The Washington Post March 20, 2010
In choosing its battle names, the military must know its target audience
By Christian Davenport
In the hypercharged rush of combat, the adrenaline flows and the rhetoric soars. After the "shock and awe" invasion of Iraq, many of the names the military gave early battles were pugnacious: Operation Scorpion Sting, Operation Iron Hammer, Operation Ivy Serpent.
But as the military changed tactics, trying to win over the local population with on-the-ground diplomacy, some nicknames started to soften. Hence Operation Glad Tidings of Benevolence and Operation Together Forward.
Names are important, especially in war. Like a good advertising jingle, war names must be catchy and concise. But above all else, they have to sell -- all sorts of things, to all sorts of people: inspiration to the troops, righteousness to Americans at home, partnership to allied countries, peace and promise to non-combatant civilians.
And, to the enemy: We're-coming-to-kill-you aggression.
The key question: "Who is your target audience?" said Brig. Gen. Sean Macfarland, who is credited with helping turn around the insurgent violence in Ramadi, the provincial capital of Iraq's Anbar province. "If it's just internal consumption, you want to give a name the soldiers and Marines will get pumped up about. But if it's more for Iraqi consumption, it has to translate well. And if it's going to be in newspaper headlines and be commented about on op-ed pages, then you have to give it a more politically correct name."
So when the military's top officers decided recently that the denouement of the Iraq war merited a name, they treaded carefully, no doubt mindful of the chortling that followed President George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished" announcement in 2003.
Last month, the Obama administration decided: As of Sept. 1, Operation Iraqi Freedom will become Operation New Dawn, a name designed to symbolize the dramatic drawdown of U.S. forces that is planned and to "recognize our evolving relationship with the government of Iraq," Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates wrote in a memo.
Few recognized how intertwined the arts of public relations and war were as well as Winston Churchill, according to Gregory Sieminski, who wrote about operation names in Parameters magazine, a publication of the Army War College. Churchill developed guidelines during World War II that said battle names should not "imply boastful or overconfident sentiment" or "be names of frivolous character."
Adolf Hitler took operation names seriously, too, changing the name of the 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union from "Fritz" to "Barbarossa," after the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I.
After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the architects of the war in Afghanistan sought a different approach. They wanted something lofty, a name with sweep and grandeur to evoke the American spirit. The initial offering, Operation Infinite Justice, was swing-for-the-fences big, to be sure. And it had a certain poetry to it, while at the same time conforming with Pentagon regulations that prohibit, among other things, names that "express a degree of bellicosity inconsistent with traditional American ideals or current foreign policy."
But infinite is awfully long, even for the most patient taxpayer -- and the word offended Muslims who believe such benevolence can be provided only by Allah.
After some called that name too propagandistic, the Pentagon changed to Operation Enduring Freedom, which quieted critics and turned out to be accurate, too. As then-Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said in announcing the name: " 'Enduring' suggests that this is not a quick fix."
For the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon's top brass settled on Operation Iraqi Freedom. But at least one administration official publicly called the assault Operation Iraqi Liberation, providing fodder for conspiracists and late-night comics.
"They're calling it 'Operation Iraqi Freedom,' " TV comic Jay Leno quipped at the time. "They were going to call it 'Operation Iraqi Liberation,' then they realized, uh-oh, that spells 'OIL.' "
In Iraq and Afghanistan, most operation names are for relatively small missions -- hunting for insurgents or weapons caches -- many of which are named by low-ranking field officers who have little time or inclination to worry about public scrutiny. The names they choose range from the ominous (Operation Black Typhoon) to the curious (Operation Tangerine Squeeze) to the mysterious (Operation Soprano Sunset -- something to do with the fat lady singing, perhaps?).
According to a list compiled by GlobalSecurity.org, an Alexandria-based defense news Web site, operations have been named for Civil War generals, snakes, predators (both mammal and arachnid), violent acts of nature, weaponry, comic book characters and, yes, rappers.
Operation Slim Shady was a series of raids in Kirkuk, Iraq, that led to the detention of 37 suspected insurgents in 2004.
There have been plays from football (Operation Flea Flicker) and baseball (Triple Play), and all manner of animal sounds -- Roaring Tiger, Buffalo Grunt, Dragon's Breath. And some that need no elaboration: Operation Warrior's Rage.
Operation Pericles was named for the Athenian leader by a commander who was a Greek history buff, said Maj. Gregory Sakimura, who served under the officer.
When Army Capt. Jim Page of the 101st Airborne Division was tasked with nicknaming a training exercise before the invasion of Iraq -- even practice runs get a moniker -- he borrowed from the unit's hallowed history, adding a little modern spice for young soldiers.
The result, Operation Bastogne Smackdown, awkwardly combined a heroic World War II battle and the glossy shtick of cable TV wrestling, but it "sounded cool," he said. And it took with the rank and file, who soon were joking about how they were going to "layeth the smacketh down."
James Danly's unit found battle names in movies. "When you're in Iraq and have nothing to do, you spend a lot of time between patrols looking for the perfect movie title," the former Army lieutenant said.
Thus, Operation Close Encounters and Operation Gladiator. Some fool was said to have dubbed a mission Operation Earth Girls Are Easy, before he was quickly reprimanded. Danly, who studied classics in college, came up with Operation Battle of Actium, in large part because he thought it would be funny to name one of the areas "Hot Spot Cleopatra."
"I got in trouble for that," he said.
Most oddball names come from young soldiers looking for a creative outlet amid the grind of war. "But once it gets at the battalion level and above, you have a little more adult supervision," Macfarland said. "I never wanted to write home and tell a mom and dad their son was killed in Operation Grab Ass."
Or, as Churchill put it, names should not "enable some widow or mother to say that her son was killed in an operation called 'Bunnyhug' or 'Ballyhoo.' "
When Brig. Gen. H.R. McMaster got to Iraq in 2005, he looked askance at the harsh, blow-'em-up rhetoric. He assigned one of his more erudite soldiers, an officer with a doctorate in Middle Eastern studies, to compile a list of names that would capture the mission's ethos and be palatable to the Iraqis. Then McMaster took the list to the local mayor and police chief and had them pick -- or propose their own.
The result was an Arabic phrase that the Americans translated to Operation Restoring Rights.
"We knew it was important to bring the population with us," McMaster said. Overly violent names "help the enemy portray the mission as an attack on the people and the city, rather than a security operation and an attempt to bring life back."
Beware of late-night TV
The first acts of war, it seems, are easier to write than the last. All that's required is two words of punch. Just Cause. Noble Eagle. Enduring Freedom.
But how to write the ending of a long slog, when much of the country just wants the war to go away? That requires restraint. Poetry over prose.
Thus, Operation New Dawn.
Never mind that it's redundant (aren't all dawns new?), Churchill himself might have approved. Then again, he didn't have to contend with late-night monologues.
A day after Operation New Dawn was unveiled, ABC's Jimmy Kimmel took to the airwaves with a dishwasher detergent joke, proving that no name is immune to ridicule.
"Starting September 1st -- this is true," Kimmel said, "the war will be known as 'Operation New Dawn.' It's twice the grease-fighting power of the original 'Dawn.' It will make your war spotless."
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