Information at War. Philip Seib

humanitarian organizations are determined that the world should know about this aspect of the costs of war. Cold objectivity sometimes is set aside in favor of a “journalism of attachment” that tells the truth about wartime savagery as it affects individuals.²⁵

      In chapter 4, “Social Media Go to War,” examples of social media’s effects on conflict are reviewed. More sophisticated than citizen journalists are the information arms of nations’ militaries. They battle each other on social media, making their respective cases to near and distant audiences. Given that so many media venues are now global in reach, the contest over worldwide public opinion accompanies even conflicts in which the physical battlefield is small and isolated. Such has been the case between the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Hamas fighters of Gaza. In terms of basic military power, this is a mismatch; the IDF possess much more firepower and other war-fighting technology than their Palestinian opponents do. In an all-out conventional confrontation, the IDF would certainly prevail. But political factors somewhat limit Israel’s combat options, and on the information battleground social media can serve Hamas as a kind of political equalizer if users possess the skills needed to produce attention-getting content.

The IDF–Hamas conflict is relatively transparent for those who want to watch the two sides make their cases in an online debate in which they are armed with words and images. But make no mistake – people still die while the barrages of information fly back and forth.

      Non-state actors such as terrorist groups have also found that social media offer congenial platforms for their information purposes. Islamic State, Al Qaeda, and others have relied on online tools for recruiting, fundraising, and delivering a mix of threats and self-promotion, as well as for on-the-ground combat coordination. They use traditional news releases, in several languages, to tout their latest bloody accomplishments, and although mainstream media organizations can deny these extremist groups access to the public through their own venues, wholly excluding tech-smart users from social media is difficult. When Twitter sought to purge Islamic State messaging, it closed down more than 100,000 accounts in just one month, but it was far from certain that this effort had been as comprehensive as intended, and many of these accounts may have been swiftly reconstituted, either on Twitter or in “darker” recesses of the internet. Dealing with terrorist information initiatives will become more important if Islamic State concentrates on a virtual, rather than physical, caliphate, and if groups such as Boko Haram and Al Shabaab become more adept in their online efforts.²⁶

      Gatekeepers have always been present in one form or another to govern information flows. In some cases, such as in China, these are government censors who rigidly oversee content before it can reach the public. In countries where information freedom is respected, newspaper editors, television producers, and other media professionals make decisions about newsworthiness based on criteria ranging from basic moral values to commercial interests such as keeping advertisers happy.

These gatekeepers were particularly influential when the media universe was more finite. Fifty years ago in the United States, consumers of television news had only three national channels to choose from, and newspapers served only limited geographic areas. Today, in much of the world, there is no such thing as local, or even national, news in terms of limitations on distribution to an audience. Even many small community newspapers rely on their websites to deliver their product, and so people anywhere in the world with internet access may read about town council doings and school lunch menus. On a grander scale, online news and satellite television are largely unconstrained by national borders. Citizens of most nations can read, listen, or watch how news media in other countries cover their own and others’ homelands. Governments that don’t want this coverage to reach their populations must struggle mightily to choke off incoming material that they find uncongenial.

      Although gatekeepers still make decisions about newsworthiness and appropriateness of content of their own products, much of the information universe today is populated not by traditional providers but rather by websites, videos, and text content carried by the likes of Twitter, Facebook, Weibo, QQ, YouTube, and many others. For the most part (with the exception of extreme content, such as child pornography, that government regulators or communication companies themselves ban), the material that citizens around the world see on social media passes through limited or no review processes. Most gateways for information are wide open, and damaging material might not be flagged except post facto. Artificial intelligence systems that rely on screening algorithms are useful, but not foolproof.²⁷

      Is the result of this openness information democracy or information anarchy? Probably some of both. For refugees in Congo wanting to tell their story to the world, having direct access to global publics is invaluable. For the workers in a Russian troll farm using false information to provoke conflict in a foreign country, their access is similarly vital.

      Chapter 5, “Russia and New Dimensions of Information at War,” analyzes disinformation. This kind of war-by-influence has existed for many years. In 1940 and 1941, while Edward Murrow was broadcasting from London about the plight of the British under attack by Nazi Germany, British agents operating in New York City were producing information – much of it false – designed to push America toward entering the war.²⁸

      Their efforts pale by comparison with those orchestrated today by the Kremlin, which has made information warfare a principal element in its military doctrine while it relies on troll factories and other content generators to disseminate largely false information that serves the purposes of Russian foreign policy.²⁹ The key to their efforts is volume, with hundreds of trolls producing thousands of online messages every day.

      Measuring the effects of contemporary political information warfare is still a developing science, but it is reasonable to assume that Russian disinformation efforts had at least some impact on the 2016 US presidential election and the 2016 British “Brexit” referendum. Further, such self-serving information tactics can be used to influence public attitudes about kinetic measures such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014.³⁰

Just as major militaries have had to expand their expertise beyond grand battlefield scenarios and adjust to the demands of combatting insurgencies and terrorists, so too must they develop strategies to address the exigencies of information-centric conflict. For now, Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin and Islamic State stand out as having relied heavily on information-enhanced tactics, but they will almost certainly be joined by others. The United States has responded, targeting terrorists’ online recruitment efforts and, in November 2018, launching a preemptive electronic attack on a Russian troll farm to prevent possible disruption of that month’s US congressional elections.³¹

      Nevertheless, it is more than likely that state and non-state actors will continue to develop their information war capabilities. The Putin government has shown – in Ukraine, the Baltic States, and elsewhere – that it is committed to mastering the human–machine combination of hybrid warfare that relies heavily on information tactics. In addition to using information in armed conflict, Russia vigorously uses information to disrupt political processes within rival countries, such as the United States, as well as in Europe. One question this book addresses is whether such activity can reach a point at which it constitutes “war,” even if no bullets are fired. NATO has adopted a policy that expands the definition of “attack” beyond conventional armed conflict and now includes cyberattacks. Individual nations might soon do the same.³²

      Chapter 6, “From Media Manipulation to Media Literacy,” examines cases related to information at war in the Middle East, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, and addresses how the flow of information can shape public attitudes about those who fight. This chapter also considers how publics around the world might adjust to the threats posed by information warfare. On their own and through broad-based education programs, citizens need to enhance their media literacy. They must know when to greet information with skepticism, and they must understand how to go about verifying news and other material, particularly online content delivered from unfamiliar sources. Truth is a powerful weapon