“It’s psychological warfare, just done with modern tools”

There was a good segment on information warfare in one of the recent Mad Scientist podcasts.

The character of warfare has consistently changed over time, with technology evolving from edged weapons, bows and arrows, gunpowder, and battlefield mechanization, to more advanced technologies today, including long-range precision weapons, robotics, and autonomy.  However, warfare remains an intrinsic human endeavor, with varied and profound effects felt by Soldiers on the ground.  To explore this experience with those engaged in the tactical fight, we spoke with the following combat veterans, frontline reporters, and military training experts for this episode of The Convergence.

48. Through the Soldiers’ Eyes: The Future of Ground Combat

“It’s psychological warfare, just done with modern tools.”

Always has been.

The statue of liberty is kaput.

“Before the Russians conducted the major offensive, they were all getting cell phone messages saying ‘You’re all going to die,’ ‘Your commander betrayed you.’ It’s the equivalent of dropping leaflets over your enemies in other wars.”

“A lot of the aspects of airpower, for which it was originally conceived has been replaced by these modern electronic tools – whether it’s taking out infrastructure, degrading morale, [or] interfering with the command and control process.”

Nolan Peterson

Here’s what it looks like from someone on the receiving end.

“We got these messages saying something like ‘Ukrainian soldiers go home…’ – Really stupid stuff, it wasn’t effective, but we knew that they had the equipment that could pick up the cell numbers, scan, and send the message.”

Denys Antipov

There was also mention of how states engage in information warfare against one another, targeting not just each other, but those who are watching.

This is political warfare.

“That sort of thing is going to be background noise in future war and we need to figure out how to counter it because it’s going to be there. Our opponent is going to think that we’re in the right and that they’re winning and we’ve got to figure out how to deal with it.”

COL Scott Shaw

This is absolutely right. My only addition here is that for the most part, we don’t have to counter it, we have to ignore it.

Commanders everywhere feel a pressure to “do something” whenever something pops up in the information environment. That inclination is almost always wrong. It’s noise. It’s designed to get you to act.

Be patient.

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