Posts Tagged ‘China’

EPISTEMOLOGICAL WARFARE

Posted: July 14, 2022 in Geopolitics, Information Warfare, Political Philosophy, Powerful Ideas, Readiness & Strategy, War
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A STRATEGY FOR FIGHTING ACTIVE MEASURES IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE

By Richard Martin, President, Canadian Academy of Leadership and Development of Human Capital

The Situation

Individuals in our societies spend significant time and resources watching or reading online media and content. We are not going back to the days of limited television options and a few (inter)national news sources. In younger generations, the scale of online participation is staggering as compared to older ones. This is because younger people do not rely on traditional, “mainstream” sources of information. They live in the ephemeral, evanescent world of social media and crowd-sourced content platforms, much of which is of doubtful provenance and intent.

The result is that younger people are flooded with competing or contradictory ideas, ideologies, and influences through social media, amplified by influencers of questionable association and intent; word of mouth; educational institutions; civil society organizations; advertising; and variant lifestyles. These messages are not necessarily (though many are) negative or corrosive of core civic values though an important portion do offer a narrative unsupportive or questioning of our stable, secure, liberal, prosperous democracies. Some channels and sources of information favour social disorder and subversion with the goal of undermining Western resilience, defence, values, and objectives.

Prominent social media platforms are the principal (though not exclusive) channels enabling the promotion of ideas and concepts that can erode the commitment to creating and sustaining peaceful and secure societies that value individual liberty, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law and which underlie the most prosperous societies in history. I believe these values are worth upholding, sustaining, and as required, defending. With that said, censorship and centralized control of information, whether public or private, are not the solution, as these go against the core values of the free, democratic, rules and rights-based order.

The Threat

Hostile powers and forces are relentlessly engaged in information operations to undermine the morale, resilience, and resolve of Western nations and their populations. Public awareness of this threat and its effects has increased since the invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, but the focus is on Russia, leaving other state-based and state-sponsored actors to operate relatively unhindered below the radar of the public, politicians, and businesses. On the other hand, this awareness is hazy, limited, and non-specific. Individuals and organizations have little understanding of hostile intentions, strategies, operational approaches, and the specific techniques, tactics, and procedures that are used to achieve hostile ends.

The threat goes well beyond cyberattacks, disinformation, and misdirection. In fact, we believe that we have entered a new phase of information warfare which I call “epistemological warfare.” The aim of epistemological warfare isn’t just to attack nations and their populations with false, misleading, obfuscating, or confusing information and propaganda. It goes much further by launching a full-scale assault on the critical faculties and judgment of friendly nations, populations, and leaders.

The techniques are many but focus mainly on eroding critical thinking by overwhelming the public sphere, especially through social media channels and platforms, with false, doubtful, or contradictory information presented in sound bites, images, video clips, and Internet “memes” that exploit and reinforce well-known cognitive biases and fallacies. These include everything from non sequitur and tu quoque fallacies, to psychological heuristics such as the primacy effect, the bandwagon effect, and others too numerous to list. The apparent goal is to erode the ability of individuals to judge what is true and false, whom and what to believe, and whom to support. This results in a cynical and nihilistic attitude toward the facts, intentions, and objectives presented by and for contending powers and forces and undermines support for a strong defence against hostile intent and activities.

The Strategy

The effort to build societal resilience, especially in succeeding generations, depends on the ability to provide concrete tools that can be used quickly and effectively to resist, counter, and evaluate the claims, evidence, statements, and arguments that form the basis for disinformation, propaganda, and other hostile information activities. This requires a rational, systematic approach to the problem, one based on clear outcomes, deliverables, and methods.

The key to long-term, enduring success in building societal resistance is to focus on the succeeding generation of current and potential leaders who will become influencers, opinion formers and decision makers in the areas of public policy and administration, diplomacy, communications, business, finance and banking, public safety, and the profession of arms.

The centre of gravity in this effort is to develop and disseminate an intellectual and psychological toolkit to current and future young leaders to undergird individual and collective analyses and evaluations concerning the logical soundness and validity of the various claims, evidence, propositions, rhetoric, and arguments that are inserted and disseminated in the public domain.

The best way to equip our youth for resilience in the face of withering attacks of information and epistemological warfare is to help them recognize the different types of activities, with a view to reformulating them according to logical principles to evaluate their probability and overall validity. By this means, leaders of the successor generation will be better equipped to apply their own judgment through proven processes and methods of reasoning that are resilient and invariant across domains, topics, platforms, and content.

© Richard Martin

Ukraine Situation Report: 1300 10 MARCH 22

Posted: March 10, 2022 in Geopolitics, Readiness & Strategy, War
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By Richard Martin

We need to talk about the economic impacts of the Ukrainian invasion on Russia and, by extension, China. Key strategic takeaways:

1) Russia is heading toward an autarkic situation, with trade limited to China and other countries in the Axis of Lies. In essence, it is in the process of becoming a huge North Korea.

2) Russia needs Ukraine for its resources and productive capacity (Lebensraum).

3) China is crucial to Russia to provide markets, access to capital, and a conduit for advanced technology and outside innovation.

4) The United States must lead the West in cleaving China and Russia apart and play them off against each other, as was achieved with the Opening to China strategy of the 1970s.

5) The United States and Canada should stop tilting at windmills – literally and figuratively – and ramp up production and export of hydrocarbons, especially gas, to supply Europe, Japan, and other friendly and like-minded nations.

Most Western countries have imposed a raft of economic and financial sanctions on Russia since the invasion began on 24 February 2022. These are in addition to the sanctions that had been imposed since the annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Depending on the country, measures run the gamut from cutting Russia off from the Swift payment network, seizures of financial and real assets of regime members and oligarchs, embargoes on oil, gas, and petroleum products, trade interdicts, massive tariff increases, banning of Russian civil aviation, and other less prominent sanctions too numerous to mention.

So much for state-level sanctions. Transnational companies have also announced they are pulling out of Russia or will do so imminently. Many of these have decided to liquidate their investments in Russia, or simply abandon them and take massive write-downs on their assets. The most prominent of the latter are some of the biggest oil and gas companies in the world, such as Shell, BP, and Exxon.

On the other side of the equation, the Russian government has been banning foreign media outlets while threatening draconian prison sentences on anyone contesting the official Kremlin line on the invasion. This includes foreigners, and some of the most credible and courageous news organizations are being forced out or cowed into more insipid coverage.

To add to the informational chaos, Netflix, Facebook, TikTok, and other social media platforms have either ceased operating in Russia or have been banned. Putin and the Kremlin has threatened to completely cut off the country from the Internet. This will give the Kremlin full rein to poison the minds of Russians and indoctrinate younger generations even more than is already the case. Russia has adopted a strategy of information chaos with the goal of generating cynicism and nihilism internationally and complete obedience internally. When combined with autarky and complete top-down control of the economy and country, Russia is well on its way to realizing its brand of fascist nightmare.

While all this is happening, China, Russia’s non ally “strategic partner,” has continued to supply resources and maintained trade with Russia. In my estimation, this relationship will only get closer. I assess that Russia is headed for autarky, with China constituting Russia’s principal market for raw materials while providing access to technology, high tech manufacturing, and investment capital. Chinese companies have already started circling abandoned or divested Western enterprises like vultures. The pickings should be reasonably good for China.

This puts the invasion of Ukraine in a different light. In effect, Russia needs Ukraine as Lebensraum (living space). Yes, I use that term in the very specific sense of Nazi Germany. As many commentators have pointed out, Ukraine has tremendous resources, including agricultural, industrial, and other economic capacity, actual and potential. Whether Russia can fully exploit that potential will depend on the technical, financial, and industrial support the country receives from China in addition to what it can muster internally.

This assessment suggests a few inferences. First, to be successful, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine must end in its conquest and incorporation into the Russian economy and sphere of influence. I believe that is the ultimate war aim of Putin and the Kremlin and will lead to the near complete reconstitution of the Russian/Soviet Empire. This would explain Putin’s willingness to sacrifice so much military combat power and his readiness to destroy civil infrastructure and housing. We should be on the lookout for deliberate preservation of industrial and other productive assets by Russian forces with a view to restarting production as quickly as possible post-occupation or conquest.

Second, China has a crucial role to play in assisting Russia in its ultimate intent of reconstituting its territorial empire and in sustaining Russian autarky. China can give Russia access to markets and innovation. There is also considerable opportunity for China to act as an indirect channel for technology and sales of commodities and raw resources. Western powers, starting with the United States, should find a way to cultivate improved relations with China, like what was achieved in the 1970s with Nixon-Kissinger opening to China. As unpleasant as that may seem, the West has no choice but to cleave China from Russia to relieve the pressure on Eastern Europe and give some chance of success to Ukraine’s resistance.

Third, Western nations with significant hydrocarbon resources (i.e., oil and gas), must replace Russian supplies as quickly as possible. There are two aspects to this approach: A) The need to ramp up production in the US and Canada, especially of gas, and develop the supply chain to get the gas from the ground to LNG terminals quickly and effectively; and B) The imperative to develop alternate sources of oil and gas for the free world, such as the Iran, Venezuela, and other locations, as repugnant as that may be. During the Cold War, Persian Gulf oil was essential for the prosperity and security of Europe and the Far East. Now is no different.

© Richard Martin

Richard Martin was an infantry officer for over 20 years in the Canadian Army. He is currently an entrepreneur, strategic advisor, and information warrior focusing on extracting valuable information and signals from chaos and noise.