Obama Administration Plans Shake-up in Propaganda War Against the Islamic State

NOTICE the Iranian info warfare.......hard at work....notice he mentioned the word Muslim nations....but he does not address Iranian terrorism inside an Arab Sunni country...Syria.

Javad Zarif ✔ @JZarif
#ImplementationDay, it’s now time for all—especially Muslim nations—to join hands and rid the world of violent extremism. Iran is ready.

So is the Iranian FM ready to remove the 30 different Iraqi Shia militias, the IRGC, Hezbollah units and Shia mercenaries from 12 countries FROM Syria....
THAT would be ridding the world of violent extremism.....

BTW--the Us has stated publicly that a number of those Iraqi Shia militias are actually terrorist organizations.......

So does that Obama WH info war strategy against the IS APPLY to Iran and Russia....??

OR since the Iran Deal is Iran now "off limits".....as Obama seriously believes they are a "moderating force for good"....???

Right now the existential threat to the US comes from Russia.....maybe the Obama WH needs to actually be pushing back on the Russian info warfare first........

Appears now that the US supported and backed SDF is a Russian military unit getting Russian air supporting fighting along side Assad forces against the Syrian anti Assad forces.......how is that possible?????

10,5k #SDF troops fight terrorists alongside #SyrianArmy & their numbers grow by the day
http://sptnkne.ws/azWa

Quote:

Over 10,000 opposition members are fighting Daes terrorists alongside the Syrain Armed Forces, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation stated on Friday.

More than 10,500 members of the Syrian Democratic Forces are fighting today against the Daesh terrorists (ISIL/ISIS) alongside the Syrian armed forces, chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Sergei Rudskoy said.

"Troops of the Syrian Democratic Forces alongside the Syrian Army have been playing an increasing role in the fight against terrorism. Currently, the total number of these units are 10,500 strong," he said.

According to him, over the past few days, opposition groups led by Ayman Al-Ghanim Flyat advanced eight kilometers in the direction of Raqqa, which is considered the "capital" of Daesh terrorists.

One of the "main strongholds" of the Daesh terrorists, a town in the province of Latakia Salma, was liberated with the assistance of the opposition units, the Lt.-Gen. told reporters.

"Three towns, including terrorists' stronghold and the capital of the mountain Latakia was liberated with the assistance of the opposition unit 'Desert Falcons'," Rudskoy said.

The Syrian army with the assistance of the opposition forces has regained control over 10 towns in the province of Hama, the chief of the Russian Genera Staff said.

"At least 24 armed militans who fought alongside terrorists surrendered to the Syrian government forces near the town of Jarjisa [Hama province]," Rudskoy said.

The Syrian government forces backed by opposition units have also reclaimed control over 7 towns near Kweiris military airflied.

Moreover, the Syrian opposition provided the Russian Armed Forces with information about every fifth terrorist target, Rudskoy noted.

"Over the past five months we have established cooperation with the troops of the patriotic opposition. They provide the command of the Russian aviation group with information about terrorist targets in combat zones. After checking the information, the Russian Air Forces conduct airstrikes. Today, the opposition provides us with information about every fifth target," Rudskoy said.

The Russian operation in Syria forced terrorists to operate under less than ideal conditions, such as fuel, ammunition and food shortages, the statement said.

While the Obama WH dallies, talsk, gives interviews and issues press releases....the EU/NATO are light years ahead of the US and this article alludes to the new organization setting the stage for info sharing across allies....

EU/NATO...has been there, has done it and even has the T-shirt to prove it.....

While the US "just talks" the EU is up and running......and a new info warfare center was created via NATO in the Baltics.....

EU Mythbusters @EUvsDisinfo
Who is still alive according to proKremlin media? Read the latest #DisinfoReview to find out
http://eepurl.com/bMAv5P

BTW---very well done and it educates as well.......

Information Warfare: Time to Change the Narrative.

Internet is the fountainhead of the #Kremlin’s influence strategy
http://bit.ly/1RI9j2K

Vladimir Putin receives a lot of sympathy in Europe. And not just from Russian speakers, but also from nationalists of all stripes who see him as a strong and determined individual. The same is true in his own country where his moves in Ukraine and Syria gave him a stratospheric approval rating of 89%. Seducing the masses is no easy feat, which is precisely why an army of media consultants has been tasked with supporting the Russian president. Stuck in spectator mode, the European Union finds itself unable to respond effectively.

The Russian steamroller

Vesti, Sputnik, the Internet Research Agency or Valdai are as much think tanks as media sites faithful to the Kremlin’s cause, acting like bona fide transmission belts for the Russian political elite. For example, it is thought that the Federal Security Service (FSB) uses Itar-Tass, Izvestia and Sputnik to leak information, while Gazprom spreads material though the Echo of Moscow, a Russian radio station. But the Kremlin’s communication strategy does not simply stop at Russia’s borders. Wishing to make its voice heard abroad, Moscow has embarked on a massive project to court foreign public opinion by broadcasting content in multiple languages through its government-friendly TV networks.

This is the mission of Russia Today (RT), a news channel created in 2005 by the government agency, RIA Novosti, which broadcasts in Russian, English, Arabic and Spanish. Claiming to be a counterpoint to one-sided Western media, RT is available to over 700 million viewers worldwide, including more than 120 million in Europe. With 1.6 million subscribers on YouTube, RT is the most followed news channel on the Internet, significantly surpassing the likes of Al Jazeera, CNN, BBC World, France 24 or Euronews.

Indeed, the Internet is the fountainhead of the Kremlin’s influence strategy. In addition to the launch of many media pure players, the Kremlin relies on the services of an armada of Internet trolls, whose main activity is to inundate the Web with pro-Putin comments, and infiltrate social media and foreign news sites on an industrial scale. For example, at the height of the Ukrainian crisis, the Guardian reported that its moderators had to deal with 40,000 pro-Kremlin comments on a daily basis.

Sadly, this crass propaganda is effective. Within the European Union, more and more citizens have come to admire Putin’s leadership. For example, 72% of French believe that Putin is an “energetic” leader, with 56% considering he “defends the interests of his country.” His striking force finds no equivalent in Europe. But, if the old continent is highly permeable to Russian propaganda – to the point that a number of European editorialists do not hesitate to take ownership and to peddle the line of the Kremlin – the reverse is not equally true. You can count on one hand the number of Russians who approve of Europe’s foreign policy on the Ukraine issue. So far, the Union has failed to grasp the importance of developing an effective influence strategy in times of conflict, evincing a certain amateurism that only contributes to spreading the vision of a weak, divided and dominated Europe.

The “CNN Effect” 2.0

The current Russian display of media savviness is unparalleled in its history and signals the arrival of a new form of politically charged journalism. When the Gulf War broke out in 1990, it was the United States and CNN that popularized the model of the 24/7 live news channel. At the time, the American broadcaster had the monopoly over satellite technology from which it widely benefitted as its shows were taken up by media channels all over the world.

To give its audience front row seats to the Gulf War, CNN revolutionized the concept of “embedding,” by essentially grafting journalists in combat units. “Embedding” became a way to filter the war through a pro-American point of view, which proved to be a highly effective technique for winning over international opinion. CNN consistently bombarded the viewer with the same mash-up of looped images portraying American soldiers as heroes, sparking the empathy of the audience, while leaving the “enemy” as an invisible, faceless and voiceless presence that stirred no emotions in the viewer.

This control of the entire visual landscape would be later dubbed the “CNN effect.” Even if the method is formidable – in the US, 70% of the population supported the illegal invasion of Iraq by the order of George Bush – it does not, however, persist over time. Satellite technology is spreading rapidly and CNN’s influence has significantly waned with the establishment of each new media outlet.

If we can no longer talk about a narrowly understood CNN effect, since all countries now have access to the Internet, and even if Moscow cannot boast the same monopoly the American network had in the early 90s, the omnipresence of Russian viewpoints on the Web clearly evokes this “CNN effect.” Today, domination is not merely achieved by wielding superior technology, but through highly effective rhetorical means. If the Kremlin’s messages are so visible, it’s because they are tried and tested for maximum impact. The same thing cannot be said of the EU.

The EU in search of a narrative

The best ambassadors for the Russian media machine are not the battalions of trolls that we mentioned above, but the journalists, elected officials and average Internet user who, having been convinced by the Kremlin’s arguments, will relay them to an ever growing audience. It would be a mistake to assume that these spokesmen, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, have emerged by chance or are on Putin’s payroll. In reality, they have been drawn to the Kremlin’s divisive but relatable communication strategy. Everyone can have their opinion on the substance of the Ukrainian crisis, but it’s hard not to recognize Moscow’s heightened sense of storytelling, its way of presenting the conflict and its genesis in an original and seductive way.

European member states are all the more porous to this narrative since they offer little to nothing in terms of countering the message. In June, a EU “strategic action plan” to develop a “counter-narrative” was presented at the European Council. It was expected that this initiative would provide for the publication of pro-European key messages in articles, op-eds and infographics in multiple languages (including Russian). What happened was that a eight person communication team was set up, composed of members of the European External Action Service, and national experts with no budget of their own. EU officials explained their shy reaction as the Union’s desire not to engage in an info war with Russia.

However, from the outset, the focus of this fledgling communication strategy is too narrow, constricted by its sole ambition of unraveling the Russian narrative. Rather than simply trying to deconstruct the Russian influence campaign, the EU should find its own “storytelling” mechanism. Rather than playing by Moscow’s rules, Europe should start writing its own narrative, a narrative based on European values and on highlighting the EU’s place in the world as a force for human rights, rule of law, freedom and equality. Otherwise, Europe will never develop a voice that will echo across the world.

EU Mythbusters @EUvsDisinfo

In the latest #DisinfoReview: how do pro-Kremlin media use @BBC, @Daily_Telegraph, @dwnews & others? Read & share:
http://eepurl.com/bMAv5P

U.S. Embassy Syria 
‏@USEmbassySyria .@statedeptspox: We’re looking for actions, not words. The regime’s record of broken promises on humanitarian access must stop now. #Syria

Fully agree...BUT what is the plan beyond Twitter.......?????????

So much for info warfare......

This is the power of social media at work that drove this issue WHEN all of the Western MSM And Obama was ignoring the problem of starvation as a weapon......harnessing the power of social media is the answer to informational warfare regardless which nation state and or non nation state actor uses it...."whole of government massive orgs" as proposed here in the realm of nimbleness are doomed to fail.....it really is that simple.

Finally !
@SYRedCrescent convoy with aid arrived in #Madaya minutes ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsuN0wG_2QM …

Syrian Red Crescent ‏@SYRedCrescent
#Breaking: First trucks of @SYRedCrescent aid convoys enter #Kefraya #Foua and #Madaya simultaneously

WFP Europe @WFP_Europe
Helping #Syrians in & outside of the country is vital to avoiding a lost generation - thanks to donors such as #EU
pic.twitter.com/pbaAI5De3B

UNHCRNews ‏@RefugeesMedia ·
... UNHCR Rep: 'to see so many hungry people. Its cold and raining but there is excitement because we are here with some food and blankets.'

Below is an example of social media push back on the Russian info war media outlet Russia Today......

Since @MuradoRT stopped covering #Madaya after the fake #Hezbollah aid I'll pick up slack: "Crowds of hungry kids.."
pic.twitter.com/QbbJx9bMgF

Murad Gazdiev
‏@MuradoRT Just passed by first aid trucks bound for #madaya. Water&flour. Judging by lack of markings, this is #syria govt aid

Murad Gazdiev ‏@MuradoRT ·
Another fully loadef #syria govt food aid truck going in to #madaya. Looks like rice or flour.

Hezbollah's false aid convoy @MuradoRT showcased used to tease families into leaving homes:
http://www.syriahr.com/en/?p=42469

@MuradoRT This is not government aid. You are a horrific liar.

Though he covered Hezbollah's false aid trucks @MuradoRT has gone silent for the real @UN/@SYRedCrescent aid convoy?

@MuradoRT Anyone home? Or is the show over now that real aid showed up? http://www.syriahr.com/en/?p=42469
pic.twitter.com/4C1URIqJGS

Since the Obama administration does not seem to deem it important to have an info war strategy for Putin/Russia maybe it might be about time after this German BILD newspaper interview with Putin....the US would do well to push back but alas Obama is treadmilling it for the next 13 months and does not want to rock the proverbial boat...WHY some say he is politicking for the UN SecGen position after leaving the WH...but again that could just be Russian rumor spin....

Putin---for me territorial borders are of no interest.....??

Putin in @BILD:"Grenzen sind für mich nicht wichtig"
http://www.bild.de/politik/ausland/wladimir-putin/interview-mit-dem-rus… …

The two key cornerstones to non linear warfare in UW are;
1. informational warfare
2.cyber warfare..........

Russia’s Sandworm hack that shut down power in Ukraine has been spying on NATO+Ukraine for yrs http://www.wired.com/2014/10/russian-sandworm-hack-isight/ …

Global implications of Sandstorm attack on #Ukraine electricity–1st such attack on power grid infrastructure
http://www.ibtimes.com/did-russia-kill-ukraines-electricity-cyberattack… …

Why is it that the Obama WH seems to think the IS info warfare is an existential threat to the US AND ignores Russian informational warfare..??

Kremlin Trolls @KremlinTrolls

Mass blocking of #Ukraine users @Twitter ac's start #Russia operation “Brotherly Peoples”
pic.twitter.com/Dp4GAW62P8

http://world.maidan.org.ua/2016/mass-blocking-twitter-operation-brother…

Mass Blocking of the Ukrainian Users Twitter Accounts start Russian Operation “Brotherly Peoples”

Jan 10th, 2016 | By Sergij Petrov

Since December 29th, an organized campaign has been aimed at Ukrainian Twitter users, hitting them with a wave of bans and suspensions. Its targets are accounts that actively oppose the Russian regime and its aggression. Many of these accounts have thousands of followers. By now, more than 30 prominent accounts (some with hundreds of thousands of readers) have been blocked.

Twitter has recently updated its Rules in response to intense pressure from several governments. (For example, Germany has criticized Twitter for inaction on hate speech in the aftermath of mass influx of North African and Middle Eastern refugees.) The updated rules, which further restrict inflammatory images and calls for violence directed at members of particular ethnic or religious groups, are being applied retroactively to tweets that predate the changes, in some cases by as much as a year ago. In doing so, Twitter has gone against a fundamental legal principle, accepted by most of the civilized world and enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the American Constitution, and elsewhere – that ex post facto punishment is unjust.

A similar, though less intense campaign has targeted Facebook as well, affecting, among others, “Maidan Monitoring Information Center”. Nataliia Zubar’s Facebook profile has been suspended for a week, also for a post written long ago.

But this massive purge of Ukrainian accounts in Twitter and elsewhere is only the TOP of the iceberg that is the Russian spec-op we may call “Operation Brotherly Peoples”.

Recall that in November of last year the rhetoric of the Kremlin changed suddenly and drastically. Once more “brotherly peoples” and “Russo-Ukrainian friendship” became the dominant slogans. Beginning in the fall, certain Ukrainian journalists (Andrii Kulykov, Nastia Stanko, and many others), began hinting to their audiences at the option of “understanding and forgiving” the pro-Russian separatists and terrorists back into the Ukraininan society, explaining away separatism as a mere error of judgment rather than a viewpoint that is fundamentally unacceptable both politically and legally.

These journalists were joined by a group of Ukrainian media platforms, all of which owe their existence primarily to grants from Western governments and NGOs: Hromadske, Hromadske Radio, Ukrainska Pravda, Radio Svoboda (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty), and Voice of America. These were followed by many other, lesser media organizations, as well as a number of freelance journalists and social activists. (Coincidentally, many of the same persons and organizations tend to act as a broken telephone for western criticisms of the Ukrainian government, which occasionally had to subsequently be officially denied by the US Embassy in Ukraine and the representatives of the EU.)

Recall, moreover, that these members of the Ukrainian media were joined by many of those Russian citizens, who had emigrated to Ukraine and have already begun instructing Ukrainians in the proper ways to reform their government, respect for their Russian-speaking countrymen, and rebuild Ukraine’s damaged ties with Russia.

Operation Brotherly Peoples, so far, is one of the final, desperate attempts by the Russian rulers to save themselves and their country from further collapse. The state of the Russian economy is terrible. Low and continually falling price of oil is making it impossible to fund basic social services. Local governments, have been abandoned and left to fend for themselves. Burning through its reserve funds during the course of 2016 in order to stave off the inevitable collapse of the ruble, could leave Russia bankrupt by the end of this year. The Putin regime, therefore, has less than a year to save itself.

The Operation itself would take six to nine months, depending on degree of success of its several constituent stages. It has been deliberately put in action before the Christmas and New Year holidays in order to coincide with reduced activity of social networks so as to make it less noticeable and more efficient. It can be broken into the following five major stages. Stage One (information cleanup) involves:
◾botnets and their coordinators, who send Twitter automated mass complaints against Ukrainian users (bot accounts typically have random names and handles, and incomplete profiles);
◾a segment of Twitter management, who are aware of the situation but have received substantial rewards from Russia for ignoring it; major grant-dependent Ukrainian media services (Hromadske, Hromadske Radio, Ukrainska Pravda, Radio Svoboda (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty), other grant-dependent media/journalists/activists, the Ukrainian Voice of America (led by Myroslava Gongadze, who has been known to “like” posts of pro-Russian separatists and terrorists), and so on – all of them conspicuously turning a blind eye to internet attacks against Ukrainians;

Myroslava Gonganze retweeted account of pro-Russian separatists and terrorists, in which Putin named as a School Chairman, Hollande as a father, Merkel as a mother and Poroshenko as a son being scolded as a poor student for his low grades.
◾some individual Ukrainian users, including those who are actual Russian agents or bots, as well as those who become involved in order to settle personal scores (these tend to show support for the Right Sector and other nationalists, call for military assault on the Donbass, and place blame for all the problems under the sun at Obama, Poroshenko and pro-government Ukrainians);
◾Russian “refugees” in Ukraine, who have been embedded to help identify the dangerous shapers of public opinion.

Both the dismissive coverage of the story by Hromadske, as well as the silence of Ukrainska Pravda and Radio Svoboda (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty), suggest their approval of the situation and constitute at least passive collaboration with its perpetrators. This may have to do with high prevalence on their staff of Russian expats, latent separatists and far leftists (the latter, incidentally, are particularly susceptible to all calls for reconciliation and fraternization). They are complemented by large numbers of ordinary empty-headed “useful idiots”. It often seems like the staff of these media consists exclusively of the above… Note that these media services react instantly to any bit of news that allows for criticism of the Ukrainian government, but in this case it took them all day (at best!) to react after the attacks had gone public. And even then, the position expressed by these publications amounts to placing the blame on Twitter’s new rules and, indeed, on the victims themselves, instead of placing it on the perpetrator. (Sure! The victims are blameworthy for breaking rules with tweets posted prior to the rules’ enactment! Nothing wrong with such reasoning at all!)

The mechanism of the Twitter attacks can apparently be reduced to scanning posts of the targeted users for certain code words (e.g., “death to Russia”, “burn”, “smoke”, “kill”), after which the bontets automatically file mass complaints with Twitter. Since these bot nets can consist of hundreds of thousands of accounts, their complaints lead to suspension of targeted accounts, with their subsequent ban or restoration at the discretion of Twitter’s moderators. The number of those who have been at least temporarily suspended in this way is currently on track to reach 100 (if it hasn’t surpassed this number already).

It is worth noting that Russian-language accounts are blocked more frequently, since the xenophobic supporters of the Kremlin generally lack sufficient knowledge of Ukrainian even to understand what is being discussed. Not even Google Translate can help them there. The linguistic barrier has turned out to be a decent defence against the Russian coordinators of attacks, though it does not fully guarantee safety from being blocked by it.

The goal of the first stage of Operation Brotherly Peoples, then, is to purge from the information field those Ukrainian patriots who apply fact-checking and critical thinking to the content of the Ukrainian mass media, and who try to convey their conclusion to those spreading and affected by panic on Facebook and Twitter.

Unless appropriate steps are taken to respond to the attacks, they are likely to succeed in isolating and silencing discussion of critical evaluation of the above-mentioned Ukrainian mass media. The silencing of these voices, as well as the redaction of what they have already said is the practical consequence of the operation’s goal: to damage the respectability and reduce the influence of the most prominent pro-Ukrainian commentators of the affected social networks. This, first step of the operation is to conclude in about a month from now.

Stage Two (reconciliation, “fraternization”, “understanding and reconciliation”) is to last from the end of January through March. Its purpose is to pound into the heads of Ukrainians the idea that the terrorists operating in and out of the occupied “Novorossia” are really brothers to them, and that the former are to blame for all the woes of the latter. This coincides with the latest stated intentions of the Russian puppets concerning the timeframe for holding “elections”. During the same period we can also expect various “fraternal” actions to occur throughout the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, along the ATO frontline in particular. Such “fraternization” is likely to be forced onto the civilians under the occupation. Certain Ukrainian journalists and Russian “emigres” (hand-picked by the FSB and acting with its approval) can be expected to take part in such “reconciliation” initiatives.

Russia is likely to remain able to perform several such local actions simultaneously – at least until April. After that, Russia’s deteriorating economy, combined with the increasing pressure from our Western allies, is likely to close the window of opportunity.

Stage Three (“Down with the Government!”) is to last from April to May, reaching crescendo during the May holidays (Russian Victory Day in particular). We are going to witness sudden and drastic changes of emphasis (analogous to Russian media’s reorientation from Ukraine onto Syria), along with the standard slogans of “treason everywhere!”, “we’ve been sold out!”, “it’s all the government’s fault!”, “nothing’s changed!”, “down with the government!”… Under such slogans various organizations will spring into organized action (including the Right Sector, which is at present largely managed by the “refugee” Artem Skoropadsky). We can expect attempts to provoke serious civil unrest, along with complete elimination from the public sphere of all the voices critical of the dominant viewpoint promoted by the operation.

Stage Four is further agitation, with the goal of transforming unrest into a revolutionary situation. Assuming success of Stage Three, as well as commitment of significant financial resources, the gamble would be worthwhile.

The final Stage (planned roughly for the end of September or the beginning of October) is Maidan 3.0, which would be a “regime change” at the hands of putatively Ukrainian groups, which in reality are mere fronts for the FSB. The government is handed over to the Party of Regions fugitives, who are currently hiding in Russia. After that Russia would demand – successfully – that sanctions against it be revoked. This would save Putin’s regime and the Russian state, notwithstanding heavy losses and great difficulties that would still need to be overcome.

Can such an Operation succeed? It cannot. But the effectiveness of its preliminary stages is alarming and the idea of reconciliation is indeed being heavily promoted. Since time is running out for them, Russia and its agents are resorting to increasingly direct acts in order to destabilize the situation in Ukraine. Such is the sabotage of a vulnerable Carpathian section of Ukraine’s network of natural gas pipelines, as well as the hacker attack on the Ukrainian energy grid. We can add simultaneous efforts to provoke inter-ethnic conflict in the areas adjacent to the occupied Crimea (in the first place, directed at the Crimean Tatars and the Meskhetian Turks, who actively participated in the blockade of Crimea). The city and region of Odessa (its southern parts in particular) are once again major targets of such rabble-rousing.

Rather than surrender, Russia is persistently trying to destabilize Ukraine by all means still available to the Kremlin. An operation such as the one I’ve described is too unrealistic to succeed. However, in order to prevent the damage it would do by succeeding even in a part, we ought to do all we can to stop it from silencing the pro-Ukrainian voices on Twitter and to compel Twitter to restore those who have already been banned or suspended. We should also make sure that nothing like it is allowed to happen on Facebook and elsewhere.

Iranian info warfare hard at work....and the US push back response is again exactly what??.....BUT WAIT maybe there is no US push back as the Iranians are right in their press statement......

Official #Islamic agency (#IRNA) today praises #US media for taking #Tehran's side in diplomatic tussle with #Riyadh over embassy attack.

If the US social media giants cannot get it right just how is Obama going to get the US government to get it right and the US government does not have to respond to shareholders.....

Twitter's new policy misused by pro-Kremlin accounts 2attack #Ukraine bloggers #SaveUaTwi
http://euromaidanpress.com/2016/01/09/twitters-new-policy-misused-by-pr… … pic.twitter.com/HOZ7haTBpU

Russia trolls use new @twitter rules against #Ukraine users.several hundreds have been already blocked

SO again the core question--just who do the US social media giants really work for...appears to be for the Russian info war.......

This administration has absolutely no idea that they have been in a massive info war with IS since 2003 in Iraq and since 2013 with Russia and thus really do not fully understand how to fight back in a info war they have already largely lost.

Mortis (Banned) @Mortis_Banned

Suspended for venting about haircare products 3 years ago: how Kremlin trolls abuse new Twitter rules. Please RT http://euromaidanpress.com/2016/01/09/twitters-new-policy-misused-by-pr… …

They cannot seem to realize this is now a full scale 360 degree war and it is hourly 24 x 7 X 365......and a "whole of government approach" in the US tradition has simply never worked nor will ever work.

"Whole of government" never worked in COIN and we the US have no experience using it successfully in a information war.

Obama and his administration talks about IS info warfare BUT seems to totally forget the Russian info warfare is as equally danagerous....do remember it was a number of US Generals that defined Russian as an "existential threat to the US"...they did not use that term when talking about IS....

Russian/Iranian propaganda hard at work........today from the 100% Russian owned propaganda media outlet....Sputnik.

http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20...#ixzz3wkL0a1Pd

Rebel Militants Repelled by Syrian Army, Russian Jets in Latakia Province

Middle East
08:50 09.01.2016(updated 12:55 09.01.2016)

Quote:

Taking the Ground Back: Syrian Army Further Liberates Aleppo

With the help of Russian air strikes, the Syrian Army and the country's National Defense Forces (NDF) won back an array of strategic areas in western Syria's Latakia province, according to the Iranian news agency FARS.

Dozens of militants were killed and many more wounded after the Syrian troops launched an offensive on terrorists based in the mountainous regions of Latakia province, where the army took control of Tal Kherba, Al Juba and Height 1023, among other areas.

"The Syrian army and the NDF continued to advance against the terrorist groups north of Lattakia and took back Heights 292, 296 and 387. The pro-government forces also won back the Heights 465, 342 and 489 near the newly-liberated village of al-Sarraf," FARS quoted army sources as saying.

According to the sources, the Syrian forces also captured Daghdaghan Farm, believed to be one of the main strongholds of the militant groups in Latakia.

Earlier this week, the Syrian Army and the NDF staged large-scale offensives on the militant groups in Lattakia, winning back several strategic villages and heights.

In particular, the army took full control of Rweiset Abu Ghannam, Rweiset al-Sheikh Salman, Mount al-Hara and Mount Bait Fares, where scores of rebel Islamist extremists were killed or wounded, the sources said.

Aleppo Governor Predicts Syrian Army's Imminent Victory Against Daesh
The Russian air campaign in Syria was launched on September 30, 2015, when more than fifty Russian warplanes, including Su-24M, Su-25 and Su-34 jets, commenced precision airstrikes on Islamic State targets in Syria at the behest of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Earlier that day, the Russian upper house of parliament unanimously supported the request of President Vladimir Putin to deploy units of the Russian Aerospace Forces abroad. Syrian Ambassador to Russia Riad Haddad, for his part, confirmed that Syrian Army strikes, supported by the Russian Aerospace Forces, were being carried out against armed terrorist organizations, rather than political opposition factions or civilians.

WOW--did I understand this sentience correctly---the 11 Syrian civilians killed in the RuAF air strike on a market place and the tens wounded WHERE NOT civilians......?

WHAT was the Obama response to the continued Russian deliberate targeting and killing of civilians in marketplaces......silence...there is one way to respond to Russian informational warfare......

This will be my Obama failure rant for today......

1. by shifting this debate concerning info warfare to the realm of CT TOTALLY ignores the simple fact that information war is a super key cornerstone to UW and it is being practiced daily NOT only by IS, BUT by Russia, Iran and China some form or fashion.

2. this administration has not fully understood the concepts of UW, CUW, non linear warfare or the Chinese "Three Waves"---BUT have inherently decided that to combat info warfare IT must be a counter terrorism effort---SO totally wrong it hurts.

3. by placing the anti info warfare effort into some form of government agency ONE has effectively now entered the realm of anything produced by that agency as being seen "as typical government propaganda" by the targeted audience/audiences. This is a war of perception/values and it must be fought with truth as much as that might even hurt the US--it is that simple.

AND besides that once in various government agencies SUDDENLY one will need a security clearance at least at the SECRET level to work across security agencies and across multiple governments.....

INFO WARFARE is in fact OSINT AND believe me the rules of the game have not changed since the Cold War...OSINT has always been unclassified and it must stay that way---BUT in the CT fight against jihadi's it somehow slipped into the realm of classified---driven largely by the defense contracting world.

BY remaining totally unclassified it allows everything to be swapped and moved around at a certain speed level.

4. the info war being fought by IS and especially Russia and Iran is being driven in the realm of social media at the speed of the internet 24 X 7 X 365 and that requires if one is to counter it an equally agile, adapting and fast organization--THAT will never be achieved by any formal US governmental CT counter effort.

Example---the use of cluster munitions against civilians by the RuAF and the fake Russian denials, the current use of chemical weapons against civilians, the sheer number of civilians being killed by the RuAF, the use of starvation by both Assad/Putin as a battlefield tactic, RuAF air strikes against schools, churches, food supplies, critical infrastructure and against legal NGO aid convoys ALL were revealed by social media and with a super large time lag sometimes reported on by MSM

In the above social media reporting THERE was a massive info war ongoing with usually social media winning against both the Russians, Assad, and IS.

SO WHERE was the current Obama administration in all of the above info war fight...........totally silent......

5. MONEY rules the informational warfare realm at least on the Russian side---IS uses sheer manpower to overcome the issue of lack of MONEY.
Right now the Russian public media being used is at a level of 700M USD PA---let's repeat that figure 700M USD PA to cover 130 different countries 24 x 7 AND that does not count their three core press agencies, TASS, Interfax and the worst propaganda offender Sputnik International.

WHAT does the West have right now as an equal counter balance....ONE-----
Radio Free Europe and that is about it.

NOW for the really difficult and somewhat STRANGE issue....WHAT role do the US giant social media companies ie FB, YouTube, Twitter, and to a degree Instagram PLAY in the Russian/Chinese/Iranian and IS info war......WHAT side do they really take these days in the realm of info warfare?? BASED on their two years worth of activities they often appear to be playing info warfare against the US and yet claiming at the same time they are US companies...AND we must truly understand the use by say Russia of US persons as "influencers" in their form of info warfare...the Is also to a degree uses "influencers".

TYPICAL Example from this morning here in Europe....not sure Twitter wants to answer this....

Just blocked 26 eggs, each with 1 follower & protected ac. @Twitter aren't you clamping down on this? @Support

How is this possible? Has @twitter banned everyone using # like #russiainvadedukraine #ukraineunderattack @Support https://twitter.com/RutheniaRus/status/685447262772834308 …

I have been the only Commenter here on SWJ actually rising the question about the role of Us social media giants in especially the Russian info warfare---well worth a doctorial thesis on it as it raises some serious legal/ethnical questions.

BASED on the example of Russia/Putin/eastern Ukraine they largely have supported the Russian info warfare efforts--PROBABLY due to large and extensive Russian oligarch investments into their companies---ie a Russian boss of European Twitter based in Ireland etc.....

IF you had told me two years ago Twitter could be used as a SPAM bot and Twitter could be used to conduct DDoS attacks against key info war push back accounts I would have laughed...I no longer laugh.

Currently Twitter changed their Conditions and Terms for the End User and promptly Russian trolls via automated SPAMMING using those new Conditions and Terms EFFECTIVELY blocked over 40 major Ukrainian Twitter Accounts that have been critical of Russia AND thus over hundreds of thousands of Followers.....AND Twitter Support response was what exaclty.....SILENCE.

SO if the US starts say a Twitter campaign using multiple accounts---HOW fast can they be blocked...FAST.

Lastly it appears those advising Obama on info warfare have somehow failed to tell their Boss that both the Russians and IS have literally thousands pushing their messaging/narrative structured around key companies all driving on a single narrative until that company changes the narrative and then they swing into the new narrative....WITHIN literally minutes, not hours and or days that it would take a government agency to do.....

Example--I have posted on the Ukrainian thread a large number of social media OSINT work done on the Russian info warfare bot nets...thousands of accounts are involved and it is highly automated....WHAT does the US has an equal...nothing absolutely nothing and YET we are TWO YEARs into this info war with the Russians and over 13 years with AQ/IS alone in Iraq.

My last rant on this subject would be can anyone in the Obama administration actually concretely on a whiteboard sketch out exactly what is happening in the realm of just say social media as part of the information war referencing say Russia and IS---just those two not counting the Iranians and China.

Better yet can they give a coherent presentation on the role of info warfare in UW in support to say the Russian political warfare being actively conducted today against the US, NATO and the EU. Let's not even get into the IS world....WHERE we have basically already lost the info war.

No one can as they have not fully accepted the concept of UW and CUW much less spell it.

Example--can anyone in the NSC and or advisor to Obama actually write out and explain the SIX Ds of Russian propaganda????

None....

All the Obama/NSC scrambling in the next 13 months will not win that lost war back.

This article is nothing more than an Obama info war event...trying to show he is actively doing something in order to cover him for the next 13 months before he pitches it to the next President who will find themselves in a really deep hole.

Matches the other Obama info war articles blaming the lack of great messaging or that people just do not get his FP or his Syrian/IS strategy...info warfare being practiced by a sitting US President ..who would have ever thought that??

After tracking Russian social media and MSM info war, disinformation and propaganda activities for going on now 2 years--this is again further proof of exactly how Obama hides his lack of a coherent strategy for anything.

This area is so important BUT Obama himself has literally refused to engage in the info war AND it is now funny to see him "engaging"....TWO years to late.

I will post a long example later today indicating exactly why his initiative is doomed to fail and will fail.

Again I will make the comment...this is the weakest President and his related NSC in literally now 70 years....amazed that many here do not see that.

WHEN a President does not fully understand the two critical cornerstones of non linear warfare being used to support political warfare....1) informational warfare and 2) cyber warfare WE as a nation state are in serious trouble going forward.

Creating large new so called rebuilt and refocused organizations, ie government agencies will never "win" the info warfare needed against the non linear warfare being practiced by Russian, Iran, and yes even the IS.

Government agencies do not and will never have the speed and flexibility to move on a dime needed to work the "social media front" where Russia, Iran and IS work 24 X 7 X 365......

THEN on top of it ---they must be able to follow the sun on social media so just where are they to be based in order to effectively engage say IS or the daily Russian troll front.

What another waste of taxpayers money....and as is with the current Obama Syrian strategy and a non IS strategy...doomed to fail.