I'm veering rather heavily into speculation now. Based, again, on some personal rules of thumb w/regards to human behavior. That, and some things I picked up while studying counterinsurgency tactics and whatnot.
We have a tendency to lose sight of our goals and focus too much on the opposition. Going back to Iraq, for example, there's a world of difference between "kill all the terrorists" and "protect the local population so they can support us in defeating the terrorists".
When you focus on killing the terrorists, you can get the pernicious "whack-a-mole" problem we faced back around 2004/2005. You can kill them off in one area, only to have them creep back in as soon as you leave. Or, as the French learned in Algeria, you can create insurgents faster than you defeat/capture/kill them.
With regards to guerrilla warfare, I like to consider what life is like for the average non-political farmer. They probably don't care too much about who is in charge, as long as they can grow their crops, sell the crops, and feed their family. Preferably in peace. Guerrillas and the government want that farmer to take sides. The guerrilla would love to have food, the ability maneuver through those farm fields, and the surety of safety that comes from knowing the farmer won't give them up. The government would also like the support of that farmer, since the farmer can report any guerrilla movement they see.
The guerrilla is trying to tap into some sort of grievance against the government. If that grievance is widespread and shared, they may see significant support from that (not-so-apolitical) farmer. If not, then the government probably is getting plenty of tips and is right on top of the guerrilla.
If the support for the guerrilla is widespread enough, they can probably grow into a revolutionary movement and overthrow the government. If the support is not there, the government can keep them in check.
When the non-political population is more divided, things get tricky. They may despise a corrupt or incompetent government, yet not support the violence and disruption of the guerrillas. Or there may be some other dynamic.
Anyways, it seems to me that guerillas, at some point, may have to make a choice on how to sustain their support. In our own revolution (which did use some guerrilla tactics) the revolutionaries risked losing more and more of their voluntary militia-men as support waned. The Battle of Trenton gave an important morale boost, since that victory helped sustain support. Anyways, if that victory hadn't occurred, the revolutionaries would have faced a tough choice to let their volunteer militia of mostly farmers to go back home and farm, or to try and keep them there against their will. I don't think anyone was going to try and keep them, but I bring that up because in a different choice has been made elsewhere. Child soldiers, for example, are taken against their will and forced to fight for one side or another.
Going back to that apolitical farmer, if the guerrillas don't have enough support to get food and other essentials, they sometimes will harrass the local farmers and take what they need. (Alternatively, they can give up, starve, or find resources somewhere else. Like through criminal activity or somesuch). They'll often justify it as saying "we're fighting on your behalf" and "you'll be better off if we win", but that apolitical farmer generally can't trust that, and sees the guerrillas more as violent thieves taking what they want.
That's when counterinsurgency and guerrilla warfare starts getting ugly. The population is beset on both sides, by brutal government loyalists and just-as-brutal guerrillas.
If one side could win hearts and minds, to use what has pretty much become a cliche, it could create a turning point. Unfortunately, both sides tend to focus more and more on killing each other then on creating the kind of system that would draw support from that apolitical farmer. To go back to our whack-a-mole example, US troops would come in and kill the insurgents...and move on. Then the insurgents would come back and kill anyone who cooperated with us, and terrorize the population so much that when US troops returned nobody would support them. It wasn't that the entire population supported the insurgents - the insurgents killed and terrorized many of their own people - but when we were more focused on killing the insurgents then on protecting the people we were never able to get the kind of intel we needed.
Anyways, same dynamics play out elsewhere. Albeit less violently. With regards to information warfare and psychological warfare, I don't want to underestimate such things, but I also don't want to exaggerate them too much. I think it's a bit like marketing campaigns - I know that not all ads work, and that many of the ads that do work only work because I'm already looking to buy something like it. Or was unaware that a certain product existed in the first place. Take Barnes & Noble coupons - they work, partly because I know I will buy books anyway and prefer to buy them when I can get them at the cheapest rate...but I'm probably going to buy books anyway. The coupons do get me to buy more than I otherwise would have, but it's not really against my will...it just changes my budget calculations on how much I can get.
Hmmm. Not sure I put that right. Okay...on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter I generally scroll past any of the in-app ads without wasting my time on them. Like Tumblr has an add for Wayfair. Maybe if I was looking to buy furniture I'd click on it, I've used Wayfair before I think, but I'm not looking right now so I don't bother. And I personally dislike the "episodechooseyourstory" ads...wish I could block them. Not sure if that's just a bad campaign, or that the data for targeting me is terrible. Thing is, if the ad isn't something I'm already interested in it's not going to work very well. If it's a good ad, I might remember that company if/when I am in the market for something. Car ads, for example...I definitely don't plan on buying a new car any time soon, but maybe next time I do I'll remember a particular brand or model because of a commercial.
If the CIA or Russia have success, I think it's for similar reasons as those ads, and those guerrilla movements - they are tapping into some sort of widespread grievance that already exists. If it didn't resonate, if average people didn't feel like whatever-it-was matched their experience, it wouldn't get much support. From that perspective, the Democratic focus on Russian involvement is a bit of a boondoggle. Yes, it's scary and the implications are concerning, but Russia couldn't have affected the election as much as the Democrats suspect if there weren't other things going on. I'm not saying to drop the issue entirely, but I am saying that Trump's election highlights a problem that probably had an even greater impact than Russia - namely that neither party seems to represent the average American any more.
Most Americans did not like Trump or Hillary. But the parties are so focused on fighting each other, especially with the often irrelevant echo chamber of stories in the mainstream media, that there is a massive untapped potential for support. I don't want to say "in the middle", because it's true that most Americans lean more towards one end of the political spectrum or the other. It's just that most don't really feel like either party represents them. That is part of what Trump tapped into, though I'm not too pleased with the results.
So to get back to the article that started all of this - I think there's some truth to it. I also think the effects of information warfare and psychological warfare are sometimes exaggerated. I think a lot of influencers don't realize this, so some of the debates over truth, facts, etc. reflect a mistaken idea about what will work...but this is such a new arena that nobody really knows yet what will and won't work.
And even if, in the long run, some of this will backfire...it still is making a mess of things today. Like my earlier post about cybercrime, and how cybercrime can grow like a cancer if it's not kept in check...the free-for-all in this new arena can have negative effects regardless of whether a specific tactic is successful or not. That is, some people are saying "if they can just make you distrust your own news sources, and not know what to believe, it's as effective as making you believe something that isn't true." Even if people eventually sort out the fact from the fiction, if it takes too long to sort out, if the confusion is too widespread, and if success breeds success, things may get out of hand...and the fears of information warfare and psychological operations might not be all that exaggerated.
We have a tendency to lose sight of our goals and focus too much on the opposition. Going back to Iraq, for example, there's a world of difference between "kill all the terrorists" and "protect the local population so they can support us in defeating the terrorists".
When you focus on killing the terrorists, you can get the pernicious "whack-a-mole" problem we faced back around 2004/2005. You can kill them off in one area, only to have them creep back in as soon as you leave. Or, as the French learned in Algeria, you can create insurgents faster than you defeat/capture/kill them.
With regards to guerrilla warfare, I like to consider what life is like for the average non-political farmer. They probably don't care too much about who is in charge, as long as they can grow their crops, sell the crops, and feed their family. Preferably in peace. Guerrillas and the government want that farmer to take sides. The guerrilla would love to have food, the ability maneuver through those farm fields, and the surety of safety that comes from knowing the farmer won't give them up. The government would also like the support of that farmer, since the farmer can report any guerrilla movement they see.
The guerrilla is trying to tap into some sort of grievance against the government. If that grievance is widespread and shared, they may see significant support from that (not-so-apolitical) farmer. If not, then the government probably is getting plenty of tips and is right on top of the guerrilla.
If the support for the guerrilla is widespread enough, they can probably grow into a revolutionary movement and overthrow the government. If the support is not there, the government can keep them in check.
When the non-political population is more divided, things get tricky. They may despise a corrupt or incompetent government, yet not support the violence and disruption of the guerrillas. Or there may be some other dynamic.
Anyways, it seems to me that guerillas, at some point, may have to make a choice on how to sustain their support. In our own revolution (which did use some guerrilla tactics) the revolutionaries risked losing more and more of their voluntary militia-men as support waned. The Battle of Trenton gave an important morale boost, since that victory helped sustain support. Anyways, if that victory hadn't occurred, the revolutionaries would have faced a tough choice to let their volunteer militia of mostly farmers to go back home and farm, or to try and keep them there against their will. I don't think anyone was going to try and keep them, but I bring that up because in a different choice has been made elsewhere. Child soldiers, for example, are taken against their will and forced to fight for one side or another.
Going back to that apolitical farmer, if the guerrillas don't have enough support to get food and other essentials, they sometimes will harrass the local farmers and take what they need. (Alternatively, they can give up, starve, or find resources somewhere else. Like through criminal activity or somesuch). They'll often justify it as saying "we're fighting on your behalf" and "you'll be better off if we win", but that apolitical farmer generally can't trust that, and sees the guerrillas more as violent thieves taking what they want.
That's when counterinsurgency and guerrilla warfare starts getting ugly. The population is beset on both sides, by brutal government loyalists and just-as-brutal guerrillas.
If one side could win hearts and minds, to use what has pretty much become a cliche, it could create a turning point. Unfortunately, both sides tend to focus more and more on killing each other then on creating the kind of system that would draw support from that apolitical farmer. To go back to our whack-a-mole example, US troops would come in and kill the insurgents...and move on. Then the insurgents would come back and kill anyone who cooperated with us, and terrorize the population so much that when US troops returned nobody would support them. It wasn't that the entire population supported the insurgents - the insurgents killed and terrorized many of their own people - but when we were more focused on killing the insurgents then on protecting the people we were never able to get the kind of intel we needed.
Anyways, same dynamics play out elsewhere. Albeit less violently. With regards to information warfare and psychological warfare, I don't want to underestimate such things, but I also don't want to exaggerate them too much. I think it's a bit like marketing campaigns - I know that not all ads work, and that many of the ads that do work only work because I'm already looking to buy something like it. Or was unaware that a certain product existed in the first place. Take Barnes & Noble coupons - they work, partly because I know I will buy books anyway and prefer to buy them when I can get them at the cheapest rate...but I'm probably going to buy books anyway. The coupons do get me to buy more than I otherwise would have, but it's not really against my will...it just changes my budget calculations on how much I can get.
Hmmm. Not sure I put that right. Okay...on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter I generally scroll past any of the in-app ads without wasting my time on them. Like Tumblr has an add for Wayfair. Maybe if I was looking to buy furniture I'd click on it, I've used Wayfair before I think, but I'm not looking right now so I don't bother. And I personally dislike the "episodechooseyourstory" ads...wish I could block them. Not sure if that's just a bad campaign, or that the data for targeting me is terrible. Thing is, if the ad isn't something I'm already interested in it's not going to work very well. If it's a good ad, I might remember that company if/when I am in the market for something. Car ads, for example...I definitely don't plan on buying a new car any time soon, but maybe next time I do I'll remember a particular brand or model because of a commercial.
If the CIA or Russia have success, I think it's for similar reasons as those ads, and those guerrilla movements - they are tapping into some sort of widespread grievance that already exists. If it didn't resonate, if average people didn't feel like whatever-it-was matched their experience, it wouldn't get much support. From that perspective, the Democratic focus on Russian involvement is a bit of a boondoggle. Yes, it's scary and the implications are concerning, but Russia couldn't have affected the election as much as the Democrats suspect if there weren't other things going on. I'm not saying to drop the issue entirely, but I am saying that Trump's election highlights a problem that probably had an even greater impact than Russia - namely that neither party seems to represent the average American any more.
Most Americans did not like Trump or Hillary. But the parties are so focused on fighting each other, especially with the often irrelevant echo chamber of stories in the mainstream media, that there is a massive untapped potential for support. I don't want to say "in the middle", because it's true that most Americans lean more towards one end of the political spectrum or the other. It's just that most don't really feel like either party represents them. That is part of what Trump tapped into, though I'm not too pleased with the results.
So to get back to the article that started all of this - I think there's some truth to it. I also think the effects of information warfare and psychological warfare are sometimes exaggerated. I think a lot of influencers don't realize this, so some of the debates over truth, facts, etc. reflect a mistaken idea about what will work...but this is such a new arena that nobody really knows yet what will and won't work.
And even if, in the long run, some of this will backfire...it still is making a mess of things today. Like my earlier post about cybercrime, and how cybercrime can grow like a cancer if it's not kept in check...the free-for-all in this new arena can have negative effects regardless of whether a specific tactic is successful or not. That is, some people are saying "if they can just make you distrust your own news sources, and not know what to believe, it's as effective as making you believe something that isn't true." Even if people eventually sort out the fact from the fiction, if it takes too long to sort out, if the confusion is too widespread, and if success breeds success, things may get out of hand...and the fears of information warfare and psychological operations might not be all that exaggerated.
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