Alessandra Nisch
Putin’s Wars: Testing Boyd’s Strategy of ...

President Putin made three foundational assumptions in launching his war against Ukraine that should have been correct but were not. First, Putin assumed the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick and easy fight. Second, he assumed the world would denounce the invasion but tacitly allow it. Third, Putin assumed the war would deter NATO expansion.

Putin’s Wars: Testing Boyd’s Strategy of Applied Friction

Information Operations

Countering China's Use of Information Laundering Via Minds and Media

Countering China's Use of Information Laundering Via Minds and Media

China’s influence operations have evolved to employ “information laundering” to shape global narratives. Information laundering—the process of introducing disinformation into the Internet ecosystem and legitimizing it through transitions from fringe sites to public discourse—is the next generation of information operations. While Russia’s 2016 election interference is a well-documented and heavily litigated example of this process, China’s social media forays have been characterized as more overt and less skillful.Their actions have garnered minimal engagements, were easily attributed, and were ultimately blocked as state-sponsored content. However, China’s recent history with influence operations demonstrates a continually evolving tactic and narrative, with information laundering as the most recent and successful approach.

Putin’s Jedi Mind Trick in Ukraine: How Truth Decay Shapes the Operational Environment

Putin’s Jedi Mind Trick in Ukraine: How Truth Decay Shapes the Operational Environment

Moscow’s falsehoods justifying imperial aggression and war crimes have penetrated cultural and geographic boundaries. It is only a matter of time before other authoritarian powers adopt similar tactics to excuse similar actions. To address this challenge, the United States and its allies should come to view truth decay as a multi-domain mechanism for shaping the operational environment to accommodate military aggression – a non-kinetic means to a kinetic end.

Competing Against Authoritarianism

Competing Against Authoritarianism

The global rise of authoritarianism is a pressing strategic problem for the United States and its like-minded allies. Chinese and Russian authoritarianism threaten the liberal order from without. Simultaneously, democratic backsliding in the U.S. and Europe undermines liberalism from within. The nature of these twin aspects of authoritarianism requires a joint response able to support and strengthen the liberal order against disintegration. This response must include a more expansive approach to countering the authoritarian warfare occurring below the traditional threshold of armed conflict.

Bulls, Bears, and Trolls: Social Media Influence Operations and Financial Market Risk

Bulls, Bears, and Trolls: Social Media Influence Operations and Financial Market Risk

Financial markets present unique and evolving risks as states compete through the economic and information instruments of power. States have proven their ability and interest in manipulating both financial and political markets, and amplified through social media. While there are limited military options for response to these challenges, financial and economic markets present an unusual battlefield as states attempt to gain influence on the geopolitical stage.

Disinformation Disruption and Distance: Public Confidence in the U.S. Military in the COVID-19 Era

Disinformation Disruption and Distance: Public Confidence in the U.S. Military in the COVID-19 Era

Amidst the COVID-19 crisis, trust in institutions and leadership face a unique vulnerability that foreign actors are poised to exploit. This article describes a unique nexus of institutional confidence and societal vulnerability to foreign disinformation, the prevalent tactics used to leverage the American information ecosystem, and ways the U.S. military can better support the society it is charged to defend.

Artificial Intelligence and the Manufacturing of Reality

Artificial Intelligence and the Manufacturing of Reality

Humans are and have always been vulnerable to being tricked, provoked, conditioned, deceived, or otherwise manipulated. Since at least the 1960s, the Soviet military and subsequent Russian organizations recognized opportunities for exploiting this vulnerability. That is why the Soviets developed a formal research program—called reflexive control theory—to model how one could manipulate targets’ perceptions of reality…While the Russians weaponized reflexive control theory, Madison Avenue used similar logic to evoke emotion—and sell products to American consumers…The contemporary information environment and modern tools, including artificial intelligence, could slash the transaction costs of such manipulation.

The Evolution of Disinformation: How Public Opinion Became Proxy

The Evolution of Disinformation: How Public Opinion Became Proxy

Western governments and corporations will seek ways to counter mounting threats related to disinformation, but they cannot eradicate its existence, nor can they dictate how information is processed by its consumers. The fight against disinformation is a generational struggle that will only be won through education and long-term cultural shifts related to the manner in which populations seek, consume, and validate information.

The United States National Security Council Needs an Information Warfare Directorate

The United States National Security Council Needs an Information Warfare Directorate

President Eisenhower believed the National Security Council was the right coordinating body for senior United States policy and military officials to discuss and generate the most practical solutions to America’s most pressing security issues—independent of the department or agency they represent. Given today’s complex operating environment, what is required is an inclusive information warfare directorate, led by the National Security Council that identifies the appropriate means to protect the United States public and allies in an increasingly chaotic and dangerous era.

Myth Versus Lethality: Losing the Plot in the Information War

Myth Versus Lethality: Losing the Plot in the Information War

Former Defense Secretary and retired General James Mattis is said to have told Marines in Iraq that the most important six inches on the battlefield were between their ears. He was referring to the need for calm under fire. Today, his warning is appropriate for everyone, everywhere, because the United States is in an information war—and it is losing.

Is It Time to Abandon the Term Information Operations?

Is It Time to Abandon the Term Information Operations?

Operations in the information environment will be a critical part of future joint force operations and should be baked in to those operations as a fully valued tool in commanders’ combined arms toolboxes. Reaching that goal will require greater acceptance and understanding of information across the joint force, new structures for information forces, and the evolution of how operations in the information environment are handled within the staff.

Strategic Alignment: Employing Public Affairs to Deliver a Coherent Narrative for Subordinate Commands

Strategic Alignment: Employing Public Affairs to Deliver a Coherent Narrative for Subordinate Commands

As dramatic changes in society are redefining the role of communication in organizational leadership across civil industry in the democratized world, a similar topic of professionalism is inspiring new conversations among U.S. military leaders. Public affairs officers and military researchers have identified challenges that complicate the best use of communication talent in the military. Insufficient training, how and where many public affairs officers are placed within unit organizational staffs, and unit cultures have historically marginalized the career field, inhibiting the inculcation of a professional ethos across the public affairs community.

DIME, not DiME: Time to Align the Instruments of U.S. Informational Power

DIME, not DiME: Time to Align the Instruments of U.S. Informational Power

All the instruments of U.S. informational power must become stronger because of the surge of non-state actors in international affairs, the need to integrate advocacy and influence with more coercive tools of statecraft, and the urgency of again considering the war of ideas. The information environment of the 21st century will feature contested narratives, information blocking, Islamist social media, Russia’s hybrid warfare, and China’s three warfares.

#Reviewing Taliban Narratives

#Reviewing Taliban Narratives

Students of the Afghan conflict, information operations officers, public affairs professionals, diplomats, relief workers, and those working in the intelligence and psychological operations arenas would all be well served to have this reference close at hand. One can only hope the failures Johnson cites are not repeated, and, if the war cannot be won by the West, perhaps this book can help the Afghans find an honorable and enduring conclusion.

For Every Action There is an Information Reaction: How Exercises Need to Adapt in a Digital Age

For Every Action There is an Information Reaction: How Exercises Need to Adapt in a Digital Age

Ultimately, the best defense in information warfare is resilience—the ability to critically assess a dynamic information environment where everything is not always what it seems and manage the identified risks to ensure mission success. In a military context, this could include adapting basic and advanced levels of training to include fostering a deeper understanding for how information warfare is changing the nature of conflict, and how every service member’s actions can and will be used against them in a digital age.

The Strategic Communication Ricochet: Planning Ahead for Greater Resiliency

The Strategic Communication Ricochet: Planning Ahead for Greater Resiliency

In a hyper-connected world, one can no longer just put messaging out there. Once a message is pushed out, control of it is lost, and an adversary can and will subvert and shatter it into myriad distortions that ricochet back and hurt the sender. Likewise, any actions on the ground contradicting the messaging, will also be used to attack the sender aiming to erode public faith at home by exploiting hypocrisy, creating ambiguity and, ideally, disrupting decision-making.

Diary of an Orphan: Information-Based Effects in the U.S. Military

Diary of an Orphan: Information-Based Effects in the U.S. Military

Tales of the demise of non-kinetic, information effects are greatly exaggerated, but that doesn't stop information operations from being controversial at best, and ineffective at worst. The reason is a matter of preference: deliver the emotional impact of a kinetic strike against a threat, or endure the statistical drudgery of sorting non-kinetic signal from noise. The US spends more on kinetic hardware than many militaries combined, so the Pentagon’s preferences are obvious. Yet information flows, their data generating processes, their interpretation and their implications for battlefield and non-battlefield environments are set to increase exponentially. The challenge in a national security context is not only to think all the way through the information effects of the structure behind the transmission of signal but also through how the signal is received, processed and acted upon by behavioral agents. The national security context has largely focused on the former, to the detriment of the latter.

A Perpetual Conflict of Ideas?

A Perpetual Conflict of Ideas?

Traditional warfare has long used information and technology to gain a competitive advantage over opponents. The shift is that more of these activities are now occurring in a place visible to the public –– online –– and is now being directed at civilians. As the ever-growing volume of literature on this topic illustrates, we are currently observing the great value in sustained disinformation campaigns. The low cost and high effectiveness of these non-military measures combined with few counter-measures as well as strong drivers of change (such as automation) increasing their effectiveness, indicate their use will continue to increase. This has significant implications for policy makers, analysts, and defence personnel.

Influence Campaigns and the Future of International Competition

Influence Campaigns and the Future of International Competition

The international system is at the onset of a new period of transformation brought about by the interaction of two forces: increased democratization and the revolution in information technologies. There are more democracies than ever before, and there are more tools to easily influence public opinion. Even beyond Russia, there is little doubt other states will see its success and seek to mimic its capabilities. This will be true particularly in authoritarian states, whose bastioned societies ensure asymmetry and shield them from reciprocity. The more that democracies spread and the more their citizens connect online, the more vulnerable they will become to outside influence, subtly shifting international competition into the theater of public opinion.