information warfare

Russia’s national security strategy for 2016 in 9 key points

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From RT
December 31. 2015

(Additional links and audio on website)

President Vladimir Putin has signed the country’s national security strategy for 2016 with color revolutions and biological weapons named as primary threats to Russia. Here are nine key points you want to know about the document.

1. “Color Revolutions” and corruption among key threats to Russia’s security

Listed among threats to national security are “color revolutions” and their instigation, the undermining of traditional values, and corruption.

READ MORE: Russian military to order major research to counter ‘color revolutions’

Who could be engaged in such activities? According to the document, “radical social groups which use nationalist and religious extremist ideologies, foreign and international NGOs, and also private citizens” who work to undermine Russia’s territorial integrity and destabilize political processes.

The activities of foreign intelligence services, terrorist and extremist organizations, and criminal groups are also classified as threats.

2. US complicates things with bio weapons threat

The growing number of countries in possession of nuclear weapons has also increased certain risks, the decree says. Indeed the risk of countries gaining possession of and using chemical weapons, as well as biological weapons, has risen as well, it elaborates.

READ MORE: US bioweapons labs, billions in research is a ‘real problem’ – Russian security chief

“The network of US biological military labs is expanding on the territories of countries neighboring Russia,” it said. “Russia’s independent foreign and domestic policy has been met with counteraction by the US and its allies, seeking to maintain its dominance in world affairs.”

3. NATO expansion goes overboard

The North Atlantic alliance advance towards Russia’s borders is a threat to national security, according to the document. Processes of militarization and arms build-ups are unfolding in regions neighboring Russia, it says, adding that “the principles of equal and indivisible security” are not being respected in the Euro-Atlantic, Eurasian and Asia-Pacific regions.

Nonetheless, Russia is still interested in a fair dialogue and good relations with NATO, the US and the EU, the strategy says. Under the partnership, it’s important to enhance mechanisms “provided by international treaties on arms control, confidence-building measures, issues related to non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the expansion of cooperation in the fight against terrorism, the settlement of regional conflicts,” it says.

4. Ukraine figures

US and EU support of the coup in Ukraine has led to a deep split in Ukrainian society and prompted an armed conflict, the decree stated. The rise of far-right nationalist ideology and the intentionally-created image of Russia as an “enemy” in Ukraine have made it a “long-term source of instability in Europe and directly at the Russian border.”

5. No to nukes?

Russia may be ready to discuss curbing its nuclear potential, but only based on mutual agreements and multi-lateral talks, the document states. Curtailing Russia’s nuclear potential will only occur if it were also to “contribute to the creation of appropriate conditions that will enable a reduction of nuclear weapons, without damaging international security and strategic stability.”

At the same time, Russia plans to prevent any military conflicts by maintaining its nuclear capabilities as a deterent, but would resort to the military option only if all other non-military options had failed.

6. Info warfare

Secret services have become increasingly active in using their capabilities in the struggle for international influence, the document highlighted.

 READ MORE:#RT10 anniversary event on shape-shifting powers in today’s world

“An entire spectrum of political, financial, economic and information instruments has been brought into struggle for influence in the international arena.”

7. When to use military force

The strategy allows the use of military force only in cases when other measures to “protect the national interests” are ineffective.

8. Money matters

Russia’s economic stability is in danger mainly because of its low level of competitiveness and its resource-dependent economy.

Among other threats is “a lag in the development of advanced technologies, the vulnerability of the financial system, the imbalance of the budgetary system, the economy going offshore, the exhaustion of the raw materials base, the strength of the shadow economy, conditions leading to corruption and criminal activities, and uneven development of regions.”

The fact that Russia is dependent on the external economic environment doesn’t help matters, the document reads. Economic restrictions, global and regional crises, as well as the misuse use of the law, among other things, will have a negative impact on the economy, and in the future could lead to a deficit of mineral, water, and biological resources.

“The growing influence of political factors on economic processes, as well as attempts by individual states to use economic methods, tools of financial, trade, investment and technology policies to solve their geopolitical problems, weakens the stability of the system of international economic relations.”

9. What’s next for the economy?

Understanding the problems faced by the country’s economy, the Russian government plans to take measures to deal with them. To ensure economic security, the country will need to balance its budget, prevent capital outflows, and reduce inflation, the document states.

“To resist the hazards to economic security, the government… will carry out a national social and economic policy involving … strengthening of the financial system, ensuring its sovereignty and the stability of the national currency”.

Russia also considers developing relations with China, India, Latin America and Africa as highly important.

https://www.rt.com/news/327608-russia-national-security-strategy/

“Constant Conflict”: an inside look at U.S. policy

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This article by Ralph Peters is quoted in the previous article on Syria
http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-and-conspiracy-theories-it-is-a-conspiracy/29596
A look behind the philosophy and practice of Americas push for domination of the world’s economy and culture.

From Parameters, Summer 1997, pp. 4-14: US Army War College

Constant Conflict
by Major Ralph Peters

US Army War College Quarterly

There will be no peace. At any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the globe. Violent conflict will dominate the headlines, but cultural and economic struggles will be steadier and ultimately more decisive. The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing.

We have entered an age of constant conflict. Information is at once our core commodity and the most destabilizing factor of our time. Until now, history has been a quest to acquire information; today, the challenge lies in managing information. Those of us who can sort, digest, synthesize, and apply relevant knowledge soar–professionally, financially, politically, militarily, and socially. We, the winners, are a minority.

For the world masses, devastated by information they cannot manage or effectively interpret, life is “nasty, brutish . . . and short-circuited.” The general pace of change is overwhelming, and information is both the motor and signifier of change. Those humans, in every country and region, who cannot understand the new world, or who cannot profit from its uncertainties, or who cannot reconcile themselves to its dynamics, will become the violent enemies of their inadequate governments, of their more fortunate neighbors, and ultimately of the United States. We are entering a new American century, in which we will become still wealthier, culturally more lethal, and increasingly powerful. We will excite hatreds without precedent.

We live in an age of multiple truths. He who warns of the “clash of civilizations” is incontestably right; simultaneously, we shall see higher levels of constructive trafficking between civilizations than ever before. The future is bright–and it is also very dark. More men and women will enjoy health and prosperity than ever before, yet more will live in poverty or tumult, if only because of the ferocity of demographics. There will be more democracy–that deft liberal form of imperialism–and greater popular refusal of democracy. One of the defining bifurcations of the future will be the conflict between information masters and information victims.

In the past, information empowerment was largely a matter of insider and outsider, as elementary as the division of society into the literate and illiterate. While superior information–often embodied in military technology–killed throughout history, its effects tended to be politically decisive but not personally intrusive (once the raping and pillaging were done). Technology was more apt to batter down the city gates than to change the nature of the city. The rise of the modern West broke the pattern. Whether speaking of the dispossessions and dislocations caused in Europe through the introduction of machine-driven production or elsewhere by the great age of European imperialism, an explosion of disorienting information intruded ever further into Braudel’s “structures of everyday life.” Historically, ignorance was bliss. Today, ignorance is no longer possible, only error.

The contemporary expansion of available information is immeasurable, uncontainable, and destructive to individuals and entire cultures unable to master it. The radical fundamentalists–the bomber in Jerusalem or Oklahoma City, the moral terrorist on the right or the dictatorial multiculturalist on the left–are all brothers and sisters, all threatened by change, terrified of the future, and alienated by information they cannot reconcile with their lives or ambitions. They ache to return to a golden age that never existed, or to create a paradise of their own restrictive design. They no longer understand the world, and their fear is volatile.

Information destroys traditional jobs and traditional cultures; it seduces, betrays, yet remains invulnerable. How can you counterattack the information others have turned upon you? There is no effective option other than competitive performance. For those individuals and cultures that cannot join or compete with our information empire, there is only inevitable failure (of note, the internet is to the techno-capable disaffected what the United Nations is to marginal states: it offers the illusion of empowerment and community). The attempt of the Iranian mullahs to secede from modernity has failed, although a turbaned corpse still stumbles about the neighborhood. Information, from the internet to rock videos, will not be contained, and fundamentalism cannot control its children. Our victims volunteer.

These noncompetitive cultures, such as that of Arabo-Persian Islam or the rejectionist segment of our own population, are enraged. Their cultures are under assault; their cherished values have proven dysfunctional, and the successful move on without them. The laid-off blue-collar worker in America and the Taliban militiaman in Afghanistan are brothers in suffering.

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Can the Ukrainian government target American journalists in America?

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By George Eliason
OpEd News, March 19, 2015

If you are a journalist writing about or a person concerned about issues like Free Speech, read or write in alternative media or news, Occupy movement, Ferguson, Gaza, Ukraine, Russia, police brutality, US interventionism, fair government, homelessness, keeping the government accountable, representative government, government intrusions like the NSA is doing, or you are liberal, progressive, libertarian, conservative, separation of church and state, religion, …

If you have a website, write, read, or like something in social media that strays outside the new lines the war isn’t coming, its now here.

What would we do? Disrupt, deny, degrade, deceive, corrupt, usurp or destroy the information. The information, please don’t forget, is the ultimate objective of cyber. That will directly impact the decision-making process of the adversary’s leader who is the ultimate target.”– Joel Harding on Ukraine’s cyber strategy

Welcome to World of Private Sector IO (Information Operations)

IO or IIO (Inform and Influence Operations) defined by the US Army includes the fields of psychological operations and military deception.

In military IIO operations center on the ability to influence foreign audiences, US and global audiences, and adversely affect enemy decision making through an integrated approach. Even current event news is released in this fashion. Each portal is given messages that follow the same themes because it is an across the board mainstream effort that fills the information space entirely when it is working correctly.

The purpose of ” Inform and Influence Operations” is not to provide a perspective, opinion, or lay out a policy. It is defined as the ability to make audiences “think and act” in a manner favorable to the mission objectives. This is done through applying perception management techniques which target the audiences emotions, motives, and reasoning.

These techniques are not geared for debate. It is to overwhelm and change the target psyche.

Using these techniques information sources can be manipulated and those that write, speak, or think counter to the objective are relegated as propaganda, ill informed, or irrelevant.

Meet Joel Harding-Ukraine’s King Troll

According to his own bio- Joel spent 26 years in the Army; his first nine years were spent as an enlisted soldier, mostly in Special Forces, as a SF qualified communicator and medic, on an A Team. After completing his degree, Joel then received his commission as an Infantry Officer and after four years transitioned to the Military Intelligence Corps. In the mid 1990s Joel was working in the Joint Staff J2 in support of special operations, where he began working in the new field called Information Operations. Eligible Receiver 1997 was his trial by fire, after that he became the Joint Staff J2 liaison for IO to the CIA, DIA, NSA, DISA and other assorted agencies in the Washington DC area, working as the intelligence lead on the Joint Staff IO Response Cell for Solar Sunrise and Moonlight Maze. Joel followed this by a tour at SOCCENT and then INSCOM, working in both IO and intelligence. Joel retired from the Army in 2003, working for various large defense contractors until accepting the position with the Association of Old Crows.

According to TechRepublic – The career of Joel Harding, the director of the group”s(Old Crows) Information Operations Institute, exemplifies the increasing role that computing and the Internet are playing in the military. A 20-year veteran of military intelligence, Mr. Harding shifted in 1996 into one of the earliest commands that studied government-sponsored computer hacker programs. After leaving the military, he took a job as an analyst at SAIC, a large contractor developing computer applications for military and intelligence agencies.

Joel Harding established the Information Operations Institute shortly after joining the Institute at the Association of Old Crows; he then procured the rights to InfowarCon and stood it up in 2009. Joel is an editor of “The IO Journal”, the premier publication in the field of IO. Joel formed an IO advisory committee, consisting of the 20 key leaders from Us and UK corporate, government, military and academia IO. Joel wrote the white paper for IO which was used as background paper for US Office of the Secretary of Defense’s QDR IO subcommittee.

For ten years the Association of Old Crows has been the Electronic Warfare and Information Operations Association, but there has been no concerted effort to rally the IO Community. This has changed, the IO Institute was approved as a Special Interest Group of the AOC in 2008 and we have already become a major player in the IO Community. This is especially important with the recent formation of the US Cyber Command, with the new definition of Information Operations coming out of the Quadrennial Defense Review, with a new perspective of Electronic Warfare and a myriad of other changes. The IO Institute brings you events, most notably InfowarCon. Our flagship publication is the IO Journal, already assigned reading by at least two military IO educational programs. IO classes are integrated with Electronic Warfare classes to educate, satisfy requirements and enable contractors to be more competitive.

When you look at the beginning of the NSA’s intrusive policies you find Joel Harding . Harding helped pioneer the invasive software used by government and business to explore your social networks, influence you, and dig out every personal detail. In Operation Eligible Receiver 1997 he used freeware taken from the internet to invade the DoD computers, utilities, and more. It’s because most of it is based in “freeware” that NSA snooping has a legal basis. If you can get the software for free and use it , why can’t the government use it on you?

Ukraine-Bringing it into Focus

Looking back at Joel Harding in 2012 seems like a different man. This is the same accomplished professional described above before Maidan. Here’s how he describes the Russian, Chinese, and American experience before his involvement in Ukraine.

…These experiences, and the fact that I spent nine years in Special Forces and that kind of thing, caused me to think. Then I began to wonder. How much of what we read and what we see is propaganda? Not foreign propaganda, but domestic? How much of that domestic ‘information’ is propaganda? …We are being smothered in one lie after another. All in the name of politics. It seems to me that these politicians are almost complacent with us behaving like suckling pigs, absolute ignorant morons” Free, unfettered, uncensored information exposes the lies their governments prefer to feed them, allowing their citizens to know and understand the truth. Authoritarians, like dictators, communists, fascists and many sectarian or religious governments, are said to enhance their authority over their citizens with the use of filters.”

So I ask you, do you see more lies and propaganda here than I saw in China or Russia ? I would say it depends on your perspective. I see more lies aimed at us from our own politicians than I have ever seen anyplace else in the world” you tell me. Are Americans more susceptible to propaganda?-Harding

Joel Harding has quite a different opinion in 2014 after taking control of Information Operations (IO) in Ukraine.

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NATO commander urges warfare against “the false narrative”

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The false narrative — such a disruptive,  murderous force which can destroy nations.

Commander Breedlove is right: The way to attack the false narrative is to drag the false narrative into the light and expose it.

The problem is that he is peddling the false narrative, not someone else. More and more people realize this and are exposing it. Factual, accurate narratives love the light, and that’s what Breedlove wants to eliminate — the truth. So, though he uses the language of truth and of honor, what he actually proposes is something very different. He says it is necessary to wage war on this information.

It’s increasingly difficult to “sell” the US/Pentagon/NATO false narrative as true. They can do it with higher volume, by slander and libel, and by trying to eliminate any fact-based narratives.

There will be more computer and website attacks, greater pressure put on the mainstream media to keep out any contrary narrative, political pressures and laws, personal attacks, and probably physical attacks in the myriad ways which the military has at their disposal. Anyone espousing “Russia’s” position will be targeted.

The truth and everyone telling the truth have become the enemy to Commander Breedlove and his allies. What they want, they intend to get if at all possible. However, truth does shine brightly, along with the  people who share it.

It is critical now more than ever to give information to as many as we can in as many ways as we can.

Posted by Rick Rozoff

Ukrinform
March 23, 2015
Breedlove urges West to start information warfare with Russia

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KYIV: The western countries, primarily the NATO member states, should engage in the informational confrontation with aggressive Russian propaganda.

NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe Philip Breedlove said this in Brussels on Sunday, Ukrinform reports.

“We need as a western group of nations or as an alliance to engage in this informational warfare. The way to attack the false narrative is to drag the false narrative into the light and expose it,” Breedlove said.

…

https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2015/03/23/top-nato-commander-calls-for-information-warfare-against-Russia/