War of narratives
"Fascist forces have attacked democracy and we must unite to defeat it", or " fascism has taken over our neighborhood and we must take actions to prevent them from causing damage". These both are statements regarding the same Russia Ukraine conflict but it varies from where you are listening.
When Russia invaded Ukraine, the first thing west did was to stop Russian media from spreading it's viewpoint although contrasting to their self proclaimed ideals of liberty and free speech but this move deserves attention.
We are in the age where wars are not just one off incidents, but continuous stream of parlays. It doesn't stop for recoup but it goes on forever. It is being described as hybrid warfare, where more than dynamite posts on social media are more lethal. Civil society is the player and it is victim also.
Hybrid warfare includes many elements. Cyber warfare is the face of hybrid warfare. It goes on 24^7 and rogue as well as state sponsored elements try to achieve their objectives respectively.
Second form of hybrid warfare is war of narratives. When Americans were given a bloody nose in Afghanistan, Pakistan deep state played a pivotal role of designing narratives in favor of taliban and giving them an edge in warfare.
Media plays a very important role in narrative making. It add layers of analysis on plain facts and turn it to suit it's own agenda. Like I gave you example from beginning of my article I laid down how a similar story is being read differently in different countries to have their versions spread more widely. It is very natural for humans to have differences yet such contrasting views on a particular issue is only a deliberate attempt.
Think tank, journals and social media is also a part of a whole, which comprises of instruments that have profound impact on wide populations. But if we see the balance in terms of number of instrument available to opposing side in Ukraine conflict we see balance is highly skewed in favor of the west. So it is very natural that overall perspective that will emerge out of this war would be in favor of the west.
Third Civil society is being used to meet interest of different sections. For example clerics from Iran uses their influence across Muslims in different countries to persuade countries to have better ties with Iran, similar story goes with pope. Same tactics are being employed by non governmental organizations as well as multinationals to gain influence.
War in Ukraine has taught us that besides having a fighting army we must also have computer warriors who can contribute significantly in turning the tide in our favor. Similarly Warfield has increased and wars are being fought amongst us. Government all across must expand their infrastructure to deal with online miscreants but at the same time we also become warriors. When 8 billion people fight it will certainly dwarf government's capabilities hence we must also fight our fight to secure free open world less poisonous from poison of anarchy.
Thank you for reading.
