July 2009 Archives

Recent discussion concerning the idea of "The Puppet Master"  under an old D5GW thread has brought a question to my mind.

Adam Elkus used two statements, one in the post and another in a comment, that struck me as being very important for understanding 4GW:

Driven by nationalism and religion, they wage a public war directed towards various audiences.

&

Most groups taking arms against the state do so publicly because they see themselves as waging public struggles for public interests.

In many ways, these ideas remind me of a previous attempt I once made for understanding 4GW, in which I linked American political processes to 4GW.

Here some notes to help me clarify my own thinking. The notes may be useful to others as well.

As always, I appreciate any comments, questions, corrections, additions…feedback of any sort.

Curtis highlighted my recent note on the Michael Jackson media spectacle and Iran. I agree very much with his characterization that "any info-war effort will need to be aware of the possibilities of an MJ-type black swan squashing that effort," despite the fact that the Iranian information campaign was not necessarily externally directed and thus wasn't substantially harmed by the MJ black swan.

I'd like to expand on this idea a bit in reference to the strategy of information campaigns. Media today is both incredibly pervasive and balkanized.