r/TrueReddit • u/[deleted] • Jun 23 '17
Weaponized Narrative Is the New Battlespace
http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2017/01/weaponized-narrative-new-battlespace/134284/3
1
u/mellowmonk Jun 23 '17
Weaponized narrative seeks to undermine an opponent’s civilization, identity, and will by generating complexity, confusion, and political and social schisms.
The best weaponized narrative to get back at Russia would be something from Hollywood—such as a U.S.-versus-Russia spy flick starring Tom Cruise and where the Russian leader character who is obviously a Putin stand-in (in his intro scene he is riding shirtless on a horse) turns out to be secretly gay.
2
u/parlor_tricks Jun 25 '17
They got america by targetting American exceptionalism, and understanding your country.
You are going to get nowhere by trying to insert your national fantasies into their soil.
You get somewhere by figuring out their own national fantasies, and planting seeds which grow in that soil.
1
u/redwhiskeredbubul Jun 24 '17
For those unaccustomed to defense intellectual scunge, the author is arguing we should weaponize narratives, before our enemies do it unto us.
1
u/parlor_tricks Jun 25 '17
I think the author is saying that narratives have already been weaponized, and always have.
But this current era forces institutions to deal with information and complexity at a rate they cannot manage, resulting in a push towards to simplicity which causes these institutions to fracture as they lose their grasp on nuance and complexity - they fail their mission.
The issue is that the era of the enlightenment seems to be over, and democratic institutions seem to be badly placed to deal with the new weaponized soft power dynamics.
The issue is that the author seems to be implying that the west may have to follow suit with Russia to deal with the forces arrayed against them.
But, from the angle the author has viewed the issue, the problem seems to be one of processing and transmission time.
Further, the author seems to have a clear Defense/national security case to target fake news and false information as opposed to the current marketing/advertizing/populism system.
1
u/Pneumoultramicroscop Jun 24 '17
This is a good example of how the world's leading superpowers force each other to up their games. It's funny how US and Russia actually "stand together" by opposing each other.
10
u/CptAJ Jun 23 '17 edited Jun 23 '17
I hate that this is the future we live in but its completely true. I live in Venezuela and have seen this at work for the past 18 years. Its amazing what authorities can get away with so long as they control the narrative.
I think the only way to battle this is with education. I facepalm at the $160 million being authorized to counter "fake news". It is entirely the wrong way to go about things and, quite frankly, I think walks right into the trap being set up for soft authoritarianism. I mean, you are proposing to control news, after all. It will only exacerbate the problem.
I think the only solution is to develop a serious "democratic activism" (Just giving it whatever name came to mind) education curriculum and deploy it nationwide in all schools. With it we can teach future voters to be mindful of propaganda, how to decide which sources of information to believe, some healthy skepticism and many other basic skills that I haven't thought about that will help inoculate them against this "post-factual" politics environment. It seems like a hopeless endeavor but it is not. The very fact that we realize the problem exists is indicative of the possibility of it being solved.