Sun Tzu is, perhaps, recognized as the earliest “Master of Strategy.” 2,500 years ago, he famously wrote that the highest achievement in war is to win without fighting.
Pacifists might rejoice . . . but perhaps they shouldn’t — Sun Tzu still intends to “steal your lunch.”
How did he intend to achieve this?
He proposed to weaken the enemy’s resolve, weaken the enemy’s alliances, and disrupt the enemy’s plans.
These don’t require swords or guns.
The final chapter of The Art of War is about spies. Sun Tzu itemizes the five types of spies
One of the most important is called “Doomed Spies” whose purpose is be captured, and thereby, to insinuate believable disinformation into the enemy’s calculations.
At the time when Sun Tzu recorded The Art of War the decisions of armies and governments were made by a very few people. The spy needed only to influence those few decision-makers — a king or a general.
This is not so effective now, in democracies, where large numbers of people have information and are empowered to make key, even if only “binary,” decisions by voting for leaders, parties, and platforms.
In societies where the masses have “authority” — in this case, voting — disinformation must influence the decisions of millions of people — arguably, more difficult.
Yet, democracies are vulnerable. By their intentional and necessary openness of information flows, they are very vulnerable. A functional democracy requires that all decision-makers have sufficient and accurate information. This makes democracies much more vulnerable to disinformation than governments where power is closely held, and information sources might be more thoroughly checked out. Or even tortured.
This was always a risk with traditional media — newspapers, and then radio and TV.
But starting in the 1990’s the internet became increasingly important. Most anyone could access so much information. And they could contribute equally easily. The 20th century philosopher, Ivan Illich might have celebrated it as what he would call a “convivial” tool, a convivial media — one not controlled by a small group, where everyone could equally have their say. Utopian!
Social media took this information “wild west” to a whole new level, where ideas and opinions, good and bad, could be spread at an unprecedented rate — like a wild fire, out of control. And it does this with often with no sources, no references, and the more outrageous the post, the more clicks and the more dramatic the spread.
Fundamentally unstable.
It has introduced a “Trojan Horse” into any society with free and open media. This vulnerability can be used with intent. And even back before the internet, using the media of the day, the method was clear.
In 1984, Yuri Bezmenov, a former KGB agent who defected to the west claimed that Russia (then masquerading as the “Soviet Union) had a long-term goal of subverting the U.S. He said they don’t need to promote a particular point of view. In fact, that could be counter-productive in that it could reveal the “author” of the disinformation. Too “on the nose,” as the British might say.
It is not necessary, or even desirable, to push your own opinions. You need only increasingly sow division and conflict in the target society — taking advantage of, and magnifying existing conflicts.
Beyond introducing misguiding disinformation into decision-making, this has two even more damaging effects.
It can divide a society. It can act to exacerbate polarization of any issue (think vaccinations) and push opinions to irreconcilable extremes. The result can be a kind of paralysis of decision-making and policy.
Furthermore, disinformation can work to destroy confidence in the credibility of all information. And when that happens, when no information can be trusted, it is the same as having NO information. Democracies function and survive only when reliable information is widely available. Participants in a democracy — the voters, who hold a measure of authority — become effectively blind. They become unable to make good decisions. Decisions may be made more by emotion than by reason, appearances rather than facts. Weakened. Unstable.
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Imagine a “hypothetical” scenario:
A nation belongs to an economic union that has eliminated internal trade barriers and increased productivity, growth, and wealth for its members. All good things have their problems and free trade also means free movement of people. This comes with enough problems that it has become contentious. A vote is held. A referendum: Potentially the most unstable form of government for the reasons given.
An adversary, aiming to damage the economy of the target, and with access to the public through media, the internet, and social media, plants stories exacerbating these conflicts.
In the event, racism and isolationism prevails and the nation votes to leave the union.
Years later their economy shows the damage and is diminished relative to the growth it might have had. Their economy weakened, they are less of an adversary, less able to resist.
During the Second World War it took thousands of bomber sorties, many lives, and enormous sums of money to cause comparable damage and diminish your opponent’s economy by even 10%. And now it might be done at almost no cost at all.
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What would Sun Tzu do with the internet? The answer is simple . . . . . . . and all around us.
Somewhere, Sun Tzu may be smiling.