The lead paragraph sets the stage:
“The U.S. military needs to upgrade its
psychological operations as adversaries take advantage of cyberspace to ramp up
psychological warfare on the United States. Yet the military faces a difficult
landscape to up its game, based on remarks by several current and former
Special Operations officers.”
While much of it is somewhat ‘old
news’, readers may find the Transcript of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats
and Capabilities COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES UNITED STATES SENATE UNITED STATES
SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND’S EFFORTS TO TRANSFORM THE FORCE FOR FUTURE SECURITY
CHALLENGES (see: http://bit.ly/2GDiSmh) of
interest, it’s only 60 pages.
Here are some things that struck me:
1.
The experts quoted are all SOF or
former SOF.
2.
There is agreement that there needs to
be more effective cyberspace influence operations.
3.
Privacy protections limit influence
operation effectiveness.
4.
The Global Engagement Center was funded
at $160 million under the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (see: http://bit.ly/2NlapED)
Here are some items that are missing:
1.
The Global Engagement Center is
actually part of the Department of State: https://www.state.gov/r/gec/)
2.
The Global Engagement Center has been
criticized and hobbled. Both Vanity Fair and the NY Times have published
articles. (see for example: http://bit.ly/2So1Muc
and https://nyti.ms/2V7XbOi)
3.
The President has given the military
more authority to launch cyber attacks. (see: https://cnn.it/2EpZFlB,
also a photo source)
If we step back and take a look at the
bigger picture, we see that:
1.
There is no overall, government wide
cyber influence strategy.
2.
Cyberspace operations or cyber attacks
are like the kinetic actions of the physical world, yet there doesn’t seem to
be a non-kinetic or influence targeting balance.
3.
Both PSYOP and offensive cyberspace
operations seem to be considered as independent, general short term, and
perhaps even tactical level operations rather than longer-term operational
level or on-going strategic efforts.
As the new Congress settles in and the
partisan climate continues, we should be very concerned that the critical
nature of Cyber Influence Operations will continue to be ignored. Some
organizations are claiming victory in thwarting alleged Russian efforts to
impact the midterm elections. Hard to know if they did or didn’t, but rest assured
our enemies are busily at work on their operations to influence our
Presidential nomination and election process.
Reader comments invited. If you’re
attending the RSA Conference in San Francisco, I’m performing on Tuesday, March 05, 14:20
As always, reader comments are encouraged.
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