misterfergusson

Militarizing Influence

Our information environment is increasingly dependent on the inescapable, largely unregulated cyberspace. Beyond national and geographical boundaries, however, this comes with its unique challenges ranging from information accuracy, integrity and relevancy to weaponizing information to influence a target audience in the pursuit of a diplomatic or economic goal.

tl;dr

This paper proposes the development and inclusion of Information Influence Operations (IIOs) in Cyberspace Operations. IIOs encompass the offensive and defensive use of cyberspace to influence a targeted population. This capability will enable the evolution of strategic messaging in cyberspace and allow response to near-peer efforts in information warfare.

Make sure to read the full paper titled Information Influence Operations: The Future of Information Dominance By Captain David Morin at https://cyberdefensereview.army.mil/CDR-Content/Articles/Article-View/Article/2537080/information-influence-operations-the-future-of-information-dominance/

The United States Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) unifies the direction of cyber operations within the Department of Defense. This paper proposes to incorporate Information Influence Operations (IIOs) into its capability set. This influence will facilitate the exertion of soft power in the pursuit of US national interests. Moreover, IIOs will reduce the need for large-scale operations or use of critical cyber offensive operations.

A notable omission in the paper is a clear definition of IIOs. The ‘Introduction’ suggests that “the unrealized value of cyberspace, and what makes it so dangerous, is it allows direct access to the individual and to the public at large. This access, when used correctly, provides actors in cyberspace the ability to influence public opinion and shape the narrative of ongoing operations.” This, however, appears to be conflating cyberspace with the general, public media landscape while it implies an operator could just hack Twitter accounts and send out some tweets with a favorable narrative. Applying the lessons and learnings from its efforts to counter foreign influence operations, Facebook views all “coordinated efforts to manipulate or corrupt public debate for a strategic goal” as an influence operation. By definition in Joint Publication 3-13, information operations are described as “the integrated use of electronic warfare, computer network operations, psychological operations (PSYOP), military deception, and operations security to influence, disrupt, or corrupt adversarial decision making while protecting our own.” Therefore a suitable definition combining all of three concepts would define IIOs as “a capability to shape and direct public opinion in order to influence, disrupt, or corrupt adversarial decision making by leveraging soft- and hardware technology supported by psychological weapons and tactics in the pursuit of a strategic national interest.”

The author could have expanded more on the principles of US combatant command structures and its basic chain of command. This would have helped the reader to understand the current discrepancies in ownership of IIOs. As it stands, US combatant commands are structured by geographic focus and functional capabilities. USCYBERCOM falls into the latter category. A functional command unifies different military branches to achieve its mission. It remains unclear which military branch currently takes ownership of IIOs, if any. Taking it a step further out of the frame, the author comes out short on delivering a convincing rationale of when and where IIOs should be deployed and under whose authority. Cyberspace is predominantly civilian space created and maintained by privately held servers all across the world. Would USCYBERCOM install a permanent Information Influence Operations Center to execute IIOs spanning multiple months and years? Would such action require presidential or congressional approval? And would approved missions cease at servers operated on US soil or exclude US citizens from manipulation? Would it release a transparency report detailing the measures taken against foreign and domestic threats and under whose authority? These and other important questions need to be considered when thinking about consolidation of government power.

But not all is dark and gloomy. The author does detail his proposition with a few more insights. In revisiting Stuxnet, NotPetya or the Russian involvement in dividing the US electorate during the 2016 US Presidential elections the author builds a foundation to support the argument for a centralized command of IIOs. Two of these events were targeted cyber attacks on critical infrastructure, one allegedly driven by the US and Israel, and the third event was a carefully curated, multi-year effort to exploit vulnerabilities in the US democratic process. All of these events indeed demonstrate the power that can be wielded through cyberspace operations, but where I disagree with the author is the comparability of these unique events and a causality between cyberspace and influencing information. Combining cyber attacks to corrupt critical infrastructure with a targeted narrative to redirect the public’s attention is a serious threat to US national security. However, identifying the operator and the motive behind such an attack may reveal domestic, private actors with a mere criminal motive, if attribution is even possible. Take the coordinated social engineering attack on Twitter ahead of the 2020 US Presidential elections. Government accounts from Joe Biden to Barack Obama as well as the accounts of notable public figures such as Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos were hacked, hijacked and abused to distribute a bitcoin scam. Should USCYBERCOM have stepped in, take network control from Twitter, a private business, in order to mitigate and counter the attack?

In the section ‘Influencers’ the author does raise valid concerns when he states that “influencers are capable of wielding influence over millions and have used this influence for a multitude of purposes from philanthropy and advertising to political ends.” Online reach is tantamount to circulation of a print paper with the difference being longevity – the internet never forgets. Unchecked influence of influencers is something our society needs to review and decide upon. Perhaps private businesses will recognize the powers that be and increase checks and balances for this specific type of user or automatically guardrail reach to create equity among users.

In the section ‘Operationalizing IIOs’ the author states “There is little brand loyalty in the online world. Consumers will go elsewhere to find what they need if their preference is slow or unavailable. Influencing and controlling that “someplace else” yields the opportunity to wield influence.” In essence, the author suggests to take advantage of users impatience by increasing the time it takes to load a website. Once this latency or lag is in place, an operator may incentivice users to shift their attention to an alternative information source. This can be achieved through well-targeted advertising campaigns. As an example, the author offers the case of Amazon losing over $72 million due to a 63 minute outage on Prime Day 2018.

There is research to support an increased impatience during ecommerce transactions. However, there is an equal amount of research on brand loyalty, which across markets sees about 75% and higher retention rates once a customer relationship has been successfully established. For example, an Amazon Prime user, who pays for the privilege of Prime is unlikely to switch a book order to Barnes & Noble simply because there is a few milliseconds of delay when placing the order. It takes a contrast in price and shipping time to break the established brand loyalty with Amazon. Furthermore, in the author’s example the IIO appears to be directed at an ecommerce transaction. Even in the hypothetical foreign policy scenario of introducing latency to Alibaba to redirect users to Amazon to decrease economic output/revenue or other feasible US objectives, the author doesn’t really explain how it could favorably influence future behavior.

IIOs offer a tremendous potential to support diplomacy while strengthening our national security. Allocating the responsibility to exert and drive information influence to a military institution, however, raises constitutional concerns. It would likely undermine the trust of our allies but also chill diplomatic relations with non-allied nations. From a military perspective, an effort to centralize capabilities can reduce overall cost of cyberspace operations and increase transparency among military stakeholders. On the other hand, all centralized command structures are vulnerable to a single-point of failure, which can be devastating when USCYBERCOM is facing a sophisticated, superior adversary. In addition, an effort to centralize IIOs might increase the response rate to attacks in cyberspace or efforts to coordinate foreign influence operations by an adversary due to the extended chain of command.

How The U.S. Air Force Won WWII

On August 6, 1945 at 8:15 AM the Enola Gay, a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber named after its pilot’s mother, was well above the city of Hiroshima in Japan. Its bomb bay opened and it released the infamous payload codenamed “Little Boy”. 53 seconds later and the city of Hiroshima resembled hell. This first ever wartime use of a nuclear weapon arguably expedited the Japanese decision to surrender the war. Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book “The Bomber Mafia” chronicles the renegade group of pilots who went well beyond the call of duty leading up to this point in history. They redefined military strategy that would become the foundation for the Air Force to eventually separate from the Army as an independent military branch. They utilized precision bombing tactics and creative strategy to attack the enemy from ever-changing angles at breathtaking casualty and destruction rates. While the nuclear attack on Hiroshima resulted in about 4.7 square miles of damage, the Bomber Mafia devised and executed incendiary air raid missions that destroyed ten times more enemy infrastructure and killed hundreds of thousands more. During Operation Meetinghouse, the single most deadly bomber attack in human history, as much as 16 square miles of Tokyo were destroyed. More than 100,000 civilians were killed and over one million left homeless. Gladwell presents the impossibility of choice these men were faced with in a page-turning fashion.

The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War is unlike his previous books. He doesn’t introduce unknown facts or thought-provoking theories but instead zooms in on a specific moment in WWII history. Gladwell tries to answer the question what does it mean when technology and best intentions collide in the heat of war? All wars present a moral conflict. What allows Bomber Mafia to stand out is the impossibility of choice that these US military officials and soldiers were faced with: invasion by land, timed-precision bombing of high-value targets or relentless sorties dropping an inferno on enemy cities? Win at all cost versus a more humane approach to war. Like most of Gladwell’s books, its insights are easily transferable into our modern times. The Bomber Mafia takes place in the context of WWII but the moral dilemma it describes is relevant for 21st-century technology, for example when we think about artificial intelligence and human medicine or algorithm structure and social media.

“Curtis LeMay won the battle. Haywood Hansell won the war.”

The paperback’s metrics are 9 chapters plus author’s note and conclusion divided into two parts and spread across 206 pages. Apparently this book was conceived as an audiobook. The paperback only functions as a second addition. I didn’t miss anything noteworthy, but I have read the audiobook has more flesh to it.

Bomber Diplomacy

Operation Rolling Thunder was a highly controversial aerial assault on key infrastructures under control of North Vietnam. Notwithstanding its failures, the bombing campaign offers important lessons on the concept of coercion. A recent UCLA research paper shows that an escalating exercise of airpower can unlock vital information to inform and revise coercive military campaigns.

tl;dr

Operation Rolling Thunder’s failure has been widely blamed on the strategy of using force to send “signals.” It discredited the associated theory of coercion among a generation of military officers and scholars. In this paper, I show that whatever its other failures, Operation Rolling Thunder did successfully signal a threat. I rely on the latest research to demonstrate that Hanoi believed the bombing would eventually inflict massive destruction. I also show that Washington accurately ascribed the failure of the threat to North Vietnam’s resolve and continued the operation for reasons other than signaling. These findings show that Operation Rolling Thunder can be productively understood as an exercise in both signaling and countersignaling. Rather than discrediting the theory of coercion, these findings modify it. They show that failed threats can be informative and that coercive campaigns can become prolonged for reasons other than a lack of credibility.

Make sure to read the full paper titled Was Airpower “Misapplied” in the Vietnam War? Reassessing Signaling in Operation Rolling Thunder by Ron Gurantz at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09636412.2021.1915585

Operation Rolling Thunder was an aerial assault during the Vietnam War designed to gradually escalate in force. It started on Mar 2, 1965 and ended on Nov 2, 1968. Rather than to pursue a shock and awe strategy then commander-in-chief and 36th President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson opted for a limited-force strategy to signal the enemy American resolve and to coerce a truce. From the American perspective, the Vietnam War was a war with limited objectives, so it made sense to use limited means. North Vietnam, however, viewed it as a total war, so it made sense to resist any military strategy. Its failure to achieve a truce by compelling a cease of supplies to the Vietcong or stop infiltration into South Vietnam created a narrative among military strategist that the airpower was misused or misapplied.

The theory of coercion directs to “influence the enemy’s behavior to compel a certain outcome by means of anything short of brute force”. Applied to the Vietnam War, Operation Rolling Thunder was a means to influence North Vietnam’s behavior, notably to cease support of the Vietcong. It signaled a threat of grave devastation to North Vietnamese infrastructure and potentially civilian lives. Continued fighting does not contradict this conclusion, but indicates that North Vietnam understood the American approach of restraint, adapted to it, and accepted the threatened consequences. These actions taken by North Vietnam acted as a sort of countersignal. Furthermore, The United States recognized the effects of its signals early on, but nevertheless continued the bombing campaign under the calculus that a gradually escalating bombing campaign would erode North Vietnam’s resolve until it would reach a breaking point where the threat of heavy bombing would meet a vulnerable North Vietnamese leadership. Therefore coercing them to consider ceasefire, truce or pursue non-military alternatives such diplomacy.

As history tells, LBJ’s bomber diplomacy would not bode well for the United States. Nevertheless, the US military sent and received vital signals to inform and revise military strategy. Even though the threat of total destruction was accepted by the North Vietnamese, this countersignal was correctly interpreted by the United States as a willingness to accept consequences rather than a lack of credibility. So, why did the United States continue to gradually escalate rather than turn brute force when it became clear that North Vietnam was willing to accept heavy bombing? Coercion may benefit from restraint because an instant destruction of critical infrastructure would have left nothing to protect but also set back Vietnam’s faltering economy hundreds of years. Furthermore, coercion may benefit from restraint because the longer the bombing campaign lasts, the more it wears down the enemy’s will. The takeaway for military strategists may lie in the finding that signaling and restraint in warfare to allow for a gradual escalation will remain powerful alternatives to a blitzkrieg strategy. Sending and receiving signals has the power to inform and revise coercive military campaigns.

PBS offers an intriguing learning series on Operation Rolling Thunder and its wider impact on the Vietnam War. C-Span recorded a class by Douglas Kennedy of the U.S. Air Force Academy on Vietnam’s War’s “Operation Rolling Thunder” air campaign. Both complement and support the findings in Gurantz’ paper.

Cheer Up, It Could Always Be Worse. You Could Be Livin’ In Texas!

Molly Ivins collection of political commentary for there are nothin’ but good times ahead.

When I think of a strong and independent woman I think of Mary Tyler “Molly” Ivins. Her inimitable talent of writing political commentary that combines both, lighthearted humor and serious critique, is dearly missed in times when the fourth estate of our great nation seems to lack identity and direction. “Nothin’ But Good Times Ahead” is a compendium of her political columns published between circa 1991 and 1993. While the early ‘90s seem to be a world away, her writings could have been published today without missing the mark. In a way, this says a lot about the never-changing political theatrics that is American politics. That being said, this book has no beginning and no end. Each chapter stands alone at a perfect length for your daily commute. The occasional laugh is guaranteed. In the chapter “Gibber An Other Misdemeanors” Ivins describes the former Speaker of the House of Texas Representatives Gib Lewis as

“The Gibber gave us so many moments to remember. Both his tongue and his syntax regularly got so tangled that his language was dubbed Gibberish and provided the state with wonderful divertissement. He once closed a session by thanking the members for having extinguished theirselfs. Upon being reelected at the beginning of another session, he told members he was both grateful and ‘filled with humidity.’”

Of course, it’s not all about making fun of elected officials. Her subjects receive an equal amount of praise if they did live up to their political mandate. Another feat of Ivins’s writing style is her subconscious hook with which she provokes the reader’s reflection and encourages political awareness.

“It’s all very well to dismiss the dismal sight of our Legislature in action by saying, ‘I’m just not interested in politics,’ but the qualifications of the people who prescribe your eyeglasses, how deep you will be buried, what books your kids read in school, whether your beautician knows how to give a perm, the size of the cells in Stripe City, and a thousand and one other matters that touch your lives daily are decided by the dweebs, dorks, geeks, crooks, and bozos we’ve put into public office.”

Nowadays, our media spews out and distributes divisive messages of the nature of “Don’t California my Texas”. Rachel Maddow and Tucker Carlson are relentless in pointing fingers at the other side. Ivins’ column, her legacy really, is about critical thinking. It’s about the essence of democracy – participation. If we, the people, fail to critically reflect on who we vote into public office and check their decisions once in a while, then we’re headed nowhere. Her contributions carry an optimistic message that it’s not all dark and gloomy. There are honorable folks out there, who have integrity and dedicate themselves to serve the public without ifs or buts. In her own words

“The people I admire most in our history are the hell-raisers and the rabble-rousers, the apple-cart upsetters and plain old mumpish eccentrics who just didn’t want to be like everybody else. They are the people who made and make the Constitution of the United States a living document”

If only she were around today. Rest in peace, Molly Ivins.

On Tyranny

A pocket guide for civil disobedience to safe democracy.

Democracy requires action. Timothy Synder’s “Twenty Lessons From The Twentieth Century” inspires action. In his short pocket guide, Synder offers civic lessons ranging from taking responsibility for the face of the world to political awareness all the way to what it really means to be a patriot. His theme is ‘those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it’. It struck me as an ideal guide to give out at demonstrations or town hall meetings. His ideas for civic measures are worth recounting for they aim to protect the integrity of democracy. That being said, most of his lessons should be working knowledge for every citizen.