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.

ALSO READ: Cognitive Warfare in the Ukraine War (Part 1)

How did that approach work in Russia-Ukraine War?

“When people speak in vague generalities, for example, and use a lot of abstract terms like justice, morality, liberty, and so on, without really ever explaining the specifics of what they are talking about, they are almost always hiding something. This is often their own nasty but necessary actions, which they prefer to cover up under a screen of righteous verbiage. When you hear such talk, be suspicious,” Writes Robert Greene in “The 33 Strategies of War.”

From the beginning, the Ukraine war is a crusade for liberty/ free will and some kind of global struggle between democracy and authoritarianism for media. Global media is flooded with stories that Ukraine is such a model for democracy in the region that its mere existence makes Putin uncomfortable, and that is why he launched a brutal attack on civilian centers. In his remark on 26th March, US President Joe Biden said: “we emerged anew in the great battle for freedom: a battle between democracy and autocracy, between liberty and repression, between a rules-based order and one governed by brute force.”

Such narratives needed a great narrator too. Zelenskyy’s entertainment and media background combined with live-streamed propaganda (streaming 24/7 to every corner of the globe), and Russia’s complete isolation from the internet, provided NATO a cognitive weapon for which Putin had no counter. From press to social media to parliaments to diplomatic enclaves to Grammy to Oscar, the one-sided celebration of Ukraine’s heroic resistance and Zelenskyy’s Netflix-like leadership approach virtually declared Ukraine a winner in this war, no matter what may be the outcomes.

In the early hours of 24 February, shortly before the start of the war, Zelenskyy recorded an address to the citizens of both Ukraine and Russia, in which he said: “Who can prevent this (war)? People – are these people present among you? I am sure there are – public figures, journalists, musicians, actors, athletes, scientists, doctors, bloggers, stand-up comedians, Tik-Tokers, and many more – regular people.”

The overall western narrative on Ukraine and Zelensky’s position can be summed up in the lines from a recent article “Glory to You, President Zelenskyy,” published in Harvard Political Review (March 3, 2022): “Tens of millions of people worldwide have seen President Zelenskyy’s videos shared online and on television. He has harnessed the power of social media to become history’s first truly online wartime leader, bypassing traditional gatekeepers as he uses the internet to reach out to the people. His uncensored, unadulterated spirit shines through in each broadcast” and Zelenskyy, “through his tactful use of social media, has rallied the world to the cause of Ukraine.”

In the information war, the winner is unquestionably Zelenskyy but it is important to note that information is not the only front in this War!

Now the big question among the Western strategist is – how long can we keep the short-attention-span internet audience (particularly the Americans) interested and engaged in Ukraine’s real-time war series?

Weaponization of AI – A Trailer

It is not that Russia was not aware of the growing Western might on the technology front. In 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s statement on AI made the headlines, when he said: “Artificial intelligence is the future, not only for Russia, but for all humankind, it comes with colossal opportunities, but also threats that are difficult to predict.” And “whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world.” Russia’s military systems are also well equipped with advanced AI capabilities including AI-enabled robotic weapons, autonomous tanks, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), long-range strikes involving high-precision missiles, and the Russian military already use AI for intelligence gathering, C4ISR, logistics, and development of autonomous weapons.

But backed by U.S. and NATO support, Ukraine has a clear edge over AI and digital technology, particularly in the psychological and cognitive warfare domains.

Last month, in the middle of the war, a conversation between two Russian soldiers got automatically captured, transcribed, translated, and analyzed using artificial intelligence algorithms (developed by a US company called Primer). There is news that several unsecured Russian transmissions have been posted online, translated, and analyzed on social media. It is also important to note that every single tech platform and social networking site that, not just Russians or Ukrainians, but the entire globe is using to explore the War, every single platform where people talk/ share or present their views on the Russia-Ukraine crisis, have embedded advanced AI algorithms, that are recording our response/ reactions and emotions in real-time in this big laboratory of psychological experiments called the Internet.

So in a way technology has made everyone a participant (with or without our consent) in this war and from that point of view, it is indeed a kind of virtual WW III. But given the possibilities of AI weaponization in the future, it can still be called only a trailer or snapshot of the future!

From an outer view, the latest developments in Cognitive Warfare and associated psychological manoeuvres appear as matters of the Big Power game, where countries like India have some scope to remain ‘untouched’ and ‘neutral’ but the question is – Can we afford to ignore the fact that in this battle of public perception, every single user, irrespective of his/ her national/ cultural identity, knowingly or unknowingly is a potential team member of some regional/ national or global battalion, recruited to serve the interests of forces, outside our borders?

India’s National Security Concerns

Recently, India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval remarked about these new trends/ shifts in approach to warfare and their possible impact on India, when he said, “The civil society is the new frontier of warfare,” and it is “the common people, their thinking, their perceptions, their sense of well being, and their perception of their own governments,” and everything that can impact the “will of the nation,” is under attack, in this new age of information revolution.

These tech platforms which made their way into the Indian market in the name of some educational activities (Amazon as an online book store), some aid in research (Google search), and occasional entertainment activities (YouTube), now become not only the source of radicalization of a large section of youth but also a significant facilitator in illicit trade and anti-national activities. Today, we have reached a situation where, whether it is some engineering graduate living in a metro city or some rural youth indulging in farming in his village, the cognitive weapons of the information revolution are capable of affecting everyone’s “wetware” irrespective of their personal/ educational/ social or professional background.

When we trace the root of the problem, we find that it all began not with computer technology and the Internet but with “Reality TV” culture, the initial platforms of psychological experiments, and what we are observing now is largely a scaling up of that culture through a more precise and targeted information weapon in our hands – the smartphone and its 24/7 streaming apps.

From Reality TV to Live Streaming

Similar to computers, Reality TV made its debut in India in the name of some singing, dancing and adventure sports/ activities, and through their auditions among the youth, they developed a mass appeal. The craft was fairly simple – putting some people under complex psychological situations and collecting the reaction of the different groups and societies, via voting lines (dial-in mobile phones or SMS). That was the beginning of an active mass engagement and an implementation of the “Persuade, Influence and Change,” frame of traditional PsyOps.

Now, these experiments are entering a new phase. The technological developments in the last few decades have accelerated the pace and reach of such entertainment products to a different level. This phase marked the full exploitation of advancement not only in the digital technology domain alone, the other complementary fields such as Neuroscience and Cognitive Psychology have undergone significant progress too. It is important to note that due to absolute presence and unhindered access for over two decades, now makers of these platforms have a rich experience in analyzing the message and communication exchanged between different groups of our society too, across all regions/ cultures and age groups. Our actions, reactions, emotions, behavior, choices, likes/ dislikes, and overall psychology is nothing but bit-sized information stored in their massive data servers! As a result, their tone, flavor and craft of experiment are consistently improving and getting more precise with each passing day.

Alignment with the Youth ‘Psych’

These days YouTube is circulating and advertisement that their growing creator ecosystem contributed Rs 6,800 crore to the Indian GDP and supported 683,900 full-time equivalent jobs in India in 2020. What does that mean in simple terms?

Entertainment, gaming, dancing, music, cooking, travel, comedy, pet care, home care, self-care, talking or any other hobby or routine, is no more some leisure activity. These are the new employment opportunities for the youth and a highly rewarding career too.

Indian society is inherently outcome-oriented. When a child spends more than usual hours on something, the parent usually asks  – what’s the return? By keeping this psyche of youth and society in mind, these platforms have revamped their strategy too. Today, the more a youth spends time on social media, the more he/ she is capable to earn followers/ likes/ shares/ impressions, higher the chance of his success in life (this is what they highlighted). And when they see around, what do they find? There are several success stories, that originated from a common source! There are several influencers-cum-celebrities out there who not only have a highly rewarding career/ income on social networks but a post-retirement plan too. Several such faces can now even be seen in our regional/ national politics. And if these local examples are not sufficient then search globally – these platforms have created several success cases, for each region/ race/ color/ culture on the planet (at this moment, Zelenskyy is one such face too). On a broader level, all that makes traditional career/ education/ innovation/ discovery/ research/ engineering kind of path appear as a less attractive and less rewarding option for the young minds!

This is the psyche of our Gen Z and Gen Alpha, which are born and nurtured in this environment!

Conclusion

“Elevate yourself through the power of your mind, and not degrade yourself, for the mind can be the friend and also the enemy of the self.” (The Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 6, Verse 5).

From perception to change to influence to command, computer technologies’ improvisations are now entering a state for which we have a reference in our ancient texts. In Ram-Ravan Yuddh, it is said that there came a moment when Ravan invoked “Maya” (the weapon of illusion), the weapon created an illusion of reviving all the armies and their leaders already killed in the war. Then Ram was reminded by his charioteer Matali that: “In your original identity, you are the creator of illusions in this universe. Ravan has created the illusion of phantoms to confuse you. If you make up your mind, you can dispel them immediately.” It is said that then Ram invoked the weapon called “Gyaana” (wisdom) and soon the entire illusion of terrifying armies created by Ravan evaporated into the thin air.

To deal with the Cognitive Warfare’s new improvisations, India’s ancient wisdom and thousands of years of experiences of experimenting with human intelligence can show a path! If name/ fame/ greed is the focus of the approach of Western model, then ‘Tyag and Tapasya’ is a time-tested approach of Bharat. It is this approach of our great rishi munis (who were the world’s leading inventors/ explorers and scientists) which made us thrive in several human endeavours in the past!

Bharat can develop a unique counter-Cognitive Warfare doctrine of its own and a time to work in that direction has come!

ALSO READ: Cognitive Warfare in the Ukraine War (Part 1)

The post Cognitive Warfare in the Ukraine War (Part 2) appeared first on IMR.

ALSO READ: Cognitive Warfare in the Ukraine War (Part 2)

Misinformation, Propaganda, Narratives, Info War, Psy Ops and other non-kinetic tactics of World War II and Cold War phase, are rapidly getting replaced by tools of the 21st Century, that are more concise, precise, targeted, and at the same time largely ‘extremist’ in their approach. These are designed keeping the continuously reducing attention span of targeted viewers and the needs of hyper-empowered ‘homo digitalis’ in mind.

In the classic war strategies, it is often said that the best deceptions are based on ambiguity, mixing fact and fiction so that one cannot be disentangled from the other. In all the previous forms of psychological operations, whether leaflets, loudspeakers, radio, print and electronic propaganda, the truth remained an important ingredient of use and the key idea was that for manipulation to be effective, it had to be based (to a maximum extent) on some Truth and Credibility, otherwise it would not work in the long run. But all that is now a thing of the past. Those strategies belong to a phase when deceptions or manipulation operations used to be some irregular events, not a 24/7 live-streamed reality! In the world of bite-sized content and streaming communications, the philosophical concepts of ‘Art of War’ have mostly been replaced by psychologically fascinating ‘Art of Lying’ and the ideas of fact, logic, truth and credibility are gradually becoming obsolete and ineffectual.

So how the future recipe of psychological experiments will taste with these new ingredients? Russia-Ukraine War offers a perfect snapshot of that future!

After over 40 days of stunning speeches and standing ovations, massive cheerleading campaigns, TikTok manoeuvres, Instagram/ Twitter/ YouTube revolutions and all-out internet invasion, some horrific images of Ukrainian civilian causalities started coming out to the surface, and the world heard the “silence of ruined cities and killed people,” as Zelenskyy rightly quoted in his Grammy award message. These images do not go well with the much celebrated “heroic victory” of the Ukrainian President, yet he shared them with the global audience with some kind of ‘guarantee’ that neither the blame nor the accountability for this whole episode would ever come to his shoulders!

After all, it is Russia, the aggressor who committed these “war crimes.” NATO partners who betrayed the Ukrainians and the rest of the world, which is unable to decide whom to side with, is further making it worse! So where is the fault of Zelenskyy in all this? He is only doing the job that best suits him, carrying the image of “servant leader” (that elected him to chair) managing public opinion/ perceptions, and giving perfect shots for this live-streamed war series, in real-time! But how do those millions of Ukrainians who turned ‘refugees’ overnight and those who lost their families and dear ones in this nonsensical campaign for “NATO membership” see all this? How they perceive the role of their social media hero President whom they elected to end the war not to accelerate it, perhaps, will never come to the light!

“Ukraine has gone from bread basket to bread line,” said UN World Food Programme Head, citing the serious humanitarian crisis in the country. According to UN reports, Ukrainians are trapped in besieged Ukrainian cities, lacking access to food, water and essential services. Interestingly, from day one of the war, providing ‘uninterrupted internet’ connectivity to civilians tops the list of priorities for the Ukrainian government. As of now, United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in partnership with Elon Musk has provided over 5,000 Starlink satellite internet terminals to Ukraine, which are largely up and running despite missiles and cyber attacks.

From absolute internet control to weaponization of public opinion, in many ways, the Ukraine war is a classic case of 21st-century Cognitive Warfare, pilot-tested successfully!

‘Persuade, Change, Influence and Command’

“Communication is a kind of war, its field of battle is the resistant and defensive minds of the people you want to influence. The goal is to advance, to penetrate their defenses and occupy their minds,” writes Robert Greene in his book “The 33 Strategies of War” (2006).

In the middle of the Ukraine War, the White House invited selected social media influencers on a zoom call to guide them on how to educate their millions of followers spread across the world, about U.S. policy on Ukraine. The White House digital strategy director tweeted: “An astonishing amount of people are learning about the invasion of Ukraine through digital creators who have begun to cover it,” and “we take that really seriously, and are working to make sure those creators have the ability to have their questions answered.”

That in simple words was an open invitation for social media influencers to join NATO Psy Ops and Cognitive Warfare against Russia.

What is Cognitive Warfare?

“Cognitive Warfare is the weaponization of public opinion by an external entity,” for “influencing public and governmental policy” and “destabilizing public institutions,” defines NATO’s report: ‘FALL 2020 – Cognitive Warfare – An Attack on Truth and Thought.’ The study says that Cognitive Warfare is different from earlier forms in the sense that it is not limited to controlling the “flow of information” rather it is a fight “to control or alter the way people react to information.” It highlights the “power of words/ ideas and non-kinetic war,” citing how “the Soviet Union watched the collapse of the Iron Curtain,” and the impact of the power of “blue jeans and rock and roll.”

The document mentions Russia 54 times, China 20 times, and Iran 6 times, citing how these three had waged cognitive attacks against the Western bloc through misinformation/ false narratives campaigns about the Corona outbreak and what the three could do in the near future. It highlights how the combination of social media, news networks, automation algorithms, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, psychology, and sociology is paving the way for a dangerous future and talks about adopting the “defense forward” doctrine of the USA, which means “preemptively preventing and proactively searching for attacks.”

A careful look at the Ukrainian leadership approach in this war reveals that it is largely inspired by findings of such NATO reports on psychological and cognitive warfare.

Cognition refers to “the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses,” and Cognitive Warfare attempts to influence this process and its internal mechanism. A recent definition comes from Oliver Backes and Andrew Swab of Harvard’s Belfer Center, in their published work in Dec 2019 that says: “Cognitive Warfare is a strategy that focuses on altering how a target population thinks – and through that how it acts.”

If we look around, from a teenager to adults to senior citizens, what are the sources for acquiring knowledge and understanding through “thought, experience, and senses,” in this Google’s system of the world?

According to a recent report “Digital 2022 – Global Overview,” there are approx 4.95 billion internet users in the world (62.5% of the global population) and 4.62 billion active social media users, who spend on an average 6 to 7 hours daily online. India comes in the list of countries where people spend more time than the average on the Web and now Gen Z (the generation born between 1997 and 2012) is the biggest target audience of these platforms. Major activities, which information prosumers (one who both consume and produce) perform online, include keeping up-to-date with news/events, watching/producing videos, TV shows/ movies/ gaming, live streaming content and chatting with family/ friends and social networks. And most importantly, all these activities they perform not with a routine mindset, there are inbuilt elements of ‘addiction’ in these algorithms that are the product of ongoing research on psychology, neurology, sociology and science of influence, designed to affect the ‘wetware’ of the human brain, which is also called the “grey matter” of the brain in which opinions/ perceptions are formed and decisions are made.

If Media is psychological and cognitive warfare’s most useful weapon then Content is its ammunition. Advanced research in the domains of Artificial Intelligence (AI), psychology and neuroscience has the potential to impact the cognitive functioning of human brains and when this potential gets leveraged for the psychological operations in real-time through a device that people carry 24/7 in their hands, the results are simply remarkable!

Zelenskyy’s Leadership Approach – a Brief Case Study on ‘Persuasion’

In the middle of the Russia-Ukraine War, Netflix decided to stream Ukrainian President Zelenskyy’s political series “Servant of the People” again! It is a political TV series created and produced by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who stars a 30-year-old history teacher, who got unexpectedly elected as the President of Ukraine (after a video of him ranting about the corrupt system goes viral). The series, which is the product of Kvartal 95 studio (a studio founded by Zelenskyy in 2003) ran for three seasons from 2015 to 2019. It is interesting that, while the series was still on the air, in 2018, Kvartal 95 studio registered a political party similar to the title of the series “Servant of the People,” and the whole election campaign of Zelenskyy was orchestrated to establish this narration that Zelenskyy in reel life and real life was the same.

Zelenskyy ran the entire presidential campaign on a virtual mode, avoiding human contact with his electorate, and addressed his voters through YouTube shorts, TikTok and Instagram posts and garnered millions of views. There was news that he also spent a good amount of time of his campaign producing the next three episodes of the TV series. An article “The World Just Witnessed the First Entirely Virtual Presidential Campaign,” published in Politico magazine on April 24, 2019, mentions that: “He not only traded on the image of a complete outsider, he also did no face-to-face campaigning, made no speeches, held no rallies, eschewed travel across the country, gave no press conferences, avoided in-depth interviews with independent journalists and, until the last day of campaigning, did not debate.”

The article further notes that Zelenskyy’s “virtual-first strategy” allowed him to run his campaign “on general themes and vague promises and to avoid issuing detailed positions on policy issues,” and the entire campaign was focused on the “discontent with the way things are—and lambasting Ukraine’s business and political elites for making them that way.” And finally, it concludes thus, “the U.S. and the West can help ensure that the choice Ukrainian voters have taken in electing an ambitious but untested political newcomer pays off and does not plunge Europe into an accelerating conflict with Russia.”

In a nutshell, from the 2019 election to the 2022 War, the internet and Western help were always on the back of Zelenskyy, and if one keeps the virtual propaganda aside, it seems like a classic case of installing a puppet leadership!

ALSO READ: Cognitive Warfare in the Ukraine War (Part 2)

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Information Weaponsied in the Ukraine War

Russia-Ukraine war is not the first war of the Information age but it certainly marks the beginning of a new and dangerous trend in Information Warfare. The ease with which more than half of the world’s population is being denied to their basic right – the right to freedom of ‘opinion’ and ‘expression,’ the way 4.9 billion internet users have been made hostage to tech platforms’ filtered worldview (on the click of a mouse), must be a matter of concern for all responsible countries of the world!

The plight of Ukrainians is heart-wrenching and cannot be justified but that is one side of the War, and knowing the other side, no matter whether it’s black or white, comes under the most celebrated definition of individual freedom as well!

From the beginning, it appears that for the Big Tech club, this war offers a perfect moral terrain to test their enormous digital might (accumulated over the years) – to see how much their improvisation can influence social, political, and geopolitical events to shape the destiny of a War, in real-time! But what if this pilot completed successfully? Will it be called the loss of Russia alone!

Recent Developments

On 16th March, while introducing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to U.S. Congress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (in an emotional gesture) led the members of the house in chanting “Slava Ukraini” (Glory to Ukraine). The virtual address of Ukraine’s social media star President aired live, received millions of views, likes, comments, re-tweets, impressions, and shares across the world. Within a few minutes of the live stream, almost all major social media platforms got flooded with public reactions/emotions in the support of Zelenskyy and an equal proportion of hatred against Russian President Vladimir Putin. From the beginning, Zelenskyy’s moves tok the internet by storm, and everything related to him was ‘viral’ on social media platforms, and that was, perhaps, a sufficient reason to hail the ‘glory’ of a President, whose country was in the middle of a war!

Before ending his speech, Zelenskyy played a 2 min 20 seconds video too, where mass devastation of his country by Russian troops, along with scenes of good old days and present scenario were presented in a single frame (with slow music in the background). The video was so perfectly composed that it makes one wonder whether the Ukrainian President is sitting inside a bunker with his troops (from where he often posts pictures and videos on his Instagram/Twitter/YouTube/Facebook etc.) or with his ‘Kvartal-95’ studio staff!

If the Russia-Ukraine war would have been a movie or a reality show, it would have been declared a global blockbuster by far and Zelenskyy would have been nominated for an Oscar 2022 (through online voting lines)! But unfortunately, this is not the case. In between these much-celebrated ‘glories’, standing ovations, routine social media lives, and heroic press conferences; there are some grim realities of War and some real numbers that exist too.

War has already caused grave damage to common Ukrainians, their properties, infrastructure, and source of livelihood are severely destroyed. According to a recent UN report, War in Ukraine damaged over $100 billion worth of infrastructure and inflicted hundreds of civilian and military causalities. And if the conflict drags on, it risks creating a “devastating freefall into poverty” and “extreme vulnerability” for millions of people. There are also estimates that if the War protracted at the current pace, the rest of the world will soon start feeling the heat as well, and all prospects of post-Covid global economic recovery will get seriously affected!

But far from all these real-life challenges, the Ukrainian President is busy fighting a different kind of war.

Weapon of Mass ‘Deception’ and New Front Lines

It is said that “control people’s perceptions of reality and you control them.” Applying aggressive PR campaigns to deceive the real objectives/status of the War, is a part of a long and tested Western strategy. But what has changed now is that this time it turned more open, blunt, precise, and real-time, with the help of big tech platforms and their political/diplomatic executives.

It is interesting that when Russian troops marched toward Ukrainian borders, Zelensky sent an SOS call to Meta executives to block Russia’s media outlets from posting to Facebook in Ukraine and to cut off Facebook and Instagram in Russia itself. Nick Clegg, former deputy Prime Minister, United Kingdom, and current Policy Affairs head of Meta (who was promoted to the position a few days before the War) responded to that call by not only blocking Russian Media in Ukraine but by making ‘temporary’ changes in the platform’s overall policy toward hate speech too (so that Ukrainian can post ‘death threats’ to Russians and Putin). According to Bloomberg’s report, from the beginning of war, Clegg is in constant touch with Zelensky and his staff, he is sending them regular updates over emails, and facilitating them by providing additional features such as blocking pro-Russian accounts, hiding their friend lists, and blocking ads from Russian businesses, etc.

When asked an explanation for such motivated moves by Russian prosecutor, Nick Clegg tweeted that: “Our policies are focused on protecting people’s rights to speech as an expression of self-defense in reaction to a military invasion of their country.”

Now the question comes if media which Russian government controls is called ‘state-controlled,’ then how Meta can be called ‘free’ medium, after such politically motivated steps and ‘special gestures,’ taken by a former political executive?

It is interesting that for every social media/big tech product that the Russian government blocks in their country, there are VPNs and Onion Routers kind of service protocols to surpass that and to open the gates of the dark web for Russians but when a normal internet user, sitting in a third country, try to access Russian media outlets from Google, a “403 – Forbidden. That’s an error,” message returns to their screen (as an extra token for the so-called liberty)!

Volunteer Hackers and Digital Mercenaries

On 27th February, Mykhailo Fedorov, Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine and Minister of Digital Transformation, called out all hackers of the world to join Ukraine’s “IT Army,” and help the country to fight on the cyber front. On the same day, pro-Ukrainian hacktivists of the infamous ‘Anonymous’ hacker group launched a series of cyberattacks against websites of the Russian government, their financial institutions, media, and businesses. Within 48 hours, they claimed to take down over 300 Russian government platforms. As per the latest updates, more than 300,000 volunteer hackers (mostly millennials and teenagers) from different parts of the world have already joined the fight from Ukraine’s side. Through a telegram group “IT Army of Ukraine”, these volunteers are coordinating with each other, disrupting Russia and the neighboring Belarus government and their critical infrastructure, including Railways, and electricity grids, sharing the location coordinates of Russian tanks and troops with Ukrainian forces, and launching simultaneous propaganda war against Russia, with a simple and innocent claim- “they are fighting for what is right and what is truth.”

Covering the key in charge of this entire campaign, Mykhailo Fedorov, The New York Times article (published on 12th March) says: “The work has made Mr. Fedorov one of Mr. Zelensky’s most visible lieutenants, deploying technology and finance as modern weapons of war.” In fact, “Mr. Fedorov is creating a new playbook for military conflicts that shows how an outgunned country can use the internet, crypto, digital activism and frequent posts on Twitter to help undercut a foreign aggressor.”

Now Mykhailo Fedorov has a new request, which he again tweeted from his official account: “If Apple and Google notify all the smartphones in the world about the constant Russian shelling of Ukraine, all the people would force their governments to close the sky over Ukraine because of war horrors.”

From a simplistic view, it appears healthy participation of pro-active internet users to bring down the evil army of invaders but what if this trend becomes the new normal! Can the trend of running such a global war recruitment exercise and activism campaign, on the basis of morality and truth, bypassing all geopolitical talks/negotiations/efforts and other sovereign nations’ own national interests, be called moral and just, in all the cases, all the time? And what if in the future, some real terror regime will start a similar open hacking cum social campaign against the world? Then what would be the moral basis to fight against that kind of war?

Smartphones, Fast Internet, and Influencers cum War Fighters

On 18th March, a video of the Ukrainian president went viral on media, when he paid a visit to civilians wounded by attacks on Ukraine, at a hospital in the capital Kyiv and met a teenage girl receiving treatment for shrapnel wounds. Seeing the president next to her, the little girl started crying out of joy, and then she told the Ukrainian Premier how he is popular on “TikTok,” adding: “everyone supports you in TikTok,” it prompted Zelensky to smile and he joked: “Yes? So we have occupied TikTok?” The girl replied, “all talks are about you, it is all about you.”

This light-hearted moment is, unfortunately, the reality of common Ukrainians at the moment, which is also called the first “TikTok War” of our time! The country is under serious attack but Elon Musk’s Starlink’s fast internet services are healing the wounds of Ukrainians with TikTok, Instagram, Telegram, YouTube, Twitter, and FB lives.

From the beginning of the War, social networks have been flooded with videos from Ukrainian civilians documenting their live experiences of War, and the images of women and teenagers/kids posing for selfies, shooting ‘TikTok’ videos (wrapped in blankets in underground bunkers, army tanks in the streets, and so on.), playing music instruments amid the debris of buildings destroyed by shelling, etc. are going viral everywhere. Ukrainian social media influencers, who usually post videos of their travel, fashion, movies, foods, etc., have now started sharing their war experiences posing with combat gears and machine guns and they have virtually turned into ‘war-fighters’ on the battlefields of social networks.

If this social influencing game would have played out between the two countries, then it would still be called OK, but the problem lies in the unfair acceleration of this trend, at the global level. While on one hand, all major social networks have restricted Russian content from their platforms, on the other hand, they encouraged battalions of social media influencers (Ukrainians/Non-Ukrainians) to run a one-sided campaign against Russia.

We must note that there are millions of social influencers (cum paid workers of tech clubs) with direct access to billions of smartphone users! Encouraging them to leverage their access to spread propaganda for objectives of a War, under the guise of morality, truth, democracy, freedom, and ‘western values,’ kind of things, is certainly more dangerous than the state-controlled propaganda machines!

State Controlled vs. Internet Controlled

The Russian news editor, who unfurled an anti-war sign behind the newsreader on a live TV show and flashed a placard with words like: “Stop the war,” and “Don’t believe the propaganda. They are lying to you here,” earned a social media star and international celebrity status overnight for her ‘daring’ act of speaking against the government and army of her country (from Zelensky to Macron, everyone praised her for this act). But the question is- Will a regular internet user who expresses his/her views in support of Russia, be allowed to become a celebrity/influencer on the U.S.-controlled tech platforms? Forget about expressing support for Russia, even accessing the Russian side of the story is being completely forbidden in the so-called platforms of freedom and democracy!

So what is worse, State-controlled media or Big Tech club-controlled internet?

Occupying the moral ‘High Grounds’

It is often said that wars of self-interest usually end when the winner’s interests are satisfied but wars of morality are often “longer and bloodier.”

In 2009, while launching NATO’s new strategic concept, former US Defense Sectary James Mattis said: “we need a new Strategic Concept that reconciles war’s grim realities with the human aspirations of our own people and the global audience,” as changing character of war in the information age will require military forces that recognize that “capturing perceptions” is the new ‘high Ground’ in today’s conflicts, as “the moral is to the material as three is to one.”

From the beginning of the War, the focus of Ukraine is on holding the moral high grounds with the help of information weapons- Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Telegram and TikTok and they certainly have an edge here. But there is an interesting side of this superficial moral high ground as well.

From Churchill to World War II’s ‘Darkest Hour’ to Pearl Harbor to ‘9/11,’ to Terrorism to Third World War, in his speeches, Zelenskyy- the moral warrior of the social media age, is using every occasion to call out his allies and partners to turn this war into a global crusade for democracy, liberty, peace, and freedom! But at the same time, with the full support of the narration industry behind his back, he is quite assured that he will never be called an ‘aggressor,’ a term which is more frequently used for the Russian President (who on the contrary consistently cautioning the world to refrain from contributing to any kind of escalation).

Influence on India

In his article “To Be or NATO be: Putin’s War on Ukraine Is Also a Western Creation,” former foreign secretary, Kanwal Sibal writes: “The propaganda against India by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Economist and so on shows that a free press is no guarantee of objective information.”

The approach of Indian media (print/electronic/social) in this entire event exposed our vulnerability and vacuum in the narration industry too, Kanwal Sibal summarized our situation more precisely when he wrote: “The Ukrainian crisis has also exposed how our own press is incapable of reporting responsibly on international affairs. It is treating the Russian assault on Ukraine as a quasi-assault on India, with an outpouring of emotional sympathy for Ukraine and castigation of Russia as the aggressor, ignoring the complex causes of the conflict and the need for mature, balanced, and factual reporting, with due consideration of not being entirely out of line with the country’s foreign policy interests in search of TRPs.”

This war has many lessons for the countries like India, where not only in traditional media but on new-age tech platforms too, the western bloc has an absolute and ever-increasing dominance!

We observed that how social media policies can be relaxed for ‘violent speech,’ tech mercenaries (army of hackers) can be recruited online, funds to run the War can be crowd-sourced via crypto, releasing coordinates of troops movement to enemies has become the new definition of morality, and the War itself turn into a military show streaming 24/7 in smartphones, now should we continue to enjoy this free entertainment or take some steps for the future war preparedness?

What Next – Weaponization of AI?

In the Russia-Ukraine crisis, one thing which comes out in open is that every single western product or idea – from food to money to social media to technology is a potential strategic weapon! And a decision on how, when, and where to launch it, will not be taken by voting in the UN!

If the weaponization of information via social networks is capable to attack the ‘wetware’ of billions of people, what would be the scale of damage when AI will be weaponized in the future? We must note that all these tech platforms already have inbuilt AI capabilities, it is only a matter of convenience and choice of Big Tech and their PR staff to leverage it for their goals or not!

With 100 percent market access, we have given a free pass to Big Tech club in our Narration Industry (and their related economy) but what would be our future options when AI would be weaponized against our own strategic interests? And how are we planning to tackle that situation?

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