Moderator at work
Following a review and with the agreement of the original RFI author I have moved twelve posts - which do not sit here well - to the thread devoted to Russian Disinformation plus.
So if the exchange seems to stop and start check that thread:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...=25056&page=23
davidbfpo
Then this is an interesting comment simply because if I read the RFI and the resulting comments on "political warfare"...then the current Russian cyber and info warfare BEING used to both support and drive "political warfare" is suddenly what "not political warfare" AS it has "emerged out of a political system which has it's on belief system that is driving that "political war"....Originally Posted by davidbfpo
Makes no sense does it not to totally ignore a major component?
If in fact we together with Mirco Trend have actually been able to track this Russian state sponsored hacking group and it is a group and it is state sponsored then in fact this element is definitely "political warfare"....
Read the full report and then tell me seriously this is not a central element of "political warfare" by any definition that one wants to give "political warfare"...even by SWC standards.
https://documents.trendmicro.com/ass...pawn-storm.pdf
Taken from the very first paragraph of the RFI if I am correct.....
I'd like to start a discussion on the sophistication of warfare; I don't mean the development of new technologies (essentially the spear and the rifle are the same weapon insofar they occupy the same space and serve the same purpose), but instead the expanding comprehensiveness of what's considered "warfare" - and, as a subset of that, the emergence of legal norms of what defines acceptable and unacceptable forms of warfare. If war is essentially a political act, then the sophistication of warfare follows the sophistication of political systems. War, in essence, reflects the political system from which it emerges.
THEN when we are actually confronted as a political system ie "the West" by a true form of "political warfare" that we can see....feel..touch and observe in real time......we do again exactly what...ignore it?
I could go back and link to a "political warfare article from "War on the Rocks" written in 2014 and the USA SOF White Paper on the same topic titled "Support to Political Warfare" which surprisingly while listed in Google is not available...which now Google cannot find the quoted page.
If we are actually honest then "political warfare" has been with us since the first time humans formed any form of a "government"....what has changed are the abilities to employ it.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.
So when we have a living breathing actual form of it being shoved into our faces every day by Russia then suddenly those elements of "political warfare" are suddenly not part and parcel of political warfare?
BTW the way ...in this discussion I would like to see an accepted common definition that varies from the standard form...if it in fact varies from the above posted definition....which I do not think it has.
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 04-26-2017 at 05:37 AM.
If one noticed yesterday the large number of links went to hacked Russian emails of main/key political players actually practicing political warfare you would have been able to "see and understand" the mindset of those using political warfare...now one can see the "political system" in action employing political warfare...AND or one of the first solid articles on the use of Russian transnational gangs a true key element in Russian political warfare...
We have never really had that opportunity until years later when someone dies and we get access to their achieves.....
Recently we are being flooded with countless articles on this topic and other topics...deeply researched...well mostly researched...talking and writing but absolutely no research on the how to stop it.
Heck we cannot even get the current US WH to honestly admit they profited by active Russian influence operations and now we are going to stand up and stop it....
Until we can get away from nothing, but research articles and not to more ...this is way forward or this is one way of doing it...it is a waste of time..effort..and paper...
If I go back to the list of RFI subsets....money is missing....why do I include that...the core Russian soft power lays within their use of money both legal and illegal in obtaining their political warfare goals....
While it is not such a major issue in the West...other than trying to figure out how to launder it....it is not used really as a "weaponized system" used in political warfare.
The West tends to use money in the form of financial based organizations...IMF...WorldBank....WTO etc.....to achieve it's goals...
The Russian Laundromat Exposed
https://www.occrp.org/en/laundromat/
We have seen that Russian money flow being used to finance their info and cyber warfare globally...as it cannot be traced back to Russia and or a single Russian bank.....Three years ago, OCCRP exposed the “Russian Laundromat” - an immense financial fraud scheme that enabled vast sums to be pumped out of Russia. The money was laundered and moved into Europe and beyond through bribery and a clever exploitation of the Moldovan legal system.
Recently, OCCRP and Novaya Gazeta obtained detailed banking records for more than 120 accounts that made up the Laundromat. We shared the data with dozens of reporters from around the world who tracked down the money locally. The results are "The Russian Laundromat Exposed" - a new project which reveals far more about how the scheme worked and where the money went. The stories below explain how more than $20.8 billion was taken out of Russia and laundered, who got the money, and why some of the world’s largest banks failed to shut the scheme down.
This is exactly why the US cannot and is not capable of responding to Russian political warfare and countering Russian cyber and information warfare....
"The world is moving too fast for the institutions we created in the 20th century." - General Jones
That is why social media and IT security companies are in fact leading the pushback...not the US government or it's agencies...and that includes DoD/DoS...as they are not tied to the 20th century structures....
Outlaw, when I get to a real computer and can type I want to respond to some comments you made earlier on Kirkullen.
Right now I want to go back to a point I believe Bill C made, that using the term "Political Warfare" is imprecise and confusing. The obvious alternative is "Political Conflict" but that seems too weak. Does anyone have another suggestion.
"I can change almost anything ... but I can't change human nature."
Jon Osterman/Dr. Manhattan
---
I wouldn't worry about the confusion, don't define it, but describe it. The description will morph over time as its character changes. Army SF did more harm than good when it narrowly "defined" UW along organizational lines (underground, auxiliary, guerrilla force), which is basically nothing more than another weapon system to coerce. Political warfare is complex and many facets, that is just the way it is. If you do define it you'll have to limit your discussion to the narrow definition you applied to it. I know that is the army way, but then again the army is still trying to figure out how to use military force to achieve political objectives (different than political warfare) in the 21st Century.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks