publicdiplomacycouncil.org
Wednesday, March 2nd 2016
“Russia overwhelms the information space with a barrage of lies that must be addressed by the United States more aggressively in both public and private sectors to effectively expose the false narratives pushed daily by Russian-owned media outlets and their proxies. As part of the FY17 ERI request, EUCOM has requested the authority and appropriation to conduct IO. EUCOM will continue to increase its collaboration with Department of State, other agencies, partners, and Allies in order to effectively engage select audiences and counter malign actions and activities.”
This is a key point in the U.S. European Command’s annual posture statement for 2016. Air Force General Philip Breedlove discussed the statement in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 1, 2016.
Here are a few excerpts from the hearing transcript:
- In the end, we see Russia using diplomatic, economic and informational tools, in addition to military pressure, to shake and influence nations while trying to remain below triggering a military response.
- . . . I believe that we should not take any tools off of the plate as we address this problem. Russia is using all the tools of a nation's power against Ukraine. We use that simple model of DIME, diplomatic, informational military and economic. And we see Russia bringing pressure in all of those. And so, in the military environment, I do not think that any tools should be necessarily precluded.
- I think there's an incredible information -- disinformation campaign and other types of pressures, like economic pressures in energy as was mentioned earlier that are being brought on some of our NATO partners and allies.
- Everything we do in Europe they use as a part of their propaganda campaign. Every small exercise, every big exercise, every investment, when we fly a couple of bombers in an exercise it gets big notice. As you have seen they have a steady flow of aircraft into our area. I do not want to belittle what you're concerned about. The opposite effect of propaganda -- sir, they are already talking about ERI in their propaganda efforts to discredit what we're trying to do.
During the Q&A, Senator John McCain commented:
- In a realm of hybrid warfare we are unfortunately playing catch up in areas such as information operations and cyber warfare (inaudible) by Putin's propaganda machine and his army of trolls and hackers.
From the full posture statement:
- ISIL uses social media and online propaganda to radicalize and encourage European extremists to travel to Syria/Iraq or conduct attacks in their home countries.
- Strategic Messaging and Countering Russian Propaganda: EUCOM’s strategic communications, information operations (IO), and related influence capabilities such as Military Information Support Operations (MISO) are the most powerful tools EUCOM has to challenge Russian disinformation and propaganda. Russia overwhelms the information space with a barrage of lies that must be addressed by the United States more aggressively in both public and private sectors to effectively expose the false narratives pushed daily by Russian-owned media outlets and their proxies. As part of the FY17 ERI request, EUCOM has requested the authority and appropriation to conduct IO. EUCOM will continue to increase its collaboration with Department of State, other agencies, partners, and Allies in order to effectively engage select audiences and counter malign actions and activities.
- Information Operations. As mentioned previously, Russia dedicates enormous resources and intelligence efforts in shaping its information operations domain. This is a key enabler for its aggressive hybrid tactics executed in Eastern Europe to distribute its propaganda campaign and help fabricate facts on the ground when needed. EUCOM’s efforts in coordination with the interagency on countering this messaging campaign are critical in our overall assurance and deterrence measures.
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