Feral Jundi

    Hear me now. All of you CEO’s and upper level management throughout all of the companies need to pay attention.  If you do not have a new media strategy, then you are in the wrong.  Just think of it this way.  Companies invest in vehicles, armor, training, and weapons to protect their contractors, so they in turn can protect their client.  So why are companies not investing in new media protocols in order to protect their clients from information warfare attacks?

   If the enemy attacks your motorcade in a population center, then films the exchange of fire and then purposely shoots a few civilians and then films that, and then claims that they were shot by contractors. Then they post it on the internet immediately afterwards and spreads that poison throughout the new media battle space.  Then all those journalists and contractor haters, along with the John Q public, all take it in and label your company as evil, and without question.  Is your company set up to defend against that? Can you defend against a Nisour Square style propaganda attack?

   How about journalists using new media to promote personal agendas, as opposed to being fair or balanced in their reportage?  Guess what?  That’s a threat to your client as well.  Is your company set up to defend against that? It should be, because if you were fully involved with new media strategy and counter-attacks, then you would have the foresight to do what is necessary.  It is called being prepared–one of the many tenets of Jundism.

   The report below can be summed up in one main theme:

Recognize that the winning strategy is “information engagement,” not “information control;” 

Embrace new media as a significant enabler of “that element of combat power called  information;” 

   So is your company set up for ‘information engagement’?  From the looks of it, most of the companies out there are doing a terrible job of information engagement.  And believe me, I am a security contractor who also happens to be a new media practitioner, and I have yet to see any of the companies take the necessary measures to operate in the new media battle space.  At least the military is talking about it, and bravo to them. –Matt

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Executive summary

Winning in the new media battlespace: Workshop top takeaways

For the U.S. military, new media and the Global Information Environment (GIE) present sustained challenges and opportunities. In recent years, new adversaries — armed with new media capabilities and an information-led warfighting strategy — have proven themselves capable of stopping the most powerful militaries in the world.

The current and future geo-strategic environment requires preparation for a battlespace in which symbolic informational wins may precipitate strategic effects equivalent to, or greater than, lethal operations. It demands a paradigm shift away from an emphasis on information control and towards information engagement. It will require cultural and organizational change within the Department of Defense (DOD) as it adapts to the world of digital natives – its own savvy Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines and their communicative expectations, proclivities, potential and risk; as well as its current and over-the-horizon opponents. Most of all, it will force the sustained adaptation and transformation of the way the U.S. military thinks and fights.

In recognition of the new media challenge, the U.S. Army War College (USAWC) hosted a

workshop in January 2008 entitled “Bullets and Blogs: New Media and the Warfighter.” This

workshop brought together leading practitioners from the Department of Defense, Department

of State, Intelligence Community, and experts from academia. To spark debate, the workshop

employed case studies drawn from the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War in Lebanon. This conflict

marked an important milestone for warfare in the information age. The non-state actor

Hezbollah proved capable of thwarting Israel’s primary war aims and forcing a battlefield

stalemate. While Hezbollah stood little chance of prevailing militarily against the Israeli

Defense Forces, its strategic victory was achieved by way of an information-led warfighting

strategy that leveraged new media to influence the political will of key global audiences

(including the Israeli public). The 2006 war previewed the characteristics of hybrid conflict1

that U.S. forces may encounter in the future.

A synthesis of workshop discussions yielded inter-related takeaways on what is required to

“win” in today’s operational environment, where cyberspace and new media capabilities are

significant components of the battlespace. Participant views clustered around three themes:

a) The contemporary operational environment and the need for information engagement;

b) New media, irregular and hybrid adversaries and core competencies; and, c) Enduring

challenges and priority issues.

A. Today’s operational environment: The information engagement

imperative

Cyberspace is an integral component of today’s operational environment.

1.  For the warfighter, information is now a critical factor in campaigns and major operations. In

some cases it is the main effort. “Effectively employed, information multiplies the effects

of friendly successes. Mishandled or ignored, it can lead to devastating reversals.”2 But

today’s operational environment is not focused solely on the battlefield alone. In the

ongoing war of ideas, the U.S. must preemptively use all elements of national power to

change negative perceptions and beliefs regarding its values and actions in the world. The

warfighter is the frontline in this effort because of ongoing military operations, which

are subject to 24-7, global public scrutiny on an unprecedented scale – largely due to the

changes wrought by new media.

2.“Winning” in today’s operational environment requires effective “information

engagement.” The win, especially against irregular adversaries, is in the form of

political victory. The center of gravity is public opinion – often of multiple audiences.4

Effectiveness is based on the ability to engage those different publics – in the idioms and

through the media that resonate. Increasingly, the expectations and communicative

cultures of audiences in the “information age” mean that a distributed presence on

multiple and personalized media is becoming more imperative. It is also critical to

maintain credibility at all times.5

3. For the U.S. military, “information engagement” represents a paradigm shift.

“Information superiority is a term we should throw out. You cannot achieve it.”6 New

media assures that no one can control the information available in the GIE.7 New media

also increases the capacity of adversaries to repackage your message, twist it, and use it

against you. In this environment, the goals are not “information dissemination” and “message

control,” which have been DOD’s institutional approach. Rather, the goals are effective

communication and “message stickiness”8 with target audiences. This requires a move

away from reactive information responses, with centralized control and permissions,

toward proactive and ongoing information engagement with decentralized authorities

and decentralized execution (rules of engagement), backed up by appropriate training and

a clear strategic vision. New media tools can greatly enable this paradigm shift. But it will

require fundamental cultural and organizational change, as well as a more sophisticated

risk calculus (see Points 6 and 12 below).

4.Ongoing information engagement is a proactive strategy that underpins both the

effective leveraging of new media, as well as the ability to counter the adversary’s use of

new media. By being in an ongoing conversation with audiences that matter, you establish

trust and credibility. This means that when you need to get your story out, it is likely to be

listened to. It also means that adversarial propaganda is less likely to stick (see Point 6 below).

B. New media, irregular adversaries and six core competencies

5.Irregular and hybrid adversaries — aided and abetted by new media — have

demonstrated the capability for rapid and effective maneuver in strategic information

engagements. Adversarial agility is underpinned by three factors: a coherent strategy,

synchronized methods, and decentralized organization, all of which leverage new media

to their advantage. The strategy is to discredit their more powerful adversaries, (e.g., by

showing them as using disproportionate force or harming civilians), while also showing

their own capacities to inflict harm (e.g., through IED explosions, etc). The method is to

capture (usually by filming) and package tactical lethal events in a way that serves their

strategic message. And, they have the teams, equipment and networks in place to capture,

produce and push out both imagery and narratives (whether manufactured or not).

Insurgent foot-soldiers are empowered and equipped to act instantaneously when they

see an opportunity. Overall, new adversaries excel in the six core competencies for agile

maneuver in this space (see Point 6 below).

6.Effective information engagement is underpinned by six core competencies

(SAMMMS):

Speed: New adversaries — equipped with new media — have proven capable of

generating image-rich propaganda that hits the Internet and airwaves within 45

minutes of U.S. lethal engagements. Speedy and proactive media engagement is

essential for countering propaganda, discrediting adversarial actions, and ensuring

friendly messages are heard.

Authorities: Need to be powered down. Insurgent forces get their stories out fast

because they all know the story-line, and are non-hierarchical when it comes to

message approvals. By contrast, the U.S. military works on a system of hierarchy and

permissions, and has lengthy procedures for ensuring Operations Security (OPSEC).

This creates time lags that have proven lethal for effective information engagement.

Message: Specific, consistent, persistent, reflexive. Stickiness requires core

messages to be: meaningful to the target audience; consistent across actions, words,

departments and operations; and, persistent, requiring a long-term investment

and engagement. These prerequisites demand educational investments (in cultural

learning), organizational reform (to improve coherence), and a refined capacity for

strategic listening (to understand how messages are being perceived, and to feed this

information back up the chain for course corrections). New media offers tools that

can enhance capabilities across all these fronts.

Media: If you aren’t in their space, you are no place. “To insert yourself into the

conversation, you have to engage the medium that people are tuned in to. Otherwise

they will never hear you.” This means engagement across the spectrum of new and

old media, both friendly and adversarial.

Messengers: Trusted by audience. Within the information blizzard of the GIE,

appropriate and credible messengers can grab the attention of target audiences and

help make messages stick. American Soldiers and mil-bloggers can directly and

effectively inform the home front by simply telling their stories. For other audiences

— including potentially hostile ones — third party validators9 can be “force multipliers”

that enhance the stickiness of U.S. strategic communication and propaganda-

countering efforts.

Synchronicity: Synchronicity enables organizational speed and agility by empowering

actors at all levels to act appropriately. Synchronicity is achieved when different actors

and actions, messages and messengers all reflect a shared narrative and strategy. This

does not mean a coordinated and controlled response. Rather, it means that a clear

strategic message sets the left and right parameters within which all agencies and

levels “nest.” Combatant Commands on the ground then have the “flexibility to tailor

their messages in a way that is consistent with the strategic intent, but responds to

particular local circumstances and is congruent with their operational activities,

not just their informational activities.”

7.Countering the adversary’s “big lie” requires a streamlined, rapid reaction capability

that prioritizes documenting, disseminating and speaking the truth. This necessitates:

filming all operations; using existing regulations and policy to determine what

information can be unclassified up front; a capacity for rapid declassification of evidence

post-action; improved video forensics; speedy, all-of-government investigations; and the

authorities to declassify/speak at the right levels (see also Point 6 above). It also requires

DOD and the U.S. Government to engage bad news stories honestly and forthrightly.

Credibility demands it.

8.Countering the adversary’s narrative by lethally targeting the message delivery system

– taking down websites or knocking satellite television or radio stations off the air – is

no longer effective. The future is not to remove the message, but to respond to the

message. New media is self-healing — you take it down here, and it pops up there. New

media communications are also viral: “Once the information has gone out on the net, it is

already mirrored to the extent that there is nothing you can do about it.” There are also

other potential 2nd and 3rd order effects (e.g., legal and proportionality repercussions).

9.However, the capacity to inflict temporary disruptions remains a critical warfighting

capability, and the palate of options for sophisticated non-lethal network attacks is

underappreciated by senior leaders.

C. Enduring Challenges and Priority Issues

10.Military commanders have much less ability to completely control OPSEC.

The contemporary operational environment is awash in new challenges for preserving OPSEC.

The potential for rapid and global dissemination of sensitive information has never been

greater. At the same time, new adversaries gather most of their intelligence from open

sources and from leveraging new media capabilities to gather and aggregate different bits

of information into a more strategic whole. Examples of new challenges include:

More people are inside – contractors, coalition partners, Non-Governmental

-Organizations (NGOs), foreign and domestic media, adversaries and local indigenous

civilians – and most are carrying new media devices such as video-enabled cell-phones;

Today’s Soldiers are “digital natives”- expecting a 24/7-communication capability,

using any number of digital communications platforms, and culturally conditioned

for communicative openness. Constant communication back home, text messaging,

participation in social networking sites and mil-blogging all have the potential to

increase OPSEC risks. This challenge is compounded by the fact that most senior staff

are “digital immigrants” who do not understand the range, scope and potential

exposure of new media platforms;

DOD’s efforts to enhance its strategic communication capacities also open up OPSEC

vulnerabilities (for example, enhancing the speed of communication and declassification

to explain events, pre-empt propaganda, and get the accurate facts out; or, letting

Soldiers tell their stories).

11.While increased OPSEC vulnerabilities are unavoidable in the age of “radical

transparency,” the path forward is more comprehensive planning that is fully informed

on new media issues, backed up by red-teaming, training and constant vigilance.

There is also a need to better define critical information, and to adopt a more sophisticated

risk calculus.

12.New media can also enhance OPSEC by reducing footprints, aiding Open Source

Intelligence (OSINT) and enabling deception, although the latter strategy has the potential

for blowback given the lack of control over information once it gets out into the GIE.

In summary, to achieve strategic agility in the information age, DOD should consider

the following priority issues:

Recognize that the winning strategy is “information engagement,” not “information control;”

Embrace new media as a significant enabler of “that element of combat power called

information;”

Prioritize research and development, and organizational change, to exploit new media as a warfighting capability;

Educate digital immigrants to begin the process of cultural change;

• Exploit digital natives – encourage, educate, empower, and equip;

• Enhance DOD’s capacity for commanding the attention and trust of key audiences

through improved capacities for appropriate messaging, achieving a distributed global

presence on relevant media, and finding and leveraging suitable messengers (third-

party validators);

Prioritize agility in the information environment, by:

• Enhancing speed of communication through: proactive information engagement; more

refined classification efforts; in-field declassification authorities and capabilities; and, the

removal of barriers to inter-agency and inter-service declassification;

Moving towards decentralized authority and decentralized execution by setting the

information rules of engagement; Identifying and mitigating risk, through a more sophisticated risk assessment process;

Ensuring commanders have non-lethal options commensurate with traditional lethal

options; Requiring commanders to define the desired information endstate;

Exploiting new media for better measures of effectiveness;

Streamline DOD policies and guidance;

Synchronize, synchronize, synchronize — across all-of-government;

Pursue a holistic approach;

Engage the legal debate.

Pdf. for Bullets and Blogs: New Media and the Warfighter