Why the United States is losing the Information War
Matt Apel
CMR 592
Howard Kleinberg

Introduction Cyber Warfare and cyber security have been on the rise for several years now. However, when these topics are discussed amongst government officials, business owners, and civilians the focus has been assaults on personal privacy, hacking into government computers systems, and denial of services. Rarely, is the focus on how armed groups and terrorist organizations are using Information Operations (social media and propaganda) to affect political, economic, and social systems all over the world. Information Operations is defined as, The integrated employment of the core capabilities of electronic warfare, computer network operations, psychological operations, military deception and operations security, in concert with specified supporting and related capabilities, to influence, disrupt, corrupt or usurp adversarial human and automated decision making while protecting our own. Also called IO (Air University 2006). Former Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) member Rand Waltzman states, “I recently concluded a $50 million program, Social Media in Strategic Communication, which led to the release of more than 200 publications and to the creation of a science of social media. What we learned is that “bullsh..t” is a weapon that is being used worldwide to fundamentally attack the medium of the press, and that the issue of freedom of the press is, in fact, a diversion. Russian President Vladimir Putin, for example, is a master of this type of cognitive hack. The director of the Russian International News Agency, Dmitry Kiselev, provided deep insight into this strategy by saying: “Objectivity is a myth which is proposed and imposed on us.” The tagline of this approach is “hack the medium, hack the message (Waltzman 2015).”
Alongside Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, or the Islamic State’s takeover of parts of Syria and Iraq, there is the narrative. Authoritarian regimes and terrorist groups alike are increasingly adept at disseminating their messages, shaping opinion and influencing events. Kremlin-controlled news outlets, such as Russia Today (RT), project a veneer of legitimacy while promoting Russian propaganda. ISIS is highly effective in targeting radical Muslims, and at recruiting fighters via online videos and social networks. Meanwhile, U.S. efforts to promote access to reliable, independent information are being cut, and U.S. social media efforts are falling flat.
The Information War and Russia The United States and Russia are engaged in a two front war, one by dropping bombs on ISIS targets and the other is in the media. Not only are both sides fighting to win Syria, but they are fighting to convince the world that their actions are just. As part of this conflict, both sides are waging an information war that began as soon as Russia started bombing targets in Syria. The Russians claimed that they had bombed ISIS strongholds, while the US government was adamant that they had just blown up moderate rebels. President Obama has even gone so far as to say that Russia’s air campaign is strengthening ISIS. He is also claiming that Moscow’s military operation was counterproductive and is not distinguishing between Islamic State targets and the so-called moderate opposition. The US leader accused Russia of weakening the Syrian rebels’ chances of eventually toppling President Assad’s government and somehow strengthening ISIS as a result. “The moderate opposition in Syria is one that, if we ever going to have a political transition, we need. And the Russian policy is driving those folks underground or creating a situation in which they are incapacitated and it is only strengthening ISIL,” said Obama (Baker 2015). Russia used social media to fight back against the U.S. when Alexei Pskov, the head of the Russian parliament’s international affairs committee, took to Twitter and said the United States is not bombing ISIS. “McCain accused us of striking out at US-trained insurgents… However, since they have either run away or joined al-Qaeda, hitting them is a mission impossible,” Pushkov wrote ( “The US-led coalition spent a whole year pretending they were striking ISIL targets but where are the results of these strikes?” Pskov asked during an interview with France’s Europe 1 Radio (Sputnik 2015). Russia is also focusing its information war in dealing with its attempt to destabilize the Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Media analysts told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that, “the Kremlin now wields a vast media apparatus to distort information, promote conspiracy theories, and obfuscate observers about the crisis in Ukraine, where Russia invaded the Crimean peninsula last February and has since supported an insurgency in the eastern part of the country (Wiser 2015). Peter Pomerantsev, a senior fellow at the Legatum Institute and author of the book Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia, said in congressional testimony that the Kremlin can now reach 30 million Russians outside the country with multiple media platforms—including in Ukraine and NATO countries such as Estonia and Latvia (Pomerantsev 2014). U.S. and Western officials have raised concerns that Russia could use these outlets to incite ethnic tensions and foment instability in former Soviet states. The news channel RT, offers its content in English, Spanish, German, and Arabic and reaches a global audience of 600 million. When Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down last July over rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine and 298 people were killed, RT published stories alternately blaming NATO and Ukrainian fighter jets—despite all available evidence pointing to Russian missiles launched by the separatists (Wiser 2015). Other Russian websites reported claims by rebel leaders that the passengers were already dead before the plane departed. RT has also worked with state broadcasters in Syria and Argentina to further its global reach. Additionally, the Kremlin sponsors a radio and Internet news service called Sputnik that plans to disseminate content in 30 different languages. Companies known as “troll farms” are funded by Russia and have employees solely devoted to saturating Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms with the Kremlin’s message (Pomerantsev 2014).
The U.S. Response to Russian Disinformation So how does the U.S. combat such a powerful informational machine like Russia? One way is with “informational sovereignty” which in simple terms means, getting your word out to the world. The U.S. needs to support, through finances, resources, equipment, etc., groups that are forming in the Ukraine to combat Russia’s disinformation campaign. Groups such as, Euromaidan PR, which was founded during the protests that ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, and consists of some 200 English-speaking volunteers in Ukraine and abroad. These volunteers, who range from geologists to restaurant owners, debunk Russian disinformation on Facebook (24,000 followers), Twitter (35,000 followers), and the organization's blog (13,000 views per day). In March, for instance, the group circulated photos that, according to Russian media, showed columns of refugees fleeing Ukraine to Russia. The pictures actually depicted everyday traffic between Ukraine and Poland (Euromaidan Press 2015). The Ukraine Crisis Media Center is a larger operation. The Center runs press briefings and it calls out misinformation (Pomerantsev 2014). “We’re a bunch of five PR and advertising firms who realized the government wasn’t coping in getting information out,” Vasyl Myroshnychenko, one of the leading organizers of the Center, told me when I stopped by his office, which is full of brochures and posters from his firm’s usual work marketing the likes of CNN and Google in Ukraine. “Normally we compete with each other for commercial contracts, but we realized this was a national emergency, and after a midnight meeting decided to partner up.” Fighting false information is only part of the challenge, however; dismantling Kremlin networks and narratives is tougher (UCMC Press 2015).
“I was in the U.S. recently and was surprised how many people on the Hill sympathize with Russia,” Myroshnychenko said. “There’s a whole expert community which has been wined and dined by Moscow, taken to Putin’s annual think-tank gathering at the Valdai. How many are on the boards of Russian companies or funded by Russian sources? We need a monitoring system to name and shame pro-Russian influencers, so they start to feel the heat. And we need to start introducing the world to our new government: we have a president and a prime minister who speak English, ministers educated in the U.S. and U.K. Ukraine needs to do direct marketing to convince the world we’re not, as the Russians claim, a failed state (UCMC 2015).”
Conclusion: U.S. and Russian IO Discussions Through my research of the Russian and U.S. IO conflict, I have come to the conclusion that the best response for the U.S. is to start discussions with Russia immediately on several aspects of Information Operations and Irregular Warfare Operations. First, the U.S. needs to understand Russian terminology in the IO and IW world. If the U.S. and Russia are going to negotiate, they need to have like meanings to the terminology they are discussing, for example Russia is putting great emphasis on behavioral modification through the generation of algorithmic viruses (Thomas 2010). The U.S. must discuss the exact meaning of this kind of terminology with Russia or negotiations will not work. Second, Russia’s national security has always bordered on paranoia. Discussions between the U.S. and Russia about both parties’ major concerns, goals and areas of emphasis in the IO sector, might help prevent future misunderstandings and ease possible tensions caused by anxiety. Third, The Russians have stated several times that they will use their first strike nuclear policies if there is an IO attack against them. Whether this is just a threat or not, discussions could at a very minimum help the U.S. understand exactly what their intentions are and if their first strike policy is a legitimate threat (Thomas 2010).
U.S. and Taliban Information War
Since their removal from power in late 2001, the initially anti-modern Taliban have increasingly recognized that modern technology and media can (and even must) be utilized in support of their confrontation with the Afghan government and international community. From a belief system that actively rejected many of the trappings and processes of quick and effective communication, the Taliban have had to learn to communicate in order to support their goals. Their approach has thus been increasingly pragmatic, and their understanding and usage of communication media have grown accordingly. Taliban communication methods have embraced old and new techniques and have been utilizing an expanding range of media and communications resources: fax, landline, mobile and satellite telephones, radio and television, newspapers, interviews, intimidating anonymous notes ("night letters"), direct contact with the population, and the Internet. They make extensive use of spokesmen to make claims and statements, and generally to promote or clarify Taliban messages (Foxley 2008). The Taliban’s IO capabilities are much more effective at the local tribal level than they are at the theater and strategic level. However, they are improving and their ability and attitude towards communicating with the international community is becoming more apparent.
Taliban’s Actual Effectiveness in IO.
We still do not have a good understanding of how effective Taliban information operations actually are. It is difficult to identify which specific aspects of their IO activities are damaging and must be countered and which can be ignored (or even encouraged or copied). Part of the problem is that it is hard to separate IO activity from other activity likely to influence behavior on the ground. The disengagement of a local village may be a result of an effective Taliban information operation, such as night letters. It could also be because the Taliban executed someone recently for talking to an, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) patrol, or an airstrike killed a civilian, or through general frustration at the lack of progress in their village, or any combination thereof. Furthermore, there is a tendency within ISAF to assume that if the Taliban are saying something and saying it in rapid reaction to an event on the ground, it is effective and must be countered.
U.S. Response to Taliban IO At the local and tribal level, it seems the most effective campaign to counter the Taliban’s message is to hold ground and prove to the rest of the country that the Afghan government has the ability to rid the region of corruption and bring stability. The local message of the Taliban is one of physical presence and violence. Holding ground would disrupt this message and may swing the support to government. At the strategic level is where most of the ground can be made in IO. The U.S. has the ability to target the gaps of confusion, incoherence, contradictions, and fears. The Taliban has not been able to sustain a message of prosperous future for the people of Afghanistan, this is the message that the U.S. needs to get out to the international community. The Taliban must be forced to present their plans and support them against international questions.

Introduction to ISIS Before discussing ISIS and its information campaign, who they are, where they come from and what their goals are, must be understood. The group seized Mosul, Iraq, last June, and already rules an area larger than the United Kingdom. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been its leader since May 2010, but until last summer, his most recent known appearance on film was a grainy mug shot from a stay in U.S. captivity at Camp Bucca during Operation Iraqi Freedom (Wood 2015). Then, on July 5 of last year, he stepped into the pulpit of the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul, to deliver a Ramadan sermon as the first caliph in generations. Abu Bakr went from low tech to high definition. He went from a hunted guerrilla to a leader of all Muslims. The inflow of jihadists that followed, from around the world, was unprecedented in its pace and volume, and is continuing (Wood 2015). ISIS is projecting itself as a state actor. In order for them to be a legitimate force, the international community must accept this projection. As an aspiring government authority, ISIS is also committed to providing public and social services to the population, activities in which it is already deeply engaged. These many public goods include power and water services, law enforcement, health care, dispute resolution, employment, education and public outreach (Atani 2014). These responsibilities cost money, which in ISIS’ case comes from extortion (or taxation, as it were), control of energy and water resources and attacks. These sources are vulnerable to physical attack and disruption. Strategic assets such as oil facilities and utilities infrastructure are highly visible and vulnerable to air strikes. ISIS also makes little effort to disguise governing facilities, political headquarters and policy and security installations (SOCOM 2015). As a self-appointed state, ISIS sees little reason to keep a low profile in its own territory. The international community has made little to no effort to target these assets. Yes, there has been airstrikes, but most of these have not targeted these main installations.
ISIS and the Information War Since its beginning in June of 2014, pro-ISIS Twitter accounts have posted hundreds, if not thousands, of updates, pictures and cartoons of the group’s advances throughout Syria and Iraq. Most of these accounts have not been endorsed by ISIS, but have promoted as regional accounts from pro-ISIS supporters (Irshaid 2015). “Unlike al-Qaida, which saw itself as a revolutionary vanguard and focused its propaganda efforts on like-minded Islamist militants, ISIS is a mass movement led by a new generation of Islamist revolutionaries who have developed a much broader propaganda effort,” said James Phillips, The Heritage Foundation’s senior research fellow for Middle Eastern affairs. This effort, Phillips added, is broadcast through a range of digital platforms, appealing to young Muslims who then embrace ISIS’ radical Islamist ideology and flock to the group’s so-called “caliphate.” Michael O’Hanlon, a Brookings Institution senior fellow specializing in defense and foreign policy, pointed directly to ISIS’ propaganda machine as key to its recruitment success. “There is no doubt in my mind that social media has helped ISIL enormously,” he said, explaining that the group still draws about 1,000 foreign recruits a month to Iraq and Syria from nearly 100 different countries. “Its glossy, glitzy, romanticized version of jihad and the caliphate it is trying to create—even if seriously perverted and twisted and brutal by any fair standard—is made to seem appealing by truly expert propaganda,” O’Hanlon said.
ISIS’ Information Operations can be broken down into five major categories. 1) ISIS has money, weapons and respect. ISIS online article have stated that ISIS controls seven oil fields that can produce 8 million dollars’ worth of oil daily. These articles show pictures and talk about the billion dollars’ worth of weapons (guns, tanks, helicopters armored vehicles) that ISIS now owns. They name different groups around the world that have sworn allegiance to ISIS, such as Algerian Al Qaida (Foreign Military Studies Office 2014). 2) ISIS providers services to its people. The websites talk about the public works programs that ISIS has started to improve the drinking water, the electricity, and the sewage. Hospitals have been started and health care is free for the public, the sites state. Children go to schools and when they are too young or they are out of school there are activities that are provided (Kaya 2014). 3) Us versus them mentality. Articles have consistently referred to the US as invaders, infidels, or the evil coalition and ISIS as the Caliphate. “Lebanese Sunni Intellectual Sheik Ahmed el-Esir declared that It Is ‘kufr’ (infidel) to help or support the global alliance being established against the Islamic State.” On 16 September 2014 a web site reported that, “Cracks are appearing in Obama’s coalition. The ‘evil coalition’ that invader U.S.A leader Obama has established has started cracking from the start (FMSO 2014).” 4) Civilian killings at the hands of the US. ISIS backed websites, and articles state that hundreds of civilians have been killed by US and British bombs. They say these bombings are the reason they behead journalists and supports of the west (Johnson 2015).
US Response to ISIS IO The U.S. has attempted to respond to ISIS’ information war, but its attempts have caused more internal squabbles about how far it is willing to go to defeat ISIS than it has stomping or even slowing down their online campaign. The U.S. State Department formed the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications, or CSCC, IN 2014. The center was to act like a war room in a political campaign, shake things up, and attack the opposition’s ads and research. The center put out a video that did just that, “Run, do not walk, to ISIS Land,” read the opening line of a script that promised new arrivals would learn “useful new skills” such as “crucifying and executing Muslims.” The words were juxtaposed with images of the terrorist group’s atrocities: kneeling prisoners shot point-blank; severed heads positioned next to a propped-up corpse; limp bodies left hanging from crosses in public squares (Miller 2015).
The video went viral and was seen 844,000 on YouTube and hit at the heart of ISIS (Miller 2015). However, the video caused a debate in Washington about how far the U.S. was willing to go to engage ISIS online. Critics at the State Department and White House saw the use of graphic images as a disturbing. And for all the viral success of “ISIS Land,” even the center’s defenders could never determine whether it had accomplished its main objective, which was to discouraging would-be militants from traveling to Syria. When asked about the U.S.’s response strategy to ISIS’s online propaganda in an interview with CBS News, Alberto Fernandez, the center’s former director, stated, “It’s not that ISIS is so great, it’s that the response against ISIS is both limited and weak (Abu-Rubieh 2015).”

Proposed Strategies for U.S. The U.S. has and will continue to have trouble fighting and defeating non-state actors not only in IO, but in all asymmetric warfare for several reasons. First, because of the bureaucracy involved in the U.S. decision making process, the speed at which anything can go from bottom to top and back down is entirely too slow. In 2006, I was a member of a special operations team in Sadr City, Iraq. We had discovered through intelligence and surveillance a group known as the Punishment Committee (PC). This group was not solely anti-U.S. but was very radical in their beliefs about alcohol, women, education etc. My team raided one of the group’s torture chambers in the northwest corner of Sadr City. There were nearly twenty members of the group in the warehouse along with bodies of men, women and children that the group had tortured, still tied, chained and taped to chairs and beds. We already had our IO message prepared, before we went on the raid. All we had to do was put numbers in, send it up and receive permission to drop the pamphlets and night letters. The message went up, 20 members of the group were KIA, 1 hostage rescued. 3 DAYS LATER we got permission to put our IO message out! Our intelligence said within an hour after we left the warehouse, other members of the PC came in, cleaned up, put workers clothes on the group’s bodies and blamed the U.S. Special Operations members for killing twenty innocent civilian warehouse workers. The narrative had already been won by the group and our message no longer mattered, whether it was the truth or not. I believe the solution to this problem is to have local or regional IO teams available to approve messages with minutes of receiving them. The U.S. government must train and trust the people on the ground to get the appropriate message to the people. Second, the number of people in groups like the CSCC is far too small. ISIS has thousands of supporters online downloading, retweeting, and Facebook messaging its propaganda. The CSCC, the Information Coordination Cell, and other groups tasked with undermining ISIS internet propaganda are vastly outnumbered by its online adversaries, have a minuscule budget by Washington standards, and are tasked with having to attach a U.S. label to a message aimed at skeptical Muslim audience. The U.S. should fund an Information Operation Center comprised of military, other government agencies, people from the private sector, and foreign allies to combat the narrative that ISIS is spreading. Furthermore, the U.S. government must allow this group the freedom to think outside the box, come up with new creative ideas to accomplish their task. The group must be able to irritate ISIS without the fear of angering the rest of the Muslim world because of fear of being reprimanded by their own government. Third, ISIS branded itself as fierce fighters as they initially took land in Syria amid weak resistance and from Iraqi forces that dropped their weapons and ran. However, once ISIS started running into forces that were willing to stand and fight and had the backing of the U.S. and other coalition members, ISIS rampage through Iraq and Syria quickly came to a halt. The U.S. must make this a priority in its information campaign. ISIS should be shown as having weak leadership that sends its members out to die as they hide in the rear. The message needs to show foreign fighters living in apartments, receiving higher wages, better food, and local fighters being thrown to the front lines. Forth, for ISIS to succeed it must take and hold land. The Caliphate cannot exist without land. ISIS has been screaming this from the rooftops since last June. It must be a top priority to show the international community that this is not going to happen. If the U.S. and its allies can push ISI back and obliterate the idea of ISIS holding territory the idea of a caliphate will fall apart, and this is the core rationale for ISIS cause.
Conclusion
The information war against Russia, the Taliban and ISIS have to be handled in different ways. In dealing with groups such as ISIS, they cannot be defeated they need to be eradicated. Kinetic operations do work, but it cannot be the only strategy that is used. These groups cannot be dealt with softly or worrying about hurting feelings. They must be crushed and then shown how easy it was and how weak they were. Russia is a different situation. Discussions and diplomacy must be exhausted before anything kinetic should be used. Kinetic operations should not be totally out of the question, however. The U.S. must become better at asymmetric warfare where it looks at diplomacy, information, military, economics, finance, intelligence, and law enforcement (DIMEFIL) when dealing with both state and non-state actors.

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