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Non Kinetic Warfare Interaction

Maj Gen PK Mallick, VSM (Retd)

27 June 2022

Defence Services Staff College, Wellington

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�Why Strategic Communication? �

In traditional international conflicts, the side with the stronger military force tended to win. In today’s information age, it is often the party with the stronger story that wins. —Joseph S. Nye, Jr.

Americans today live in a media renaissance: Consumers have a breathtaking array of news and entertainment choices; individuals can turn themselves into news outlets on the Internet; cable and satellite television, along with satellite radio, supplement traditional broadcasting networks; and newspapers from around the world are available online. —The Washington Post

More than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media. We are in a media battle, a race for the hearts and minds of our Umma [community of Muslims]. —Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda deputy

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Strategic Communication Process

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Relationship Between �SC, IO, PD and PA

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Roles and Responsibilities

  • The Department of State carries out Public Diplomacy as an essential part of foreign policy.

  • The Department of State distinguishes between Public Affairs, which includes outreach to domestic publics, and Public Diplomacy (PD) / which seeks to promote the national interest of the United States through understandingly engaging, informingly and influencing foreign publics/ and by promoting mutual understanding between the people of the United States and people from other nations around the world.

  • The Department of Defense (DOD) is a key contributor to our communication and engagement efforts. The key elements of DOD involved include, but are not limited to: information operations (IO), defense support to public diplomacy (DSPD), public affairs (PA) , and civil affairs (CA) all working together to accomplish military objectives that support national objectives.

  • Broadcasting Board of Governors The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) is responsible for non-military, international broadcasting sponsored by the United States Government, including the Voice of America (VOA). Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio Free Asia (RFA), Radio and TV Marti, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN)-Radio Sawa and Alhurra Television.

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Roles and Responsibilities

  • United States Agency for International Development The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) works to inform recipients and partners of U.S. humanitarian and development aid initiatives.

  • Office of the Director for National Intelligence (ODNI) is responsible for coordinating the efforts of intelligence agencies to conduct research and analysis on foreign public opinion, communication modes and mechanisms, and violent extremist communication .

  • National Counterterrorism Center coordinates, integrates, and synchronizes United States Government efforts to counter violent extremism and deny terrorists the next generation of recruits.

  • Other departments and agencies with specific subject matter expertise and related communication and engagement capabilities may be asked to participate in communication and engagement strategy development and implementation as needed.

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Roles and Responsibilities

  • United States Agency for International Development The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) works to inform recipients and partners of U.S. humanitarian and development aid initiatives.

  • Office of the Director for National Intelligence (ODNI) is responsible for coordinating the efforts of intelligence agencies to conduct research and analysis on foreign public opinion, communication modes and mechanisms, and violent extremist communication .

  • National Counterterrorism Center coordinates, integrates, and synchronizes United States Government efforts to counter violent extremism and deny terrorists the next generation of recruits.

  • Other departments and agencies with specific subject matter expertise and related communication and engagement capabilities may be asked to participate in communication and engagement strategy development and implementation as needed.

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Information Operations

Information Operation (IO) are described as the integrated employment of:

    • Electronic Warfare (EW)
    • Computer Network Operation (CNO)
    • Psychological Operations (PSYOP)
    • Military Deception (MILDEC)
    • Operation Security (OPSEC)

In concert with specified supporting and related capabilities, to influence, disrupt, corrupt, or usurp adversarial human and automated decision making while protecting our own.

    • Capability Supporting IO. include information assurance (IA) physical security, physical attack , counterintelligence and combat camera. There are either directly or indirectly involved in the information environment and contribute to effective IO.
    • There are three related military capabilities: public affairs (PA), civil military operations (CMO) and defence support to public diplomacy.

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Psychological Operations

Planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning and ultimately the behavior of foreign government organisations, groups and individuals. The purpose of psychological operations is to induce or reinforce foreign attitudes and behavior favorable to the originator’s objectives.

  • Missions (force multiplier and effective nonlethal weapon available to the Global Combatant Commander) :

      • Advising the Supported commander through the targeting process regarding targeting restrictions, psychological actions and psychological enabling actions to be executed by military force.

      • Influencing foreign populations by expressing information through selected conducts to influence attitudes and behavior and to obtain compliance or non-interference with friendly military operations.

      • Providing public information to foreign populations to support humanitarian activities, ease suffering and restore or maintain civil order.

      • Serving as the supported commander’s voice to foreign populations by conveying the Joint Force Commanders intent.

      • Countering adversary propaganda, misinformation, disinformation and opposing information to correctly portray friendly intent and actions, while denying other the ability to polarize public opinion and affect the political will of the United States and its multinational partners within an operation area.

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Defense Support to Diplomacy

  • Defense Support to Public Diplomacy

    • DOD is reviewing recourses and capabilities that might best be brought to bear in its support of Department of State efforts to advance USG public diplomacy as well as U.S. Embassies Information Programs and to support other agencies Public diplomacy that directly support DOD missions.
    • DOD is committed to plaining and conducting DOD activities to implement its security Cooperation Guidance.
    • DOD is working through the COCOMs to collaboratively shape the operational environment in support in USG information objectives through activities that may include but are not limited to, Humanitarian Mine Action, Humanitarian Relief and Assistance, Counter Drug Activities, and activities supporting global counter terrorism.

  • Military Diplomacy

    • The activities and measures U.S. military leaders take a engage military, defence and government officials of another country to communication U.S. Government policies and message and build defence and coalition relationship.

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�Psychological Operations Group�

  • One Active Component PSYOP Group (approx. 1300 Personnel with elements deployed Globally)

  • Two Reserve Component PSYOP Group (approx, 2600 Personnel with elements deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Balkans)

  • One Special Operations Wing (six aircraft and USG,s sole capability to rapidly broadcast deeply into denied areas)

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Strategic Communication Relationships

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Public Diplomacy

“We must harness American power to reinvigorate American diplomacy. Tough minded diplomacy, backed by the whole range of instruments of American power—political, economic and military.”

- US President Barack Obama

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Public Diplomacy Definition

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Soft Power

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Where Do You Come In

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  • 4th PSYOP Group
  • Only active duty Army PSYOP unit
  • Part of US Army Special Operations
  • Command (USASOC)
  • Strategic Studies Detachment (SSD)
  • About 40 total analysts; Most have PhDs or are ABDs
  • Majority are historians, though some anthropologists, political scientists; all have extensive experience in regions they cover
  • Also MCIA, DIA Human Factors group
  • Current Challenge: Balance between perational support to analytic production

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  • What kind of socio-cultural knowledge do you need to influence someone else?
  • States or state actors:
  • History, international relations, psychology, political economy
  • Well-developed capability
  • Non-state or sub-state actors:
  • Social sciences such as sociology (demographics, polling), anthropology, area studies
  • Problem: Very mixed capability

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  • What is Ethnography?

What a typical ethnographer does:

  • Learns the local language
  • Works to build rapport with key members of the local community and gains “entry” into that community
  • Spends multiple hours per day for months or even years observing how people go about their everyday business and recording these observations
  • Transcribes and codes these observations into field journals to be used as primary source material
  • Analyzes this data to assess patterns of behavior
  • Conducts formal and informal interviews with key informants, focus groups or target populations to cross-reference different interpretations and learn underlying meaning

These practices enable the ethnographer to develop an understanding of underlying meanings, shared world view, and ultimately a tacit understanding of “ what makes that group of people tick.”

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Professional Skill Sets that have Direct Relevance to

Strategic Communication

  • Communications technologists can provide insight toward methodologies that maximize utility of existing communication modalities, as well as identify emerging technical capabilities.

  • Behavioral scientists and cultural anthropologists provide deep understanding of human cultures, identities, attitudes, and behaviors.

  • Educators with knowledge of culturally relevant pedagogies offer valuable perspectives.

  • Historians are versed in cultural perspectives and can act as interpreters of current and future events.

  • Economists provide data models to understand and forecast financial events.

  • Religious scholars and leaders offer insight into important dimensions of cultural life.

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Professional Skill Sets that have Direct Relevance to

Strategic Communication

  • Linguists and translators develop cultural sensitivities that are of great value in the selection of key words, messages, and communication formats that resonate with intended audiences.

  • Political scientists provide insights into power and influence in modern societies.

  • Librarians and researchers provide expert information access and data management skills and have country- and culture specific knowledge, contacts, and capabilities.

  • Corporate business managers and entrepreneurs have country and regional cultural experience, as well as ongoing relationships with international audiences, government leaders, and nongovernmental voluntary organizations.

  • Marketing managers of products and services are accustomed to leading the complex and interdisciplinary management process associated with building and maintaining brand equity.

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Professional Skill Sets that have Direct Relevance to

Strategic Communication

  • Market researchers who advise U.S. global brand management teams have developed a wide range of measurement techniques to research and monitor international consumer interests, attitudes and preferences.

  • Advertising copywriters, art directors, and media planners have proven abilities to transform copy and media strategies into compelling messages, events, and programs, as well as identify media vehicles that attract target audiences.

  • Producers and directors of films, television programming, radio, video games, and advertising commercials are expert in crafting compelling and persuasive storylines and images.

  • Artists, authors, and musicians live lives of demonstrated creativity that transcends national boundaries, and their personal stories and bodies of work offer windows into the American population.

  • Retired government officials can provide historical perspective as well as program continuity.

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Examples of Others

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Russia

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China

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The ‘Three Warfares’ :

  • Psychological Warfare seeks to disrupt an opponent’s decision-making capacity; create doubts, foment anti-leadership sentiments. Deceive and diminish the will to fight among opponents.

  • Legal Warfare (“lawfare”) can involve enacting domestic law as the basis for making claims in international law and employing “bogus” maps to justify China’s actions.

  • Media Warfare is the key to gaining “domestic over the venue for implementing psychological and legal warfare”.

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  • Confucius Institutes. Network of 1,086 affiliates (440 institutes and 646 classrooms) in 120 countries.

  • China now has over 400,000 international students studying at its universities.

  • CCTV broadcasts globally on television, radio, and online in English, Russian, Spanish, and Arabic, as well as Chinese.

  • Chinese embassies have successfully pursued cultural programmes and events around the Chinese New Year.

  • China’s spending on soft power over the last decade has hit $10 billion a year, according to David Shambaugh of George Washington University.

  • China’s soft power still languishes far behind that of its western rivals in most comparative studies: 28th out of 30 in Portland’s 2016 report on soft power or 20th out of 25 according to Monocle.

Use of Soft Power

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We typically design physical operations first, then craft supporting information operations to explain our actions. This is the reverse of al-Qaida’s approach. For all our professionalism, compared to the enemy’s, our public information is an afterthought. In military terms, for al-Qaida the ‘main effort’ is information; for us, information is a ‘supporting effort.

David Kilcullen, Countering the Terrorist Mentality, New Paradigms for 21st Century Conflict

Countering Violent Extremism (CVE)

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ISIL’s Online Output

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India

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Activities

  • Indian Public Diplomacy goes back to the days of Chanakya who advocated the quality of listening as one of the most important attributes of an ideal king.

  • Public Diplomacy Division of the Ministry of External Affairs was established in May 2006 with an aim to “educate and influence global and domestic opinion on key policy issues and project a better image of the country commensurate with its rising international standing.”

  • Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) founded in 1950, is the pre-eminent instrument of cultural diplomacy.  Maintains only 24 cultural centres outside India to project Indian culture to local people.

  • Ministry of Information and Broadcasting lends support to the public diplomacy initiative with the ministry’s strategic use of the media.

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PM’s Interview in BBC before 1971 War

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  • Global citizen
  • International community
  • Smart power
  • Right to self-determination
  • Freedom fighter
  • Superpower
  • Surgical strike
  • Engagement
  • Boots on the ground
  • Middle East peace process
  • Fair trade
  • Strategic dialogue
  • Liberal democratic order

I doubt relegating these words and phrases to the dustbin of history would result in world peace (another phrase that should be abolished), but it would be a useful start.

Dr. Richard N. Haass

President, Council on Foreign Relations

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Q & A

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THEORIES OF WARFARE IN LAST 25 YEARS

  • Military Technology Revolution (MTR)
  • Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA)
  • Toffler Wave Theory
  • System of Systems
  • Network Centric Warfare (NCW), Effect Based Operations (EBO), Rapid Decisive Operations (RDO)
  • Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW)
  • Transformation
  • Hybrid Warfare
  • Grey Zone Warfare
  • Multi Domain Battle

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“Warfare which involves the integrated application of all national capabilities, with technology playing a major role to degrade, disrupt or destroy systems/targets, while ensuring minimum physical contact of own forces”

DEFINITION

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Questions. Do they constitute Non Contact Warfare�NBC�Economic Warfare

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TERMINOLOGY

  • New Generation Warfare
  • New Type Warfare
  • 6th Generation Warfare
  • Non Linear Warfare
  • Unconventional Warfare
  • Contactless War
  • Strategy of Limited Actions
  • Non Kinetic Warfare
  • Economic Warfare
  • Hyper Warfare
  • Sub Conventional Warfare
  • Tolerance Warfare
  • Standoff Weapons

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"Tolerance warfare is the effort to push back lines of resistance, probe weaknesses, assert rights unilaterally, break rules, establish new facts on the ground, strip others of initiative and gain systematic advantage over hesitant opponents.

--- Dr John Chipman, IISS Director-General

Tolerance Warfare

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CHINA

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  • Psychological Warfare seeks to disrupt an opponent’s decision-making capacity; create doubts, foment anti-leadership sentiments. Deceive and diminish the will to fight among opponents.

  • Legal Warfare (“lawfare”) can involve enacting domestic law as the basis for making claims in international law and employing “bogus” maps to justify China’s actions.

  • Media Warfare is the key to gaining “domestic over the venue for implementing psychological and legal warfare”.

THE ‘THREE WARFARES’

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  • Edged weapons made of bronze, iron and steel.
  • Black powder unrifled weapons such as smooth-bore muskets and inaccurate cannons.
  • Smokeless powder rifled weapons such as modern accurate military rifles and artillery.
  • Automatic and mechanized weapons such as machine guns.
  • Nuclear weapons.
  • Precision strike weapons such as laser/GPS guided bombs, missiles, and artillery.

Slipchenko refers to 6GW as “non-contact warfare.” The first four generations required soldiers to fight face to face. Starting with nuclear weapons, and now in precision weapons, the need for soldiers to fight face to face is limited.

SIXTH GENERATIONS OF WARFARE

ACCORDING TO SLIPCHENKO

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  • Information Confrontation. Information struggles will sharply grow between command and control systems of strike and strategic defense forces at various levels.
    • Between strike and defensive assets of the countries.
    • Over the creation of a complex information and interference situation in the entire aerospace domain in the region of combat operations and on the entire theater of war (military operations).
    • Over imposing on the enemy one’s own rules for conducting military ops.
    • Over a reliance on information support for military-technological superiority.

  • Information confrontation in noncontact warfare is a new strategic form of struggle in which special methods and resources act on an enemy’s information environment while protecting one’s own to achieve strategic goals.
  • Possession of information assets is an indispensable attribute as possession of forces and means, arms, munitions, transport.

INFORMATION CONFRONTATION AND FUTURE WAR : VLADIMIR SLIPCHENKO

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  • Winning information confrontations will result in the achievement of strategic and political goals and in the defeat of an enemy’s armed forces (and the capture of his territory, destruction of his economic potential, and overthrow of his political system).

  • Noncontact war, intelligence, new-generation (not next-generation) war. The defensive component of noncontact warfare is found in the employment of the forms and methods to safeguard one’s information systems and assets via operational and strategic camouflage, physical.

INFORMATION CONFRONTATION AND FUTURE WAR : VLADIMIR SLIPCHENKO

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Trends in war’s changing character.

  • Wars are no longer declared,
  • “Color revolutions” (mass popular demonstrations conducted in conjunction with other popular efforts
  • To undermine national governing institutions) can occur quickly;
  • New-type wars are like regular wars
  • Nonmilitary methods at times are more effective than military ones.

The 2013 issue of the Journal of the Academy of Military Science in which Valery V. Gerasimov’s article “Principal Trends in the Development of the Forms and Methods of Employing Armed Forces and Current Tasks of Military Science Regarding their Improvement” was published.

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GENERAL VALERY GERASIMOV, ON RELATIVE ADVANTAGES OF APPEARING NON-VIOLENT IN ACHIEVING POLITICAL GOALS

  • The focus of applied methods of conflict has altered in the direction of the broad use of political, economic, informational, humanitarian, and other nonmilitary measures — applied in coordination with the protest potential of the population. All this is supplemented by military means of a concealed character, including carrying out actions of informational conflict and the actions of special-operations-forces.
  • The open use of forces — often under the guise of peacekeeping and crisis regulation — is resorted to only at a certain stage, primarily for the achievement of final success in the conflict.

  • The very “rules of war” have changed. The role of nonmilitary means of achieving political and strategic goals has grown, and, in many cases, they have exceeded the power of force of weapons in their effectiveness.

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“The main battle space is in the mind. As a result, new-generation wars are to be dominated by information and psychological warfare. The objective is to reduce the necessity for deploying hard military power to the minimum necessary, making the opponent’s military and civil population support the attacker to the detriment of their government and country.”

From a speech on “Fighting 21st Century Wars” by Russian General Valeny Gerasimov. 

“In the 21st century, we see a tendency toward blurring the lines between the states of war and peace. Wars are no longer declared, and having begun, proceed according to an unfamiliar template. The experience of recent military conflicts... confirms that a perfectly thriving state can, in a matter of months and even days, be transformed into an arena of fierce armed conflict and later became the victim of foreign interventions that can, in the name of humanitarian and terrorism-related excuses, sink those states into the web of chaos, humanitarian disaster and civil war.”

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�CHANGES IN THE CHARACTER OF ARMED CONFLICT ACCORDING TO GENERAL VALERY GERASIMOV, CHIEF OF THE RUSSIAN GENERAL STAFF

Traditional Military Methods

New Military Methods

Military action starts after strategic deployment (Declaration of War).

Military action starts by groups of troops during peacetime (war is not declared at all).

Frontal clashes between large units consisting mostly of ground units.

Non-contact clashes between highly maneuverable interspecific fighting groups.

Defeat of manpower, firepower, taking control of regions and borders to gain territorial control.

Annihilation of the enemy's military and economic power by short-time precise strikes in strategic military and civilian infrastructure.

Destruction of economic power and territorial annexation.

Massive use of high-precision weapons and special operations, robotics, and weapons that use new physical principles (direct-energy weapons lasers, shortwave radiation, etc).

Combat operations on land, air and sea.

Use of armed civilians (4 civilians to 1 military).

Management of troops by rigid hierarchy and governance.

Simultaneous strike on the enemy's units and facilities in all of the territory.

Simultaneous battle on land, air, sea, and in the

informational space.

Use of asymmetric and indirect methods.

Management of troops in a unified informational

sphere.

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  • Nonmilitary methods: 21st century wars are not even declared; nonmilitary methods now surpass military actions by a 4:1 ratio; this takes place with the involvement of the population’s protest potential, special operations forces, and covert military and information warfare measures. Remote noncontact influence methods are achieving the goals of battles and operations and new methods of carrying out military operations (no-fly zones, private military companies, etc.) are being used.

  • Unique character of war: foreign experiences must not be copied. Each war requires an understanding of its own particular unique character.

  • Forms and methods: these include the use of special operations forces and internal oppositions for the creation of a “continually operating front over the entire territory of the opposing state and also information influence, the forms and methods of which are continually being improved”.

Valery Gerasimov, “The Value of Science is in Foresight: New Challenges Demand Rethinking the Forms and Methods of Carrying out Combat Operations,” Voyenno-Promyshlennyy Kuryer Online (Military-Industrial Courier Online), 26 February 2013.

RUSSIAN CHIEF OF THE GENERAL STAFF,

GENERAL OF THE ARMY VALERY GERASIMOV

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  • Intensive fire strikes against seats of national and military power, and also military and industrial objectives by all arms of the service, and employment of military space-based systems, electronic warfare forces and weapons, electromagnetic, information, infrasound, and psychotronic effects, corrosive chemical and biological formulations in new-generation wars will erode, to the greatest extent possible, the capabilities of the adversary’s troops and civilian population to resist.

  • Nontraditional forms of armed struggle will be used to cause earthquakes, typhoons and heavy rainfall lasting for a time long enough to damage the economy and aggravate the socio-psychological climate in the warring countries.

Valery Gerasimov, “The Value of Science is in Foresight: New Challenges Demand Rethinking the Forms and Methods of Carrying out Combat Operations,” Voyenno-Promyshlennyy Kuryer Online (Military-Industrial Courier Online), 26 February 2013.

NEW TYPE WARFARE

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WHAT IT IS ABOUT NON CONTACT WARFARE

  • Winning the battle of the mind so that an actual military battle becomes unnecessary.
  • Shaping the operational battlefield by using a range of nonmilitary and military strategies to continually try to tilt that battlefield to own advantage.
  • Strategy for continuous conflict that stops short of actual military engagement. If the strategy is executed successfully, a military engagement becomes unnecessary.
  • Uses the open nature of Western societies and the communications revolution to create dissension and confusion within the West.
    • Social media, has become a powerful weapon for creating polarizing social unrest.
    • Communications revolution has led to a tsunami of information that is overwhelming to most individuals. 
    • Easy to create and disseminate false narratives designed to create social unrest and to advance the policy objectives.
  • State of a continuous near-war environment. It is a sort of shadow war, where anonymity and deniability are paramount.

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‘Although combat in Afghanistan and Iraq continues to require the defeat of the enemy on physical battlegrounds, U.S. commanders have discovered that lasting success over terrorist and insurgent groups requires winning on the battleground of perception … Ideas are weapons in the information age.

---- McMaster

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The insurgent, having no responsibility, is free to use every trick; if necessary, he can lie, cheat, exaggerate. He is not obliged to prove; he is judged by what he promises, not by what he does. Consequently, propaganda is a powerful weapon for him. With no positive policy but with good propaganda, the insurgent may still win.

--- Lt Col David Galula

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Hybrid Warfare

  • DOD requested US Government Accounting Office(GAO) to examine: whether DOD has defined hybrid warfare and how hybrid warfare differs from other types of warfare.

  • The GAO findings are: DOD has not officially defined hybrid warfare at this time and has no plans to do so because DOD does not consider it a new form of warfare. Rather, officials from OSD, the Joint Staff, the four military services, and U.S. Joint Forces Command told us that their use of the term hybrid warfare describes the increasing complexity of future conflicts as well as the nature of the threat.

http://www.gao.gov/assets/100/97053.pdf

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Hybrid Warfare

  • At a recent event sponsored by NATO and organized by the Atlantic Council, attendees were told that “there is no agreed definition of terms related to hybrid warfare.” In other words, the 28 members of the North Atlantic Alliance cannot agree on a clear definition of what they are facing. How can NATO leaders expect to develop an effective military strategy if they cannot define what they believe is the threat of the day?

  • NATO, and other Western decision-makers, should forget about everything “hybrid” and focus on the specificity and the interconnectedness of the threats they face. Warfare, whether it be ancient or modern, hybrid or not, is always complex and can hardly be subsumed into a single adjective. Any effective strategy should take this complex environment into account and find ways to navigate it without oversimplifying.

NATO, Hybrid war – does it even exist? available at : http://www.nato.int/docu/Review/2015/Also-in-2015/hybrid-odern-future-warfare-russia-ukraine/EN/index.htm

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America's greatest military theorist, Air Force Colonel John Boyd,� used to say .............

“When I was a young officer, I was taught that if you have air superiority, land superiority and sea superiority, you win. Well, in Vietnam we had air superiority, land superiority and sea superiority, but we lost. So I realized there is something more to it.”

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So What?

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ESTONIA EVENT

  • 26 April-13 May 2007, coincided with decision to relocate WWII Russian monument
  • Early attacks on Govt Web sites, then newspapers…some bank disruption
  • Media:
    • Cyberwar I, Web War I, a digital invasion, and a “cyber-riot.”
    • “Cybersavvy Russian nationalists unleashed a withering volley of "distributed denial of service" attacks crushing Estonian Web sites with countless computer-generated "zombie" hits, flooding servers in Estonia with junk data, and, as the International Herald Tribune explained, overwhelming "the routers and switches ... that direct traffic on the network.“

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  • Actually:
    • Effects were moderate
    • Over 2500 attacking machines were recorded in 96 countries. Couldn’t distinguish between willing and a bot participants; made prosecution or other punitive actions difficult. Filters were effective.
    • Web sites were defaced or briefly taken off-line, there were brief outages of network routers, and some sites suffered sustained Denial of Service attacks.
    • Combined efforts of the Government of Estonia and their commercial partners were sufficient to mitigate effects of the attacks.
    • Most Estonians were not affected by the attacks, and likely would not have been aware of the attacks
    • Finally, the intensity of attacks did not rise to a level sufficient to pose a serious threat to Estonia's internet operations.

ESTONIA EVENT DRILL-DOWN

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��ESTONIA�

  • Estonia has blamed Russia for the attack.
  • 17 percent of the computers that attacked Estonia were in the United States.
  • Did the Estonians have the right to attack the U.S. in response, and what responsibility did the U.S. bear?

-- Robert Giesler, Pentagon's former Director of Information Operations

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GEORGIA

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CHANGING FACE OF CYBER WARFARE

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We are facing a future where security challenges will be less predictable; situations will evolve and change swiftly; and, technological changes will make responses more difficult to keep pace with. The threats may be known, but the enemy may be invisible. Domination of cyber space will become increasingly important.. ….. When we speak of Digital India, we would also like to see a Digital Armed Force �-- PM's address to the Combined Commander’s Conference, October, 2014

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OPERATION CAST LEAD, DEC 2008

  • Israel began a military assault on Hamas’s infrastructure in Gaza on December 27, 2008, called “Operation Cast Lead.” A cyber backlash by Arabic hackers targeted thousands of Israeli government and civilian Web sites. Our findings indicate that Unlike other instances of cyber conflicts (Chechnya, Estonia, Lithuania, Georgia ), this conflict involved both State (Israel and possibly Iran) and Non-State hackers.
  • Most of the Non-State Arabic hackers involved did not have the technical skill to carry out sophisticated network attacks, opting instead for small to midscale denial of service attacks and mass website defacements.
  • No zero day vulnerabilities exploited in these attacks. Instead, most attackers focused on old Web site vulnerabilities that had not been patched.
  • This is the first instance of a voluntary botnet (“Help Israel Win”) used in a Cyber conflict where individuals voluntarily passed control of their own computers to the botnet host server.

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  • Forms of IW (October 2004, pg 20)
    • Command and Control Warfare (C2W)
    • Intelligence Based Warfare (IBW)
    • Electronic Warfare (EW)
    • Psychological Warfare
    • Cyber Warfare
    • Economic Information Warfare
    • Network Centric Warfare (NCW)
  • IW battle space deals with physical, information infrastructure and perceptual realms. From IA’s perspective, IW will comprise Cyber Warfare, Psychological Warfare and EW. (November 2010, pg 53)

INDIAN ARMY DOCTRINE

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“I’ve got no time for new technology – I’ve got a battle to fight.”

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“IN OUR EFFORT TO CAPTURE THE LEADING EDGE OF THE INFO AGE, IT IS IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER THAT AT NIGHT, IN THE RAIN, ATTACKING UPHILL IN THE MUD, IT IS THE QUALITY OF THE LEADERSHIP, NOT THE SPEED OF THE PROCESSOR, THAT WILL CARRY THE BATTLE”.

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WHO IS WINNING

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OSINT

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Caveat

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In a speech to the U.S. Military Academy in 2011, then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said,

“When it comes to predicting the nature and location of our next military engagements, since Vietnam, our record has been perfect. We have never once gotten it right, from the Mayaguez to Grenada, Panama, Somalia, the Balkans, Haiti, Kuwait, Iraq, and more—we had no idea a year before any of these missions that we would be so engaged.”

Robert Gates, “Speech to the United States Military Academy,” speech

at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, N.Y., February 25, 2011.

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"The old concepts of fighting big tank battles on European landmass … are over. There are other, better things that we should be investing in… cyber… this is how warfare of the future is going to be fought.”

Boris Johnson, House of Commons Committee, 25 February 2022