After Russia's Invasion of Ukraine, US Army Training Includes Countering Social Media Disinformation (apnews.com) 46
"In the dusty California desert, U.S. Army trainers are already using lessons learned from Russia's war against Ukraine as they prepare soldiers for future fights against a major adversary such as Russia or China," reports the Associated Press.
And their training scenarios include more than just a enemy willing to destroy a city with missiles and rockets. "The enemy force that controls the fictional town of Ujen is using a steady stream of social media posts to make false accusations against the American brigade preparing to attack." "I think right now the whole Army is really looking at what's happening in Ukraine and trying to learn lessons," said Army Secretary Christine Wormuth. Those lessons, she said, range from Russia's equipment and logistics troubles to communications and use of the internet. "The Russia-Ukraine experience is a very powerful illustration for our Army of how important the information domain is going to be," said Wormuth, who spent two days at the training center in the Mojave Desert watching an Army brigade wage war against the fictional "Denovian" forces. "We've been talking about that for about five years. But really seeing it and seeing the way Zelenskyy has been incredibly powerful.... This is a world war that the actual world can see and watch in real time.... "
Army Col. Ian Palmer said the exercise is using more drones by the friendly and enemy forces, both for surveillance and attacks. So his forces are trying to use camouflage and tuck into the terrain to stay out of sight. "You know if you can be seen, you can be shot, where ever you are," he said. Down in the makeshift town, the opposition forces are confident they can hold off Palmer's brigade despite the size difference. The Denovians only have about 1,350 forces, but they are throwing everything they have at the brigade, from jamming and other electronic warfare to insurgency attacks and propaganda.
The role-players have their phones ready to film and post quickly to social media.
The Denovian forces want to portray the unit in the worst possible light, said Taylor, and constantly twist the narrative on social media so Palmer's troops realize they are in a battle for the truth. That's a challenge, he said, because "when I've got a bunch of casualties and I'm getting overrun on my left flank and my supply trains aren't where they need to be and I can't find the bulldozers, it's hard to think about something that someone said about me on Twitter."
And their training scenarios include more than just a enemy willing to destroy a city with missiles and rockets. "The enemy force that controls the fictional town of Ujen is using a steady stream of social media posts to make false accusations against the American brigade preparing to attack." "I think right now the whole Army is really looking at what's happening in Ukraine and trying to learn lessons," said Army Secretary Christine Wormuth. Those lessons, she said, range from Russia's equipment and logistics troubles to communications and use of the internet. "The Russia-Ukraine experience is a very powerful illustration for our Army of how important the information domain is going to be," said Wormuth, who spent two days at the training center in the Mojave Desert watching an Army brigade wage war against the fictional "Denovian" forces. "We've been talking about that for about five years. But really seeing it and seeing the way Zelenskyy has been incredibly powerful.... This is a world war that the actual world can see and watch in real time.... "
Army Col. Ian Palmer said the exercise is using more drones by the friendly and enemy forces, both for surveillance and attacks. So his forces are trying to use camouflage and tuck into the terrain to stay out of sight. "You know if you can be seen, you can be shot, where ever you are," he said. Down in the makeshift town, the opposition forces are confident they can hold off Palmer's brigade despite the size difference. The Denovians only have about 1,350 forces, but they are throwing everything they have at the brigade, from jamming and other electronic warfare to insurgency attacks and propaganda.
The role-players have their phones ready to film and post quickly to social media.
The Denovian forces want to portray the unit in the worst possible light, said Taylor, and constantly twist the narrative on social media so Palmer's troops realize they are in a battle for the truth. That's a challenge, he said, because "when I've got a bunch of casualties and I'm getting overrun on my left flank and my supply trains aren't where they need to be and I can't find the bulldozers, it's hard to think about something that someone said about me on Twitter."
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:A real war and this is important? (Score:5, Informative)
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In wars, yes. But in a battlefield, no, except when it involves false information about enemy positions. But I doubt that's the focus of social media manipulation.
Put body or helmet cams on some soldiers, but for the love of Darwin, don't let them post or, worse, livestream to social media. Let HQ get the video feed first and have them censor and edit it for strategic information. Only then should the video be posted for all the battlefield voyeurs out there.
Hm. Isn't this what war correspondents are suppos
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Put body or helmet cams on some soldiers, but for the love of Darwin, don't let them post or, worse, livestream to social media.
Yeah, livestream it so people can see how fucked up war is and create more political pressure not to create a situation for war.
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Using smartphones on the battlefield and in secure locations is a major problem for most militaries, it would seem from reports. And it's not limited to soldiers. The CIA agents who carried out extraordinary renditions in Europe were tracked the entire time by many security forces (not all of whom were friendly) because they left their phones on and didn't use burners.
Situational incompetence is the hallmark of these sorts of operations.
As for information warfare, this started with Operation Take Iraq's Oil
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Yea it seems just silly and waste of time. Wouldn't it be simpler to drop power stations and communication infrastructure with your air force before ya start sending the ground troops? Why waste time with internet when you can eliminate it easier.
Posting under fire? (Score:3)
The role-players have their phones ready to film and post quickly to social media.
I hope this is just Army PR because if this is actually implemented in the battlefield it's easy to see the strategic consequences. The enemy will know your strategy. This is one case where censorship might do more good than harm. Censoring the death, especially of civilians, and destruction is of course bad. But any social media posts should be made, not "quickly", but only after the battle ends and the area is secured.
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Perhaps the folks editing the videos would not actually be on the battlefield, but working off of automated repeaters.
You objection seem to assume a partiuclar way of operating, that may well not be accurate.
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The role players are part of the training exercise, they are pretending to be civilians and adversaries to create a realistic situation for our soldiers. We have already seen in multiple conflicts that people (not our soldiers) do take photos and videos of what's going on and they post it. This material can be used in propaganda by our adversaries. It's part of modern warfare so our soldiers need training in dealing with it.
Soldiers need to know that in addition to doing the right thing, they need to avoid
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DOD leadership are failures (Score:1)
So (Score:3, Funny)
What they are really saying is that they have turned over their duties to CNN and Facebook?
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So the ex-marine special forces private military (Score:2)
contractor, on his third tour of duty of Afghanistan that flamed me on the #apexlegends tag finally becomes a real thing.
The US Military makes these kind of trainings (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: The US Military makes these kind of trainings (Score:2)
They only started doing this now? (Score:2)
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We all know it for a fact. King Bush II publicly made it a major component of Operation Kill Everyone For The Oil.
Re:Disinformation (Score:4, Insightful)
I take it you're funded by Putin? It's pretty clear Russia expected to take Kiev in a few days based on their supply lines and strategies. Even by their own numbers it's been a huge failure of an invasion just based on Russian losses
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I never said the invasion is a success. This my-team-your-team bullshit makes rational consensus impossible.
You literally stated it was a "lie that Russia expected the war to be over in a few days", and the comment you're responding to was primarily a response to that.
If your objection is to bullshit that "makes rational consensus impossible" I suggest you start by not shifting goalposts in the space of two short comments.
ps. Unlike the previous poster I don't actually believe you're funded by Putin, there are sadly no shortage of folks deceiving themselves for free.
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My todger is bigger than yours (Score:1)
On the part of Russian propaganda, everything (Score:1)
Biggest Russian propaganda campaign at the moment (Score:3)
The biggest psyop at the moment is trying to portray Finland's accession to NATO as useless provocation which will only increase the probability of nuclear war.
This is being done because Putin wants to keep the option open of blitzing the former Russian empire states in the Baltics and betting on NATO not triggering a total war in response, the more fortified the Baltics are the less of an option it is. Finland's accession and closer cooperation with NATO is a problem in this respect.
Putin has a problem with NATO never out of self defence, but because it limits his aggressive options. Reinforce the Baltics now with as much layered area denial as can be spared. Let the Russians threaten to park nukes in Kaliningrad, it's fucking irrelevant.
Slashdot readers obviously do not get it. (Score:3)
RTFA, please. The blue force is learning how to deal with a red force armed with drones, cell phone cameras and propaganda. Imagine, someday, the US in a position similar to Russia in the current Russia - Ukraine conflict. This training is about dealing with that possibility.
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Next they'll be taught how to take better selfies (Score:1)
The cellphone records more than Lies. (Score:1)