ALSO READ: Part 1: Psyche Behind the Internet, Information Superhighways

MaaS (Misinformation as a Service) Model

The era of SaaS (Software as a Service) has gone, no one needs software developers and service providers anymore. Those routine old jobs could soon be performed by OpenAI’s GPT-3. Common people’s potential in a democracy needs to leverage for something more interesting, passionate and creative, such as Misinformation or Disinformation campaigns and propaganda wars! Perhaps, that was the idea behind the rise of this new service model called MaaS (Misinformation as a Service), which is often called with better-sounding names like creators economy, curators economy, influencers economy/ marketing, social media activism/ journalism, creative entrepreneurship, etc.

Out of 5 billion Internet users in the world (63.5 percent of the global population), 4.65 billion are social media users, and China, India, and the U.S. top the list of the countries in the world in terms of Internet use. In March 2022, YouTube India flooded Indian/ international newspapers with some interesting advertising stats about its ‘contribution’ to India’s economy and GDP via ‘creator economy.’ A report by consulting firm Oxford Economics, which assessed YouTube’s economic, societal, and cultural impact in India, says that “YouTube’s creator ecosystem has contributed an estimated Rs 6,800 crore to the Indian economy and created some 6,83,900 full-time equivalent jobs in India” in 2020. The statistics say that there are 40,000 plus YouTube channels in India with over 1 lakh subscribers, marking a growth of over 45 percent, year-on-year. Remember, these are the claims of only one social media platform; others like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc. have their own numbers, patterns, and claims about contribution to the Indian economy, society, and culture!

If such claims are real then we must be interested to know who delivers MaaS (Misinformation as a Service) to our people on these platforms or, in other words, who performs the stunts on public participation/opinion on Information Superhighways?

Influencers, Creative Entrepreneurs, and Skillful Artists – A brief psychoanalysis of the situation

“The power of false narratives can be very debilitating for the destiny of a nation,” said NSA Ajit Doval in the ‘Sardar Patel Memorial Speech 2018.’ Highlighting the role of technologies in serving contaminated content to our people, he further said that “Democracy requires people to be enlightened, educated and informed, but rightly informed and rightly educated! What happens if what is driving you and what is influencing your decision-making itself is contaminated?”

India, one of the most online countries in the world and home to over 750 million smartphone users, must know who is driving the public participation on these platforms, and what the overall process looks like, from a mountaintop view!

Technically there are different categories of influencers on the Internet, from mainstream celebrities (A-B-C listers) to reality TV stars to vloggers/ bloggers to micro and nano influencers to journalists/ activists/ photographers/ thought leaders, etc. But those who reach the potential to influence the ‘will’ of the nation, and channel public opinion as a weapon, generally fall under the two broad categories:

(a)  Creative Entrepreneurs

(b)  Skillful Artists.

Creative Entrepreneur is relatively a new term introduced by these very platforms, which is their definition for those creators who have a good number of subscribers/ viewership/ followers. They earn income directly from these platforms, and hire paid employees to work on their channel.

In the Skillful Artists category, we can put those people who got some form of skill or talent than average people and who like to pursue that skill as a profession too.

There is a common notion that just anyone can become an ‘Influencer’ or celebrity on these platforms but a careful observation of their selected individuals and their patterns reveals that this is nothing but an illusion. There is a systematic pattern of hunting for influencers on these platforms, designed by using psychology, sociology, anthropology (holism), and human behavior-related experiments.

The selected creative people usually go through a rigorous and psychological method of selection/ recruitment and development.

Process of Selection/ Recruitment and Development

There is an underlying three-stage process, designed to control and mobilize the creative and artistic people, for the purpose. It is not that this process is the invention of these platforms, it was there for ages in human societies and it applies to other industries/ domains of power and fame, too. The social media platforms are only using it more skillfully!

In the First Stage, which is a preliminary stage, everyone is allowed to enter and showcase their talent on these platforms, like an open and live audition. Here, the selected few start earning some money too, as the goal at this stage is to make people addicted to this extra and convenient source of income and to use them for word-of-mouth marketing.

After spending some time in this stage, these creators become addicted to this extra income, and easy publicity, and then they try hard to figure out what will promote them to the next stage – the stage of real fame and more income, unaware of the fact that they all are being monitored very delicately by Big Brothers of these platforms.

In the Second Stage, these platforms hunt for those people, who are fully dedicated and addicted to their skills, talent and platforms and ready to perform any kind of stunt/ adventure on just an order! They are very much like the biker gangs or outlaw motorcycle clubs of the 1990s and 2000s, which used to perform motorcycle stunts on the roads and were known for carrying the ideas of freedom, nonconformity to mainstream culture, and loyalty to the biker group, etc.

This stage is a bit tough. Those who reach here are a bit more famous than those in the first stage but at the same time, since they have talent and free spirit, they are tough to command too!

So here they go through a psychological experiment, where, first their morale is crushed, then their confidence is broken and finally, they are made to believe that their skill/ talent is of no worth! Whatever they have earned in life is due to the mercy of these platforms/ providers and gradually they start seeing these platforms in the image of a ‘God.’ This is a stage of absolute ‘devotion,’ but devotion to whom? Not to the talent or karma, but to the platforms and the forces behind them!

Those who belong to this stage usually have a typical story: ‘I was doing something like a normal person, and one day changed my life entirely!’ They are famous but not ultra-famous (sometimes they are called ‘in-betweeners’ of the Internet, too). They are making good money but they know that a step ahead, the sky is the limit! Those who sustained such a mental status for sometime are carefully monitored for the next stage.

The Third Stage is the final stage, and only a selected few can reach here, after crossing the rigorous psychological experiments in the first and second stages successfully. This is a stage, where we see influencers performing weird stuff, something unusual and alien to the society, culture, and norms/ structure of their targeted region. These people are in the process of becoming ‘cult’ celebrities and have started enjoying the hypnotic addiction of their status.

In one form or the other, the ‘cult’ celebrities were always there, even before the Internet, social media, and smartphones, and we have seen them in different professions/ domains, too, i.e., show business, politics, sports, journalism, activism, and socio-religious domains. But what has changed now is that AI-enabled social media platforms have expanded their impact multifold, and performing cognitive manoeuvres/ psychological warfare for political/ economic/ strategic goals through these mercenaries, at the click of a mouse!

One more thing that is common in these Influencers is that they are artists by character, and an artist is generally a rebel from the inside, and standing against the established norms of the society/system gives them artistic satisfaction!

Now imagine if a battalion of such influencers, Creative Entrepreneurs, Skillful Artists, and cult celebrities, is tasked to march with full force, to wage a battle of false narratives/ misinformation/ disinformation against a country’s interests, decisions, culture, ethos, and structure!

What can be the approach to deal with such a situation?

Sever the Roots – Counter Cognitive Warfare Strategy

It is said that a grand strategy to deal with a problem must include a way to think hard, dig deep, reach out to roots, and severing them, to end the problem with finality. And there should always exist the 10th man in the room too!

To visualize a solution in this scenario we will need to go back to the origin, the roots of internet again!

The idea of “Information Superhighways” was proposed with an analogy to physical highways, and its propagator former U.S. Vice President Al Gore said: “The Global Information Infrastructure will help educate our children and allow us to exchange ideas within a community and among nations. It will be a means by which families and friends will transcend the barriers of time and distance. It will make possible a global information marketplace, where consumers can buy or sell products.”

We build physical highways for the similar kind of purpose, that is ‘smooth travel’ for everyone – from people on foot to horses to bicycles to motor cars to commercial and heavy transport vehicles. Sometimes these highways are exploited by bad elements too, i.e., biker gangs, rioters, protesters, terrorists, anti-national elements, etc., but at the same time ensuring a smooth and safe journey for all is the responsibility of the government.

We have a time-tested road safety framework to deal with the challenges of traffic collisions, deaths, injuries, property damage, and other harms on the highway system. Some inputs/ experiences to managing physical highways can be applied to frame a roadmap for the safety and security of Information Superhighways, too.

Time for ‘Traffic Rules’

“Don’t mistake the democracy for the ballot box! The ballot box is a mechanism to find out who will make the laws for you, and what will be the laws of this country. It is not democracy by itself. The democracy is that the laws which are made by the representatives of the people, will be adhered by all the people, and will be enforced with the total strength of the might of the state,” said NSA Ajit Doval.

If the Internet is the global ‘Information Superhighway,’ then Misinformation/ Disinformation can be called the adventure/ misadventure and stunts on these highways. To control such chaos on physical highways we have the concept of Traffic Rules, Traffic Inspectors, and a well-crafted Traffic Management System, too. If anyone violates the traffic rules, then there are different provisions to deal with that like issuing the ‘challan’ to traffic rule violators, and suspension/ cancellation of their driving licence.

Some traffic rules for I-ways can be prepared by deriving inputs from this conventional approach!

A broader outline for ‘Traffic Rules’

Apart from the categories of influencers mentioned above and sponsored accounts, some common people like urban/ semi-urban and rural youth, housewives, professionals, and teenagers, also indulge in contributing to Misinformation/ Disinformation, for different reasons, i.e., entertainment/ fun, source of easy and extra income, ideological alignment, unemployment/ poverty and human behavior related aspects. And our response to deal with such cases generally falls under three broad categories: Suspension/ ban of social media accounts, enforcement of criminal charges and arrest (if a case is registered), or temporary Internet shutdown (in case of riots, mass level violence or terrorist act). But in each of these possible responses, there is always a scope for escape and special privilege, under the banner of ‘Freedom of Speech.’

Every social media post/ short/ tweet that spreads misinformation/ disinformation is paid! So, there is the need is to keep the freedom of expression intact but restrain the freedoms of earning from that expression.

How? Today every social media account is connected to a mobile, every mobile is connected to Aadhaar card, and Aadhaar card is connected to the bank account. With the help of technology and connected structure, a system can be developed, where on reporting a misinformation/ disinformation case, the bank account/ financial transactions of the originator of misinformation can be ‘frozen,’ on the click of a mouse, with immediate effect!

Now, this ‘freezing’ process can be very much similar to the process of revoking the driving licence and issuing ‘challan’ on highways, where once caught the violators are forced to go through an exhaustive legal or bureaucratic process. And that lesson becomes the lesson for a lifetime! Those whose bank accounts are frozen/ suspended will be needed to prove their cause and justify the act. If they are able to do so, their bank accounts/ financial transactions can be resumed, if not, then the long, legal and official process follows.

Only by testing such a framework in a handful of sample cases, we can minimize the violations of traffic rules on Information Superhighway to a great extent!

Conclusion

“There is always a possibility of false narratives derailing the democracy. Today it has expanded manifold because of the technology. And it becomes the responsibility of everyone, every citizen, everyone in the media, everyone who speaks, every institution, every gathering that you go to, that erode the strength of the false narrative” – National Security Advisor Shri Ajit Doval (Sardar Patel Memorial Speech, 2018).

Everything that we count as a strength of our society, culture and civilization, is our key vulnerability, too! In the coming days, attacks on the trust and will of the common people through false narratives, are only going to accelerate. So, accelerating the creative improvisations to fight them is our collective responsibility, too!

A technology that was born in the middle of a war, by the people involved in the war, to shape the outcomes of the war, and to attack the mind of enemies in the war, discussing its weaponization, is a bit naïve, and late. What best we can do now is to prepare the mind to deal with its challenges, with the same war-like spirit!

ALSO READ: Part 1: Psyche Behind the Internet, Information Superhighways

The post Counter Cognitive Warfare Strategy for India appeared first on IMR.

Maj Gen (Dr) GD Bakshi, SM, VSM

Winning wars is all about gaining information about the enemy and denying him the same information about one self. Thus, information warfare is as old as war itself. However, in recent times, it has been waged most successfully over the mass media. During World War I, it was primarily waged over the print medium using newspapers, magazines and books to promote one’s own narrative and counter that of the enemy. It was used to wage unrelenting propaganda wars to sustain the morale of one’s own population and erode that of the enemies. In World War II, radio became the prime mass media that could reach across continents. Radio and print media were widely used to conduct some very successful psychological operations and information war for narratives dominance. After the war, TV became the prime mass media and its all out telematic assault was first used in the Gulf Wars. Now the Internet and social media have become the most influential mass media. These have overridden all the previous tools of mass media – whether print, radio or TV. Social media is a paradox – highly personalized yet open to mass outreach as far as manipulating the mind on a massive scale is concerned.

Social Media and Telematic Assault

The present Russia-Ukraine War has seen the massive impact of social media and television in waging information war at a global level. Social media has now become the greatest tool of reaching out to individual minds and, thereby, influencing the mass mind in a manner that supersedes the impact of all legacy mass media tools like print, radio and even TV. Donald Trump in USA and the BJP in India had also realised the overwhelming impact of the social media to challenge the customary dominance of mass media. Its message is so personalized and yet has such massive outreach that it is instrumental in shaping the mass mind. Today, its impact supersedes the impact of traditional mass media. Today, some 2.7 billion viewers use Facebook every day, some 206 million use Twitter and some 122 million use YouTube daily. These social media platforms, therefore, have major role in shaping public perceptions and opinion. Big Tech giants of the US-based social media were blatantly partisan in this war. They permitted calls to assassinate Putin, demonise the Russians as a race and went out of the way to push the Ukrainian narrative in this war. The truth is that hundreds of former US Government officials from the Departments of Defense, FBI, Homeland Security, etc. work in these companies to peddle the US Government narratives. There is a revolving door policy between Big Tech and US Government agencies (eg, Jerarad Cohen of US State Dept and Joseph Rozek of the US Dept of Defense and many others are now with the social media platforms) playing a blatantly partisan role. In fact, these platforms had received some $44.4 bn worth of contracts from the Pentagon and Dept of Homeland Security to spread stories of violent extremism during the Global War on Terror.

Network Battalion 65

Another CIA sponsored cyber army called Network Battalion 65, hacked into Russian Nuclear Institute files and published them openly on the net to spill Russian nuclear secrets. All these cyber warriors have every day been posting hundreds of video clips (some taken from video war games, previous conflicts and military exercises) showing destruction of Russian military equipment by Javelin missiles and Stinger SAMs. Even as they advertise American military equipment, they create a hype that Ukraine is winning the war against all Russian odds. The impression they generate is of an impending Russian military collapse of will and morale and a coup that could overthrow Putin in Moscow. In actual fact, Putin’s popularity rating has shot up to 80 per cent in Russia post this conflict.

This hype about a Ukrainian victory is plastered all over the social media. It is then picked up by the echo chamber of US electronic media – CNN and BBC – and relayed all over the world. The Third World media also dutifully picks up this western narrative and parrots it to create a climate of global opinion against Russia. The Russian view point has been totally blanked out in this war.

As it is, RTV and Sputnik have been banned by USA and Western Governments to block out the Russian viewpoint entirely. The wartime tactic of spreading disinformation to undermine morale of the rival camp has received a technical boost as seen in hundreds of false videos being circulated during this war on social media and then on to the TV screens. Fake narratives and lies are being promoted shamelessly.

Western Propaganda Playbook

Alwyn and Heidi Tofler, in their famous book – War and Anti War – had listed six basic propaganda ploys or tools. These are:-

Atrocity Accusations. These have most skilfully been employed in Ukraine with civilian deaths in Bucha being touted as not just atrocities but as genocide. The Russians have reacted angrily to these accusations – calling them fake and deliberately staged. With such fierce air attacks, tank battles and artillery barrages – civilian casualties are bound to occur on a large scale. The surprise is that despite huge amounts of ammunition expenditure the civilian causalities are comparatively much lower than what we have seen in Iraq and Syria. Ukraine prohibited all males from16 to 60 to leave the city battlefields. They armed some 18,000 civilians – thus making them legitimate targets. Now they are coming up with strident atrocity accusations that are used to justify more economic sanctions against Russia and additional weapons shipments to Ukraine.

Hyperbolic Inflation of Stakes. It gives the national audience a feel that everything that they hold dear is at risk. Thus, the Ukraine War has been made into a hyperbolic contest between Democractic and Autocratic regimes. India is being pressurised to take the side of democracies. Ukraine is hardly an ideal democracy and no better than Russia in democratic freedoms and practises. Corruption is, perhaps, more rife in Ukraine than it is in Russia. Yet the entire struggle is being elevated to that moral plane of democracies vs dictatorships.

Demonisation or Dehumanisation of Opponent. Putin has been called a war criminal and killer by no less than President Joe Biden himself. The Russian military in general and, especially Putin in particular, are being demonised. This is destroying any chances of resolving this crisis peacefully. How can you negotiate with killers?

Polarisation. Those who are not with us are against us. India is being pressurised to condemn Russia and not buy cheap oil and weapons from them. This, even as Europe continues to buy massive quantities of oil and gas from Russia every day.

Claims of Devine Sanction. Islamists freely invoke Allah’s support and blessings for their wars. Even western democracies stridently invoke God’s support in what they claim to be a just war. Justice is simply defined. Whatever they do is just – whatever the enemy does is unjust. The invasions of Afghanistan, Panama, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria, etc, were all just and humane (regardless of the destruction caused and the number of civilians killed)! The Russian invasion of Ukraine alone is evil! Killing 1,30,000 civilians in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki was just and moral – Bucha alone is evil.

Meta Propaganda. Propaganda that discredits the other sides propaganda is termed as meta propaganda. It calls into question everything that comes from the enemy. All statements made by Russian military are said to be lies and fabrications. Ukraine alone is telling the truth. Its aim is to produce “whole sale” disbelief in whatever the enemy says.

Out Sourcing Propaganda

Dan Cohen, writing in the Mintpress.news.com, has blown the lid off a massively funded, specialized PR campaign that is being run by several entities associated with the governments of US, UK and NATO to portray the war in Ukraine to suit western agendas. The Strategic Communication Narrative is to depict the Ukrainian military as a tiny but righteous David standing up to a brutal Russian military Goliath and winning outright. Not widely known is the fact that behind this massively successful propaganda campaign are a group of international PR firms working directly with the Ukraine foreign ministry.

Just hours after the beginning of the Russian military campaign, an anonymous figure who runs a PR firm in Ukraine, started collaborating with Ukraine’s foreign ministry. A slew of some 150 international PR firms collaborated to commence a massive propaganda Blitz. This PR juggernaut was led by PR Network co-founder Nicky Regazzoni and Francis Ingham. Francis Ingham, incidentally, is a top consultant loosely connected with the UK government. Reportedly, he sits on the UK Government’s Communication Services Strategy & Evaluation Council.

Dan Cohen also mentions Yuroslav Turbil – a communication Specialist –  who has worked with several US Government organizations. He is credited with creating a dossier containing key messages, approved language and other data to run the Ukraine PR campaign. Dan says the story of the Snake Island heroes (taken from famous incident in the German Ardennes offensive) and the Ghost pilot of Kiev (who in his lone SU-27 supposedly shot down half the Russian Air Force, are all credited to him). These were hugely popular and catchy stories. Unfortunately, in the end stories remain just that – stories. Art work and posters for these PR campaigns to promote the heroism of the Ukraine armed forces was done by Stephen Bandera. Dan Cohen says he was a one-time Nazi collaborator, who had earlier led an organization that had murdered thousands of Jews and ethnic Poles in World War II. These posters celebrated Molotov Cocktails – as Bandera smoothies. These posters listed Russia, Belarus, North Korea, Syria, etc., as incurable diseases and also created racist and violent depictions of Russians in general and Putin in particular.

There is an Army of lobbyists working to send more weapons to prolong the conflict in Ukraine . A tremendous media hype has been created of a heroic Ukraine that has thrashed an incompetent and lumbering Russian military. The problem is that this narrative most deliberately underplays the huge military differential between the two sides. Despite sweeping Western propaganda, Ukraine’s forces have taken very heavy losses. Over a 1000 Iskander tactical ballistic missiles (TBMs), Kalibr and Yakhont cruise missiles have been fired which have reduced over 40 Ukrainian cities to rubble. More to the point, most oil refineries, petrol and lubricants storage facilities and ammunition dumps of Ukraine, have been destroyed. This will severely erode the Ukrainian capacity to continue the fight. Each day that the war lasts, those losses will mount and increase the pressure on the Ukraine military and population. Some 5.5 million have had to flee to neighboring countries and over 7 million have been displaced internally. Over time, this will take a cumulative toll. The longer the war lasts, the more vulnerable the Ukraine military will be to a sudden collapse of logistical stamina and the will to go on. The ability to continue fighting is premised upon a continual supply of arms, fuel oil and lubricants and huge stock piles of ammunition. While greatly playing up Russian losses, the Western media has completely blanked out the very heavy punishment taken by the Ukraine armed forces and logistical infrastructure. Over time, this will widen the gulf between propaganda and reality to unbridgeable levels.

Use of Intelligence Speculation & Analysis as Propaganda

NBC News reported that the US has been using intelligence leaks and even half-baked intelligence analysis as part of their information war. Most of the time, the intelligence cited is not rock solid. It is not based on hard evidence. Low confidence inputs based on mere analysis or even plain false and fake inputs are passed on as hard facts. Over time, this is eroding the reliability of information put out by the US. US officials conceded they were using intelligence releases not to tell the truth but to influence decisions of Putin. A former MI 6 chief said these were more designed to manipulate than inform. Some examples of this genre are the initial reports leaked about Russian plans to attack Ukraine. These were designed to delay the Russian attack. Then there was the claim that Russia had asked China for supply of weapons and spares. Then, Intelligence was put out that Russia was planning to use chemical and biological warfare agents (this was to cover up the US funding of some 32 bio-warfare labs in Ukraine). Critics in the US decried this imperial narrative control by a democratic government openly manufacturing the consent of its public to be lied to for their own good and get limited strategic gains. This could badly erode credibility in the long run. Thus, all the hype about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq had later proved to be outrageous lies. The disenchantment with the American narrative building exercise is setting in rather early in this war. Most of this is see-thru and blatant propaganda that is eroding US credibility.

Like in the Gulf war, the danger now is the West getting carried away by its own propaganda and failing to analyse objectively the military outcomes in the field. There is a frenzied chorus from retired American Generals who feel that Ukraine has actually won the war and, with a little more of heavy weapons support, it can inflict a humiliating defeat on the Russian Army and push them back across the border. This has led to many futile Ukrainian counter-attacks that have been decimated by the Russian artillery and air. As the relentless attrition grinds down the Ukrainian armed forces, there could be a sudden collapse a few weeks down the line as the interdiction of Ukraine’s petrol oil and ammunition begins to take its toll.

Conflict Termination: Unconditional Surrender?

Then there is the aspect of conflict termination. President Biden calling Putin a killer and war criminal virtually closes the window for any dialogue for conflict termination. It takes us back to the two World Wars, when such maximalist stances were adopted and the call was for unconditional surrender. Is the US expecting Russia (armed with some 6,300 nuclear warheads) to surrender unconditionally? Russia will get disintegrated and economically destroyed but will never use weapons of mass destruction against the beloved US? The logic is very weird and could result in a nuclear catastrophe at the global level. Such levels of subjective thinking are very dangerous and could lead us to dead ends where crossing the nuclear threshold becomes entirely possible. Driving a nuclear armed adversary across a dead end drop is risky business at the best of time.

Russian Information War

Maskarovika and Disinformation have been an integral part of Russian strategic thought since World War II. In 2013, Gen Valery Gerasimov had propounded the Russian Whole-of-government Approach or Hybrid war doctrine. This entailed a judicious mix of conventional and sub-conventional warfare as also a coherent mix of hard and soft power options in terms of information war, cyber war, propaganda, disinformation and deception coupled with use of political, diplomatic and economic tools to prevail in any conflict.

Maskarovika in Ukraine. The massive Russian military deployment against Ukraine could be seen by the whole world via all-weather satellites – accompanied by UAVs and American AWACS and JSTARS flying over Poland and other East European countries bordering Russia. Yet the Russians were able to keep their intentions secret till the very end. Indian students in Ukraine were told it was all bluff and bluster and there was no need for them to go back. Most of them stayed back on the assurances of the Ukrainian authorities and had to face major problems in evacuation during the hot war. The head of German Intelligence was equally caught off guard and had to be flown out from Kiev at the very last minute when the war started. The French chief of intelligence reportedly had to resign as he failed to anticipate the Russian invasion. Even though President Biden was warning the world of an impending Russian invasion, perhaps, he actually did not believe it himself. He and most Western leaders felt Putin was just bluffing and was using the coercive military deployment merely as a show of force to get US and NATO to revamp the European Security Architecture. The Americans had spelt out 16 February as the date of attack. Putin had meanwhile given a very fair chance for extended negotiations to resolve the crisis. However, this only served to delay the launch of the operation and caused it to get bogged down in the mud of the spring thaw – especially around Kiev.

Winning the Information War

With the deployment of over 300,000 experts by the CIA in support of the Ukraine war effort, USA has succeeded entirely in winning the information war. The social media and electronic and print media are flooded by the Ukrainian narrative. One major advantage that the Americans have is the English language, which is a global link language. Information wars are waged at three levels – global, regional and local. Russia and China are able to hive off their social media domains from Western social media and, thereby, protect their local domains. However, the information domain at the global and regional level is all dominated by the Western narratives. The Russian and Chinese both tightly control their own domestic social media and, to a great extent, are able to insulate their domestic populations from the adverse impact of the enemy’s information war. India has major lessons to learn here because Indians use all Western social media systems and there are no firewalls to protect the local information domain.

However, one problem of this overwhelming global Information dominance is the trap of believing your own propaganda and treating this as the ground reality and not the fictive reality. This can lead to highly flawed estimates of the situation and a loss of objectivity in military planning. Perhaps, key organizations and individuals may know the truth but the general perception that is fashioned by the relentless info-war assault on the social, electronic and print medium, is so overwhelming that, overtime, it overrides and perhaps shapes the actions of the elite leadership itself.

Information Overkill

Buoyed up by the Western narratives of Ukraine’s military success, a lot of retired US Generals are pressing for a Ukrainian counter-offensive to throw out all Russian forces from Ukraine’s soil. This narratives is overly optimistic and dangerously flawed. It does not take into account the very heavy and severe punishment inflicted on Ukraine’s militaries logistics and infrastructure. In specific, Russian interdiction by tactical and cruise missiles, air and artillery has destroyed a great deal of Ukraine’s oil refining and FOL storage capacity as also underground ammunition depots. Over time, these cumulative losses are bound it have a significant impact on the ability to conduct prolonged and concerted operations. Each day that the war continues will tilt scales is favour of Russia. The next few weeks will be critical.

Nuclear Threshold

Also, the US generals are clearly losing all sight of the dangerous nuclear threshold. Russia has the largest number of nuclear warheads in the world. American Generals feel Putin is bluffing with his nuclear sabre rattling. Before Russia invaded Ukraine they had felt his force deployment was also a bluff and he would not invade – just use posturing to get the West to renegotiate the security architecture in Europe. They were wrong then. If they prove wrong a second time about nuclear thresholds, the consequences could be catastrophic for the whole world.

Demographic Weakness

What this war has highlighted, however, are the severe manpower shortages in Russia. Russia traditionally used to rely on heavy fire power and sheer mass. The mass is now clearly missing. Russia has no second or third echelons or even the Operational Maneuver Group (OMG) to exploit the success gained by the leading troops of the first echelon. This was standard Russian doctrine in the Cold War. Russia now is simply recycling and reusing the same troops after giving them time for rest and refit. The same had been seen in Afghanistan. Five Motor Rifle Divisions were sent in initially and this force level was maintained throughout the war. Despite great escalation of support to the Mujahideen by the CIA and Saudi Arabia, this force level was not increased. The use of heavy and unrestrained fire power in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Syria, however, saved the day. It was uninhibited by any presence of the media or mobile phones on the ground to record images. The large scale presence of the media in Ukraine is becoming a major hindrance for Russian forces to use excessive fire power. Frankly, for the time being, they have lost the information war. They may as well have to focus on winning the ground battle – however, brutal and bloody it becomes. Russia has now articulated pragmatic and achievable aims and should be able to achieve them in phase two.

The post Information War in the Ukraine Conflict appeared first on IMR.

–              Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Cyber has redefined the perception of inter-state borders, global politics and threat intelligence in multi layered ways and the inherent characteristics of democracy may appear to complicate matters.

On one hand 5G and Quantum internet are etching the next generational national security concerns and, on the other, the rapid evolution in technologies have led to dramatic decrease in the cost of creating, processing, disseminating and searching for information leading to strengthening the muscles of soft power.

Today’s digital era, built on the blocks of inter-connectedness at every level, is already confronting an information revolution, a vital aspect of fifth generation warfare.

What better time to influence than a period of ambiguity and crisis. The same part of the brain that processes fear is also activated in ambiguous situations, driving people to seek information to address the discomfort of uncertainty. In the absence of quality information, any answers satisfy, including rumors and disinformation.

Covid-19

The first death reported from novel Coronavirus infection by the Chinese state media was on 11 January 2020. The disease caused by this virus was named Covid-19 by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 February. WHO officials were denied access to the country to gauge the ground situation until Director-General Tedros Adhanom visited President Xi Jinping in the end of January.

Yet, unwittingly they already became a part of the misinformation bandwagon, especially after their tweet on 14 January saying:

 “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in Wuhan, China.”

WHO later declared Covid-19 pandemic on March11.

The analysis so far of  global disinformation pattern suggest that  it has been majorly around pro-China or anti-China narratives inclusive of various conspiracy theories related to the origins of this global pandemic. An internal document by European Union accused Russia of “aggressively exploiting the confusion and panic in Western countries over the coronavirus pandemic and pushing fake news in English, Spanish, Italian, German and French languages.”

India, too, is facing a threat of disinformation, internally and externally. Amongst many, this article will focus on the ones which have lead to an increase in the number of COVID-19 cases.

Internal

As per the Ministry of Health, the Tablighi Jamat Nizamuddin gathering and the subsequent travel of its members all across India increased the doubling rate of COVID cases from 7.4 days to 4.1 days. There were reports of incidents in various cities across India, where people from a religious community not only refused to observe self-quarantine but also exhibited hostility against government officials enforcing the lock-down and medical staff visiting the affected localities.

Multiple videos went viral where few miscreants from a particular community were repeatedly found flouting lockdown rules and giving statements like ‘Corona is from Quran’, ‘Corona won’t affect Muslims’ etc.

On 3 April, India Today reported that an investigation by a Delhi-based digital lab, Voyager Infosec, into more than 30,000 video clips in circulation on social media suggested a set pattern of targeted disinformation campaign aimed at the Muslim community in India. Voyager’s Director Jiten Jain said: “We have found a very interesting pattern where TikTok has been used as a primary medium to spread misinformation, citing fake and dubious research, which claims that coronavirus does not affect Muslims and that there has not been a single Muslim coronavirus patient in China and Italy.”

On 30 March, The Print carried an article ‘IS tries to provoke Muslims, says countries fighting Coronavirus are easy targets’ which stated: ‘The primary missive that is being circulated on the chat groups that IS runs on various social media platforms is a clipping of a note published in the terror network’s magazine called Sawt al-Hind (Voice of Hind). “Allah has made this disease a source of chaos amongst the nations of disbelief and their militaries and police have been deployed in their streets and alleys, thus making them an easy target,” Similar incidents were noted in other parts of the world.

New York-based Muslim Brotherhood activist Bahgat Saber called on the Egyptians to intentionally infect government officials and state employees with the Coronavirus. In a live session on his Facebook page, he exhorted “If you are a soldier, you can go into the defence ministry and shake hands with all the generals of the military and the police. The same is true with the justice system.” Saber, who has 143,195 followers on Facebook, said: “If you have contracted Coronavirus, you should take revenge!”

In a sermon (broadcast by Hamas TV) at the White Mosque in Gaza, Muslim Imam Jamil al-Mutawa called Coronavirus a “Soldier of Allah,” and celebrated the deaths of non-Muslims caused by Coronavirus, specifically praising Allah for deaths in California, China, Italy and Iran. He claimed that the streets of Israel were empty, while his mosque in Gaza was full. He went on to claim that Allah was protecting Muslims from Coronavirus, and that there were no confirmed cases of the virus in Gaza. The next day, unfortunately, two cases of Coronavirus were confirmed in Gaza.

At this point we need to ponder on the nature of the threat.

What are we facing?

Is it a threat from an entire religion or a threat from disinformation strategy of weaving narratives based on misinterpretation of religion with intent to create hostilities among communities and begin pocket conflicts across the country? The intentions can always be multilayered.

A period of infodemic is the perfect harvesting ground for any channeled and strategic influence operation.

We are not only looking at word of mouth or certain influencers on social media but at a combination of medium and message, where the medium is revamped with technologies like machine learning, bots, astro-turfing techniques and echo chambers used to create viral misinformation leading to an agenda setting effect which further shapes the public opinion.

The nature of the threat faced gets further convoluted as it is coupled with the foundational tenets of a religion.

One Sheikh Assim Al-Hakeem with 278,999 followers on Facebook explains to his followers that nothing can be contagious by itself unless by the permission of Allah.

Hadith

“Sahih Muslim, hadith 5513: “There is no adwa, no tiyarah (Evil Omens), No Hamah, No Safar, No Nawa, and no Ghoul, and no sick camel should be brought to a healthy Camel.”

Selectively interpreted as: There is no transitive disease and no sick person should be taken to one who is healthy.

Other Hadiths which were widely circulated during the pandemic were:

“It is a punishment that Allah sends to whom He wills. Allah has made it a mercy for the believers. There is not a servant who finds himself amidst a plague but he stays in that land in patience hoping (for Allah’s reward) and knowing that nothing can harm him except what Allah has written then this servant will be given a reward like that of a martyr.” [Bukhari]

‘If you hear about it (an outbreak of plague) in a land, do not go to it; but if plague breaks out in a country where you are staying, do not run away from it. [Bukhari]. This incidentally was also shared by Pakistani President in the context of stranded Pakistani students in Wuhan, China.

External

While social media and digital news are a new phenomenon, we always had traditional media organizations which are prone to manipulation and indulge in biased reporting. This falls more under the section of propaganda than disinformation. It has both official and unofficial channels like films, photographs, speeches, newspaper, books, pamphlets and periodicals, etc.

Media organizations like the BBC, The Guardian, Al Jazeera and The New York Times, with a history of gate-keeping bias against India, further worsen the scenario by sensationalizing biased stories and pushing the narrative of ‘Islamophobia’.

This is the juncture where the initiative born out of meager investments starts getting huge returns on investment by generalizing an entire community and planting seeds of communalism. Religion, faith and culture are the deepest emotions and, thus, attract disproportionate reactions, something the global propagandists bank upon. Needless to say that if this goes unchecked, we will be fighting a bigger pandemic for years to come.

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