Wars/operation names; syntax conventions

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

Whether or not I agreed or disagreed with the purpose of the action, I absolutely despise the U.S. tendency to put, after the fact, "spin" names on military operations. For example, the actual code name for what was to become U.S. intervention in Panama was BLUE SPOON, not JUST CAUSE (well, there was an interim change to SOUTHCOM OPPLAN 90-2). The 2003 operation in Iraq was POLO STEP, not IRAQI FREEDOM.

Nevertheless, there are a few practical issues. A reader may logically look up an action by the public name (Operation JUST CAUSE), a descriptive name which has problems of nuance (e.g., "U.S. operations in Panama, 1989", "1989 intervention in Panama", "1989 invasion of Panama"), and, for the specialist, the true operation name(s) (e.g., BLUE SPOON).

Silly as it may sound, I can't figure out if there is a specific article for the U.S. overt operations in Afghanistan following 9/11. There is an article [[Afghanistan War (1978-92)]], but there doesn't seem to be a specific heading within it for the actions after 9/11, nor for the continuing operations after the Taliban were ousted. The latter problem also applies to Iraq; regardless of one's opinion of the 2003 operation, there are good and logical reasons to have separate articles (for indexing reasons) for the period up to the fall of Saddam, and afterwards.

Really, truly, the U.S. military does code names, defined to be two word phrases, in ALL CAPS (e.g., RIVET JOINT, INSTANT THUNDER, etc.).  There are also nicknames, which are subtly different than code names (e.g., BYEMAN, ROYAL, UMBRA, RUFF).  To really confuse things, there are a few cases where two nicknames are always used together (e.g., TALENT KEYHOLE).  For the record, when a security classification is in a U.S. official document, it's also all caps, and that information is not SECRET).

So -- the simpler problem first: Enduring Freedom or ENDURING FREEDOM? Let's agree on a convention; I recommend the one that is actually used by the military.

Next,  we need a "catalog" (I'm still not sure I understand the CZ nuance of the word) that gives:

• a descriptive name for an operation, as neutrally phrased as possible (e.g., Gulf War)
• the official code name that readers may use as a search term (e.g., DESERT STORM), although in this particular case, there are really at least two terms, DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM, although DESERT SABRE was the actual name for the ground operations phase
• any other terms (e.g., contrast POLO STEP with Operation IRAQI FREEDOM)

Globalsecurity.org has much of this information, but organized and formatted differently than seems to fit CZ.  Nevertheless, I remember a play entitled "What if they gave a war and no one came?", and I'm feeling a bit of that when I can't find a major operation, such as the post-9/11 operations in Afghanistan, and a way to distinguish the high-intensity and occupation parts of operations.

For anyone who might worry about it, everything I am about to discuss really has been declassified and I can point to the documents.

The U.S. terminology gets even more mysterious at times, and one of the all-time best comments was by someone who, regardless of your political opinion, can be a hysterically funny writer: G. Gordon Liddy. In his autobiography, Will, he describes being briefed on something "the first letter of which was SECRET, the word (i.e., nickname) that it started was TOP SECRET, and the information it protected could only be revealed by God the Father to the Holy Ghost on a need-to-know basis."  That sounds like an only slightly modified description of the BYEMAN compartmented control system, other than the letter itself was unclassified -- under the DIA security listing in the Pentagon phone book, you'd see "B Policy Branch". BYEMAN was the compartment for the operations of the National Reconnaissance Office, the name of which was classified SECRET for many years, written National Reconnaissance Office (S).  What the NRO actually did was operate the National Reconnaissance Program (TS), the technical aspects were "TS/codeword", except "codeword" was incorrect and "nickname" correct -- TS/BYEMAN was the basic term, but you got into compartments of compartments: TS/BYEMAN/KENNAN dealt with the launch and operation of the KH-11 satellite. That was distinct from the pictures it took, which would probably be at least TS/TK, and probably TS/TK/RUFF in all their details.

Is it any wonder I'm weird from being able to say all this? Trust me, I haven't even gotten started on CIA cryptonyms, pseudonyms, and message indicators, which are yet another system, except when it overlaps DoD HCS...(sings "they're coming to take me away, away...")

A not-uncommon desk sign in the Pentagon and other places:

The security of my job prevents me from knowing what I am doing

[Derek Harkness]

You forgot to add that most of these wars (Gulf, Afghan, Iraq) were coalition wars and each country taking part had it's own code names.

We had a similar discussion in Biology about the use of common names versus scientific/latin names. The end game there was that we use common names and have redirects for the latin names. I think the same thing has to happen here. The name of these events is ultimately the name that is in the newspaper not the name used by the military. Try as you might, you'll never get people to stop talking about the Iraq war and start talking about POLO STEP instead.

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

You forgot to add that most of these wars (Gulf, Afghan, Iraq) were coalition wars and each country taking part had it's own code names.

We had a similar discussion in Biology about the use of common names versus scientific/latin names. The end game there was that we use common names and have redirects for the latin names. I think the same thing has to happen here. The name of these events is ultimately the name that is in the newspaper not the name used by the military. Try as you might, you'll never get people to stop talking about the Iraq war and start talking about POLO STEP instead.

Oh, I don't think anyone will talk about POLO STEP. It's the generic versus the spin-doctor terminology that has me concerned, and annoyed that the spin-doctor terms are the unambiguous terms.  Let me try what is probably a poor biological analogy. Yersinia pestis is unambiguous but will make sense only to specialists. The problem with "Plague" is that it can be a generic term, and the common "bubonic plague" may disambiguate, but is at least annoying when one is aware of pneumonic and other forms of Y. pestis infection.

The "Black Death" may be less ambiguous, but it has an emotional flavor, just like "Great Patriotic War", "Operation ENDURING FREEDOM", etc. I had encountered "War between the States" often enough, and thought that fairly neutral, as was "American Civil War". It did take me aback when I was corrected, in the Deep South, to "War of Yankee Aggression", and perhaps more so, by a gentlewoman docent at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, "The Late Unpleasantness Between the States".

As a practical CZ problem example, however, I was writing about the use of AGM -86C Conventional Air Launched Cruise Missiles, and wanted to cite their employment early in the U.S. post-9/11 attacks on Afghanistan. Unfortunately, there's only a CZ [[Afghanistan War (1978-92)]] article, with no way to isolate the pre-9/11, immediate post 9/11, and post-Taliban periods. Other than spelling out "and these went boom in Afghanistan shortly after 9/11/2001," how do I describe this period of their employment?

In the spirit of neutral writing, I dislike using a clearly partisan phrasing, whether it be "Lesser Jihad against the Great Satan" or "Operation JUST CAUSE", even when I think that a particular partisan view is the correct one.

[Robert_W_King]

I thought it was called the "black death" due to the mark it would leave upon the infected, not because times were grim.

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

Howard has opened a proposal on this subject: http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Proposals/New

Citizendium is not unique in needing neutral naming conventions for subjects.  Perhaps we could use the naming conventions other organizations have used.  One possibility is the United States Congressional Library subject names.  I believe this is the naming convention used by all United States libraries.   For example, the subject name for the most recent Iraq war is: "Iraq War, 2003-".  This proposal is obviously United States centric and some modification is required for international subjects.

Years ago, I worked at the Library of Congress, so if I needed access to the subjects data base, I had it right there -- I don't know if it's available on the public site, and hope it is. Let me make some general comments.  It might be a good starting point, but it was not designed quite for this purpose; it's designed for the specific requirements of book cataloging.

Nevertheless, I would hesitate to call it US-centric. English-speaking centric, yes.  The authority used by the catalogers is Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, and there was quite frequent consultation with other countries.

Especially for cataloging works in nonroman alphabets, AACR obviously has limitations. Nevertheless, the catalogers in the Orientalia division would consult national libraries, where they existed.

AACR, however, is not designed for automated information retrieval, search engines, wikis, etc. It operates under the constraint that the topic names have to be unambiguous with respect to the LC call number system, so if there are already entries, say, for military science (class U), a cataloger will try quite hard not to break precedent.

[Brian P Long]

Whether or not I agreed or disagreed with the purpose of the action, I absolutely despise the U.S. tendency to put, after the fact, "spin" names on military operations. For example, the actual code name for what was to become U.S. intervention in Panama was BLUE SPOON, not JUST CAUSE (well, there was an interim change to SOUTHCOM OPPLAN 90-2). The 2003 operation in Iraq was POLO STEP, not IRAQI FREEDOM.

Nevertheless, there are a few practical issues. A reader may logically look up an action by the public name (Operation JUST CAUSE), a descriptive name which has problems of nuance (e.g., "U.S. operations in Panama, 1989", "1989 intervention in Panama", "1989 invasion of Panama"), and, for the specialist, the true operation name(s) (e.g., BLUE SPOON).

I don't think this is exactly what you're talking about, Howard, but as more and more naming convention issues come up, the more I think that Noel's idea for separating article names and titles is really what we should move towards. That way, we can have an article page-name that unambiguously specifies the subject for the specialist, and an article title which will reflect the way non-specialist, newspaper reading folks refer to the subject.

-Brian

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

Whether or not I agreed or disagreed with the purpose of the action, I absolutely despise the U.S. tendency to put, after the fact, "spin" names on military operations. For example, the actual code name for what was to become U.S. intervention in Panama was BLUE SPOON, not JUST CAUSE (well, there was an interim change to SOUTHCOM OPPLAN 90-2). The 2003 operation in Iraq was POLO STEP, not IRAQI FREEDOM.

Nevertheless, there are a few practical issues. A reader may logically look up an action by the public name (Operation JUST CAUSE), a descriptive name which has problems of nuance (e.g., "U.S. operations in Panama, 1989", "1989 intervention in Panama", "1989 invasion of Panama"), and, for the specialist, the true operation name(s) (e.g., BLUE SPOON).

I think I am in violent agreement with what I think you said....I think.

It happens I was just writing a "related article" list on a topic, and it repeatedly struck me that we onlly have the granularity of articles, when there is a need to have things that don't need more than a sentence or two (possibly of links) of definition. Yes, we have definitions, but they really are deprecated.
I don't think this is exactly what you're talking about, Howard, but as more and more naming convention issues come up, the more I think that Noel's idea for separating article names and titles is really what we should move towards. That way, we can have an article page-name that unambiguously specifies the subject for the specialist, and an article title which will reflect the way non-specialist, newspaper reading folks refer to the subject.

-Brian

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

Whether or not I agreed or disagreed with the purpose of the action, I absolutely despise the U.S. tendency to put, after the fact, "spin" names on military operations. For example, the actual code name for what was to become U.S. intervention in Panama was BLUE SPOON, not JUST CAUSE (well, there was an interim change to SOUTHCOM OPPLAN 90-2). The 2003 operation in Iraq was POLO STEP, not IRAQI FREEDOM.

Nevertheless, there are a few practical issues. A reader may logically look up an action by the public name (Operation JUST CAUSE), a descriptive name which has problems of nuance (e.g., "U.S. operations in Panama, 1989", "1989 intervention in Panama", "1989 invasion of Panama"), and, for the specialist, the true operation name(s) (e.g., BLUE SPOON).

I don't think this is exactly what you're talking about, Howard, but as more and more naming convention issues come up, the more I think that Noel's idea for separating article names and titles is really what we should move towards. That way, we can have an article page-name that unambiguously specifies the subject for the specialist, and an article title which will reflect the way non-specialist, newspaper reading folks refer to the subject.

-Brian

Actually, I think it would be interesting to separate the article title from the content 

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

Actually, I think it would be interesting to separate the article title from the content 
[/quote

What would one title the articles on content and title?

The answer may be related to the packaging required for the universal solvent.

[Brian P Long]

Wouldn't redirects do the same thing?

I assume what you're suggesting is that the actual article title would be the precise name, and that we would redirect from other common (though less precise and perhaps even incorrect) ways of referring to the same thing. That would go a certain way towards resolving the issue, I think, and this would be my personal preference. The issue is actually much more contentious than that, though, and there are a number of users on Citizendium who feel that an article's title must be the common, albeit imprecise way of referring to the subject.

This is something that we've been discussing for a long time now, and in a variety of different places. Check out Noel's forum thread on 'Separating article page-names from titles' if you're curious about all of this.

Thanks,
Brian