Total information war

[n2doc]

Perhaps one of the most important articles yet published on military infowar, propaganda, media influence and PSYOPs has appeared online.

Called ‘Military Social Influence in the Global Information Environment: A Civilian Primer’ – the piece is written by psychologist Sarah King who outlines the theory and practice of US information warfare as it stands today.

Although the piece gives a fascinating and sometimes jaw dropping account of US information operations (replete with examples) it serves as an essential general introduction to how military thinking has moved on from assuming wars are fought with troops on the ground to conceptualising conflict as inseparable from its social impact.

A more prominent view among information warriors is that changes in information, technology, and social influence capabilities have actually transformed the terms of war. War between standing armies of nation-states is seen as increasingly unlikely, both because the United States is an unmatched military superpower and because damage that would result from use of modern physical weapon systems is deemed intolerable.
more
http://mindhacks.com/2011/05/06/total-information-war/

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1530-2415.2010.01214.x/full

[canoeist52]

1. "sock puppets"

"U.S. Army Central Command deploys a number of official bloggers (Collings & Rohozinski, 2008). In addition, Silverstein (2007) reported that the Pentagon has an SC project, called “Communications Outreach,” that provides retired military officers with talking points that can be used to deliver information directly to politically conservative civilian bloggers and talk radio hosts."

"According to U.S. Army Brigadier General Mari K. Eder and others (Baker, 2006), one essential function of strategic communication is agenda setting: “manag public discourse not by attempting to tell people what to think,” but by telling them “what to think about”

[leveymg]

2. Very worthwhile and valuable resource. Thank you! Some really interesting content:

One can see some of these group appeal, crowd-building, normative shaping, and other psychological manipulation techniques described by the author at work by various parties in the US media media-space and even here, as well.

Attitude change—peripheral route

IO (Information Operations) also rely extensively on exploitation of nonrational, or peripheral, route factors (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986), such as communicator credibility and the activation of emotion in attempts to change attitudes and behavior (Baker, 2006; Lamb, 2005a). Because U.S. credibility is so diminished in much of the world today (DSB SC, 2008; Jones, 2005; Lamb, 2005a), IO experts have urged special effort in finding new ways to associate U.S. messages with credible third-party sources, including the use of Internet chat-rooms and third-party evangelists (Lamb, 2005a). One much publicized effort to enhance the source credibility of pro-U.S. messages is that of planting ghost-written articles in Iraqi newspapers, falsely attributed to Iraqi authors (Julian, 2007; Marx, 2006)—a practice declared to be legal in a military court review (Murphy & White, 2007). IO has traditionally relied on the creation of emotion, including fear, to alter enemy soldier and civilian behavior (Lamb, 2005a). For example, leaflet-based fear appeals are employed to urge enemy troop surrender. IO has also, in recent years, dramatically increased its reliance on emotion as a persuasive tool by increasing its use of images instead of words to communicate with its external publics: Combat Camera, which captures digital images of military operations that can be distributed worldwide instantly, has become an integral part of IO planning and execution (U.S. Army FM 3-0, 2008).
Compliance gaining

Other IO, particularly tactical PSYOP (psychological operations conducted in a small battle zone or community), employ compliance-gaining techniques such as reciprocity, social proof, and commitment and consistency (Cialdini, 2004; Lamb, 2005a). For instance, Tactical PSYOP soldiers in postinvasion Afghanistan distributed soap and kites (both previously prohibited by the Taliban), along with greeting cards sent at the end of Ramadan, blankets, medical supplies, and school supplies (Lamb, 2005a; Roberts, 2005; U.S. Army FM 3-05.30, 2005) in efforts to trigger reciprocity and, as such, the willingness of citizens to provide necessary assistance to U.S. troops. In Iraq, tactical PSYOP troops distributed coloring books, soccer balls, t-shirts, comic books, water bottles, and other “logo” items, as well (Crawley, 2005; Paschall, 2005; U.S. Army Comics, 2005). Of course, blunting similar enemy persuasive efforts is an important component of PSYOP, too. As such, some U.S. PSYOP troops fought the information war by spending time in Afghani markets trying to buy up “all the Osama/pro Al Qaeda merchandise they could find”(Roberts, 2005, p. 75). To maximize the power of social proof, PSYOP personnel in Iraq built a crowd for a staged pro-U.S. demonstration (Zucchino, 2004), and have been generally instructed to build crowds to listen to U.S. military messages (United States Army, Field Manual 33-1-1 , 1994).

In one application of commitment and consistency, or the “self-sell” (Pratkanis & Aronson, 2001, p. 166), PSYOP troops in Afghanistan sponsored a school writing contest on the theme of how the student writer's life had changed since the U.S. invasion (Roberts, 2005, p. 129). In Iraq, U.S. military commanders worked to establish citizen commitment to U.S. policy by inviting selected community leaders to weekly meetings to voice complaints and request changes in military policy (Baker, 2006). Normative influence, group formation, and group function. Post (2005), in his recent article in Joint Force Quarterly, argued that IO should do more to exploit influence factors related to successful terrorist recruitment. Post suggested addressing what other recent authors have termed “descriptive” and “injunctive norms” (Cialdini et al., 2006, p. 4): (1) challenging the wide-spread belief in some Middle Eastern communities that terrorist membership was common behavior and (2) identifying means to diminish the public celebration of terrorist bombers. Post (2005) also argued that IO should attempt to weaken terrorist group cohesiveness, by magnifying dissention within the group and by providing support for defectors.

(SNIP)

[KoKo]

4. Yes, indeed. Also note the number of "anonymous high officials"

who are "never named" in the conflicting articles coming out about our Bin Laden Mission this past weekend. These "high officials" are quoted as authorities in articles in WaPo, NYT, The Atlantic, and other MSM sources, plus the Cables: CNN, MSNBC, FAUX makes it all very circular.

How do we know who these "High Officials" are? Most times they aren't even identified as to whether they are Pentagon, Congress, White House or State Department. When they are identified by branch of government another official comes along that contradicts them. All of this breeds confusion amongst the people. Even here on DU and other places each new bit of information conflicts with the previous information as the articles are posted. Instead of clarifying, each new bit makes for more confusion giving rise to conspiracy theories which are then another source for confusion.

Whatever...I feel I'm back to the Bush years...but then that's where all of this really took major hold. Not that we haven't always had propaganda and manipulation of our media since our founding...but that it's finally reached it's zenith with the MIC's now overwhelming power both here and elsewhere.

[leveymg]

7. No question that this was supposed to be the "mopping up" after the 9/11 operation. It's likely

being run within DoD and CIA by some of the same people who were involved in earlier phases.

There's no question that this is part of a systematic effort to destroy evidence and the key facts are again being obscured, with an effort to vilify as "conspiracy theorists" those who express doubts or raise serious questions about the what the public is being told.

Same changing of details, confusion of issues, appeals to emotion, and evasion of questions about why things were done as they were. Same as it ever was.

[canoeist52]

10. Thanks for this. I was beginning to think I was alone in believing this was the case.

[leveymg]

11. We are not alone. Far from it.

This whole thing has become tragically politicized, and there's a lot of circling of the wagons by people who would otherwise express some real skepticism about aspects of the official account and actions, particularly the unnecessary (and premature) execution of someone, like UBL, with so much potentially unique and extraordinarily valuable information.

[elias49]

3. Very thought-provoking. One bothersome bit I read, though

to quote the "Onelibrary" abstract:

"this new era of “psycho-cultural battle”—otherwise termed a “war of ideas” (Murphy, 2010, p. 90) or a battle for “hearts and minds” (Claessen, 2007, p. 97)—is already underway in Iraq and Afghanistan. Modern battle is likely to be more about winning public opinion than about seizing contested geophysical terrain. The modern battlefield is likely to be in the information environment."

This new philosophy of warfare still lays waste to lives and property that belong to ordinary people. In other words, the 'collateral' damage still happens by the ton, by the millions. It breaks my heart to see what's happening in Afghanistan. Most of what I see on TV and in magazine photojournals makes Afghanistan look like the face of the moon. After a particularly nasty meteor barrage.
And I can't even begin to imagine how changed Iraq is today. I think estimates are 5 million refugees. (Out of a population of 25 million.) Power plants destroyed, hospitals, factories, transportation hubs.
How do you win hearts and minds with tactics like that??
I guess war just continues to be "hell" whether you call it "psycho-cultural battle", the "war on terra", or the "'Civil' War".
:dilemma:

[Uncle Joe]

8. It seems to me the dynamics of these two aspects of informaton war hold the greatest promise

of reducing "collateral damage," not overnight but over the long run.

4 Education for democracy: In his 2006 monograph for the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, former Marine officer and CIA analyst Robert D. Steele offers another, sharply contrasting, view of the future role of information and influence in the military. While also identifying information as an element of national power, Steele locates the source of that power in education, rather than in perception management: “Modern IO is not about the old messages of psychological operations (PSYOPS), but rather about empowering billions of people with both information tools and access to truthful information. It is about education, not manipulation” (Steele, 2006, p. 3).

5 New soldiers and new skills: Other writers envision yet one other direction of change. Their concern is with the transformation of the role of the individual soldier in the context of the increasing transparency of the global information environment, the decreasing utility of conventional weaponry, and the increasing power of social influence. It has been suggested that the modern soldiers of western democracies are essentially “heavily armed social workers” (Taylor, 2003, p. 312). These troops work to change behavior in the glare of a multi-technology-based global media. They are obligated to minimize casualties, manage the perceptions of the global audience, and influence behavior through nonviolent means.

[KoKo]

5. Documentary, "Psy Wars" is an excellent watch about the history..

Psywar Film Reveals The Hidden Battle for Your Mind
Submitted by Anne Landman on August 26, 2010 - 1:33pm


The new documentary "Psywar," featuring CMD founder John Stauber, explores corporate and government use of propaganda and public relations to manipulate American people. The movie explores how the U.S. government staged events to manipulate public opinion about the Iraq war, like the rescue of Private Jessica Lynch, the supposedly spontaneous mob that pulled over the larger-than-life statue of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. It also discusses the Pentagon pundit scandal, and the hidden activities of the Rendon Group, a PR firm specializing in spinning war. The film exposes government and corporate activities to blur the lines between real news and fake news, as well as the development over time of public relations misinformation campaigns, strategic corporate campaigns to generate goodwill and the perception of good works, the use of staged photo-ops, and other manipulative PR tools that have turned the land of the free and the home of the brave into a place where citizens are now manipulated with great efficiency, and on a massive scale. Watch the entire film for free online here.

Trailer or Full Film available here:

http://www.prwatch.org/node/9393

[leveymg]

9. Also strongly recommend Power of Nightmares - here's a site with the complete series online:

http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares

[KoKo]

12. Kick. for the Weekend when folks might have a bit more time to read...

:kick:

[hootinholler]

6. Thanks for this post!

Need to look at it over the weekend.

-Hoot