Leaders of Japan and other nations are warning of a need to be aware of a hidden battlefield in the media and social media, The west has an unshakeable lead in hybrid warfare, leaving other regions struggling to be heard. Three new books point to a host of other areas that are being or could be weaponised, including the distribution of vaccines.

By Nury Vittachi

Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida joined the chorus of voices raising the alarm about the use of disinformation on Thursday. He said “cognitive warfare” must be considered in addition to cyberattacks, NHK reported.“I strongly feel that it is important to respond to information warfare, including cognitive areas, such as fake news and disinformation via social media. During discussions on formulating a national security strategy, this is an issue that must be thoroughly considered.”

No one plays it straight

The fighting in Eastern Europe has exposed the fact that no media channel actually delivers straight information. The western media quickly became a mirror image of Russia outlets such as TASS, with each side presenting “their” side as noble, and the other as inhuman. This is no surprise. The adage that truth is the first casualty of war is traced back to Hiram Johnson, a US senator, way back in 1917. But the scale of the information war today, and the perceived potential prize – leadership of the world – is huge.

In recent years, it has become obvious that war as a physical fight between two parties is dwarfed by bigger but more subtle types of attack that run almost continuously. These use a variety of tools, and in particular, mainstream and social media in “cognitive warfare” campaigns so that “our truth” over-rules “your truth”.

We are ‘lagging’ in the fight

On the same day that Japan’s Kishida made his statement about information wars, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko raised the same issue – and admitted that his country was badly losing that battle.
“In terms of information counteraction, we have been working on this front,” Lukashenko said. “I will not say that we have achieved great successes here, but we cannot do without information support of the work that we, the military, are doing in the country today. It’s not the future, it’s the present. And we are somewhat lagging behind,” he said in a speech which was reported by the BelTA news service.

Russia spokesman Sergei Lavrov said at a meeting on May 14: “The collective west has declared total hybrid war on us.” Many voices on social media have noted that western media and government have weaponised entertainment, putting the President of Ukraine on the Grammys, the Oscars, and other similar events, pulling in rock stars and actors into a clearly political push.

West is master of the game

There’s no doubt that the west is the global master of this game, with governments, intelligence agencies, military and media working together at enormous scales. And when a particular point needs to pushed, a network of professional public relations companies are employed behind the scenes to work on news events.

KARV Communications and Yorktown Solutions are US public relations firms representing Ukraine in Washington DC, with other firms working in London and European capitals. Much of the work of a so-called grassroots Hong Kong campaign called Stand With Hong Kong was traced to a public relations firm in London.

Eastern countries such as China, meanwhile, have virtually no voice in international media discourse. Even the relatively few Chinese journalists posted to the west are labelled “foreign agents” and are liable to have their licences removed and their channels cancelled. However, Russia is believed to have high level skills in cyber penetration, according to a cybersecurity document released in April by the “five eyes” countries, a grouping of wealthy English-speaking nations. This form of attack, if scaled up, could also be a tool of warfare, rather than just an opportunity for ransomware thievery.

Information wars being examined

A number of books have recently examined these new ways of warfare. The following three are worth noting:

The Weaponisation of Everything: A Field Guide to the New Way of War

The Age of Unpeace: How connectivity causes conflict

Power Atlas: Seven Battlegrounds of a networked world

All three books, with varying angles, deliver the same message. Wars do not start when the first shot is fired, nor do they take place on defined battlegrounds. The media is weaponised, as is social media, and intelligence agents work closely with activists to destabilise societies.

The world’s largest news sources – Reuters, AP, AFP, BBC, Fox, CNN, the NYT and so on – quickly step into service. All dominant global media sources are rooted in the west, and inevitably beatify pro-western activists and overtly or subtly cancel anyone who proffers an alternative view as “pro-Beijing” or “pro-Kremlin”.

READ MORE:

https://johnmenadue.com/everything-is-being-weaponised-in-a-disinformation-war/

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GusNote: nothing new since Eve and Adam..... Bullshit rules....

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This Fourth of July, in parades across the country, you’ll likely see Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty together, smiling, waving, maybe holding hands. Their jaunty appearance as America’s Odd Couple is as predictable as the parades’ antique cars and marching bands. In fact, the idea of them as a twosome dates back more than a century to when Uncle Sam and (a fairly fierce looking) Lady Liberty first teamed up to sell war bonds and boost enlistment in World War I, and later World War II.

But don’t believe their cheery handholding. Though Uncle Sam was officially recognized as a national symbol in 1950, and Liberty as a national monument in 1924, the truth is that they have always been on opposite sides of the most contentious issues in America, beginning even before the Statue of Liberty’s inauguration in 1886. The job of personified national symbols is to promote a unified citizenry, a task cartoonist Thomas Nast attempted to accomplish in his very first drawing of Uncle Sam in 1869, a sentimental multicultural fantasy he called “Uncle Sam’s Thanksgiving Dinner.” Instead, Sam and Liberty routinely mirror our divisions. The United States is the only country that has two such diametrically opposed personified national symbols. In 2022, this looks like a warning.

READ MORE:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/07/uncle-sam-lady-liberty-history-of-national-symbols.html

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