http://www.iwar.org.uk/psyops/resources/ndu/pwpor.pdf
On page 77
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Politics is the marshaling of human beings to support or oppose causes. Political warfare is the marshaling of human support, or opposition, in order to achieve victory in war or in unbloody conflicts as serious as war.
We have new terms now, and we don't agree on the boundaries of what war is, but I think you tweak this one to your view. Foremost I think it is important to concisely describe what politics are as the above definition does, and then apply that to what you mean by political warfare.
In the next piece Max Boot uses Kenan's definition of political warfare. Personally, I find this too broad of description and not overly useful. Statecraft yes, but not all Statecraft is political warfare.
http://www.cfr.org/wars-and-warfare/...warfare/p30894
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This concept was defined in a May 4, 1948, memorandum produced by the State Department's policy planning staff under George Kennan:
The bold highlights are mine, because I don't believe political warfare necessarily comes to an end in times of armed conflict, in fact it should intensify.
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Political warfare is the logical application of Clausewitz's doctrine in time of peace. In broadest definition, political warfare is the employment of all the means at a nation's command, short of war, to achieve its national objectives. Such operations are both overt and covert. They range from such overt actions as political alliances, economic measures (as ERP—the Marshall Plan), and "white" propaganda to such covert operations as clandestine support of "friendly" foreign elements, "black" psychological warfare and even encouragement of underground resistance in hostile states.
During WWII the British principally defined political warfare as propaganda, but were careful not to limit it to propaganda.
https://www.psywar.org/psywar/reprod...TechMethod.pdf
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Political Warfare employs both publicity and propaganda. That is to say, it can and must be as objective as possible in its projection of the British or Allied case. It, too, has to seek the good will of those in enemy and enemy-occupied countries who are already sympathetic to that case. It has to demonstrate and not merely claim the certainty of victory. It has to show by force of example that we have something better to offer than the Nazis. It has to establish the veracity of the news in order to win confidence for its propaganda and to build an audience through which it can achieve its eventual purpose.
(xi) There is, however, no intrinsic virtue in news; news is a device of Political Warfare; it is a necessity which we can make a virtue, since, as stated above, news is the most potent means of attracting and building up an audience.
Fake news has a long history, but the scale and sophistication of it in the 21st Century is a perfect example of political warfare. Our election results, our political bedrock is the legitimacy of our democracy, remain questionable by some. Fake News and exaggerations of actual events have pushed Europe further to the right, and the EU is a risk of fracturing further, clearly a Russian objective.
Finally the following piece, while focused on domestic U.S. politics and be applied to the larger picture.
http://libertypoint.org/?page_id=156
The Six Principles of Political Warfare
Three of the principles follow:
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In political wars, the aggressor usually prevails.
Aggression is advantageous because politics is a war of position. In attacking your opponent, take care to do it right. Going negative … can be counterproductive. Ruling out the negative … can incur an even greater risk
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Position is defined by fear and hope.
The twin emotions of politics are fear and hope… hope is the better choice
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The weapons of politics are symbols that evoke fear and hope.
I found these interesting, because I attended an interagency working group discussing political warfare, and a government member present partly responsible for countering the use of adversary propaganda, said he or she didn't feel compelled to counter Russia's maligned propaganda because no one believes it. He or she may feel differently now, but we tend to view the world through our own eyes naturally. People in some government agencies are well educated (not the same as street smart), so they assume everyone is aware of what is propaganda and what isn't. As the principle clearly states, the aggressor usually wins.