Sep

10

Asymmetric media ops and the new irregular warfare

10 septembre, 2009 | Commentaires fermés sur Asymmetric media ops and the new irregular warfare

In order to understand the shift toward media in today asymmetric conflicts it is important to analyse the role of  information, news and propaganda in the recent cyberspace. I suggest you to read the deep, rigorous and well documented book « War 2.0 : Irregular warfare in the information age », from Thomas Rid and Marc Hecker, 2009, Westport Praeger.

Information War

In the chapter 6, the authors define what is the new version 2.0 of the Information War. They highlight the message of force in asymmetric media operations which are increasing their utility by taking advantage of technology’s impact.

From the beginning, irregular warfare is featured by the inferiority of non-state actors in regards of a state authority. Irregular warfare required mass support and tactical innovation from insurgents to sustain their activities. Tactical innovation is a necessary requirement at the early stage of an irregular war. It needs to be systematically pursued by the insurgents to reach their political goals. To gain the mass support may be one of these goals. Tactical innovation means the willingness to improve and used creative means of action to achieve superiority on its adversary. This « creativity » rest on the ability to analyse the environment to take advantage of its opportunity. Today information environment is under a great change : mobile phone, web site, satellite, images on a 24/7 basis in all langages, at an incredible low cost. The media environment offers a lot of opportunities for the creativity of any insurgent groups. As a consequence, the public sphere is becoming the most important field of operations.

 Information technology increases the level of violence and complexity of war. The relation between the use of military force and communication is not new. But, in the case of asymmetric warfare, this relation is bias in favor of the insurgents. Finally, when information technology improved, it increases the means of action and the spectrum of opportunities mainly for the insurgents. The use of force is a kind of langage between two political entities trying to coerce the opposite political will. War is a form of politics, so political communication is a battlefield for war. The information technology trends is changing the grammar of this battlefield. This particular grammar consisted in story telling about the use of force. A simple fight near a small farm in a mountain may be depicted as a great victory or as a slaughter of civilians. The goal is to undermine the public opinion and the adversary’s will. The limits over the physical power of insurgents is balanced by the increasing used of the communication power. They continuously target public opinion and political leaders to build up their own psychological capabilities. If they are defeated on this battlefield it will be a severe loss for insurgents’ capabilities.

 The asymmetric relationship between insurgents and counter insurgents is coming from the duty for the counter insurgents to maintain civil order, to protect legitimate institutions like schools, to maintain roads, bridges, etc. This duty doesn’t accomodate any failure. The counterinsurgent is responsible for increasing violences, economic failures and political dysfunctions. On the contrary, the insurgent has no liabilities toward civil society order. It can only use its ideological power to mobilize mass support against the  authority to make it illegitimate. Our contemporary trends toward news consumption on a 24/7 basis all around the world have bring new opportunities for insurgents media operations to mobilize mass support.

 These asymmetric media operations followed the rules :

1/ the counter insurgent is bound by the truth ; the insurgent is not

2/ the show of violence tends to benefit the insurgent as long as it doesn’t overturn irreversibly the population support

3/ in the media sphere the insurgent has the initiative because it doesn’t have to report on facts

4/ anonymity benefits the insurgent, on the opposite, the counter insurgent must be transparent in order to preserve its credibility

5/ the cost of media operations is falling for insurgent

6/ the vulnerability of counter insurgent is increased by modern information technology (any accidental shooting at check points may be rapidly amplified in mass media)

 The best way to understand the use of information by insurgent is to  structure our view of insurgent’s communication by its target groups or audiences. In communication theory, it should be analyze by destination, receiver, decoder or recipient. The attitude of the audience may be neutral, friendly or adversarial. The size may be variable from local, the Shia in Baghdad or global : the ummah. The goal is to classify the messages and media product based on their purposes. Such a classification helps to evaluate insurgent’s media operation success and to design efficient counter measures.

 Based on the Hezbollah, Taliban and al-Qaeda cases, a purpose oriented classification to evaluate the function or utility of media operation is the following.

1/ insurgent use public sphere to provide ideological enabler for terrorist activity

2/ insurgent spread justification argument and legal materials in favor of radical activities

3/ insurgent look to capture local population support, popular consent and trust. Any local population, villages, and so forth is a constituent to the political insurgent power.

4/ insurgent spread operational knowledge and doctrinal debate in a semi public sphere

5/ insurgent used media operation for training through video, CD, etc.

6/ insurgent used media operations for recruitment through most of comumnication channel (pamphlets, press articles, videos, memoirs, sermons, forums)

7/ insurgent used media operations to raise funds through public (to demonstrate the utility of the donation), semi public (to tailor the argument toward particular group of donors) or secret messages (to convince wealthy individuals)

8/ insurgent also used media operations to increase the networking activities, through anonymous forums, VoIP, messaging, emails, etc.

9/ insurgent amplified networking on a peer-to-peer basis to leverage operational knowledge management

10/ insurgent amplified the use of force through media operation design to maximize friendly support and erode adversary will.

   The impact of these many ways of conflict communication is a direct result of the main trend at the origin of the new version of the information war : the information technology. It tremendously decreases the costs of design and implementation of communication plans, it increases the volume of news, it reduces the risk of using media operations. Technology also blurred the boarder between private and public sphere which enables a more intrusive media ops with better results. It facilitates the recruitment and it helps financial support leverage. As a result of this trend, media ops are becoming very efficient toward adversary population with high level information equipments. This may lead to a separation between military ops on the field with a difficulty to get local population support and the media field where the goal is to sustain a favorable public opinion.

«
»