Information Operations Quotes

In counterinsurgency operations, the human terrain is the decisive terrain.

An information operations team was sent to Afghanistan to conduct various psychological operations on the Afghans and Taliban. The team was then asked not to focus on the Taliban but on manipulating senators into giving more funds and troops [to the war].

In political warfare, you do not fight to prevail in an argument, but to destroy the enemy's fighting ability.

Leaflet operations should be expanded to obtain maximum practicable psychological effect on the North Vietnamese population.

Foreign nations have begun to include information warfare in their war college curricula with respect to both defensive and offensive applications.

We must engage in a whole-of-government approach to combat Russian active measures.

… losing hearts and minds can mean losing a war …

I think raise doubts that's what Russians are doing around the world. I think they're trying to do that. I think they're trying to cause everything to be in question. We see them playing in a lot of different elections and trying to do that, because that's all they've got.

You can't kill your way to success in a counter insurgency effort. You have to protect the people, get the civil military balance right, train the locals, and practice effective strategic communications.

My experience investigating foreign propaganda operations predated the proliferation of social media platforms.

The frightening aspect is that it's part of a larger effort from the Pentagon to tear down the wall between public affairs and propaganda, and essentially say there is no difference between information operations, public affairs and psychological operations. They have a new name for that too, it's called Information Engagement. What I hope people take away from this is that it's a window into a larger phenomenon. After a decade of Iraq war you have this Pentagon-military apparatus run amok using resources that they shouldn't be to try to manipulate U.S. public opinion.

But the frightening aspect is that it's part of a larger effort from the Pentagon to tear down the wall between public affairs and propaganda, and essentially say there is no difference between information operations, public affairs and psychological operations. It's all one and the same. They have a new name for that too, it's called Information Engagement.

The way the Pentagon and its defenders have pushed back against this story is to say: "They weren't doing psychological operations, they were doing information operations and public affairs. They were just helping us spin senators like we normally do."