Russia's Information Warfare Techniques

LITERATURE REVIEW – INFORMATIONAL WARFARE
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Literature Review – Information Warfare
Background
The ultimate aim of information warfare is to apply information weapons to manipulate and impact the knowledge as well as belief systems of the adversary. Knowledge and belief systems are facets of every human decision-making system and can therefore be used to influence adversary decisions and actions. At the strategic level, the objective of information warfare is to manipulate both adversary choices and behavior to support the aggressor’s intentions without their awareness. Conversely, successful information warfare at the operation level is intended to adversely affect the adversary’s capacity to form decisions promptly and effectively. On the whole, the overall goal of information warfare is to harmonize efforts at manipulating and confounding the adversary’s decision-making process in order to result in actions that steadily advance the aims of the aggressor. Information warfare is a rapidly developing subset of warfare for defense strategists and policymakers, particularly given the swift evolution of microcomputers, cyberspace, and other related information technologies. A majority of countries are moving rapidly to capitalize on the growing information groundwork and related technologies to support tactical military advantages.[Hans Klein, “Information Warfare and Information Operations: Russian and U.S. Perspectives,” JIA SIPA, September 25, 2018, https://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/information-warfare-and-information-operations-russian-and-us-perspectives.]
At the same time, countries are examining their potential cyberspace weaknesses and how the rapid information revolution threatens traditional military operations. Russia has been particularly successful in employing information warfare to manipulate its enemy’s pre-existing dispositions to align with its intended course of action. The country has for a long time been known to apply an advanced form of hybrid warfare known as “reflexive control,” where it shapes its adversary’s understanding of the situation and decision-making process to choose those actions that are most profitable to its objectives. Moscow has used this technique capably to persuade America and its allies to remain mostly passive as it advances its geopolitical interests across the globe, including its ongoing efforts at dismantling Ukraine. While Russia’s “reflexive control” information warfare technique is not a novel strategy and is largely founded on the body of Soviet work developed decades ago, the West has been slow in building necessary structures and capabilities to counter Kremlin’s nonmilitary aggression. This literature review will explore existing evidence (qualitative data) on past confrontations between Russia and other states, with a particular focus on the USA and Ukraine.[Joe Cheravitch, “What Translation Troubles Can Tell Us about Russian Information Warfare,” , October 4, 2019, /blog/2019/10/what-translation-troubles-can-tell-us-about-russian.html.] [Max Boot, “Why the U.S. Ramped up Its Information War with Russia,” Council on Foreign Relations, 2022, /in-brief/why-us-ramped-its-information-war-russia.]
Theoretical Framework
Any theory undergirding the research process must be capable of explaining the link between various facets not previously conceptualized as well as predicting the unidentified or unobserved. Information warfare is a relatively new area of study. Its relationship to other kinetic facets of military operations is often wrongly interpreted, resulting in ineffective integration and application of psychological operations, computer network programs, subterfuge, and electronic warfare in creating the desired information effect. The application of a suitable theory that can highlight the unique features of information warfare and their relation to kinetic operations across the range of conflict is key. Clausewitz’s theory of war provides critical analytical insights into the nature of information warfare within the multidomain world of political conflict. Therefore, it can assist in grasping the dynamics that determine the importance and situation application of power elements to achieve information warfare aims. Clausewitz believed that war is made of components that are always extant but change in their relationships with one another.[Bilyana Lilly, Russian Information Warfare : Assault on Democracies in the Cyber Wild West (Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2022).]
Besides uncertainty, friction, violence, and chance, war is also characterized by human involvement: human psychology is a critical facet of war since it influences danger, exertion, chance, and uncertainty. Clausewitz’s theory of war postulates that war operations are political in nature and, therefore, even information warfare, as a subset of war operations, is a political activity. Informational warfare differs from other nonpolitical informational activities like advertising because it is geared towards meeting specific political goals: Clausewitz’s conceptualization of war demonstrates that informational warfare is merely a continuation of politics. However, it differs from the traditional war in that it does not involve “pure” violence: in Clausewitz’s theory of war, the more violent a political contention is, the more it mirrors his abstract concept of “total war.” Therefore, war can be assumed to stretch across a continuum where the political nature of war intensifies in violence from one end to another, depending on state objectives.[Bilyana Lilly, Russian Information Warfare : Assault on Democracies in the Cyber Wild West (Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2022).]
For instance, traditional kinetic operations involving tanks and combat aircraft often involve pure violence and chaos, while information warfare is relatively non-violent and easy to manage. Activities like psychological operations, computer network programs, subterfuge, and electronic warfare are often conducted in a manner devoid of violence and are more ideological than physical. For this reason, information warfare entails the business of diplomatic chicanery but aims to destroy the enemy without the extreme violence that characterizes kinetic operations. It also comprises a human element since it aims, for the most part, to influence the opinions and behavior of the adversary. Traditional warfare achieves political objectives through “pure” violence, while information warfare accomplishes political objectives by influencing knowledge and belief systems as the primary facets of human decision-making systems. On the whole, Clausewitz’s theory of war provides a clearer understanding of informational warfare as a political activity and how it relates to traditional warfare in meeting the main objectives of a campaign.[James Curtis, “How to Defeat the Info-Warfare ‘Triad of Disruption,’” , 2021, /articles/2021/8/5/how-to-defeat-the-info-warfare-triad-of-disruption.] [Michael Kofman et al., “Lessons from Russia’s Operations in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine,” 2017, /content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR1400/RR1498/RAND_RR1498.pdf.]
Literature Review
For the past ten years, Russia has emerged as a noteworthy power player in information warfare, particularly in expanding its influence beyond its boundaries. Moscow’s growing geopolitical influence is evident from its invasion of Georgia in 2008, its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, its support for the ruling regime during the Syrian Civil War of 2015, and its ongoing military presence in Ukraine. Russia has also intensified its security presence in other parts of the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa, and South America, even interfering in the U.S. presidential elections in 2016. While America and its European allies have always been aware of Moscow’s use of information warfare as a warfighting function, it was not until the supposed rigging of the 2016 U.S. presidential elections that the American public started paying more attention to how technology proliferation presented a significant threat to national security. The U.S. Department of Defense has started intensifying its efforts to understand the physical, cognitive, and informational scopes of the information environment to stem problematic interference by Russia in other countries’ political affairs.[Roland Heickero, “Russia’s Information Warfare Capabilities,” ed. Frederic Lemieux, Springer Link (London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2015), https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057%2F9781137455550_5.pdf.]
However, the biggest challenge for America and its allies resides in certain legal and cultural barriers that impede complete involvement in information warfare. For instance, America’s existing information warfare doctrine is largely addressed at the operational level while ignoring the strategic level: there is no other entity in the U.S. government charged with informational operations at the strategic level. On the other hand, Russia faces fewer legal and cultural impediments when compared to its Western adversaries and employs a vastly different philosophical strategy in the information environment. Russia’s “reflexive control” approach to informational warfare is culturally, traditionally, philosophically, methodically, and ideologically different from the Western perspective. For instance, while America and its European allies rely predominantly on kinetic operations to achieve political ends, Russia has consistently relied on informational warfare as a nonmilitary means of improving its security and promoting its interests. Despite its ambitious military upgrading efforts, Kremlin’s nonmilitary measures far exceed its military measures in interstate confrontations.[Keir Giles, “Handbook of Russian Information Warfare Fellowship Monograph Research Division NATO Defense College,” 2016, https://css.ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/gess/cis/center-for-securities-studies/resources/docs/NDC%20fm_9.pdf.]
Without information operations, it is unlikely that Russia would have re-emerged as a global leader in many of its operations, especially its recent military intervention in Syria. President Bashar al-Assad managed to gain control of Syria amidst growing opposition by various rebel groups, including Jihadists, Syrian army defectors, Islamists, and civilian activists supported by Western and Arab nations, thanks to Russia’s success at undermining America’s political process. Moscow propagated a strong counter-narrative that destabilized the global political process while using its agents in the field to change the reality on the ground progressively. Russia spent billions of dollars cultivating a terrorism narrative to justify the mass execution of dissident citizens: when half a million people were killed and another one hundred thousand forcibly disappeared, Russia along with Syria negated the human toll by pushing the “terrorist threat” narrative. When Russia decided to test its chemical weapons in Douma, Syria, and killed at least 70 people, it distracted the indignant global community by launching a comprehensive informational strategy to cast doubt about the real events of the attack.[Angela Mehrer, “Information Warfare and the Politics of Threats: An Analysis of Russian Information Warfare on Germany and Its Perception by German Politicians,” Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Political Science Master thesis (2020), https://connections-qj.org/article/information-warfare-and-politics-threats-analysis-russian-information-warfare-germany-and.]
Western public opinion was divided by the confusing stories broadcasted on both traditional and digital media ranging from outright denial of any chemical attack to conspiracy theories to sympathetic descriptions of the ruling regime. Some claimed that the attack was a diversion designed by Westerners to silence the Salisbury Poisonings story, while others argued that Syria lacked the capacity to launch a chemical attack on its citizens. Russia further capitalized on the resulting refugee crisis to undermine neighboring European nations by displacing people living in opposition areas and broadcasting exaggerated stories of the threats presented by the Syrian refugees. Russian state-sponsored broadcasting media continuously spewed false stories targeting particular populations to confuse Western countries and prevent them from interfering in their political interests. For instance, Russian-funded media and social media trolls impeded the global community from taking action in Syria by first undermining citizens’ trust in Western and democratic institutions. Kremlin sowed confusion and stroked fear among Syrians to protect and consolidate Assad’s regime despite calls for his removal through a synchronized mix of traditional and digital media.[Lev Topor and Alexander Tabachnik, “Russian Cyber Information Warfare: International Distribution and Domestic Control,” Journal of Advanced Military Studies 12, no. 1 (April 30, 2021): 112–27, https://doi.org/10.21140/mcuj.20211201005.] [Rod Thornton, “The Changing Nature of Modern Warfare: Responding to Russian Information Warfare,” rusi.org, 2015, https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/rusi-journal/changing-nature-modern-warfare-responding-russian-information-warfare.]
Western dismal efforts at countering Russia’s disinformation measures in the past are largely borne from a misunderstanding of Moscow’s philosophical approach to informational warfare. While the West understands informational operations as manipulating the consciousness of target populations to weaken resistance, Russia’s informational operations also include an ethical, cultural, and legal perspective. For instance, Moscow defines information warfare as the “intensive struggle in the information environment to achieve informational, psychological, and ideological superiority, damaging information infrastructure, undermining political and social systems, as well as psychological shaping military personnel and populations.” Nowhere is this clearer than in Ukraine, where Russia is actively engaged in employing the various elements of its reflexive control techniques that include: denying and concealing military operations in Ukraine, such as by sending field agents in uniforms without insignia; obfuscating its objectives in the Ukraine conflict to sow confusion and convince the population that Moscow’s goals are benign and tolerable; m...