Information warfare

Integrity Initiative: Foreign Office Funded, Staffed by Spies, Housed by MI5?

It’s the afternoon of December 11 and I've just been aggressively turfed from the offices of the Institute for Statecraft, an until recently virtually unheard-of think tank, secreted in the basement of Two Temple Place - a crenellated Gothic-style mansion overlooking the River Thames.

Things started promisingly, as Simon Bracey-Lane — a research fellow at the Institute — welcomed me in the foyer with a warm hello and handshake. His demeanour shifted seismically mere seconds later when I revealed I was a journalist.

"You need to leave right now!" he intoned urgently, eyes wide and face rapidly growing pale, "you haven't arranged to see us! Go! Right now! Please leave immediately! Leave!"

Stopping short of physically expelling me from the building but invading my personal space to such a degree he may as well have done, I made for the exit, Simon shadowing me every step of the way and relentlessly repeating his menacing entreaties to depart until I was safely outside and the office's heavy oak front door slammed firmly shut.

I wasn't overly surprised by his response — despite receiving millions from taxpayers, the Institute plainly doesn't like outsiders and goes to enormous efforts to conceal its true location from public view. Still, the organization may perhaps need to become comfortable with prying eyes in short order — for it's now at the epicenter of a international political scandal of potentially historic proportions.

Information warfare

Vice Adm. Ted Branch: Roles of Electronic and Information Warfare Staring to Blend as Community Matures

The Navy’s senior information warfare officer defined the terrain he is working in as a combination of electronic and cyber warfare with a goal for this year updating the service and joint strategies to create a set of guidance for the community that, “means something.”

Speaking Monday at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space 2016 Exposition, Vice Adm. Ted Branch said, “We’ve moved more into warfighting” in ways similar to undersea and space.

He said the reception in the Navy to the shift has given information warfare more recognition and more acceptance in the service. It means being seen “not just as enablers” in providing information technology but as a warfighting community.

As an example of the change in approach not only in the United States but with allies as well, the U.K. will be hosting an information warrior exercise in two years with a number of nations participating. It likely would be similar to the Rim of the Pacific international exercises the United States hosts, he said.

Information warfare

U.S. Senators Seek New Center To Counter Russian, Chinese 'Propaganda'

New legislation being introduced in the U.S. Senate aims to improve Washington's efforts to counter "propaganda and disinformation" spread by Russia, China, and other countries.

The bill, called the Countering Information Warfare Act of 2016, comes amid growing calls in Congress and in many European capitals to do more to fight foreign disinformation campaigns.

Russia, in particular -- through the portrayal of its actions in Ukraine and along the peripheries of the European Union and NATO -- has alarmed lawmakers and policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic.

The EU has set up a small unit within the European External Action Service to counter narratives spread by Kremlin-backed media, such as RT and Sputnik, and government-sponsored Internet activists. NATO has also set up a Strategic Communications Center of Excellence, based in the Baltic state of Latvia, to counter Russian propaganda.

Information warfare

Fighting the Information War

Information has always been part of conflict. Thucydides detailed the effects of messages dispatched during the Peloponnesian War, and "narrative" is frequently cited today as an important part of the war against the Islamic State.

Of the nations that practice information warfare, the most persistent is Russia. In a recent article for the Institute for the Study of War, Maria Snegovaya describes Russia's dexterity at using "reflexive control," which she defines as shaping an adversary's perceptions of a situation so that this adversary proceeds to act in the way Russia wants. Snegovaya adds that disinformation campaigns, a Russian specialty, are "designed to confuse the enemy and achieve strategic advantage at minimal cost."

Information warfare

US War Theories Target Dissenters

When the U.S. Department of Defense published a new Law of War Manual (LOW) this past summer, editorialists at the New York Times sat up and took notice. Their concern was that the manual stated that journalists could be deemed “unprivileged belligerents.” The editorial explained that as a legal term “that applies to fighters that are afforded fewer protections than the declared combatants in a war.” In fact, it is far more insidious than that innocuous description.