Modern Political Warfare: Current Practices and Possible Responses

Robinson, Linda; Helmus, Todd C.; Cohen, Raphael S.; Nader, Alireza; Radin, Andrew; Magnuson, Madeline; Migacheva, Katya

doi:10.7249/rr1772

Cited by 38 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Therefore, the U.S. failure to appreciate IW's wide‐ranging implications and objectives (and intermittent attempts to conceptualize political warfare) meant society's growing exposure to external (Russian) inference in the run up to the 2016 election remained overlooked. As actors increasingly employ similar tactics elsewhere (Robinson et al, 2018), states must take heed of their own vulnerabilities. However, even when acknowledging IW's expanded objectives, larger questions remain over how to best conceptualize the purposeful targeting of society discussed in Russian IW (and U.S. political warfare) and how/why this triggers the emotional responses alluded to.…”

Section: Conceptualizations Of Information Warfarementioning

confidence: 99%

Targeting Ontological Security: Information Warfare in the Modern Age

Bolton

2020

Political Psychology

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Recent studies have made great strides looking at the implications that the human need for ontological security has for politics and International Relations. However, less attention has been paid to how actors might target this need. While Steele and Mattern both examine the possible manipulation of subjectivity, this article turns to the concept of information warfare (IW) to broaden the view of how, and to what end, this is pursued. Congruently, by elaborating upon how the digitalization of society has increased the potential to influence and manipulate cognition and emotion, OS strengthens current literature on IW. It argues that by covertly perverting the information landscape, IW can alter how events are connected to national narratives, influencing policy by making certain options appear more/less shameful, or it can unravel the bonds of society by polarizing domestic narrative debates, purposely sowing ontological insecurity. This provides a firmer understanding of the strategic implications interference can have generally and of Russia's interference into the 2016 U.S. election specifically. Therefore, by viewing facets of IW as part of a range of tactics employed to manipulate/ undermine subjectivity, a more nuanced understanding of interstate relations subsequently emerges.

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Section: Conceptualizations Of Information Warfarementioning

confidence: 99%

Targeting Ontological Security: Information Warfare in the Modern Age

Bolton

2020

Political Psychology

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“…The idea of the "weaponization of everything" (Mousavizadeh, 2015) and "political warfare" has taken root in literature and political action. A report by the Rand Corporation (Robinson et al, 2018) has revived the expressions of diplomat George F. Kennan when he referred to broadening the range of activities involving the use of power and influence that occur in international intervention. Diplomacy, economic relations and military strategy are based on information, propaganda, support for resistance movements, and public diplomacy.…”

Section: Hard Power: Communicative Realismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Globalización y poder: la consolidación de la comunicación internacional como disciplina. Artículo de revisión

Manfredi-Sánchez¹

2020

EPI

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“…The Rand Corporation recently issued a detailed study of 'political warfare', a term coined at the outset of the Cold War to describe non-kinetic actions short of war, such as "grey zone" or "hybrid" tactics. In comparing the capabilities of Russia, Iran and the Islamic State, the report noted that recruitment was the most important element of the Islamic State's carefully targeted information campaign (Robinson et al, 2018). Civil war, military intervention and terrorism are propaganda assets for extremists in what is essentially an information war as much as a kinetic conflict.…”

Section: Explaining the Power Of Extremist Ideology And Messagingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Terrorism: Its Past, Present & Future Study - A Special Issue to Commemorate CSTPV at 25

Brunton

Wilson

2020

CVIR

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Contemporary Voices, Handa CSTPV 25 th Anniversary Special Issue 3 Discussion 1-Revisiting the wicked problem of defining terrorism by Alex P. Schmid Contemporary Voices, Handa CSTPV 25 th Anniversary Special Issue 6 5. Terrorism is an act of political violence which means that in the end it is intended to force senior decision makers to change their policy radically…; 6. The violence of terrorism is primarily directed at civilians; 7. The direct victims of terrorism are selected at random from a general target group; 8. The actual victims of terrorism, its direct targets, are not identical to its target group, which is the indirect but principal objective of the violence; 9. Between the violence of terrorism and its political consequences, or, between the direct victims of terrorism and its target group, there is an intermediate variable: fear; 10. The scene of terrorism is a monumental drama that arouses primordial, primitive instincts; 11. Behind the active aspect of terrorism there is an underground group that is either more or less autonomous or a secretive executive arm of a large and well-known organisation; 12. The terrorist group is a non-state organ or, at most, only partially associated with an established governmental institution and under its control (Aran, 2019. For an alternative list of twelve elements defining terrorism, see: Schmid, 2011, pp. 86-7). While this is a very useful list, there is one crucial element missing. Propaganda by the deed The crucial element that has stayed central with the tactic of terrorism is the role of witnesses and the media. While in the late eighteenth century serial public executions of 'enemies of the revolution' by the guillotine were used to create and spread terror, in the nineteenth century a sensationalist rotary press amplified the impact of terrorist bombings. Anarchist and social-revolutionary theorists and practitioners discovered that one could use demonstrative acts of public violence as a way to enter the news system. They called it 'propaganda by the deed'. To quote one of them, the German-American Johannes Most (1885): 'Everyone knows […] that the more highly placed the one shot or blown up, and the more perfectly executed the attempt, the greater the propagandistic effect. […] What is important is not solely these actions themselves but also the propagandistic effect that they are able to achieve. Hence, we preach not only action in and for itself, but also action as propaganda' (quoted in Laqueur, 1978, pp. 100, 105). By killing heads of state and government, ranging from the Russian Czar Alexander II (1881) to the Italian King Umberto (1900), terrorists made headlines without paying a penny in advertising costs. The principle of accessing the world's news system by deliberately creating bad news has remained the same. As one German terrorist explained in 1970: 'We give the media what they need: newsworthy events. They cover us, explain our causes and this, unwittingly, legitim...

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Modern Political Warfare: Current Practices and Possible Responses

Cited by 38 publications

References 21 publications

Targeting Ontological Security: Information Warfare in the Modern Age

Targeting Ontological Security: Information Warfare in the Modern Age

Globalización y poder: la consolidación de la comunicación internacional como disciplina. Artículo de revisión

Terrorism: Its Past, Present & Future Study - A Special Issue to Commemorate CSTPV at 25

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