were honest with department titles!) decided to revamp the entire system and it did so in 1942 when it took a dictionary and came up with 10,000 common nouns and adjectives. This 10,000 was taken after a filtering process where they got rid of anything that was "suggestive of operational activities or locations." They decided not to use proper nouns, names of places (Yes, I know they count as proper nouns but it's worth mentioning) and naval names (like names of ships). During this process the British were doing pretty much the same thing, where the list of words was managed by the British Inter-Services Security Board - the American's co-ordinated their name finding efforts so that the names wouldn't overlap (many operations were carried out by both countries at once). Gregory C. Sieminski, the author of "The Art of Naming Operations" (an article that I've been trawling through since I decided to write this node) writes:
In March 1942, the Joint Chiefs of Staff approved the classified Inter-Services Code-Word Index and gave the War Plans Division the duty of assigning code words. Accordingly, the War Plans Division (shortly afterward renamed the Operations Division) assigned blocks of code words to each theatre; the European Theatre got such names as Market and Garden, while the Pacific Theatre got names like Olympic and Flintlock.
It's also worth noting something else - Winston Churchill had a deep fascination with codenames, so although the words in the lists were random, the choosing took place carefully and particularly for crucial operations. Apparently Winston personally chose the names for the very important missions and "had clear ideas about what constituted appropriate names." What happened was that while he was checking the list of operation names he came across some that were not quite right (we can only guess what they were - perhaps he had unearthed some obscure "Operation Dude You're Getting a Dell" or "Operation Long Dong"). He asked that he checked all the names in future but he gave up on this idea after realising that the amount of names that had to be chosen was massive. This list of rules he made I found absolutely fascinating:
1. Operations in which large numbers of men may lose their lives ought not to be described by code words which imply a boastful or overconfident sentiment, ... or, conversely, which are calculated to invest the plan with an air of despondency ... They ought not to be names of a frivolous character ... They should not be ordinary words often used in other connections ... Names of living people - Ministers and Commanders - should be avoided ...
2. After all, the world is wide, and intelligent thought will readily supply an unlimited number of well-sounding names which do not suggest the character of the operation or disparage it in any way and do not enable some widow or mother to say that her son was killed in an operation called "Bunnyhug" or "Ballyhoo."
3. Proper names are good in this field. The heroes of antiquity, figures from Greek and Roman mythology, the constellations and stars, famous racehorses, names of British and American war heroes, could be used, provided they fall within the rules above.
Winston Churchill began to develop a real dislike for this adjective and noun type of thing, and I imagine he got really pissed off when the American bombing raid on the Romanian oilfields was called "Operation Soapsuds." It's true. He managed to get the Joint Chiefs of Staff to change the name to "Operation Tidal Wave." When America, Great Britain, Canada, France and Poland invaded Normandy in 1944 Churchill again managed to get the name changed from Operation Roundhammer to Operation Overlord - the name that went down in history as the Normandy beach invasion. Overlord had this sense of massive strength but also elegance. The Japanese didn't use dictionaries and word list, but still chose their names in order to convey some kind of message to the troops - they called one of their operations (which they ironically lost) Operation Victory.
The Germans' secret was that names were chosen on an almost case-by-case basis, especially for the important operations where troop morale was crucial. In 1941, as you probably know, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union and the original name for that invasion was Operation Fritz (this name was derived from the son of Colonel Bernhard Von Lossberg). That charming Adolf Hitler decided that a poor name like that was simply degrading to the majesty of the battle and on the 11th December 1940, he had the name of the operation changed to Operation Barbarossa. This translates as Operation Red Beard (the orignal is Itlalian gn0sis tells me) and comes from the nickname of Emperor Frederick I - a12th century emperor. Interestingly, Hitler's fascination with the names also cost him dearly: Names were designed for intelligence purposes and then for morale purposes - however by picking names like Barbarossa Hitler risked giving away his plans and although no-one saw Barbarossa coming, he named his (planned) attack on Britain Operation Sealion. The British military managed to see what was coming and stopped the invasion.
Public Relations and Korea
Despite all this talk of morale, it's worth noting that names during the wars were actually classified and as a result they had no effect on the public itself and they only helped senior troops (who probably didn't care what the operation was called anyway). It was only after the wars, and only in America, that the military decided to create "new category of unclassified operation names, which are known as nicknames to distinguish them from classified code words. Code words are assigned a classified meaning and are used to safeguard classified plans and operations, while nicknames are assigned unclassified meanings and are used for administrative, morale, and public information purposes." That quote is from the article I mentioned earlier. The first such nickname was used during the development of the atomic bomb, and the use of these names began to rise. The media got wise to this a while later, but then their scepticism slowly faded away.
So, although the military was using nicknames for non-war related projects for various reasons, it still stuck to the dictionary method that I described earlier for war operations. These names were still random and still weird - one ended up being called Operation Cornflakes - seriously. During the beginning of the Korean War, General Douglas MacArthur (the guy who was planning the Inchon landing) still used the dictionary method and the early battles in the War were called Operation Bluehearts and Operation Chromite. One difference was that the General, unlike others, allowed the declassification of these codenames so that once the operation had actually started (so it didn't matter if anyone saw the names) the media and the public could see them. However this wasn't yet a PR trick and the randomness was till there. At that time no one at all saw that the public could be influenced by the names.
This all changed when Lieutenant General Matthew Ridgway was commanding the Eighth Army, which was under attack by the Chinese. The morale of his troops had suffered badly after the onslaught and one way of rectifying this was to give his operations incredibly aggressive names. This was done in the World Wars, but it was merely an afterthought - this time the names were being decided solely for troop morale. We got Operations Thunderbolt, Roundup, Killer, Ripper, Courageous, Audacious, and Dauntless - none of these names, don't forget, was classified so the public and the troops all got to see them. This helped the army counter the Chinese, but it caused real trouble back home where Operation Killer had come under attack for its clearly violent name that suggested the war was about killing people (it was, but hey, you're not meant to tell people that!).
The Chief of Staff at the time was General J. Lawton Collins and he hated the name, telling Lieutenant Ridgway that "the word `killer' . . . struck an unpleasant note as far as public relations was concerned." The New York Times got loads of letters criticising the name, but Ridgway didn't give a rat's ass saying, "I am not convinced that the country should not be told that war means killing. I am by nature opposed to any effort to `sell' war to people as an only mildly unpleasant business that requires very little in the way of blood." To conclude, PR was not a big concern at this time, and no one realised how to harness the power of a name. Ridgway had made an impact on the public but no one cared and operations were stilled called stuff like Operation Cardboard Trousers (OK, I'm making that up but it was stuff like that).
Naming the `Nam
Operations in Vietnam were names slightly differently - names were assigned using words that had some relevance to the mission itself. One mission with US Marines and South Vietnamese troops whose objective was to take control of an area was called Operation Blastout. Air strikes against certain military buildings were called Operations Flaming Dart I and Flaming Dart II. The blitzkrieg-like assault on the North Vietnamese was given the title Operation Rolling Thunder. The names were getting cooler and cooler as the dictionary was shunned. However, this fondness for names that were related to the Operation caused a bit of trouble: one mission's objective was to have the 1st Cavalry Division roll through an area and take control on the 25th January 1966. A second wave of attacks was then meant to follow up and finish off any enemy troops. This mission was helpfully called Operation Masher, and a PR disaster ensued.
The media got hold of the name, and had a field day. Television stations, newspapers and books held up the name as an example of the bloodthirsty nature of the US campaign and its brutal methods. This was not what the US Government wanted the war to be perceived as, and President Lyndon B. Johnson was furious, claiming it flew in the face of his "pacification emphasis." One General William Westmoreland added, "President Johnson ... objected ... because the connotation of violence provided a focus for carping war critics." Needless to say, the operation was renamed (to Operation White Wing - decidedly more calm and sensible looking name).
After this incident, the US military began to change their policy. The dictionary had been shunned, the process of picking descriptive titles had been rejected and finally, the decision was made to pick "names of American cities, battles, or historic figures," said general Westmoreland. This was a more sensible policy, allowing a degree of patriotism without the risk of sounding bloodthirsty or war mongering.
Towards the end of the Vietnam War, the Department of Defence began to issue some kind of protocol for dealing with names of Operations - something it had never really done before. They released a guide that re-enforced the importance of a name (to help people avoid mistakes like Operation Killer and Operation Masher) saying names "can be counterproductive," and that the names shouldn't:
- "express a degree of bellicosity inconsistent with traditional American ideals or current foreign policy"
- "convey connotations offensive to good taste or derogatory to a particular group, sect, or creed"
- "convey connotations offensive to allies or other Free World nations"
- use "exotic words, trite expressions, or well-known commercial trademarks."
According to the official guidelines, the names were meant to be composed of two simplistic words - this is to make them identifiable from codenames that only used a single word. In addition I think the practice of giving two words also helps radio communication although I'm no expert on that kind of stuff.
I'm sorry, Dave. I can't let you call it that...
After the headaches of Vietnam nomenclature, the military decided there had to be an easier way, and there certainly was: the NICKA computer system came into play in 1975. It stood for the "Code Word, Nickname, and Exercise Term System" and it was meant to "fully automate the maintenance and reconciliation of nicknames, code words, and exercise terms." This system is still used today although in more of a advisory capacity. If you really want to, you can gain access to NICKA via the "Worldwide Military Command and Control System." What most people don't know is that NICKA does not create random word combinations and it does not actually come up with the names. It is (and I quote Gregory C. Sieminski here):
... merely an automated means for submitting, validating, and storing them. The authority to create nicknames rests not with those who manage the NICKA system, but with 24 DOD components, agencies, and unified and specified commands. JCS assigns each of these organizations a series of two-letter alphabetic sequences and requires that the first word of each two-word nickname begin with a letter pair from one of the sequences. For example, the US Atlantic Command (USACOM) is assigned six two-letter alphabetic sequences: AG-AL, ES-EZ, JG-JL, QA-QF, SM-SR, and UM-UR. Selecting the letter pair UR from the last of these sequences, a staff officer recommended the nickname Urgent Fury for the 1983 invasion of Grenada.
This is interesting, because it dispels the myth that a computer decides the name of the military operation itself - another example: if the USACOM has a mission it needs a name for, it can take let's say SM and make the name Operation Smelting Fire. (hey,if I could come up with good ones I'd be working for them). Nowadays, the staff that use the system and come up with names have a fair bit of leeway - most names are passed without too much interference, especially if they're for low-level operations and the media just doesn't care.
However, despite the introduction of this system people still didn't try to make names with the intention of changing public opinion and improving the perception of any conflict. Sieminski writes:
In the first 15 years of the new system's existence, however, there was little attempt to exploit the power of nicknaming to improve either troop morale or public and international relations. Nicknames used from 1975 through 1988 were generally meaningless word pairs similar to the operation names used during World War II: Eldorado Canyon (the 1986 Libya raid), Praying Mantis (the 1988 air strikes targeting Iranian naval vessels and oil platforms), and Golden Pheasant (a 1988 show of force to deter Nicaraguan violations of Honduran territory). When nicknames were chosen purposefully, as in the case of Urgent Fury, the effect was overdone.
Praying Mantis is one of the better-known missions and a product of the `NICKA protocol' (I just made up that phrase, so don't assume it's official or anything) - Operation Praying Mantis was the 1988 US retaliatory attack on the Iranian Navy - the name was aggressive enough to boost the troops but not quite aggressive enough to really, really piss people off. Although there was some trouble.
Undoubtedly, the staff officer who came up with "Urgent Fury" was intent on inspiring the troops executing the mission, but he failed to consider the reaction of the media and general public. The name, which was divulged to the press shortly after the invasion only fuelled the arguments of critics who accused the military of excess in committing so much combat power to the operation - which, one wag suggested, "the New York Police Department could have won." Another critic implied that the name belied the rationale for the invasion. Urgent Fury sounded "too militant," he suggested; if we had really been provoked into invading the tiny island nation, then why not "Reluctant Necessity"?
"Reluctant Necessity?" What a dickhead, that isn't going to inspire anyone. It's like "OK, boys, we don't really want to do this but just try and kill some people. Oh go on..." The problem was that during this time the media was becoming ever more weary of the government and the army: the military at the time had placed real blame upon the press for losing the Vietnam War. The government blamed the media for being too critical in the press that caused public opinion to go against the war. During Operation Urgent Fury, Vice Admiral Metcalf had actually banned the media from the war zone, which was, although not unprecedented, a clear sign of spite. Metcalf believed that if the press got to know what was happening, then we would have a repeat of Vietnam where the press would lead to a lack of motivation and morale among the army and the voters.
This led to a joke that I found floating on the net somewhere is on E2:
Reporter: Mr. President, why are you attacking Panama?
President Bush: Just Cause.
Operation Just Cause was one of the first since the Korean War where the name was actually designed to shape public opinion - the failure of the NICKA protocol/guidelines meant that the army tried to go back to having more influence on the names. Although the guidelines were still in place, they held less authority and more flexibility was introduced for the names.
In calling it Operation Just Cause, the US military had tried to get the moral high ground and win some sympathy. They tried to shoe the public that they were correct in attacking Panama, but more importantly they had to draw attention away from the attacking, offensive aspects of war. They had to focus on Defence. "By declaring the Panama invasion a just cause, the nickname sought to contrast US motives with the injustices of the Noriega regime, which included election fraud, drug trafficking, harassment of US service members and their dependents, and the murder of a Marine officer," writes the author who I've been quoting liberally.
The media loved the name. In 1989 I was three years old so it's safe to say that I wasn't following the campaign with great interest, but articles tell me that all news stations grabbed the name and used it informally to refer to the operation. Yet this naming also marked the beginning of considering PR when naming, so some more cynical outlets in the press realised this was a simple attempt to manipulate the public. The New York Times in one of its leader articles said wryly, calling it "Operation High Hokum" that it was an "overreach of sentiment." Another person condemning the name later wrote (I'm sorry, I don't know who exactly said this so I can't attribute it):
It was an extremely cynical gambit to name a blatantly unjust invasion Operation Just Cause. It betrayed the administration's insecurity about an illegal invasion of a sovereign country. The label was, therefore, very important ... in creating the impression among the general population that the US government was pursuing a morally righteous cause. It was blatant propaganda.
Operation Just Cause was almost the last straw, and subsequent names were toned down to satisfy the more cynical.
Déjà Vu? Operation Desert Storm
Operation Desert Storm. You've all heard of it. It is used more frequently that the phrase "Gulf War" and it has come to represent not only the 1991 US invasion of Iraq but also the extended period of hostilities between the two countries.
In 1990, a year before the operation itself, the Central Command (the obligatory acronym being CENTCOM) was spending much of its time in deciding on a suitable name. The operation was going to be a defensive one whose aim was to protect Saudi Arabia (at considerable risk of Iraqi invasion). Gregory C. Sieminski wrote:
The fact that so much effort went into naming Desert Shield suggests the radical change in attitude, which had occurred in the nine months since the invasion of Panama, when the transformation of the name Blue Spoon into Just Cause occurred as an afterthought shortly before the operation began. The naming of Operation Desert Shield and its successor, Desert Storm, also illustrates the critical role of artistry in the process.
This was only nine months after that comic episode where America nearly invaded Panama under the name of Operation Blue Spoon, yet a real shift in attitudes had clearly occurred. A list three pages long had been compiled (most of which used the NICKA guidelines using two letter combinations for the beginning of the first word - some however broke from this protocol) and presented to General H. Norman Schwarzkopf - the head honcho. Schwarzkopf initially picked the name Operation Peninsula Shield. Now we should note that PE was not part of CENTCOM's list of beginnings, so protocol had been ignored. This was a time when the name was of utmost importance and everything else was secondary.
Operation Peninsula Shield was rejected. It was too selective, they argued and didn't seem fair to other members of the Middle East who the army was also meant to be defending. CENTCOM then went through Crescent Shield and this appealed to all the Arabs (DejaMorgana tells me "the star and crescent is the most important secular emblem for Moslem communities and countries. It isn't a religious symbol and, strictly speaking, has nothing to do with Islam - actually the crescent originated as a symbol for the goddess Diana, but it serves the same purpose as the Star of David for Jews." Thanks to everyone who helped me out here)yet it was also rejected. Finally, the name Operation Desert Shield was accepted because it seemingly had all the right ingredients. It symbolised defence (obviously so that public opinion was convinced that the US was motivated by defence and not occupation) and "The metaphor of the shield was well chosen because it emphasized not only US deterrence but also Iraqi aggression, for a shield is only necessary when a sword has been unsheathed." This is a good point, and goes to show the amount of detail in the name - the amount of consideration that goes into picking it.
Yet slowly the name began to be called Operation Desert Storm and the more aggressive connotations of this stuck. The name appealed to the media and the public. It raised troop morale. It had everything. It stuck. The aerial aspects to the Iraq War had been called Operation Instant Thunder and this is perhaps where Storm came about. In 1991 General Schwarzkopf used the phrase when he said to his troops, "You must be the thunder and lightning of Desert Storm" - a speech that got a lot of publicity and further enhanced the majesty and prestige of the name. It was like Churchill waving his cigar and speaking to the nation; it really caught the imagination of the press and it was all uphill from there.
This is also where Norman Schwarzkopf's nickname, Stormin' Norman came about I think - after repeated use of the operation name, the press labelled him with this title.
These Days
In 2001 America called its attack on Afghanistan Operation Infinite Justice. But you see only Allah can deliver Infinite Justice, apparently. So they changed it to the just as irritatingly provocative and patriotic Operation Enduring Freedom. I'm skipping this because there's a much better (and funnier) node on it - Operation Infinite Justice.
As I write, the US has begun its assault on Iraq by ground and air under the name Operation Iraqi Freedom. At the same time, the British have begun the very same attack by ground and air under the less glamorous name Operation Telic. Only in Britain. You see the Ministry of Defence (the British equivalent of the DoD) still uses a computer and only a computer. Apparently Telic means purposeful but no one cares. The Americans called the 2001 attack on Afghanistan "Operation Enduring Freedom". We called it "Operation Ptarmigan." (a Ptarmigan is a bird). Clearly, if Britain is picking names I can't even pronounce it doesn't care an awful lot about PR. The deployment of British Marines to Afghanistan was called Operation Jacana (named after another fucking bird! What the hell is it with us Brits?). The attack on Kabul was called Operation Fingal. The Falklands conflict was called Operation Corporate, and the 1991 Gulf War operation was Operation Granby. Yes, that's right - you got Operation Desert Storm and we got Operation Granby.
When's all said and done, what's in a name?
Oh and operation names I think the Brits (and Americans but they seem to have an imagination) could use:
- Operation Simian Weasel (a name that combines two of the funniest words in the world)
- Operation EagleHawk Albatross (if they like birds so much...)
- Operation Downvote McFlurry (too political?)
- Operation Flaming Tomahawk (it just sounds cool!)
- Operation Chimp and Poodle (in homage)
OK, we're having a competetion, people: msg me with names which must be two words preceeded by the word Operation. The three best names I recieve will be placed here for posterity :D
Sources
- http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/1995/sieminsk.htm
- Thanks to Simpleton and Eco for finding most typos
- Anyone who msgd me with suggestions or advice, thanks! Keep it coming...
