Ikhwanweb :: The Muslim Brotherhood Official English Website

PERSUASION

Below the very strategic “War of Ideas” is the tactical information war to persuade and dissuade. YouTube videos of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) against Coalition forces is well known. On the face, their purpose was violent coercion and a show of David sticking it to Goliath. The insurgents recorded the attacks, branded them with logos and music and uploaded them to YouTube as part of a violent marketing campaign. But the real impact was much more serious and ultimately strategic, but still not a war of ideas. 

Not generally discussed were the unintended consequences of IEDs. From armored Humvees to Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles (MRAPs), the strategic value of IEDs to the insurgent was the psychological insecurity they introduced into the Coalition. The reduced trust of the indigenous population had a spiral effect on techniques, training, and procedures. The resulting withdrawal from the “sea of the people” by Coalition forces severely undermined counterinsurgency efforts as the increased distance between the indigenous population and the warfighter “actually assists the enemy in accomplishing his objectives.”

While the Internet permits the impression (and reality) of war among the people and by the people, it is also used to groom alternative perceptions to build legitimacy as well as a capacity beyond reality. A prominent example is a Hezbollah video heavy on nationalism and professionalism that shows a combat cameraman alongside a professional-looking soldier.

MOBILIZATION

The image is of a mass anti-FARC rally early this year. Online communities grant various levels of anonymity to join a cause. Participation can be passive but represent an increased number of “views” to more active, such as membership, adding comments, and replicating content. While IP tracking is possible most don’t think about it and it is still easier to evade, or imaging evasion, than picking up a relatively expensive newspaper. Unlike radio, the online community provides not only persistence but also time-shifting so participants can join and contribute on their schedule. The community continually expands through replicative power of social networking (as well as bloggers).

All is not perfect, however. Sometimes the effort to mobilize is questionable. The use of Smurfs to protest war was one attempt to mobilize the public against against war. 

FACILITATE

Online instruction, whether accessed in a computer lab, cafe, or around the world is often better than dry manuals, especially if your “franchise” model doesn’t always require highly trained planners and executors. Sometimes getting caught can keep somebody off balance and show greater local buy-in fence-sitters thought existed.

This is where the “rubber meets the road” is where most groups are vulnerable. This is where their messages must conform to their goals the most without the sugar-coating.

One last word on the ability of the Internet to facilitate action, sometimes the tools of convenience can be used against us, as the image at the right indicates.

The immediate access to new and old information is unique in today’s environment. The ability to qualify information before it shapes opinions and creates knowledge has diminished as the trusted media sources, new or old, have a reduced window of opportunity in the time-compressed market to examine and to add context.  Likewise, their ability to broadcast clarifications and corrections is virtually nil. The same is true of consumers who frequently take less time to question and cross-check information as they increasingly demonstrate an intellectually lazy, but easy and comfortable, preference for reading, listening, and viewing content that does reinforces their view.

The media, new and traditional, gives life and context to virtually all activities. If the terrorist, or insurgent, fails to give context to the event either through an image or other narrative, the amount of influence generated from the act drops considerably, possibly to nothing or even worse (from their point of view). The target could portray the event as something innocuous, like an accident, or much more provocative than intended to create a backlash. Broadcasting the act allows for deeper penetration locally as well as replication to a broader audience.

The importance of communicating information in the modern environment is critical. We lament the ability of a guy in a cave to out-communicate the United States, but the group that was a virtual unknown in 1998 faced little opposition in the information war. We lost that fight as much, or possibly more than, Al-Qaeda won it.

We have returned to an time in which the value brute force is reduced and the pen, or keyboard and camera-phone, is mightier than the gun. The United States created a term for this “unfair” fight: asymmetric warfare. The only asymmetry was the adversary understood the power of information to persuade, mobilize, and facilitate action. The United States was a pioneer in these areas before détente and the return of secret diplomacy just a few short years after “public diplomacy” was coined diminished the importance of, and even the room for, public rhetoric in international relations. This lowered the level of publicly expressed antagonism and thus the utility of international information activities. Gone was subversion in favor of proxy wars and the anticipation of World War III. The power of, and even the concept of, public opinion faded in international politics in the face of brute force.

To beat the adversary, whether he is already “kinetic” or never plans on going kinetic, requires mastering the global information environment to match and counter adversarial messaging. The increasing sophistication of our adversaries to leverage the digital age, as well as the analog age with its culturally attuned rumors and night letters, has changed the objective of war. Instead of destroying the enemy and preserving oneself, it is a contest “in spirit, will, and intelligence on a silent battlefield.” It is focused on destroying the will to launch or wage conflict “by disrupting enemy decision making or paralyzing power systems.” The purpose is to “confuse him mentally” in “attitude warfare” or “perception warfare.” It is now organized processes of persuasion that the United States and her allies must master if we are to mitigate the threat.