The 'Will' and information operations
Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Publisher
Academic Publishing International
Faculty
Faculty of Computing, Health and Science
School
School of Computer and Information Science
RAS ID
3909
Abstract
In his book Terrorism as a Psychological Strategy, Maurice Tugwell, (1990) stressed that to maintain any conflict a person needs a 'Mobilizing Trilogy' consisting of: the belief in inevitable victory, something 'good' to fight for, and something 'evil' to fight against. These are the fundamental principles of propaganda and psychological warfare campaigns. As the merging of functions such as public diplomacy, news reporting, psychological operations, and public affairs becomes complete, the paradigm extolled by the 'Mobilizing Trilogy' is taking over Strategic Information Operations. The globalization and concentration of the mass media has meant that the channels for communication have become ubiquitous. Thus, it has become difficult to target a subset of people using only specific channels as they all tend to be global. Hence, the nature of Strategic Information Operations has changed to accommodate this. This paper will examine this phenomenon and examine its effect on practice.
Comments
Hutchinson, W. E. (2005). The 'will' and information operations. Paper presented at the 4th European Conference on Information Warfare and Security 2005, ECIW 2005, 151-156. Available here