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On the Organization of the U.S. Government for Responding to Adversarial Information Warfare and Influence Operations

Overview

"IW/IO is a hostile non-kinetic activity, or at least an activity that is conducted between two parties whose interests are not well-aligned. W/IO has connotations of soft power (more properly, a mix of soft power and sharp power2): propaganda, persuasion, culture, social forces, confusion, deception. The patron saint of IW/IO is Sun Tzu, who wrote that, “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”

Why is this important?

"This paper defines information warfare and influence operations (IW/IO) as the deliberate use of information (whether true or false) by one party on an adversary to confuse, mislead, and ultimately to influence the choices and decisions that the adversary makes."

Creator

Herbert Lin
Image Credit: Gerd Altman from Pixabay

Publication Date

August 19, 2019