The Influence and Perception Management Office (IPMO) is within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defence for Intelligence and Security (OUSD I&S), which is tasked with “perception management.” This relatively new department was not publicly announced by the Pentagon, yet it may play a greater role in the influence infrastructure of the United States as international politics shift towards great power competition and countries around the world focus on matters of cognitive warfare.

“Actions to convey and/or deny selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning”

DoD definition of perception management – [source]

Images Sourced From: MPN, Air Force Staff Sgt. John Wright, AA

1 History of the Influence and Perception Management Office (IPMO)

The IPMO was established by the Pentagon on 1 March 2022. However, little information is publicly available regarding this new office. What little has been reported describes a minimal amount of its activities and its purpose.

However, the Influence and Perception Management Office is believed to be a continuation of the Bush-era ‘Office of Strategic Influence.’ 

1.1 The Office of Strategic Influence

The Office of Strategic Influence (OSI) was a department created by the US DOD and then-President George W. Bush to support the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) through psychological operations (PSYOPS) and to “counter the enemy’s perception management.” Its activities were exclusively targeted at nations outside of the United States. This is due to the fact that by law, the Pentagon is barred from conducting PSYOPs within the United States.

However, due to the globalised nature of the news, there would be little to nothing stopping a US-based news entity from reporting on a story which had been planted by the OSI abroad and disseminating it within the continental United States.

[source, source, source]

1.1.1 Closure of the Office of Strategic Influence

In February 2002, leaked internal information alleged that the OSI would 

“plant false messages and misinformation in overseas media, news that would then be reported in the U.S. as factual.”

This led to Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld closing the OSI due to controversies surrounding the implications of its operations. Some of its foreign responsibilities were then subsequently given to the Office of Information Activities. The OIA retained responsibility for the policy oversight of military PSYOP activities.

[source]

2 Core Tasks of the Influence and Perception Management Office

According to a briefing given by then-head* of IPMO James Holly, the Office has several core tasks. These include:

1. Integrated Influence: This includes the development and dissemination of “tailored thematic influence guidance.” This is intelligence and information that is focused on key adversaries of the US and also specific defence-related issues.
2. Perception Management: This involves the development and execution of policy, oversight, and governance related to Department of Defence perception management programs and associated activities. This could include the revealing/concealing of defence capabilities such as new technologies and weapons.
3. Deception Activities: This includes the development and execution of policy, oversight and governance related to DoD deception programs globally. This could involve the creation of ‘black propaganda’ aimed at confusing foreign governments and their associated intelligence agencies, as well as their populations.
4. Intelligence Support to Influence Activities: This involves the development and execution of policy, oversight and governance which is related to DoD intelligence support to influence and information programs and their associated activities.

[source]

*Marked as ‘then-head’ due to the unavailability of information regarding the current leader of the Influence and Perception Management Office

2.1 Role of IPMO

A Fiscal Year budget document produced in 2023 by the Office of the Secretary of Defence put forward IPMO’s role. According to this document, IPMO will:

1. Develop broad thematic influence guidance on key adversaries
2. Promulgate competitive influence strategies focused on specific defence issues
3. Direct planning efforts for the conduct of influence-related activities
4. Fill existing gaps in policy, oversight and governance and integration related to influence and perception management matters.

[source]

2.2 What is Perception Management?

According to the Department of Defence’s ‘Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms,’ perception management is defined as follows:

“Actions to convey and/or deny selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning, as well as to intelligence systems and leaders at all levels to influence official estimates, ultimately resulting in foreign behaviours and official actions favourable to the originator’s objectives. In various ways, perception management combines truth projection, operations security, cover and deception, and psychological operations.”

[source]

2.2.1 US Military/Intelligence Perception Management Operations

The US DoD has utilised ‘perception management’ several times throughout its history. This includes: 

• Vietnam War: During the war in Vietnam, the Pentagon was alleged to have exaggerated communist threats to the US. This was done to gain support for the war against increasingly negative public perceptions. [source]
• Cold War: During the Cold War, American intelligence agencies included journalists (or operatives posing as journalists) on their payroll in order to produce pro-American articles. This was done in order to influence the populations of countries in which they operated. [source]
• Libya 1980: The White House was accused of using pro-American perception campaigns similar to earlier Cold War programs to destabilise Col. Gaddafi in Libya. [source]
• Invasion of Iraq: Before the invasion of Iraq, the US military’s electronic warfare (EW) arms singled out members of Saddam Hussein’s inner circle of generals and advisors with phone calls and emails to sway them and their perception towards the United States. [source]
• Iraq 2005: The US military sent covert funds to several Iraqi newspapers for them to print news stories written by US military personnel. This was done to enhance the presence of the US military’s mission in Iraq. [source]

3 Structure of the Influence and Perception Management Office

According to the aforementioned briefing given by James Holly, the Influence and Perception Management Office is structured as follows:

4 Private Sector Involvement in Perception Management

Due to the heavy involvement of the American private sector in the military (commonly referred to as the military-industrial complex – MIC), there are several private sector companies that have been tied to the US DoD’s perception management operations. This includes:

4.1 Sancorp

The American private security company Sancorp Consulting, which offers “counter-insider threat solutions, AI and machine learning, IT solutions, identity and data activities, intelligence and counterintelligence solutions”, has been directly linked to IPMO. 

Sancorp has also been linked, through now-deleted records, to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). The AARO is charged with investigating the presence of UFOs and other unexplained aerial phenomena. This has been commonly accused of disseminating propaganda to cover the existence of next-generation aircraft and technologies being developed by the US DoD and its departments. [source, source]

4.2 Peraton

Peraton is an American national security and technology company which, according to its website, “provides critical technologies and IT solutions to protect the U.S. and its allies.”

In 2021, the company signed a $1 billion contract with the American government to “achieve operational advantages in the information space and to counter threats to U.S. national security.” This contract was signed in order for the company to develop ways in which to detect the use of generative AI by Russia, China and other adversarial nations and methods in which the US can counter such propaganda.

[source, source]

4.3 RFE/RL

RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty is a Prague-based (since 1995), US-originated media organisation which broadcasts news across 23 countries all over the globe. Founded in 1949 at the beginning of the Cold War it was initially tasked with targeting Soviet satellite states. These states, mainly Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Romania, were to be targeted with pro-US/Western propaganda. 

Different from Voice of America, which is funded directly by the US government, RFE/RL was initially conceptualised to operate as the voice of private businessmen and US citizens, including former military and intelligence personnel. Its initial programming concentrated on the internal affairs of the Soviet Union in an attempt to “spur internal reform” (primarily pro-Western/capitalist views).

Rumours of CIA involvement in the founding and funding of RFE/RL were initially dismissed as conspiracy theories, but in 1971 it was revealed that the CIA had been covertly funded the organisation, and that in the course of 20 years (1949-1971) RFE/RL had received $500 million ($3,968,703,703 in 2025) in US government funds.

These revelations of US perception management influence led Senator Fulbright, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to attempt to cut off all funding to RFE/RL. This failed, and in June 1972, an extension of funding was granted. This extension has lasted every year until 14 March 2025, when President Donald Trump issued an executive order which directed the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM), RFE/RL’s parent agency, to be shut down, which has caused RFE/RL to lose much of its funding.

[source, source]

4.3.1 RFE/RL within broader US Perception Management System

Due to the origins of RFE/RL under direct CIA funding and control, it has been labelled as “white” propaganda. This fits into one of three categories of propaganda, which are:

White Propaganda

White propaganda is propaganda which does not hide its origins or nature and encompasses public relations/activities and involves communication of messages from known sources. [source]

1. RFE/RL
2. Voice of America (VOA)
3. Russia Today (RT)

Grey Propaganda

Grey propaganda is a form of propaganda in which the correct source of the information is not directly credited. The sponsor of it is also concealed.

1. Political Warfare Executive – British clandestine propaganda organisation which produced German-language newspapers to be air-dropped into Germany. [source]
2. Radio Peace and Freedom: Soviet-backed broadcasting organisation aimed at Western audiences which operated during the Cold War. [source]
3. Maui Wildfires: Immediately following the wildfires in Hawaii in 2023, a disinformation campaign emerged. It claimed several things, ranging from weather warfare to floating bodies, thousands of missing children and also that the fires were started in order for ‘elites’ to perform a land grab. However, this campaign was revealed to have originated in China and Russia. [source]

Black Propaganda

Black propaganda is propaganda that is spread by one source to look as if it has originated from another. Its main defining feature is that it is primarily concerned with subversion and the deceiving of its audiences in regards to its origins. It is a “false flag” version of covert influence.

1. Sunday Telegraph 1995 – An article published in November 1995 by the Sunday Telegraph alleged that Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, Col. Gaddafi’s Son, was connected to currency counterfeiting efforts. The author of the story, Con Coughlin, falsely attributed the claim to a “British banking official.” However, it was revealed that the information came from MI6 agents. [source]
2. Australia 2007: In the run-up to the Australian elections in 2007, a series of flyers were distributed around Sydney. They claimed to be from a fake organisation called the Islamic Australia Federation. They thanked the Australian Labour Party for allegedly supporting the Bali bomber terrorists, supporting terrorism at large and also supporting Islamic fundamentalists. However, these were found to have been created by Liberal Party members based in Sydney. [source]

5 The Future of the Influence and Perception Management Office

Although its activities are relatively unknown and highly secretive, the future of IPMO remains uncertain. This is given the current US administration’s lack of support for soft power tools, including in the influence and perception management arena. The White House recently shuttered not only the USAGM, but also USAID, under claims of cutting wasteful spending. Waste that has yet to be documented with verifiable evidence. It also has cut, severely reduced, or put under review programs aimed at protecting against adversarial nations’ influence and perception management programs, such as the U.S. State Department’s Counter Foreign Information and Manipulation office, the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force, DHS’s Foreign Malign Influence Centre, and Stanford’s Internet Observatory.

 All of these measures have been widely criticised by governments and think tanks across the globe as surrendering the international information and influence playing field to adversarial nations, particularly China and Russia. 

It is unclear if the White House is sufficiently focused on Beijing and Moscow’s efforts to build capabilities in the cognitive warfare arena to spare IPMO from such cuts. We note, too, that President Trump, during his last term, turned to the CIA and its US Code Title 50 authorities to execute covert influence operations against China, and it is unclear where he stands in the ongoing intelligence community debate over DOD versus CIA covert action appropriateness, authority, and use. [source]

6 Conclusion

The Influence and Perception Management Office is a secretive office within the Department of Defence that is tasked with ‘perception management’. Although its activities are highly classified and relatively unknown, its mission would seem to be relevant—if not critical to—the promotion of American foreign policy as the United States loses influence in countries that have seen increasing levels of Russian, Chinese, and other adversarial gains. Its future may be under threat, however, under President Donald Trump’s initiatives to transform the government and military.