Information Warfare Using Aggressive Psychological Operations
Information Operation Roadmap Part 4
26 November 2007
The Pentagon's plans for psychological operations or PSYOP in the global information environment of the 21st century are wide ranging and aggressive. These desires are outlined in the 2003 Pentagon document signed by Donald Rumsfeld in his capacity as the Secretary of Defense called the Information Operation Roadmap.
More detail about the origins and purpose of this document can be read in the first part of this series here. Also, a description of the Pentagon's desire to dominate the entire electro-magnetic spectrum and their need to "fight the net" as outline in the Information Operation Roadmap were previously described.
What is a PSYOP?
A PSYOP is not specifically defined in this document but it does provide some insight into the wide ranging activities that are considered PSYOP.
"The customary position was that "public affairs informs, while public diplomacy and PSYOP influence." PSYOP also has been perceived as the most aggressive of the three information activities, using diverse means, including psychological manipulation and personal threats." [emphasis mine] - 26
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"We Must Fight the Net"
Information Operation Roadmap Part 3
19 November 2007
The Pentagon's Information Operations Roadmap is blunt about the fact that an internet, with the potential for free speech, is in direct opposition to their goals. The internet needs to be dealt with as if it were an enemy "weapons system".
Computer Network Attack
From the Information Operation Roadmap:
"When implemented the recommendations of this report will effectively jumpstart a rapid improvement of CNA [Computer Network Attack] capability." - 7
"Enhanced IO [information operations] capabilities for the warfighter, including: ... A robust offensive suite of capabilities to include full-range electronic and computer network attack..." [emphasis mine] - 7
Would the Pentagon use its computer network attack capabilities on the Internet?
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Maximum Control of the Entire Electro-Magnetic Spectrum
Information Operation Roadmap Part 2
12 November 2007
In 2003, then Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld signed a document called the Information Operation Roadmap which outlined, among other things, the Pentagon's desire to dominate the entire electromagnetic spectrum.
Dominate
From the Information Operation Roadmap:
"We Must Improve Network and Electro-Magnetic Attack Capability. To prevail in an information-centric fight, it is increasingly important that our forces dominate the electromagnetic spectrum with attack capabilities." [emphasis mine] - 6
"Cover the full range of EW [Electronic Warfare] missions and capabilities, including navigation warfare, offensive counterspace, control of adversary radio frequency systems that provide location and identification of friend and foe, etc." - 61
"Provide a future EW capability sufficient to provide maximum control of the entire electromagnetic spectrum, denying, degrading, disrupting, or destroying the full spectrum of globally emerging communication systems, sensors, and weapons systems dependant on the electromagnetic spectrum." [emphasis mine] - 61
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Full Spectrum Information Warfare
Information Operation Roadmap Part 1
5 November 2007
When the US military refers to full spectrum domination, they truly mean full spectrum. Information operations or information warfare is a key part of the military battlespace. Recently, a document entitled Information Operation Roadmap was declassified by the Pentagon because of a Freedom of Information Act request by the National Security Archive at George Washington University. The document was described by the Council on Foreign Relations' website as:
"A 2003 Pentagon document previously classified as 'noforn' (not for release to foreign nationals, including allies), this report details the US military's information operations, including psychological operations, electronic warfare, and involvement in foreign journalism. The document was made public by the National Security Archive on January 26, 2006."
On Par with Air, Ground, Maritime and Special Operations
The importance of information warfare is clearly laid out in the document.
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Iron Fist or a Forked Tongue?
The West's Great Leap Forward
29 October 2007
The motivation of the powerful take on the same primary objectives; more power through more control. The methods used can be different, but the desired outcomes are the same. Is a forked tongue better than a iron fist?
The following quote is from Georgetown University Professor Carroll Quigley's Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time and describes the reforms forced on the Chinese people shortly after the ascendance of the communist regime to power.
The second stage in [communist China's] agrarian reform (1955) sought to establish cooperative farming. In effect it took away from the peasants the lands they had just obtained. The argument for forming collectives was persuasive; most peasant holdings were too small to work effectively, since abundant fertilizers, new crops and methods, specialized tools, and efficient land management could not be used on the average peasant farm of half an acre. To permit such improvements in farm practices, the peasants were forced into cooperatives. By the end of 1956, 83 percent of the peasants, or 125 million families, had joined into 750 thousand cooperatives.
The third stage of agrarian reform, constituting the basic feature of the "Great Leap Forward," merged the 750 thousand collective farms into about 26,000 agrarian communes of about 5,00 families each. This was a social rather than simply an agrarian revolution, since its aims included the destruction of the family household and the peasant village. All activities of the members, including child rearing, education, entertainment, social life, the militia, and all economic and intellectual life came under the control of the commune. In some areas the previous villages were destroyed and the peasants were housed in dormitories, with communal kitchens and mess halls, nurseries for the children, and separation of these children under the communes' control in isolation from their parents at an early age. One purpose of this drastic change was to release large numbers of women from domestic activities so that they could labor in fields or factories. In the first year of the "Great Leap Forward," 90 million peasant women were relieved of their domestic duties and became available to work for the state. In many cases, factories and craft centers were established in the communes to use this labor, manufacturing goods not only for the commune but for sale in the outside market.
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Interdependence and the Luxury of War
The Grand Chessboard Part 4
22 October 2007
The following is a series of loosely linked topics taken from Zbigniew Brzezinski's book The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives (1997). These topics did not fit in to my previous articles about this book but are important topics in their own right and still should be addressed.
The first three articles in this series described the use of American imperial power to bring about world government, the techniques used to bring about the fall of the American empire and the rise of the United Nations, and the purpose of supranational unions within that agenda.
War, a Luxury of the Poor
War is an extraordinary tool for changing the culture of nations into the designs of the elite. The side being attacked and the side doing the attacking are both drastically altered by the process. With this in mind, the statement by Brzezinski, highlighted below, is referring to the usefulness of war to the elite of those countries and is coldly serious.
From The Grand Chessboard:
"That lack of confidence has been intensified by widespread disappointment with the consequences of the end of the Cold War. Instead of a "new world order" based on consensus and harmony, "things which seemed to belong to the past" have all of a sudden become the future. Although ethnic-national conflicts may no longer pose the risk of a central war, they do threaten the peace in significant parts of the globe. Thus, war is not likely to become obsolete for some time to come. With the more-endowed nations constrained by their own higher technological capacity for self-destruction as well as by self-interest, war may have become a luxury that only the poor peoples of this world can afford. In the foreseeable future, the impoverished two-thirds of humanity may not be motivated by the restraint of the privileged." [emphasis mine] - 213
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