Information Warfare and the Battle For the Minds of People (1 Viewer)

[MarineCorpsCandidate]

Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV survived attacks By ZEINA KARAM, Associated Press Writer
Fri Aug 25, 2:35 PM ET

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Its headquarters was leveled, its antennas pounded, its transmissions jammed and Web site hacked. Yet, throughout 34 days of ferocious fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, the group's Al-Manar TV stayed on the air — mocking Israeli military power from studios in secret bunkers.

How is a mystery. For security reasons, Al-Manar officials won't say where they located makeshift studios. The station stayed on the air even after its main offices south of Beirut were flattened by Israeli warplanes, beaming out live talk shows with political guests. Newscasts were broadcast on schedule.

Because Israel didn't take the US up on it's offer for bunker buster bombs. They were ready to wage the information war even in the event of massive Israeli airstrikes. In the end, it's the information war waged in the minds of people that matters most. Battles are not won on the battlefield, they are won in the minds of people.

And within hours of a U.N.-brokered cease-fire that ended the fighting on Aug. 14, Al-Manar came out of hiding and into the sunshine, its reporters anchoring a live program in the midst of the rubble of destroyed buildings in Beirut's southern suburbs.

"A flame that will not be extinguished," read the new slogan beneath the station's logo that was hoisted on surrounding, bombed-out buildings.

"It (Al-Manar) fought alongside the guerrillas ... fielding a unique experience of tenacity with great commitment," wrote George Hayek, a TV columnist for Lebanon's leading daily newspaper, An-Nahar. "Its employees were like the soldiers on the battlefield."

The employees were the main soldiers in this war.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060825/ap_on_re_mi_ea/mideast_guerrilla_tv

 

[MarineCorpsCandidate]

Here is another interesting quote from NPR:

The Party of God says it plans to follow the "victory" by helping those made homeless by the war with Israel.

Hezbollah recognizes the importance of winning over the minds of people over to their side by helping them. Hezbollah is an idea and it is an idea that cannot be defeated by bombs or bullets or Israeli troops sweeping into Lebannon. Hezbollah must be defeated by other ideas. The most fascinating things I read about US Army Special Forces was that their most important, most powerful weapon was not an M-16, but their ideas and their mind.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5708475&ft=1&f=1001

 

[Vader]

Because Israel didn't take the US up on it's offer for bunker buster bombs. They were ready to wage the information war even in the event of massive Israeli airstrikes. In the end, it's the information war waged in the minds of people that matters most. Battles are not won on the battlefield, they are won in the minds of people.




The employees were the main soldiers in this war.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060825/ap_on_re_mi_ea/mideast_guerrilla_tv

Care to explain where they got electricity from? Beirut's man power plant was badly damaged by Israelie bombs.

Generating that kind of signal requires a great deal of electricity.

 

[Simon W. Moon]

In the end, it's the information war waged in the minds of people that matters most. Battles are not won on the battlefield, they are won in the minds of people.

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Wars can be at least, if not battles.
I'd say it'd pretty easy to make a case that we've clearly seen in the past few generations that the availability of resources necessary to carry on armed conflict can be dependent to varying degrees on the cooperation of many non-combatants.
The degree that these non-combatants engage (or fail to engage) can have a significant impact on the quality and quantity of resources that are made available to the belligerents. In the short term, the greater a belligerent's independently controlled resources, the larger the operation that can be conducted w/o requiring the cooperation of non-combatants. Conversely, the smaller the operation, the smaller the need for the resources of outside individuals and groups. In theory, because the ultimate original source of all resources for all belligerents and potential belligerents is derived from non-combatants in one way or another, no belligerent can ignore the costs to gain the cooperation of various non-combatants over the long term. For a democratic country, the costs of cooperation are, in part, whatever it takes for pro-war candidates to remain in power so they may continue to allocate tax dollars. Very simplistically, if the non-combatant populace is insufficiently inspired, as it is stereotyped to have been the case in th FSU, the costs of conflict and preparing for conflict that will be met by the non-combatants will be smaller. Conversely and just as simplistically, with the support of a sufficiently inspired non-combatant populace, vast new pools of resources can become available – think of the stereotypical portrayal of the US in WWII.

Supposedly, with non-state actors, the cooperation (and at times merely the lack of interference) of non-combatants is even more crucial than it is for states. This would primarily be due to the disproportionately greater resources available to states vs the resources available to non-state groups.

A significant portion of the GWoT and associated conflicts takes place in the public arena. The US et al can wack-a-mole hunt down terrorists ad infinitum; however, as SECDEF Rumsfeld noted, "[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]The cost-benefit ratio is against us! Our cost is billions against the terrorists' costs of millions.[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]" While we may have the enormous resources necessary to carry on this way, it has to be asked if there's a way to take away these enemies' thousandfold resource multiplier.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]As important of a threat as the various terrorist organizations are, they're not the sole threat that the US has to contend with. The more efficiently we allocate our resources, the more resources we have available to face other challenges current and future, predicted and unforeseen.[/FONT]
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While it's important to hunt down committed terrorists, the war for the "hearts and minds" is essential to these types of conflicts as it serves to dry up the terrorists' pools of potential new recruits and cooperative non-combatants. This necessarily limits the operational capacity of the belligerent groups. As noted above, non-combatants more or less are the bottom of the resource food chain. They call it a chain because there're all linked- if there's a problem at the bottom of a food chain, then there's a problem at the top. As a belligerent carries out operations it consumes resources. When the resources available to it are reduced, a belligerent is forced to choose between scaling back its operations to meet the reduced availability of resources or burning its resources at the same of greater rate in hopes of turning its fortunes. [/FONT]
“[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Hearts and minds” translates to manpower, various fungibles, equipment and supplies. Because non-state actors almost by definition have fewer and lesser resources than states, the translation is more direct, more vulnerable and more crucial for them than it is for a state or group of states.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Of course none of this is really new.



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[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif] Here're a few further discussions if you're interested:[/FONT]

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[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif] [FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Pentagon Funds Diplomacy Effort[/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]"What's changing is the realization that in this so-called war on terrorism, [Information Operations are] ... might be the thing that wins the whole thing for you," said Dan Kuehl, a specialist in information warfare at the National Defense University. "This gets to the importance of the war of ideas. There are a billion-plus Muslims that are undecided. How do we move them over to being more supportive of us? If we can do that, we can make progress and improve security." [/FONT]​

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif] Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Strategic Communication[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]September 2004[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Washington, D.C. 20301-3140[/FONT]​

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]The DSB task force on strategic communication has completed its work and a final report is attached The report emphasizes the ability of the US to credibly communicate to populations throughout the world is critical for achieving our national objectives the topic of strategic communication was previously examined by the DSP in October 2001 the recommendations of the current study are in harmony with the previous efforts and are even more relevant today.

The task force met with representatives from the National Security Council, White House Office of Global Communications, Department of State, Department of Defense, Broadcast Board of Governors and the academic and private sectors based on extensive interaction and discussion the task force concludes that US strategic communication must be transformed. Strategic communication is vital to US national security and foreign-policy we are engaged in a global struggle of ideas similar in magnitude to what we face throughout half of the 20th century. Succeeding in the struggle requires leadership from the president on down. The US has tremendous communication capability in all the various private-sector media and academic communities.

The information campaign — or as some still would have it, “the war of ideas,” or the struggle for “hearts and minds” — is important to every war effort. In this war it is an essential objective.[/FONT]​

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Something much, much, much more nuts and bolts[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif] [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Information Operations in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom – What Went Wrong?[/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Major Joseph L. Cox[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]US Army[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]School of Advanced Military Studies[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]United States Army Command and General Staff College[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Fort Leavenworth, Kansas[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]AY 05-06[/FONT]​

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]This monograph examines the integration of Information Operations (IO) during Operations Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Iraqi Freedom (OIF). As a rule, most commanders considered IO ineffective because IO was unable to respond to the complex environments of Afghanistan and Iraq. This monograph examines how the Army prepared commanders to integrate IO into operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Both theaters offer good examples of how commanders integrated IO effectively and how commanders failed to integrate IO effectively.[/FONT]​

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