Toward A Theory of Deception

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Toward a Theory of Deception

J. Bowyer Bell a
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Online Publication Date: 01 January 2003
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DOI: 10.1080/08850600390198742
J. BOWYER BELL
Toward a Theory of Deception1

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Deception is an aspect of human perception that is in turn shaped by

objective reality along with physiological and psychological factors.
Humans apparently require consistency and cohesion in perception. Thus,
sense is made of reality by the translation of the real world into agreed
patterns. Physical — objective — reality consists of the accepted pattern
determined by both physiological and psychological means. A general
consensus has been reached on the nature of colors, the touch of water or
the presence of a moon. Although one observer may see the moon as a
satellite of the earth in a small solar system on the edge of a minor galaxy,
and another as the largest body in the sky circling in a crystalline sphere
the earth at the center of the universe, both agree that the moon exists.
Deception is the conscious, planned intrusion of an illusion seeking to alter
a target’s perception of reality, replacing objective reality with perceived
reality: gamblers mark cards, magicians make an elephant disappear on
stage to delight the audience. Deceiving, cheating, offering the false is an
integral aspect of human society. Loaded dice have been found in
Egyptian tombs, and audiences are fooled by magicians the same way they
were five hundred years ago—and with variations of the same tricks.
Deception may also be imposed by nature. An optical illusion creates
ambiguities or contradictions in an observer’s perception. A stick thrust
into water is seen as crooked. Lines can be made to appear longer or
shorter. Some drawings are first seen as two profiles, and then as a vase,
and cannot be made stable by the observer. All of these arise from the
structure of the brain that translates data into image.
Dr. J. Bowyer Bell is President of the International Analysis Center, New York
City, and a member of the Editorial Board of Studies in Conflict & Terrorism:
The author of numerous books and articles on terrorism and guerrilla warfare,
his most recent work is Murders on the Nile : The World Trade Center and
Global Terror (San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2003).
244 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE

TOWARD A THEORY OF DECEPTION 245
But the most common examples in nature are those illusions that have
evolved over time, to the advantage of a specific species. The deceptive
characteristics or behaviors are patterns that deceive enemies, attract
friends, encourage breeding, or offer some advantage. A zebra’s stripes,
very visible in broad daylight, hide the animal at the twilight hunting
hours. The cuckoo finds a surrogate mother for its egg. The evolutionary
process has resulted in an adaptation that aids in survival, but the cuckoo
did not plan the coloring of the egg or the zebra the stripes.
These natural phenomena lie outside deception planning concerns. They
may be useful as examples or analogies for the planner, just as optical
illusions may be useful; but deception is a human construction, not a
product of physiology or evolution. Deception may also be the result of

self-deception when a congenial illusion is preferred to objective reality.
The observer sees what he chooses to see. Then the process channels a
pattern onto a mirror, so that the illusion is both sent and received by the
same individual. Desired reality becomes perceived reality, and is taken as
objective reality. What is seen is not only what is expected — as is mostly
the case — or what someone wants seen, as is the case with deception, but
also what is wanted.
An illusion is thus imposed unconsciously on reality. A general may seek
and then create evidence of his opponents’ weakness. His enemy may or
may not exploit such predilections to hide their formations and reinforce
the illusion. A deception planner thus can exploit natural deception as
example and self-deception as opportunity but, in most cases, must fashion
a compelling ruse, and channel the results, hoping that the target will
accept the illusion and act on the new pattern.
A universal means of such planned deception has been lying, i.e., adjusting
the spoken word to advantage. Easy to do, cheap to do, and often visibly
effective. The goal of the lie — the ruse accepted as illusion — may vary.
Those who lie to themselves are involved in self-deception and need only
the planner’s encouragement. Those who lie may be seeking only the
gratification on the acceptance of a lie — a frisson of control. Any lie will
do if believed. A lie may be a social lubricant, validation of a swindle,
a means to achieve a special end, a way to hide motive or guilt, to sell a
stock or to win a lady. The lie is part of a process that adjusts reality, a
process that sells the stock or wins the lady.
This deception process is a cycle that is valid for all ruses, no matter how
constructed. The ruses may include the effects of optical illusion, and the
hope that the delusions of the target can be manipulated to advantage, but
the construct is largely shaped to be a compelling pattern that will impose
an alternative reality that will lead to the planner’s advantage: the enemy
general defeated, the armada saved, the stock sold, and the lady won.
Something is hidden, something shown, a pattern composed and the target
AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2

246 J. BOWYER BELL
deceived, manipulated. The investment in the deceit may be enormous or

merely a cloud of dust to simulate an army, a bit of mud to hide the
soldier. In the summer of 1941, the British camouflage expert Jasper
Maskelyne hid the city of Alexandria and created another, hid the Suez
Canal, and in 1944 the Allied deception planners offered the Germans a
huge notional army through a combination of ruses and channels. A fib
may serve to deceive, or a coat of paint, but each is integrated into a
general deception cycle.
DEFINING DECEPTION
Deception is the transformation of a target’s perceptions by a planner

channeling one or more ruses, composed of simulative (showing) and
dissimulative (hiding) constructs, that once accepted as an illusion changes
objective reality and the target who accepts the false as real, and responds.
The planner analyzing the result, the response of the target; may maintain
the first channeled ruse or devise other validating ruses to channel or
discontinue the effort. In sum, deception is the process of advantageously
imposing the false on a target’s perception of reality.
Understanding this deception process has been clouded by those who
deceive naturally, do so without theory or contemplation, by a lack of a
specific vocabulary to refer to the dynamics involved. A wide variety of
terms that have long been in everyday usage have overlapping and
ambiguous meanings. No clear difference in usage exists between ‘‘wile’’
and ‘‘ruse,’’ and there is considerable confusion as to the nature of
‘‘surprise’’ — often taken as a goal when actually the byproduct of the
termination of an illusion. For example, many words in everyday usage
are used variously, and the dictionary definition is often of limited
assistance in distinguishing between a copy and a forgery, or an artifice
and a trick. Magicians have their own extensive language to describe their
deception activities with special meanings: a ‘‘method’’ is the means by
which a trick is done and the ‘‘illusion’’ is what the magician creates and
the audience accepts. The military uses congenial terms. And in matters of
deception, no matter the long ancestry of practice, the wheel is regularly
being reinvented.
In deception planning, any theory must not only have a specific, agreed
vocabulary but also adjust to objective reality — the real world. Deception
is essentially by a qualitative not quantitative activity — often a matter of
judgment, predilection, personal prejudice, the contingent, and convenient.
Much deception depends on perspective and interpretations. Many vintage
photographic prints were not done at the time by the photographer or
authenticated. The buyers saw what they chose to see — some stayed
content and others in time became outraged that their ‘‘vintage’’ print was
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE

not as vintage as imagined. The art world is replete with painters copying
their earlier and more valuable work, denying earlier work they no longer
like, and galleries running off unauthorized prints. What is seen is a matter
of desire and consensus rather than objective reality.
In fact, all realist paintings are illusions: perspective or likeness achieved by
the ruses of paint on a flat surface, optical illusions in the service of art. And
like the art world, the real world is not easily modeled, categories merge, and
distinctions have muddled edges. The contemporary artist Kosabi has a
studio assistant paint ‘‘his’’ paintings and limits himself to deciding on the
title. An assistant who tried to sell his own ‘‘Kosabi’’ work was
successfully sued. Dan Flavin made light sculptures out of fluorescent
tubes easily purchased at a hardware store but offered with a certificate of

authenticity: the fluorescent bar was the same in all ways, but with
Flavin’s imprimatur, worth $150,000 rather than $30. The buyer must have
a document that tells him what is being seen lest he be deceived. Not only
beauty, but worth, may be in the eye of the beholder.
Deception can engender a change in a target’s perception that can be
rigorously analyzed but not precisely quantified. Much is a matter of
degree. A target may respond to deception in ways that lie along an arc of
intensity — a line of increasing presence of the element under
consideration — or a ruse increasingly composed of simulative elements.
The response to an illusion or the degree of a ruse is either simulative or
dissimulative, shows or hides, is not always sharp-edged. The ruse and an
illusion mesh in varying ways at varying speeds. Objective reality is edited
by individuals or monitors when received into perceived reality, subject to
qualitative factors and entangled with the contingent, the unforeseen, and
the muddle of time.
DECEPTION PROCESS
Deception is a conscious process that mingles the psychological and, in some
cases, the physiological to offer a target an alternative reality—if accepted, an
illusion—to achieve advantage. The illusion may be a Man Ray print bought
as vintage, gaming dice shaved in ancient Egypt, or the Arab assumption in
June 1967 that the Israelis would not attack. An individual may buy
worthless stock or visitors may be impressed with the powerful voice of the
Wizard of Oz. They are deceived about the nature of reality. And the
deception planner anticipates gain—a sale or power and influence in Oz.
Objective reality is the physical world as perceived. What is really there.
Perceived reality is determined by the observer, and may be identical with
objective reality, or an illusion, or a mix. In all cases, observers seek
coherence, want patterns, continuity, certainty. They prefer to see what

248 J. BOWYER BELL
they expect to see, so much so that at times, when the ruse is revealed, they
persist in believing the illusion.
The familiar has an enormous hold on perception. Even novelty is apt to
be adjusted to a congenial pattern or simply ignored. Deception planners can
often rely on the target to adjust to expectations of arena, pattern, and
preference, or to absorb as illusion, even novelty, without discovering the
ruse. Even the alert have a predisposition to accept perceived reality —
almost any ‘‘surprise’’ attack, even against the forewarned, comes as a
surprise: the conviction is that tomorrow will be like yesterday.
Even in the physical sciences, the perception of patterns—usually assumed
as a facet of objective reality—there is a tendency to adjust the accepted to
repel or absorb new evidence. Old patterns and expectations persist.

Everyone ‘‘knew’’ that larger objects fall faster because Aristotle said so —
and so no further experimental data was needed. The new data, the
particular means of acquisition, and the implications of challenging
authority are questioned rather than the old pattern. The consensus-reality
is constantly adjusted to absorb any new data until such a process
becomes too complex. In astronomy, the acceptance that the earth was not
the center of the universe came slowly. Data was adjusted until, over time,
the consensus and so the pattern changed — the illusion was that the sun
circled the earth, the consensus became that the earth orbited the sun.
Some scientists never give up the comfort of the old theory, no matter how
flawed as a description of reality. And the long-held illusion of the sun
rising and setting on an orbit around the earth remained a popular
perception for centuries. Like old soldiers, old certainties fade away, often
slowly, and over long periods of time. In fact, there are still those who
believe the earth is flat and evolution a delusion.
Perception at Work
Perceived reality can even repel hard evidence. In 1921, The New York Times
revealed that the widely circulated document The Protocols of the Elders of
Zion that offered evidence of a malevolent Jewish plot for world
domination was a forgery. The motor car magnate, Henry Ford, who had
long cited the work, noted after the revelation that ‘‘The only statement I
care to make about the Protocols is that they fit with what is going on.
They have fitted the world situation up to this time. They fit now.’’ Thus
to Ford, what ‘‘fitted’’ his predisposition was true—or at least valid.
The pattern expected is the pattern perceived. The innocent eye does not
notice that there is a bonding design in brick walls composed of the
headers (short ends) and stretchers (the long side), but sees merely
‘‘bricks.’’ When the pattern is disclosed, the eye is no longer innocent and
no subsequent brick wall is perceived the same. Perception of reality has
changed. For a millennium, no one perceived that women had the same

number of ribs as men, since all knew that Adam had lost a rib for Eve. There
was no need to adjust to the problem of the unexpected rib, only to see what
was expected. In the first case, the observer did not observe closely, out of
habit, and in the second, need not observe, because reality was already
known.
The Arab states in June 1967 felt no need to go on alert, in part because
their own threat was not intended to lead to a real war, and so Israeli
deception ruses had a ready audience. In fact, the deception planner may
rely on not only the power of existing patterns, but the predilections of the
target — in some cases so intrusive as to be delusory. So, there is always
the prospect that the target of any deception plan will be self-deceived, or
at least predisposed to accept an illusion made appealing. Hitler believed

in his imaginary divisions in the spring of 1945 because the alternative was
too distasteful, not because the Russians went to great effort to deceive
him. He was predisposed to anticipate the Calais area as the focus of any
Anglo-American invasion of Europe in 1944, and so eased the task of the
Allied deception planners.
The perceptual advantages for a deception planner are often coupled with
low cost: deception can be made to work and work cheaply. One horse
behind a hill dragging a blanket to raise a cloud of dust can mimic an
army on the move, just as one hat on a stick can mimic a target. Of
course, some illusions, once accepted, may engender only minimal
responses, but others can engender a vast strategic transformation. The
course of battle could be changed by a cloud of dust. The runner in
football, feinting one way and going the other, hardly invests either
thought or effort, but yet may reap a highly satisfactory return, just as a
few horses raising a cloud of dust may win a battle.
Classic Ruses
For a generation, the Soviet Union largely destroyed British intelligence
because of the reports of a few hidden agents working only for ultimate
sanctuary. On the other hand, for two years the Allies invested enormous
effort in hiding the nature of Operation Overlord, the invasion of France,
offering false options, using hundreds of channels for thousands of ruses.
Plan Bodyguard created notional armies, deployed illusory radio networks,
false documents, used captured spies as channels and constructed tanks
and airplanes out of canvass, rubber, and plywood. Some of the ruses
became classics: Monty’s Double or the Man-Who-Never-Was and, in
Operation Fortitude’s ‘‘Quicksilver’’ plan — the ‘‘Army Group Patton’’
(FUSAG), seemingly based in East Anglia waiting—even after D-Day—to
strike at Calais. There were rigid constraints: the Germans knew that an
invasion could use only certain beaches at certain times of the year, and
only when the tide was right. Unlike the Arabs in 1967, the Germans knew

250 J. BOWYER BELL
there would be an attack in 1944, and were aware of the need for both keen
observation and counterdeception. Many in the Allied command did not
believe it possible to ‘‘hide an invasion’’ — just as there are those who
believe that space is too empty to hide a satellite, or that magicians can
make an elephant disappear on stage.
For the Allies, a successful invasion meant the war would be won, and for
the Germans, lost. Deception was worth the price — and advocated on the
highest level. Thus, Allied deception was strategic, complex, and extensive,
offered many ruses and channels. Yet, the deception effort was a bargain:
one percent of the D-Day effort, according to Barton Whaley’s estimate.
The results were well worth the investment. Even after D day, the impact
of the accepted illusion of another thrust by FUSAG remained a factor in

German headquarters’ considerations for sixty-six days.
Balancing Expectation and E¡ort

The complexity of the ruse does not necessarily determine the scope of
the response: one little lie can transform an empire. Generally, how-
ever, the response sought is commensurate with the effort expended:
the planner anticipates a reaction related to the assets invested in the
ruse. A lie may win a lady, but usually only after the deceiver invests in a
long prologue. Still, nearly always, the investment is assumed to have
disproportionate results: more for less, a force multiplier, or the false
stock sold for far more than the cost of printing the certificate. The Allies
felt the success of Bodyguard came cheaply. Generally, the level of ruse
and response, however determined, strategic or tactical or technical, is
similar in scope and complexity. But what is wanted by the planner may
be that the offered ruse, accepted as an illusion, simply maintains existing
conditions. Such an accepted illusion may produce no change at all on the
part of the target: if the illusion hides the armada, then the enemy remains
oblivious. Objective reality appears to be the same to the enemy admiral,
and the ruse successful.
To contrive and deploy ruses, to seek to deceive a target, is, more often
than not, done without recourse to theory or even a clear understanding of
the deception process. In a sense, in some affairs — military especially —
deception is always possible, but not always on the checklist of desired
actions. The military often deploys deception in response to a special
opportunity or obstacle, rather than as a conscious and integrated part of
doctrine. Football coaches have no theory to deceive their opponents, but
spend great effort in devising deceptive formations and procedures. An
American football game is, in part, a contest in opposing ruses that arise
from experience and necessity.
The nature of reality, the predisposition of the involved, standard
operating procedures, and past experience shape all planners’ approaches

to deception. In fact, only magicians, operating in a closed universe and

guaranteed an observant audience, have a consistent doctrine of deception.
Mostly, in real life, beyond the stage, the deception planning is usually
determined as much by experience and necessity as doctrine. In some
societies, what others call cheating is merely prudent behavior. Americans
tend to assume that deception is cheating and cheating unethical — a
trick — and, in any case, unneeded.2 In 1943, Admiral Ernest J. King, in
turning down the advantage of surprise that miniature submarines offered,
said it was the tool ‘‘of despair of have-not-nations . . . not for us.’’
Thus, once those Americans involved in Bodyguard returned to civilian life
or retired from the military, so did their grasp of deception planning. In fact,
in the United States, any resort to deception is widely considered an indicator

of weakness, and somehow also unethical. Funding deception research
engenders ethical opposition by those who hold government to ‘‘high’’ and
conventional standards: swindlers cheat, not the just and righteous. On the
other hand, deception was institutionalized in the Soviet Union and Great
Britain, and at times even incorporated into the Pentagon structure. The
apparent U.S. reticence to deploy deception has been taken abroad as still
another example of Washington’s deceptive policies. The Chinese consider
America the most duplicitous country. In any case, in war and under
pressure, the advantages of deception become more obvious, even to the
Americans who find cheating distasteful.
National characteristics are merely one of the factors that encourage or
shape deception planning. And such planning may address major national
policy interests—rearmament, undeclared war, appeasement—that need to
be hidden or exaggerated, or merely the concerns of a patrol into enemy
territory where mud is applied as camouflage. In all cases, the process
follows an inevitable cycle, and in only a few cases is that cycle
incorporated into a doctrine.
Power and capacity, as in real life, can make deception unnecessary.
Napoleon, as the power of his armies increased, relied more on force and
less on cunning and misdirection. In an invasion of a small country, the
larger aggressor need only dispatch overwhelming power: how could
Grenada repulse the forces of the United States? Even in the Desert Storm
operation, deception was almost unnecessary, and employed so
conventionally as to deceive few. In sports, a vastly stronger team need not
invest in the unnecessary deception effort. Capacity will override all else. If
Miami were to play Harvard, trick plays, fakes, and misdirection would be
unnecessary—included in the Miami quarterback’s repertoire only because
they were in the playbook. American military strategy has often been
based on deploying maximum power and technological capacity without
recourse to duplicity—‘‘more’’ is more and force needs no enhancing, and
as expected, the Iraqi military implodes.

252 J. BOWYER BELL
For generations, military journals have offered articles by majors

and colonels on the advantages of deception without changing the
priorities of the generals and admirals. The deception-wheel, often
lopsided, has been invented over and over, without greatly influencing
United States military preferences. For strategic planners, More has
remained More — and assumed better or good enough. Yet, neither the
predilections of national character, perceived need, nor lack of formal
doctrine have prevented the repeated recourse to deception in most
fields—American generals still hide their intentions. In fact, the American
military has often generated work on the value and application of
deception and has employed deception, but without the need of a basic
theoretical foundation, just as football quarterbacks fake to the runner,

and oil stocks are printed in the basement. And, each and every time,
deception follows a predetermined cycle, from the planner’s concept to the
planner’s analysis of the result.
DECEPTION CYCLE
In deception, the first step is the recognition by a potential planner of the
need or opportunity to deceive a target. What must be done in deception,
and often is not, is to determine the result desired from a successful
illusion. Mere acceptance of a ruse as an illusion may not be advanta-
geous, and may in fact prove costly. Thus, to deceive is not sufficient.
What is wanted is a proper response — the target to do something or
nothing. To this end follows the planning and construction of a ruse that
can be channeled within a decision-arena. The channel can be as complex
as the ruse, and both will be entangled in the decision-arena. There, the
target either accepts all or part—or none—of the ruse as an illusion. There
is a spectrum of responses to the illusion that can be discerned by the
deception planner only through feedback.
The planner’s analysis of the target’s response through a spectrum of
feedback may lead to immediate success or failure, or the construction of
further ruses, a shift in channels, new and parallel ruses, the persistent
dispatch of the existing ruse that may or may not be altered, or elaborated
passing through the channel that, in turn, may or may not be adjusted by
the analysis of the feedback. Thus, a cycle moves from the desire to
deceive by means of a ruse that is channeled to establish an illusion, on to
the planner’s response to the success or limitations of the target’s response
to the illusion.
Entry at the planning stage of the cycle offers the opportunities and
limitation of objective reality, the dangers of self-deception, and the
counter-deception actions of the target, as well the impact of past

experience, standard operating procedures, flawed cost-benefit analysis, the

pressures of time, and the limits of existing resources, the contingent and
unforeseen. The process to deceive may be adjusted by the changing needs
of the deception planner or the changing perceptions of the target, by the
intrusion of objective reality. It may succeed or fail, in all or in part; may
impose unexpected change—baleful, benign, or advantageous; may suggest
further ruses; or may in a few cases persist without further reinforcement.
Defining the terms further:
(1) Deception Planning: objective goal, cost benefit, commitment, and choice of
both ruse and channel. The goal may be to protect airplanes against
antiaircraft fire and so, if painted to blend with the sky, should be invisible.
(2) Ruse Construction: the combination of factors necessary. These factors —
characteristics (charcs) — when combined generate a basic ruse. For example,
to suggest great strength, radio traffic is created that mimics a larger army.
What is needed is the time or radio operators and the false messages, but
what is crucial is the channel, i.e., the radio broadcast.
(3) Channeling Selection: the projection of the ruse by use of effective means. The
channel (the medium as message) entangles the constructed ruse with a means
of display that may be contrived or natural or both: e.g., a radio broadcast
meant to be monitored, codes that are meant to be broken, gossip spread, or
an open safe filled with false documents. An effective channel may validate
an ineffectual ruse, or the reverse.
(4) Ruse-Channeled: at this point the ruse is projected to impose a change in the
perceived reality of the target.
(5) The Decision-Arena: where the ruse, visible to the target, is offered for reception
as an illusion. The illusion is not dispatched but created within the decision-
arena. For example, an army emerges out of radio broadcasts or air
reconnaissance photographs or the reports of false spies.
(6) The Illusion is accepted, and the target thus adjusts to the imposed pattern as an
aspect of objective reality-acceptance. This automatically assures some sort of
adjustment, even doing nothing — sometimes, especially doing nothing. Here,
the planes will be hidden from the radar, and so the antiaircraft guns cannot fire.
(7) The Target-Response and Response-Spectrum: to the intended imperatives of the
illusion or to the perceived imperatives of the illusion. The crews flying the
‘‘hidden’’ bombers report that antiaircraft fire is at times directed effectively
at the camouflaged airplanes.
(8) The Illusion-Impact and Analysis of the Feedback is conducted by the deception
planner of the target response.
(9) A Decision to Respond to feedback: The weather, the angle of the sun, and the
height of the planes must be considered when the camouflage is chosen. If the
illusion is to be effective, changes will have to be made. In all cases, the ruse can
be adjusted, confirmed, or discarded. Further channels and ruses can be
considered.
(10) The Cycle Continued, with the deception planner adjusting or maintaining the
goal. Further planning and commitment can be given to additional, parallel,

254 J. BOWYER BELL
congruent or maintained ruses, or monitoring the ruse as long as the necessary

illusion as accepted persisting, without further change.
(11) or the Cycle Closed, usually on the revelation or discovery by the target that its
perceived reality is an illusion. Most ruses have a built-in termination date;
when hiding is no longer necessary the illusion self-liquidates.
The key transition in the cycle is the transformation of the channeled ruse
into an illusion and out of control of the planner until the return of feedback
that suggests an appropriate response. The planner anticipates that the
illusion will exert control on the target, thus manipulated at a distance.
Such manipulation may be intended to have a very short existence, as does
a hat on a stick, or can be one without a final date, as was the case with
the Protocols of Zion.
Counter-Deception
The planner hopes that the target may not be in a position to exploit the
revelation of the illusion, having already responded, according to the
aspiration of the deception planner; but at times the target can initiate a
duplicitous response to the illusion, and so not only counter the deception
but also exploit it. Thus, there can be a counter-cycle by the target when
the illusion is revealed or discovered. The now-former target can seek to
project a counter-ruse that will offer an illusion to the original planner as
to the impact of the original ruse.
An illustration of this follows. The spy dispatched is taken as a recruit until a
background check reveals that, in reality, he is an enemy of the state, but then,
instead of execution, the spy is either monitored or turned, and so continues to
offer to the original planner the illusion that the ruse has been maintained, the
spy is secure, and his report valid. Deception has been countered and an
alternative cycle, no different in structure, initiated by the target.
DECEPTION PLANNING
Deception planning begins with the aspiration to adjust existing reality to the
advantage and the agenda of the planner. What is wanted is perceived as a
deception-goal, achieved through duplicity, guile, and cunning. What the
planner seeks from the beginning is a means to offer a convincing option—
a pattern—that will impose a new reality on the target, and so manipulate a
desirable response.
The planner must define what is wanted, what ruse may work to that effect,
the costs related to the benefits, and the appropriate means to offer a change
in pattern that will be accepted as an illusion, and thus manipulate the target
to respond as desired. The less information about the planner in the
possession of the target, generally the better. Secrecy is necessary to guard

the nature of the ruse. If the target possesses an insight into the planner’s
capacity and habits, deception is more difficult, but such knowledge may be
of advantage if properly exploited.
Formal planning stresses the need for secrecy, the cost of deception, the
means, and the returns. On the other hand, the runner in a football game
merely and without thought offers options — misdirection — to avoid
tacklers: soldiers hide if possible when under fire, and poker players
protect their hand, both physically and psychologically. At times there is
little planning, an almost spontaneous display of a ruse that is immediately
accepted as an illusion that provokes target response, and so a swift
analysis of the response. The deception cycle may be all but instant, barely
planned, and yet effective for the planner or the work of hundreds over a
period of months, as was the Bodyguard plan.
A planner may be able to predict the possible response to a specific ruse
by the target through analyzing past practice and predilections. Finally, a
clever ruse may create a cunning illusion, but the new reality must also
convince the target to respond to the advantage of the planner: what is
wanted is to shape a reaction to the illusion, not merely to have an illusion
acceptance. At all times, the pleasure of deceit may hide the vital necessity
of the purpose of deceit. And only a desired reaction indicates successful
deception planning.
There is, as well, self-deception when an illusion is preferred over objective
reality, or otherwise compelling evidence to reality, by the target. The returns
of the investment in a pyramid scheme may be so compelling that caution is
discarded — and logic. Then, as noted, the potential target prefers the
reflection from a mirror to the confusion of objective reality. A deception
planner may be aware of the target’s propensity for certain illusions, but
must still create and deploy a ruse to generate a compelling illusion. The
investment must come with a certificate, and be sold with enough
conviction to convince even the greedy. But the dynamics of self-deception
differ from those of deception, and are often irrelevant to most deception
planning. This is not true with the target’s specific prejudices, experience,
habits, and predilections. These may be of vital use to the planner in
understanding the target. These predispositions may arise from an
institutionalized self-deception, may be the universals of perception, or
may arise from personal and private perspectives. The deceiver can thus
count on the natural attraction of apparent gain or reassurance, the
particular habits of the target, at times the target’s commitment to a
preferred reality, as well as the skillful composition of the channeled ruse.
Rarely does a planner examine existing problems with a deception
checklist to hand. Most deception appears to the involved to come
naturally, but not to the magicians who have a doctrine, not to those who
paint camouflage, or to those selling fake oil stock or offering three-card

256 J. BOWYER BELL
monte as a means to riches on the street corner. Deception is their trade. At

some early stage, however, the planner opts for the perceived advantages that
a successful illusion offers, and so devises a ruse to that purpose. Many ruses
appear obvious to the planner: hide the location of troops, the point of a
military attack, the strength of the cards held, or the health of an athlete,
the lack of resources of the company, and always the intention of the
planner, in love or war. Only a few military commanders deny their forces
the seeming advantages of using some ruses, and social lies make society
work. What is often forgotten, however, is that for it to work the illusion
must impose a desired response.
In Britain’s World War II campaign to seize Italian Abyssinia, General
Archibald Wavell intended to attack in the North, and so devised a plan to

persuade the Italians he would attack in the South. Time and effort went
into the creation and channeling of ruses, each taken as illusions by the
Italians. However, instead of reinforcing the South and thus weakening the
North, the Italians moved their troops away from what the accepted-illusion
offered—an attack in the South—and moved them to ‘‘safety’’ in the North
in the path of the real attack. Wavell had his ruse accepted as an illusion,
but had lost his investment, and compromised his prospects in Abyssinia.
Many deception planners tend to focus on the ruse that will fool the target,
less to the channel, and often little, as did Wavell, to the result. So, some
deception planners give great thought to the means — the channel — that
can most effectively present the ruse to the target, and many do not seem
to realize that the ruse and channel become integrated when perceived by
the target. A successful channel may even validate a dubious ruse.
In FUSAG, the investment in cardboard and lumber or rubber planes
and tanks could be effective only if the German air reconnaissance
photographed the ruses. The channel was crucial. Only over time is a
doctrine of deception likely to be available that, knowing or not, replicates
the deception-cycle as a basis.
Deception planning varies, running a spectrum from simple to complex,
from strategic to technical. Planning may be spontaneous, halting, and
without doctrine, as well as thoughtful, integrated with goals and ends,
cognizant of the purpose of the illusion and the nature of the target, and
aware of the need for feedback.
The Fly Fisherman as Deception Planner

A trout fishermen is engaged in deception from the construction of the fly
to the analysis of the creel. The tied fly, like any effective ruse, must have
a high allure component: there is no point in offering a ruse that is
unwanted.
What is attempted is to deceive the generic trout (a few flies may be
tied to deceive a specific fish but this is unusual) that the ruse is either

a real fly and so worth sampling or else a novel offering equally worth

sampling. In the first case, the deception planner creates a fly that it is
assumed will, to the trout, look like what has been delightful in the
past: mimic reality and so engender the desired response, a bite. In the
second, the fly-maker devises a lure-ruse that is assumed attractive to
the generic trout and, if this proves to be the case, is reused or refined.
The lure-ruse is channeled by an invisible line tossed into harm’s way.
The problem for the deception analysis is that the illusion taken by the
trout can be analyzed only by uncertain feedback. The trout may be
taking any small objects, not the specific fly offered, or the trout may
not be striking any object, no matter how appealing. What is clear is
that the trout either does or does not strike. If the trout does not, then
there are a variety of adjustments that the deception planner can make
to the ruse or to the arena: (a) retie the fly or (b) reconsider the impact
of the time of day, the weather, the cycles of the moon, the degree of
weed, the temperature of the water, the wind, or the noise level.
What is attractive to the deception planner is the careful construction
of a ruse, the skills required to channel it by casting, and the problematic
results that set in motion further deception cycles. The uncertainly of
feedback and the impact of intangibles and variants assure a constant
challenge to be met with skill, cunning, and flexibility.
Those involved often find the actual construction and channeling of
the ruse equal to evidence of effect; the difficulty for the deception
planner is that the reasons for refusal can only be extrapolated and
never discovered, given the secretive nature of a trout’s decisionmaking
process. The fly may not have been seen, may have been noted by a
trout not feeding, been denied because of the time of day, the degree of
light, the flow of the current, the amount of weed in the water, the
temperature, the ambient noise — or the contingent and unforeseen.
At rare times the trout can be seen to deny the lure, but this offers little
explanation as to why. Repeated refusals of the same lure are taken as
evidence that the ruse cannot create an illusion, just as repeated strikes
indicate to the planner that the lure works, the deluded trout striking
at an illusion.
Each stage offers the planner desirable opportunities: the skill
deployed to tie the fly, the skill displayed in channeling the lure with a
casting rod — and the intellectual challenge of when and where and
how this is done and then the analysis of the limited feedback result —
and so the effort to build a better trout fly.
For the fly fisherman, as well as the Allies with Operation Bodyguard, for
the card shark, the philanderer, the officer charged with hiding the Suez
Canal, for the liar or the magician, planning usually shapes the ruse to a
perceived need. In all cases, the ruse is created by a planner deploying
skill, analysis, guile, cunning, ingenuity and practice — and at times
innocence, desperation, and ignorance.

258 J. BOWYER BELL
RUSE-CHANNEL PLANNING
If some ruses are offered nearly spontaneously, naturally, without great
thought, many require detailed planning. The planner should have an
insight into what ruse would be most effective to achieve the desired
purpose, not merely to have the ruse channeled and accepted as illusion. A
military planner, for example, must, as well, take into account the existing
reality: the weather, the terrain, the course of battle, the attitude of allies,
the tides, and troop morale, the habits of the senior commanders, and the
enemy’s dispositions, as well as his position. The liar lies almost
automatically, denies the truth, hides past action or future intention, and
offers a simple ruse, a falsehood. The falsehood, appealing or unappealing,
relies on acceptance in part by the reputation of the channel, the liar. The
channel may be as important as the ruse—the liar as convincing as the lie.
And, the channel must be not only acceptable and convincing, but also
capable of imposing a ruse within the decision-arena.
The British could hide the Suez Canal from the Germans with Maskelyne’s
ruses because the channel — aerial reconnaissance — was vulnerable to
manipulation. A channel is at times more crucial than the ruse, and more
easily neglected by the planners. There is no use in sending duplicitous
semaphore signals to the blind, or building dummy tanks that are not
noticed by enemy air reconnaissance.
Some channels are, in fact, composed of ruses: the ambassador’s safe at the
embassy, regularly rifled by a spy, is filled not with secret papers but forgeries
to achieve advantage. The authenticity of the false documents is accepted
because the channel is very convincing. In World War II, the British-
controlled German agents reported back through their usual channels so
that their false information was validated by the means of transmission. In
the course of a complex deception effort, some channels may contradict
others, some may be compromised, and some may work as intended.
The combined impact of the channeled-ruse, no matter how complex, is
always found in the response; contradictory ruses may be taken as
authentic because they are contradictory, and so the whole illusion is
accepted. A ruse may be intended to create an illusion that, for the target,
will be unnoticed, benign, desirable, unappealing or dangerous: each
initiating a desired response.
(1) To be unnoticed the illusion must integrate the illusion into the existing pattern of
perceived reality: all continues to appear normal, no new troops on the move, no
ships at sea, no break in the routine or standard operating procedures. The spy
as clerk — a mole — does nothing, has no control, no communication with his
leaders, is merely a clerk until activated. This special clerk, until activated, is
no different from other clerks, one penny among a pile, absolutely hidden
since there is nothing to hide but potential.

On the other hand, inept ruse planning may lead to swift discovery: Recently,
Canadian forces in the Afghanistan campaign used camouflage uniforms that
made them more rather than less visible.
(2) Deception is often used to transform something into an irrelevant form, rather
than simply hide one’s assets or intentions. A military ship may be made not
invisible by camouflage, but rather into an irrelevant tramp steamer.
(3) A mirage of an oasis is a natural illusion that offers a desirable illusion
(salvation) to the desperate traveler. False battleships may offer the enemy air
force a target, absorbing their interests and assets — and, perhaps, allowing
secret maneuvers by the real battleships. Most forgeries and fakes hope to be
taken as desirable and thus generate same advantage for the planner: sales,
prestige, vengeance.
(4) A planner can operate through a ruse intended to create an unappealing illusion.
A mine field may be marked as such to deflect an enemy’s line of advance
because removal of the ‘‘mines’’ is not worth the effort. The channel may be
‘‘coded’’ but easily penetrated to give further authenticity: no signs on the
mine field but its position leaked by agents.
(5) The planner may also seek the acceptance of an illusion that will be perceived
as dangerous by the target and so generate a desired response: a false secret-
weapon, a false armada, or merely a football formation organized for a pass
when the defense is prepared for a run. A feeble lion with a large growl
may deceive a hunter who on past experience takes the decibels as an
indication of power.
RUSE-ILLUSION TAXONOMY
Within each major division in a deception taxonomy, the spectrum runs from
the least complicated to the most complex, but can more effectively be shaped
to the three stages: mimicry, innovation, and ambiguity. The most effective
ruse is simply a clone of reality —exactly the same but different, one more
grain of sand in the Sahara. Denial, however, is often less compelling as a
means to force a target response, so that innovation is often a planner’s
choice, just as is ambiguity, if the target is aware that a ruse is being
offered. A clone — an almost exact copy of a Picasso, easy to commission
or compose, offered through a legitimate dealer — risks comparison with
the real. An innovative creation of a ‘‘new’’ Picasso, when the style is
copied, has a better chance of success, as long as the channel is convincing,
the provenance being as important as the impact of the image. And, if
neither the talent nor provenance is available to the planner, he may offer
patent fakes with false signatures at an auction where ‘‘bargains’’ are
available and the bidding dazzling — the target becomes involved in the
process of acquisition and the ‘‘Picasso’’ becomes less visible.
The three states might be to hide by offering a ruse of one grain of sand
among many, and then hiding, by creating a false cactus and finally by

260 J. BOWYER BELL
relying on a ‘‘mirage’’ to confuse existing reality. Thus the ruse may (1) copy
reality, or (2) create a novel reality, or in the last resort (3) blur reality. To do
so, each illusion will either hide or show and, in all cases, the ruse and the
illusion may be composed of a few simple elements —the hat-on-a-stick —
or a huge and complex bundle of ruses employing various channels, and
so a complex, strategic illusion.
In the placement of a ruse in a taxonomy, a key factor is the degree
of change in perceived reality. While it is obviously more productive of
the investment of assets to opt for a simple ruse to shape a simple
illusion—one hat on one stick—there is an intellectual challenge in seeking
to impose a greater change on the perceived reality of the target: all ruses
may not be economical. But all ruses seek to create an illusion that will
offer varying degrees of change in the pattern perceived by the target: from
nothing generated by effective camouflage to a major strategic initiative —
in World War II the Allied attempt to hide the time, location, and strength
of the 1944 Normandy invasion, or in the twenties the Germans’ hiding of
their air capacity to evade a treaty obligation, and later the Nazi regime
exaggerated the Luftwaffe’s capacity so as to intimidate potential enemies.
These strategic ruses are bundles of other ruses, often so many that the
discovery of a few does not prevent acceptance of the one-great-ruse. In
fact, in some cases, discovery may assist in validation.
The planning, composition, and deployment of deception-ruses may
incorporate an enormous investment: with each ruse composed of a
complex of ruse-factors, and those as well rising from more basic
structures. Such an investment, however, is almost always less than the
cost of having no illusion accepted. The deception planner is aware that he
can multiply his forces or hide them, confuse or intimidate an enemy with
a smaller investment than the advantages of an increase in his forces, the
lack of secrecy, or a prepared enemy will cost.
Each ruse, as well, once channeled into the decision-arena, will also
interact with objective reality before an illusion is accepted or rejected.
This pattern of simulative and dissimulative factors, the intrusion of
reality, and the contingent and unforeseen, varies in each case, but can be
placed close to one of the three foci of a long spectrum from the least shift
in the pattern of perceived reality to the greatest shift. The ideal for the
deception planner is the core-mimicry, with ambiguity on one side with
reality blurred, and innovation on the other with reality created.
(1) In the first example what is seen is what is expected — nothing but
rocks or normal radio traffic or a beach without defenses. The best lie is
the truth. The deception planner hardly plans at all in some cases, so
obvious is the necessity to hide the moment of attack, to rig for silent
running when the destroyers are searching for the submarine, to appear as
small as possible when under fire: ‘‘naturally,’’ in World War I, all those

who had to attack across an open field leaned forward to reduce their
apparent size—blurring that proved futile but persisted for four years as a
natural response.
(2) In the second case, what is seen is beyond expectation: the addition of
new but mock rockets in a parade to reveal nonexistent capacity.
In all cases, the ruse and so the illusion can fit into a taxonomy that offers
spectrums of simulation and dissimulation, and the primary means to shape
such a pattern. No pattern is pure, but the categories contain all the potential
ruses and illusions.
DISSIMULATION AND SIMULATION

Mimicry
To transform the real by offering a false copy of the real transforming what is
to be hidden. Mimicry tends to hide by displaying a pattern that resembles in
all necessary ways perceived realty (an illusion): tanks camouflaged as trucks,
airplanes painted to blend with the ground when seen from above, or with the
sky when seen from below. The target of the ruse looks up or down and
perceives what is expected. The real is repackaged as another sort of reality.
Innovation
The creating of an illusion that changes unexpectedly the objective reality of
the target, offering novelty to either disguise the real or to adjust perceived
reality. A false army, an undiscovered Picasso, a dangerous shoal, or a
leaked battle plan are innovations created to appear real. What is hidden is
that they are false.
Ambiguity
When the target is aware, in whole or in part, of an effort to impose an
alternative pattern on objective reality, the planner may choose to confuse
the observer — blur the edges, suggest other valid options, display a
distraction, increase the noise or the data or the number of channels. The
target, thus, may be aware that a channeled-ruse is being offered but the
illusion and reality flicker.
Misdirection
Hiding the real within groups of the potentially real.
Dazzle
Showing real distractions to blur reality.
Few ruse planners have a neat checklist to mix a bit of dazzle with some
mimicry. Most shape a ruse or a channel pragmatically. Some recognize

262 J. BOWYER BELL
that there are factors involved other than the characteristics of the ruse or the
cunning of the channel to consider. And the purpose of the ruse often
determines the components and the result. A desirable, dangerous, or
unappealing illusion is more likely to offer the planner a visible response
by the target than those intended to be unnoticed or benign. Thus, as long
as the Birnam Woods merely hid MacBeth’s enemies, no response was
necessary or visible — but when the ‘‘woods’’ began to move on him,
dazzling him with the improbable, he had to respond. In any case, each of
the categories of illusion arises from the effectiveness of the ruse, and the
ruse from the skills and insights of the planner choosing from items within
the taxonomy.
The chosen ruse may, as well, exaggerate or minimize reality, create or

eradicate reality, in each case seemingly transform objective reality in such
a way either to evade notice or to offer the target an effective pattern and
force a desired response. The effective planner’s ruse is always offered in
hopes that it will be accepted as an illusion and that this acceptance will
produce the desired response. The planner chooses what to show and what
to hide, what to channel and what is wanted. The change in the target’s
perception of reality may be achieved by enhancing or exaggerating,
diminishing or debasing, or in some way altering the target’s perception.
Intent may be hidden or strengthened, disguised or novelty introduced, the
arena may be secretly extended or weakness transformed into strength by a
successful ruse on every level between a single, simple characteristic
dispatched, or by the investment in a massive cluster of ruses in the service
of one great illusion.
For the construction of a ruse, the actual rather than the perceived reality
of any arena may encourage success. A magician often relies on the
audience’s assumptions of an arena — the stage — and so a maestro can
move from one side of the brick wall built on stage on a carpet to the
other — waving to the audience on one side, the curtain drawn and then
opened to reveal the maestro on the other side waving to the audience
apparently having walked through the brick wall. What the audience does
not perceive is that by opening a trap door under the carpet and the brick
wall, maestro can use the actual rather than perceived arena to squeeze
through and appear to have managed the impossible. In the case of magic,
the intent is to amuse and awe, and so an audience does not feel
‘‘betrayed,’’ but delighted. They come anticipating compelling illusion.
Once the means of the effect are known, appreciation of the trick repeated
drops appreciably, since there is no longer the amazement of the impossible
occurring on stage. All that is left is an impressive technique, skilled card
handling, a no-longer secret compartment, the mirrors and wires, however
unexpected and well made, are not as compelling as the elephant
disappearing on stage.

Thus all targets have a limited perception of reality — the world as

imagined and many a predisposition to accept certain illusions as
congenial. The magician’s audience accepts the illusion knowing it is false.
The bigoted target accepts the illusion because it fits existing prejudices.
The deception planner in both cases has fashioned a ruse to appeal to the
target or, like the target general who assumes no one can cross the river in
the rain, a ruse that takes advantage of the nature of the arena.
The planner must wait on events, wait to discover the impact of the ruse, in
order to respond effectively — to accept failure, to adjust present ruse and
channels, or to dispatch parallel and congruent ruses. Swift, decisive
feedback is often possible, but sometimes the planner needs access to more
detailed information in order to estimate the success and impact of the

ruse. In deception, the purpose and planning of deception, the ruse
construction, the choice of channels, and the projection into the decision
arena are controlled. Control within the cycle is not reasserted until the
feedback is analyzed—this may be swift, with the hat shot off the stick, or
ambiguous, with the hat untouched. The hat may not have been noticed, a
flawed channel, or may have been noticed but ignored because of other
matters, or because the target had penetrated the ruse. In any case, the
result sought did not occur, and the planner might consider further ruses,
repeating hats on sticks or some other decoy, to draw fire—or give up and
move on with the battle.
For example, the planner may deploy a ruse intended to hide the navy by
camouflaging the vessels as rocks, thus both showing the false rocks and
hiding the real warships to any enemy observer. The intent is to conceal
strength and so lure the enemy into battle. The target may accept the
illusion, the reality of the rocks — a not unexpected aspect of perceived
reality — but respond counter to the deception planner’s aim. Since the
‘‘rocks’’ are previously uncharted (a novel intrusion into perceived reality),
the target judges them a danger and withdraws out of reach of the
planner’s navy.
The ruse was shaped to hide through mimicry. Seemingly real ‘‘rocks’’ would
be visible when the enemy fleet arrived. The illusion was accepted, but that
i ll u s i o n w a s ‘ ‘ u n e x p e c t e d ly ’ ’ t a k e n a s s h o w i n g d a n g e r t h r o u g h
the unanticipated presence of navigation hazards. The result was
counterproductive. Often, of course, camouflage does hide as intended and the
target responds as expected; but there is always a difference between the ruse
dispatched and the illusion accepted. And, again, once the illusion is accepted
the target is in control—more ruses to create more illusions to further alter
behavior may not be able to adjust the original impact of the illusion.
All ruses can be placed into a taxonomy but in real life such ruses are apt
to contain a variety of elements—both mimic and create—and all are both
simulative and dissimulative: some that hide need show nothing, but all that

264 J. BOWYER BELL
show must hide something. And each ruse may contain aspects of one of the
three major categories in the taxonomy: a military message in code, when
monitored, can offer the dazzle of other broadcasts and the reality of
encrypted message — the listener knows that he hears a military message
but the content is hidden. Thus the radio orders to the Patton ‘‘divisions’’
dazzled — to counter-dazzle, the target must discover which messages are
real and which false, and then what is the content of the messages — the
last may be difficult, but deploying past patterns of broadcast behavior
may give an insight on which Patton army is which. The urgency of the
task — delay meant that discovery would be too late for an effective
response—was thus hampered by a ruse that combined hiding and showing.
RUSE-CHANNEL CONSTRUCTION
Each ruse is composed of a variety of characteristics (charcs) that offer a
pattern meshing simulation and dissimulation — hiding or showing. An
admiral in the eighteenth century may have painted extra gun ports on his
ships to deceive the target as to his fleet’s firepower. The enemy would
‘‘see’’ capacity where none existed. A forger may also forge the documents
that authenticate a copy of a painting — a copy made real by using old
canvass, an antique frame, paint without modern chemicals, as well as the
style of the artist — and to make the ruse more effective by planning the
new provenance within a museum’s records, a channel that offers spurious
authenticity where even the suspicious would look only for reassurance. In
the first case, the planner expects the target to respond to the illusion of
power, and in the second, not to respond at all to the possibility that the
landscape is a forgery. Both ruses hide the real— the capacity of the ships
and the forgery, and sow the false: more guns and another masterpiece.
One hides the weakness of the navy, and the other shows the buyer a
means to acquire, if at cost, a masterpiece. In each case, the predominant
intent of the ruse is intended by the deception planner and, if accepted, the
illusion is defined by the target.
Camouflage is meant to hide and, if it does not fail, be a ruse of
dissimulation, while the Trojan horse devised by the Greek warrior Epeus
was meant to offer a new reality, simulate novelty as well as hide the
Greek soldiers, and was so accepted by the Trojans. The creator and the
observer determine if the ruse or illusion is dissimulative or simulative,
although all ruses and all illusions offer both components.
Each ruse must involve both hiding and showing, but the planner usually
offers a construct that is intended to either hide reality from the target or
offer an alternative reality, hide the fake painting or show the false gun
ports. The planner and then the target’s assumptions tend to make the
ruse either simulative or dissimulative—a matter of degree.

A great deal of analysis focuses on how a ruse is constructed, the narrative of

planning and deployment. Even the simplest ruse is composed of charcs, and
most are in fact bundles, not only of charcs, but also of other ruses. The
moose may be attracted by a simple moose call, but the hunter is also
hidden by camouflage gear and hiding where a lady moose might be apt to
appear. Lies are simple ruses, but often channel with great effect, and may be
associated with other lies—other ruses—to create the desired illusion. Simple
ruses—the hat on the stick or mud as camouflage—follow the same course
as do the most costly: and some deception planners become involved with
enormously costly ruses in large part because the returns seem so appealing,
even if not easy to weigh in currency or even results.
THE HIDDEN PLANE

The United States’s Stealth F-117 was hidden from enemy radar by recourse
to a hundred billion dollar technology, but also, while on the ground, was
hidden from Soviet satellites by a coat of camouflage paint. Each ruse,
given the anticipated capacities of detection, were part of a general
dissimulative ruse, a cluster of ruses that formed a protected image for
very different targets.
In each case, the F-117 was transformed so as to produce no reaction on
the part of the target—one by evading the existing means of radar discovery
by offering a change in perceived reality so profound that there was no
realization that the nature of objective reality had been altered but hidden,
and the other simply by use of paint to mimic the ground.
When the existence of a stealth plane had become public, altered
photographs were offered to blur existing reality, offering an alternative
reality that might, even if not fully accepted, still alter the reality of the F-117.
Stealth technology, in conventional theaters of war, assured invisibility—a
drop of water in an ocean mimicking all other drops—thus the target could
not perceive objective reality. Camouflage paint, given the Soviet satellite
capacity, blending the fighter with the background, mimicked what was
expected. The doctored photographs offered to target observers a new
layer of cover when the airplane became more vulnerable to discovery.
These and other denial techniques of the total stealth ruse were all
dissimulative, some contained in the first ruse-projection into the decision-
arena, and others added to maintain as much of the cover as possible. The
photographs were simulations of reality, just as the camouflage paint, but
shaped to hide by the deception planner.
If a ruse is either largely simulative or dissimulative because of the aim of
the deception planner, in the case of the F-117, the false was being offered to
deny access to the real. The entire strategic ruse to hide the existence and
capacity of stealth technology made use of a variety of lesser ruses,

266 J. BOWYER BELL
a bundle, as did each ruse composed of groups of characteristics. Over time

and as need was perceived, additional ruses were deployed. A ruse need not
be static or restricted to a single effect.
A ruse must always be channeled to have any effect at all. As was the case
with the forged masterpiece painting, the channel is as important as the ruse.
Some of the ruses of the Allied Plan Bodyguard were ineffectual simply
because the Germans never noticed them. In effective deception, the ruse
and the channel may be shaped to the physiological capacities and
psychological preferences and predisposition of the target, or may be a
spontaneous response to need. Without experience or a doctrine, there is a
tendency among planners to be fascinated with shaping the actual ruse,
accumulating the charcs, exhibiting cunning, and spending less time on the
channel, unless it too is perceived as a clever ruse. In retrospect, the
analytical focus is often on the actual construction of the ruse — the false
gun ports, a notional Allied invasion of Norway, or an attack through the
Balkans — all the tricks and wiles, the romantic ‘‘charc’’ of rubber
tanks and dazzling radio traffic, the rubber paratroopers dropped over
Normandy, or the false documents leaked.
Thus, the channel is often assumed to be part of the ruse, and at other
times fails. German aerial reconnaissance was flown over the notional
Patton Army Group in East Anglia but the analysis of the result was never
done, and bad weather can hide the most cunningly painted gun ports.
In real life, the ruse and channel become entangled in the decision-arena. All
ruses must have a channel, but once the ruse is channeled, then the deception
planner loses control, acceptance depends on the effectiveness of the
construct and the analysis of the target. In all cases, the deception process
follows a clear path from perceived need and/or possibility, and the decision
to construct and dispatch a ruse. Since a ruse requires not only commitment,
time, and effort but also offers the planner the sense of power, construction
tends to overshadow the other aspects of the deception cycle. What is wanted
seems obvious, but how to persuade the target to make this possible is more
challenging, and the challenge within reach is the construction of the ruse—
and the channel. Acceptance of a ruse as an illusion ends control, and for
some, foresight. To deceive seems sufficient. With or without a doctrine,
others recognize the key is the response of the target, and knowledge of that
response. A ruse may be costly and clever and ineffectual and so on to the
channel. What matters is what is made to matter.
TARGET RESPONSE
The Action-Arena: Denial, Ignorance, Acceptance
The ruse or the channel may be unconvincing — the magician’s fingers
fumble, the painted gun ports improbable given the size of the vessel, or

the trick play used too often to confuse the defense. Even if the ruse is
channeled into the decision-arena, the target may simply overlook the
offered change of pattern, and not notice the honey or the pot. The target
may benefit from a conscious and cunning counter-deception policy, from
the ineptitude of the planner, from an advantageous change in objective
reality within the decision-arena, or from the contingent and the
unforeseen, and so be immune to the proposed illusion.
A variety of factors may facilitate the acceptance of a ruse as an illusion—
one that will generate the desired response. Each case varies, but the
predilections of the target, the reputation of the planner, and the apparent
direction of reality can be exploited or disguised.
A ruse stands a better chance of being transformed into an acceptable

illusion if the target is not aware of the actual arena of potential
penetration. Thus, someone may assume that his friend would not lie to
him, and when he discovers that this has happened, feels betrayed. He had
misinterpreted the limits of perceived reality. The same may occur in a war
when an enemy assumes that there is only one route of attack, but the
response to the discovery is resignation or response, and at times the feeling
of having been ‘‘cheated.’’ Deception is not seen to be ‘‘fair’’—the resort of
the weak, the powerless, the amoral, and the sinner — since the rules are
broken. The IRA killing from a ditch, the Japanese ‘‘sneak’’ attack on
Pearl Harbor, the evasions of an unfaithful wife are betrayals, unfair, in
violation of the rules—or the rules as imagined.
But it is not the nonexistent ‘‘rules’’ that are broken, but rather action
beyond the target’s assumption of permitted action. One is betrayed by a
unfaithful lover. The IRA acted outside the rules of conventional warfare,
and the Japanese those of international practice. The lies and evasions that
make possible an effective channeled-ruse are discovered only when the
illusion collapses because of discovered evidence — counter-deception— or
when the deceiver so chooses.
Thus, a moral value is often attached to perceived reality — only this
should be the battlefield, my lover is true, my friends would not lie, nor
my enemy organize a sneak attack. In general, Americans have doubts
about the legitimacy of deception, and the Chinese or Russians none — in
fact both assume that the Americans are duplicitous.
The Action Spectrum

An illusion, taken as perceived reality, will always generate a response along
an action-spectrum — even no action may be considered a successful
response. Thus, the target may not notice that the rocks are really battle
cruisers because the camouflage is so successful in hiding them, and sail on
by; but the admiral may decide that they represent a danger and sail away
from them, thus frustrating the trap: what matters is what the planner

268 J. BOWYER BELL
made happen. In the case of the enemy ships, the hidden admiral could see
the response — the enemy sailing where wanted or unexpectedly in the
wrong direction. It was more difficult to decide how effective World War
II’s Plan Bodyguard was at any given moment: there were so many ruses,
so many channels, so many illusions to monitor, and the feedback could
never be precise: some Germans believed some illusions at some times, and
some action was often taken, adjusted, canceled. Others, for various
reasons, were not deceived, even if they accepted the illusions. What could
be seen — the position of troops, the content of the coded traffic read by
Enigma, the thousands of bits and pieces of evidence acquired by the
resistance, by observation, by assumptions — gave encouragement but not
assurance that the great illusion was effective: the Germans had not
accepted Normandy as the site of the invasion.
Once there is feedback on the response to the deception, the planner may
initiate a further deception-cycle. In the case of Plan Bodyguard, this was a
constant process. In the case of a football play, the result is instant: the
feedback arrives in a gain or a loss. The deception planner then must
consider the new reality. The quarterback may adjust his play calling, and
the planners of Bodyguard continued to devise new ruses and channels.
At some stage, the illusion fails or is revealed too late for the target to act
effectively. If the ruse succeeds, the planner moves on and the illusion
disappears. This may take longer than imagined, as was the case with Plan
Bodyguard, shaped to work until a day or two before 6 June 1944, that in
part lasted for eight weeks after D-Day. Most illusions are thus self-
liquidating, some are exposed. In a few cases the illusion persists, becomes
part of objective reality. The creating of the Piltdown Man ruse sought
acceptance of a revolutionary, evolutionary discovery, thus revealing the
limits of the target scientists—the planner gained private pleasure once the
illusion was accepted and the scientists were involved, and knew as well
that at any time in the future, when the ruse was revealed, there would be
further evidence, and so further pleasure at the flaws within the scientific
community. Acceptance would assure pleasure as well as ultimate
revelation — The Donation of Constantine lasted for a millennium —
because the pattern was congenial, and The Protocols of Zion still circulate
among anti-Semites because some always choose to see what they want.
For a deception planner, success or failure is apt to come swiftly.
Eye of the Beholder

Essentially what determines the nature of the ruse is not the arrangement of
components, but the intent of the planner and of the illusion is the perception
of the receiver. Both ruses and illusions are composed of elements that
shape a pattern within perceived reality that exists along a spectrum of

simulation-dissimulation. And this spectrum offers illusions that range from

the difficult to deny — one grain of sand hidden among many — to those
difficult to interpret—a quarterback running the option.
All channeled ruses are constructions of an alternative reality —whether
the ruse channeled or the illusion accepted — and always depend on
dissimulation — the hiding of reality, the hiding of the nature of the
illusion, the hiding of intent. A ruse, by definition, denies the target access
to objective reality. There can be no deception without hiding, although
every illusion contains factors that display the false. In contemporary
usage, denial is often considered a separate form — as in Deception and
Denial (D&D) — but, in actuality, denial is simply hiding — every ruse
denies the target-observer insight into objective reality.

Thus, denial is the device that hides objective reality from an observer—an
entire underground pursuing an armed struggle may be shaped so as to deny
transparency, penetration, or at times its very existence, or a few splashes of
paint may make it more difficult to see a tank and so deny its position to the
enemy.
In the case of the Greeks at Troy, the deception goal was to hide the
Greek soldiers from the Trojans so as to allow the ten-year siege to be
broken by unexpected access within the walls to the locked gates.
(1) The Greeks might have chosen to hide their soldiers’ exact numbers
and location from Trojan observers by mixing them with civilians, setting
up clouds of dust, creating ambiguities of number and place over time, so
as to make Trojan choices less certain: introduce ambiguity into objective
reality.
(2) Then, a more complex option would be to disguise the soldiers as
civilians, and so permit their arrival at the gate to be hidden because they
mimicked the existing patterns observed by the Trojans. The Greeks
would be adding more to reality and thus hide their army until the
illusion collapsed (a moment of surprise) and swords were drawn.
(3) A far more complex and compelling ruse was actually employed to
create a new reality that would, as illusion, produce the desired response.
The Greeks would apparently withdraw for good, sail over the horizon,
and yet leave behind a giant horse — a horse that the Trojans had been
warned should not be taken into the city. The Greek soldiers would be
hidden in a giant, wooden horse that, assumed benign and desirable,
would be taken into the city because the warning was assumed
duplicitous. Then the Greek navy would return the army just as the
soldiers in the great horse opened the gates.
The purpose of the ruse was to create an accepted illusion that would
hide the real by offering a Greek withdrawal of an appealing illusion and
a novel creation —the horse —as an additional and acceptable aspect of
perceived reality. Warnings would parallel the revelation of the horse to
validate Trojan prejudices.

270 J. BOWYER BELL
In the theoretical cases, the Trojans’ perception of reality was blurred

by the confusion and dazzle of the Greek soldiers’ movements, or they
would have been deceived as to the existence of an army moving on
the walls, seeing only what they expected. Instead, the Greeks offered a
more complex bundle of ruses. In the case of the Trojan Horse, simple
mimicry seemingly would have risked discovery of camouflaged Greek
soldiers and disaster, while introducing ambiguities would not have
assured breaching the walls. And the Trojans accepted the Trojan
Horse ruse as an illusion, supported by the withdrawal of the Greek
army and the ‘‘false’’ warning. The accepted illusion, as in all cases,
transformed perceived reality.
Thus, the crucial categories are those arising from the degree of change in
objective reality imposed by an accepted illusion. The planner chooses a ruse
that is largely simulative or dissimulative, and channels it into the decision
arena where the target accepts it, convinced by the simulation or the
dissimulation. The involved determine the category of the ruse and the
illusion.
The target response in all cases is to the illusion, not to the ruse, and so
acceptance is beyond reach of the deception planner who must rely on
feedback, visible or not, to determine the impact. The illusion as accepted,
then, need not be the intent of the ruse as deployed, nor initiate the
response intended. Effective deception is, then, a category of intentional
deception that may be shaped by target self-deception, flaws in creation
and transmission, and the contingent and unforeseen. The difference
between ineffectual deception is that the latter initiates an unwanted or
useless—unexpected—response to the illusion as accepted.
The deception planner’s goal of manipulating the target through the
creation of the illusion—an alternative reality —by means of channeling a
compelling ruse is achieved only if the illusion generates, or largely so, the
desired response by the target—and, in rare cases, generates an unexpected
but advantageous response.
CHANNELS
The dispatched ruse-image, to have any effect, must arrive through channels
created, adapted, or integrated by the planner. These channels are integrated
into the transmission, and so the illusion may be quite conventional: a line of
sight, or a vast complex of allied strands — each a special ruse — offered
through a spectrum of real and notional devices.
The key concern in channels is that they neither exist separably from the
ruse nor play a lesser role: all are integrated into the ruse, and some may
be more deceptive, more complex, and even more effective than the ruse. A
ruse-image cannot be transformed into an illusion without effective

channels. The fly must be cast so as to appear before the trout naturally. If

accepted in whole, the illusion is automatically and seamlessly integrated
into perceived reality, or if in part, there is still a shift in perceived reality.
The trout bites if so inclined and if not, not.
Ruse-Illusion Transformation
For the planner, the key moment is, when in transit within the transmission
channel, the illusion is perceived by the target within a decision-arena (part
physical and part psychological). The ruse-image offers an alternative
reality. The reality received as an illusion is never exactly the ruse fully
accepted as dispatched, since it has become integrated into objective reality

and into the target’s perception. The integration — acceptance — may be
possible even when the ruse is warped in transmission, violates common
sense, reality, experience, or habit.
TARGET REACTIONS
Experience, standard operating procedures, prejudice and habit, the power of
inertia, the congenial and comfortable, and the deception-assumptions of the
target will shape responses to projected reality, to the acceptance of the ruse
as illusion and the subsequent response. The deception planner has or has not
factored this into the ruse. A planner wants an imperative illusion, one that
manipulates, not merely one that is accepted.
The ruse may offer unconvincing or confusing patterns, appear anomalous
to experience and expectation. A target is apt to be suspicious of perceived
reality, containing anomalies and paradoxes. Most effective are integrative
patterns, even for novel constructs, rather than incongruities. A variant is
in the intentional construction of ruses of misdirection or dazzle, where the
incongruities of the pattern are intended to blur reality—a group of purple
cows driven across a battlefield may attract the eye and so hide the
movement of the cavalry. If the cavalry are to be disguised as cows, purple
would not be the most effective choice of color to achieve mimicry. During
the battle of Bastogne, orders were sent from headquarters to two
‘‘different’’ Patton Third Armies, thus dazzling the Germans monitoring
American radio signals.
It is possible to change the arena without the target’s knowledge—focused
on the probable course of action, the target ignores less likely options. Thus,
troops can be moved in impossible weather, attack from unexpected
directions, go to war while offering peace. In this case, the planner exploits
the assumed predilections of the target, but, in many cases, more complex
stratagems must be devised and constructed. The deception planner must

272 J. BOWYER BELL
assume greater and greater risks of discovery by offering substantial changes

in the pattern of objective reality.
Complicated ruses, usually bundles of ruses composed of varying
characteristics, may also fail to be convincing if a single bundle proves
flawed: a scout might notice that one of the ten men waving a hat on a
stick is doing so, and consequently the other nine mimicking a target are a
ruse that will no longer sustain an acceptable illusion. And the more
complex the ruse, usually the more complex the channels, and so the
greater the opportunity for premature revelation.
In any ruse, reinforcement is possible through parallel and subsidiary ruses
intended to buttress the emerging illusion. The deception planner may use
other channels as well. This secondary projection may be complex or

simple, may relate to the first response or merely undertaken because it is
possible and potentially effective. Once the illusion has been accepted, the
strategists may contrive second generation evidence of illusionary reality to
extend the life and impact of the original ruse.
Thus, the target must cope, not with a single alteration in perceived
reality, but a continuous arrival of compelling and convincing
authentication-ruses. And so, too, the planner as the target response
evolves over time. For the planner, the worst possible outcome of an
investment in a ruse is a counterproductive response. That was the case
with General Wavell in Abyssinia, when he persuaded the Italians that he
would attack in the South, but they responded so as to hamper his real
attack in the North. Wavell would have been better off to have done
nothing instead of offering a ruse without considering the nature of the
target’s response beyond accepting an illusion. The most common
response is either=or—either the ruse is transformed into an illusion or is
not. Denial of the ruse as an objective pattern may occur because of
flawed channels, lack of attention, or personal predilections, without the
discovery that a ruse is involved at all. But the target may discover the
ruse as the core of a deception plan and act accordingly. If the target’s
discovery is hidden from the planner, then an enemy cycle of deception
can be undertaken. If not, if the failure of the illusion is to be accepted as
natural, or failure of the illusion to initiate a desirable action occurs, the
deception planner may either withdraw or seek to adjust the existing
illusion or project others.
Thus, many planners deploy new parallel and validating ruses, other
channels, or fine-tuning during a constant ruse-dispatch in hopes that the
illusion, reinforced with the additions and corrects, will engender the
proper action — or in many cases maintain the desired response. There
occurs a dialogue of deception: ruse-illusion-perceived response-analysis
and action. Generally, however, especially with tactual or technical
deception ruses, revelation ends the cycle.

Most important, the cycle, as described, is an artificial analytical conceit.

Quite often, the ruses and illusion are in constant motion, perceptions
shift, adjustments are constant, and at times incoherent. Divisions are not
clear, not even the distinctions of ruse and illusion, or ruse and channel, as
obvious in the real world.
At times, for example, a cycle may persist without further reinforcement or
further target action. The illusion has become an aspect of reality for the
observers — the forgery becomes crucial evidence, the lie accepted as the
truth. At times, the ruse is a momentary matter, discovered immediately,
and hardly a factor in the course of events: an obvious lie.
DECEPTION CYCLE PATTERNS REVIEWED

A deception cycle is an analytical conceit, but the complexities introduced
within the real world do not change the validity model. The cycle is how
deception works, how a fib works, and how the Allies arrived off the
beaches of Normandy at dawn on 6 June 1944, to the ‘‘surprise’’ of the
Germans. A cycle may overlap others, may be interrupted at any time,
may blur and blend with other events.
The ruse may prove too costly to construct and=or maintain, in violation
of norms and existing agendas, or not as appealing as a more direct
approach. The construction and choice of channels may offer unexpected
obstacles to acceptance of the ruse — the dispatch may be delayed or
canceled, the channels may prove inappropriate. The target may ignore or
discount the ruse and the channels. There may be early discovery by the
target, even before the ruse is channeled.
There may, in fact, be discovery at any point, and so the implosion of the
illusion. Once an illusion is accepted, there may be unexpected or
inappropriate responses that require further ruses to impose variant
illusions, or that end the entire effort. The response may be
counterproductive or irrelevant to the purpose. There may be no revealing
feedback, and so no information on the effect of the illusion. When there
is feedback, it may suggest an end to the deception-ruse, the continuation
and=or elaboration of the ruse, and so the illusion, the construction of
congruent and parallel ruses or the need for a entirely different ruse. And
an illusion may simply persist.
Most deception-cycles are short, revealed through success or error,
although some illusions continue for some time. In a few cases, like new
‘‘Picassos,’’ the planner may hope that the target may be deceived or
denied access to objective reality far into the future — for years, never to
discover the faker, or find the location of key facilities, or discover the
weakness of a weapons system. A few of these steady-state illusions
continue on and on, without need of adjustment, because they are

274 J. BOWYER BELL
perceived as too appealing to discard or to examine closely, despite any

emerging flaws. In fact, the planner and his intention may have moved on
to other matters and no longer bother to or be capable of reinforcing the
illusion, while the target simply ignored the new pattern created by the
illusion, without penalty, advantage, or interest.
Deception planners are goal-oriented: the illusion must work only
within the scope of their needs. Thus, except in rare cases, once the illusion
is acted upon by the target, there will be no need for the planner to
maintain or reinforce the ruse. In any case, objective reality has moved
on as well — the battle won and the war lost, the ‘‘Picasso’’ sold and
resold, lost to sight, the poker hand played out and discarded without
record. In a few cases, the target may hide the discovery of the illusion, and
exploit the continuing convictions of the planner that the illusion
is still taken as real. A new cycle begins, but the target is the original planner.
Agents are turned and kept reporting, as the Germans did in World War II
with nearly all of the British agents dropped into Holland. Their coded
messages back to headquarters were accepted as real by British control,
even when hidden warnings were included. The desire of the deception
planners for a network overrode the disaster that the warnings implied.
The evidence of German control was taken as ambiguous — and too
dreadful to imagine—and discounted.3 So more agents were sent, captured
and were soon reporting back. Revelation of the German deception was
constantly enforced by further ruses. The process of British realization was
slow, not swift, and so, at the end, not a surprise. Mostly, however, there
is surprise and consternation of the collapse of an illusion, and in a few
cases, a feeling of betrayal or outrage.
In a deception-cycle, when the illusion collapses, surprise is almost always
a collateral result: reality is suddenly not as previously perceived. The target
is surprised. The purpose of a deception ruse, however, is not ‘‘surprise,’’ but
rather that the target responds to the illusion as intended. ‘‘Surprise’’ is
merely the reaction of the target to revelation, a by-product. A magician
offers ruses to an audience eager to accept illusions, and to be awed and
‘‘surprised’’ at the seeming violation of objective reality by the skill of the
performer. The audience knows that the elephant did not really disappear
onstage, but yet there is no longer an elephant: the surprise is at the skill,
not the illusion, and the goal of the magician to delight is so achieved.
A military deception planner wants the illusion accepted as a matter of
course, and the target so manipulated — surprise may come when the
illusion is discovered for whatever reason. The deception-goal is not
‘‘surprise,‘‘ but an advantageous disposition of enemy forces because the
illusion has been accepted as real. The Greeks did not care whether the
Trojans were surprised when the soldiers came out of the horse, only that
the gates were opened to victory.

One of the great examples of modern surprise was the preemptive

Israeli air attack on Arab air bases at the beginning of the June War
in 1967 — preemptive, almost totally effective, and quite unforeseen.
The Israeli air force wanted to destroy the Egyptian air force on the
ground and so their deception planners used ruses, their own
experience, and their assumption about Egyptian attitudes and
practices to do so. In so doing, they inevitably also ‘‘surprised’’ the
Egyptians, but the end result would have been just as satisfactory if
the Egyptians had not been surprised but simply vulnerable. Where
deception is necessary, absolute power is perceived by the planner
not to be available. The general with a huge preponderance of force
need not be evasive, duplicitous, or secretive: power will crush
opposition.
The identification of surprise with deception is to misunderstand the
nature and intent of the illusion that creates an alternative reality —
‘‘surprise’’ comes when the illusion is no longer needed to achieve
deception goals or implodes for any other reason. The key is the response
to the illusion that relies on secrecy until revealed, and so surprises the
target.
In sum, a deception-cycle occurs when the planner’s agenda suggests the
use of deceit as a means, and ends, if at all, when the deception process
aborts, ends, or continues without adjustment. At times, a variety of ruses
employing various channels are used to engender a variety of illusions that,
in whole or in part, will impose a new pattern on the target’s sense of
perceived reality. This illusion then requires an extensive and=or extended
response, constant reinforcement and validation, additional channels,
fine-tuning, and repeated feedback. There are a variety of obstacles to any
deception-planner’s success: flawed analysis, lack of resources, persistent
illusions about objective reality, ignorance, excess optimism, a poorly
designed ruse or channel, and the defenses of the target. Of these, the use
of counter-deception parallels a deception cycle, and may indeed initiate a
target’s deception cycle, but also may persist, not as a mirror image of
deception, but as an independent process.
COUNTER-DECEPTION
The dynamics of counter-deception are not the same as those of the deceiver,
but are usually integrated into any deception planner’s considerations. Like
deception, counter-deception is a conventional aspect of everyday
perception; one weighs the card player’s bid, seeks to discover the path
hidden in the dark, or the implication of the social lie. An individual must
constantly scan objective reality to discover potential harm hidden by
intent or nature, and to prosper, to focus suspicion on likely deceit — a

276 J. BOWYER BELL
quarterback’s intentions, the inexpensive rare stamp, or bargain high-tech

stock. The counter-deception process is both positive and negative, passive
and active, planned and natural.
Passive counter-deception is composed of a repeated scan of perceived
reality, seeking false patterns, hidden threats, anomalies, and evidence of
deception planning, rather like a radar sweeping an arena, seeking an enemy
in a blip. Governments install security systems to prevent being deceived by
hidden penetration, just as individuals watch to be sure the road is as clear
as it seems. Active counter-deception measures seek out those who might
plan deception, based on their record or their aspirations. Agents wait
outside embassies to observe personnel who might be more than they seem,
devise codes that cannot easily be broken, or analyze the unforeseen and
unusual, the break in pattern, or the emergence of a new patter.
Counter-deception focuses not simply on offered illusions, but on the
possibility of deceit, the existence of deception ruses and channels, and the
prospect of an illusion. After the siege of Troy, many were wary of Greeks
bearing gifts, just as during the Cold War most Western security services
were wary of any Soviet bloc initiative that could hide duplicity.
Obviously, the most effective defense would be a successful penetration of
deception planning — a spy who could offer feedback; but, although
deception is universal and common, and deception planning a constant,
only a limited number of illusions is offered. The target is in many cases
aware that such illusions are available — the enemy camouflage, their
maneuvers misleading, the flood of radio traffic dazzling — and so the
sweep through objective reality focuses on previous experience, on an
analysis of the agenda and capacity of the suspected deceiver, and on
unexpected aberrations — a Trojan horse or a confidential clerk who
purchases a luxury car. Passive counter-deception is precautionary.
Everyone in the department is given a lie detector test, the guerrilla
country is swept with infrared sensors to find what might be hidden, and
diplomatic codes are updated. A lie detector may be used to scan
everyone, or merely some, or only the suspect: each and all are potential
agents, and so are illusions in place.
The most active measures seek to counter the particular rather than the
general, focusing on patterns that may be ruse-generated. The lie detector is
used as one among many means to determine if a suspect is, indeed, loyal.
And, on a more complex level, counter-deception seeks to discover major
threats. Can Moscow read Washington’s mail? What kind of access might
exist? What kind of agents would be involved? What do Russian moves
indicate? Can a Russian be suborned or their own communications invaded?
What are the odds? How great should the investment in discovery be?
The most effective counter-deception prospect is to have penetrated the
enemy planning, or at least to be able to monitor the creation of a ruse.

A traditional counter-deception strategy is to deny potential enemies any

knowledge—the Marxist world during the Cold War was largely closed: no
tourists, no visitors, no telephone directories or road maps, no statistics, no
interviews or insight into decisionmaking. Chinese diplomats abroad during
the more radical Maoist times often refused to talk to anyone about
anything. The nature of Communist society could be examined only
through very limited means — overflights, history books, a few refugees,
and the actual, visible policies — the occupation of Tibet as seen by those
who became refugees, or the construction of a new forced-labor camp
visible to satellites. The West had to extrapolate from very limited and
often suspect data. Their scenarios of potential deception prospects were
data-weak. Denial is always evoked to counter, not only discover, reality —

camouflage or cover—but also sophisticated ruse-analysis.
Counter-deception is not so much about hiding reality as finding illusions.
A criminal organization or a revolutionary underground seeks to create an
illusion of normality, to deny external probes by offering a pattern of
normality: today a construction worker, and tonight a hit man or terrorist.
For the authorities, the challenge is to find the anomaly, discover the
illusion that denies transparency.
Discovery by passive or active measures, by radar reports, content analysis
of internal communications, by the purchase of information, or the
deployment of an advanced technological means — the hard imagery of
satellite photography allows the involved counter-deception operators
various options. The illusion can be destroyed publicly, or ignored, or at
times manipulated — the spy–diplomat can be expelled and advantage
gained or seemingly accepted, and a new deception cycle initiated, using
leaks to the spy–diplomat’s sources.
The problems for counter-deception are enormous, none more so than the
problem of projected motives and behavior by those seeking illusions. How
would a spy act? Would not a lack of evidence in fact be evidence for a
reality so far successfully hidden? Not finding evidence of a mole–spy
would thus indicate a clever mole–spy. If the enemy is malign, then should
not illusions have been created, illusions too cunning or too appealing to
have been discovered? No evidence becomes evidence, and the counter-
deception force enters a wilderness of mirrors. The deceiver knows what
has been dispatched, and to a considerable degree what the target response
has been, but much of counter-deception must focus on potential.
Counter-deception becomes tangled with deception—for filters and probes
must be hidden, discoveries may be kept secret, and, most important, a
revealed illusion may allow the initiation of a deception-cycle against the
original planner. Counter-deception is an inherent obstacle to the acceptance
of an illusion. The shrewd deception planner will consider this factor, and the
wise will be aware that a counter-deception planner may be involved in

278 J. BOWYER BELL
deception through the shaping of a ruse-of-response: manipulating the image

seemingly received, and so turning the ruse on the deceiver.
There is thus an element of counter-deception in both dispatching the ruse
and in responding to the illusion. At times, the prudent or the innocent can
counter deception by error, by chance, by luck, but a counter-deception
capacity and deployment is a matter of filters and analysis consciously
directed at an assumed or realized potential.
The effective deception planner factors such a target-defense into the
construction of the ruse and the choice of the channel. Ag ain,
dissimulation plays a basic role in deception to counter those who might
seek to discover the illusion. In fact, some ruses are dispatched to be
discovered and thus create a deeper illusion—the ruse will not work unless
channeled to be make discovery likely — a piggyback ruse. Counter-
deception, then, tends to be involved in the construction of defenses
against the prospect of duplicity, and measures shaped to seek out
potential illusions that, when successful, may lead to deception planning.
Counter-deception, unlike deception, is focused mainly on maintaining the
normal arena of perception—perceived reality— cleared of illusions, while
deception-planning, unlike many counter-deception actions, seeks to adjust
that arena by establishing illusions that make objective reality into falsely
perceived reality for the target.
A FORCE MULTIPLIER
Deception is a means to adjust perceived reality to the advantage of the
planner, by the creation of a compelling ruse and an effective channel that
will offer an illusion acceptable to the target and, if effective, a desirable
response. Such a strategy may benefit from the attitudes of the target —
self-deception—and the lack of counter-measures—counter-deception. But
the key component is to assure a desirable target response to the illusion:
merely to deceive, or have an illusion accepted is insufficient for a
competent deception-planner.
To assure such a response, parallel and congruent ruses and channels may
be employed, adjustments made to shifting conditions and the deception-
cycle adjusted, expanded, changed, and continued. Thus, the original
channeled-ruse may be elaborated, reinforced, or multiplied to maintain an
illusion or reinforce the original. Almost surely, in time the illusion will be
revealed, to the surprise of the deceived, but, if successful, after the desired
response has been achieved.
This cycle may offer at any one time a continuum of action, adjustments,
the imposition of changing objective reality, and contradictory and
ambiguous actions. The contingent and unforeseen will assure, at times, an
impact on the cycle, as can the delusions and flawed interpretation of the

target. And, at times, the target may counter such deception by passive or
active responses, and then may initiate another deception-cycle. The
planner estimates effects and special costs, the target may deny or accept
an illusion in whole, in part, or through error, as well as by rational
analysis. Some among the target decisionmakers may deny the illusion, in
all or in part. Others, however, may have the power to respond to an
illusion taken as reality. The deception planner may be of divided
counsel — the cycle is seldom static, if for no other reason than objective
reality assures constant, if often minor, adjustments to the perception
process of all concerned. The cycle takes place within a large perceptual
context that often imposes adjustments. Even success or failure may be a
matter of degree imposed by the participants in the cycle.

Despite the theoretical difficulties in any model of the deception process,
there is, indeed, a process or cycle, from concept through creation to
reaction, that focuses on an effective illusion that largely simulates reality
or dissimulates it for the planner’s purpose. Force and fraud in war —and
in much else — are the cardinal virtues. Deception is deployed and
countered by the shrewd, and rarely fully understood by the involved.
Deception can multiply forces, confound power, delude an opponent, lure
a trout, or reassure a lady, often at moderate cost, but always within the
universal cycle from the idea to the advantage.
REFERENCES
1
This text toward a theory is based in part on the work done in Dublin and
Washington between 1979 and 1981, funded by Mathmatica, by the author and
Dr. Barton Whaley who published the preliminary results as ‘‘Toward a
Theory of Deception,’’ The Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 178–
192; also see J. Bowyer Barton (Bell and Whaley) Cheating, New York, St.
Martin’s Press, 1982, and now in print as Cheating and Deception (New
Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Press, 1991). See also Whaley’s earlier seminal
work in Deception and Surprise in War (Cambridge, MA: Center of
International Studies, MIT, 1969).
This text has benefited from the comments of Professor Robert Jervis, Columbia
University; Jim Yuill, North Carolina State; and Barton Whaley, San Diego and
Palm Springs, who are consultants on an analysis of deception as a means to
defend electronic communications funded by the Office of Net Assessment,
United States Department of Defense.
2
The original title of the Whaley=Bell book Cheating was How to Cheat until the
major bookstore chains indicated that they would not order a book with such a
title.
3
A most compelling narrative of the entanglement of bureaucracy and deception
planning in this matter can be found in Leo Marks, Between Silk and Cyanide,
A Codemaker’s War, 1941–1945, (London: HarperCollins, 1998).

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On: 12 October 2008

International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence

Toward a Theory of Deception

Online Publication Date: 01 January 2003

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Toward a Theory of Deception1

Deception is an aspect of human perception that is in turn shaped by

244 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE

product of physiology or evolution. Deception may also be the result of

AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2

deceived, manipulated. The investment in the deceit may be enormous or

Deception is the transformation of a target’s perceptions by a planner

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE

tubes easily purchased at a hardware store but oﬀered with a certiﬁcate of

AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2

repel or absorb new evidence. Old patterns and expectations persist.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE

at least predisposed to accept an illusion made appealing. Hitler believed

AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2

of the accepted illusion of another thrust by FUSAG remained a factor in

Balancing Expectation and E¡ort

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE

to deception. In fact, only magicians, operating in a closed universe and

in the United States, any resort to deception is widely considered an indicator

AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2

For generations, military journals have oﬀered articles by majors

theoretical foundation, just as football quarterbacks fake to the runner,

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE

experience, standard operating procedures, ﬂawed cost-beneﬁt analysis, the

AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2

congruent or maintained ruses, or monitoring the ruse as long as the necessary

the Protocols of Zion.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE

AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2

monte as a means to riches on the street corner. Deception is their trade. At

Archibald Wavell intended to attack in the North, and so devised a plan to

The Fly Fisherman as Deception Planner

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE

a real ﬂy and so worth sampling or else a novel oﬀering equally worth

AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE

AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE

DISSIMULATION AND SIMULATION

AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2

The chosen ruse may, as well, exaggerate or minimize reality, create or

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE

Thus all targets have a limited perception of reality — the world as

detailed information in order to estimate the success and impact of the

AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE

A great deal of analysis focuses on how a ruse is constructed, the narrative of

THE HIDDEN PLANE

AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2

a bundle, as did each ruse composed of groups of characteristics. Over time

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE

A ruse stands a better chance of being transformed into an acceptable

The Action Spectrum

AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2

Eye of the Beholder