Political warfare
[clarification needed] The printed word is also very powerful, including pamphlets, leaflets, books, magazines, political cartoons, and planted newspaper articles (clandestine or otherwise).
This aggressor-victim relationship has also been seen between rivals within a state and may involve tactics like assassination, paramilitary activity, sabotage, coup d'état, insurgency, revolution, guerrilla warfare, and civil war.
This practice has left a lasting legacy of speech as a mechanism of political power, greater than force in solving disputes and inducing submission.
[25] Ancient Rome utilized similar political warfare as the Greeks including rhetoric, as displayed by Cicero; and art, as seen in coinage, statues, architecture, engineering, and mosaics.
Since the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have centered much of their political warfare efforts within the United Front Work Department.
Besides positive self-portrayals, other objectives included shaping the narrative during its media blockade of the Gaza War (2008–2009), preparing information ahead IDF operations in order to be the first one out with the desired story, and quickly responding to unexpected incidents.
[41] Throughout the Cold War, the Soviet Union was committed to political warfare on classic totalitarian lines and continued to utilize propaganda towards internal and external audiences.
The measures aimed to damage the enemy's image, create confusion, mould public opinion, and to exploit existing strains in international relations.
[44] Soviet active measures were notorious for targeting intended audience's public attitudes, to include prejudices, beliefs, and suspicions deeply rooted in the local history.
[45] Examples of Soviet active measures include: Communist strategy and tactics continually focused on revolutionary objectives, "for them the real war is the political warfare waged daily under the guise of peace".
[49] the purpose of which is to "disorient and disarm the opposition...to induce the desire to surrender in opposing peoples...to corrode the entire moral, political, and economic infrastructure of a nation".
[50] Lenin's mastery of "politics and struggle", remained objectives for the Soviet Union and other global communist regimes, such as the People's Republic of China.
While many of these countries' political and social structures were in post-war disarray, the Soviet Union's proxy communist parties were well-organized and able to take control of these weak, newly formed Eastern European governments.
[54] The Republic of China Government in Taiwan recognized that its Communist adversary astutely employed political warfare to capitalize upon Kuomintang weaknesses over the years since Sun Yat-sen first mounted his revolution in the 1920s, and Chiang Kai-shek's regime had come to embrace a political warfare philosophy as both a defensive necessity and as the best foundation for consolidating its power in hope of their optimistic goal of "retaking the mainland".
Both the Nationalist and Communist Chinese political warfare doctrines stem from the same historical antecedents at the Whampoa Military Academy in 1924 under Soviet tutelage.
[59] The Truman Doctrine was the post-WWII basis for American political warfare operations on which the United States government went further to formulate an active, defensive strategy to contain the Soviet threat.
They range from such overt actions as political alliances, economic measures (such as ERP – the Marshall Plan), and 'white' propaganda to such covert operations as clandestine support of 'friendly' foreign elements, 'black' psychological warfare and even encouragement of underground resistance in hostile states.
"[citation needed] The memo further defined four projects that were activated by the Board to combat growing Communist influence abroad, including: The United States used gray and black propaganda research, broadcasting, and print media operations during the Cold War to achieve its political warfare goals.
The goal of the radios was to present the truth to suppressed peoples behind the Iron Curtain "to aid in rebuilding a lively and diversified intellectual life in Europe which could ... defeat Soviet ... incursions on their freedom".
[63] In the fall of 1950 a group of scholars including physicists, historians and psychologists from Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and RAND Corporation undertook a research study of psychological warfare for the Department of State.
[66] An overt, non-governmental form of political warfare during the Cold War emerged after President Ronald Reagan's 8 June 1982 speech to the British Parliament.
[67] It was also active in Europe, funding groups to carry promote pro-North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) propaganda in Britain, as well as a "right wing French student organisation ... linked to fascist paramilitaries".
[68] From 2010 to 2012, the United States operated ZunZuneo, a social media service similar to Twitter, in an attempt to instigate uprisings against the Cuban government in the long run.
During its development phase before official launch, engineers working on the project leveraged the user data they had on Cubans and prototype software to gather demographic and other intelligence, such as public opinions about opposition music acts in the lead-up to the 2009 Paz Sin Fronteras II concert.
As the number of users grew, USAID struggled to cover the operating costs, especially the amount of text messaging fees paid to Cuba's mobile network providers.
The project reached out to potential investors such as Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and interviewed industry executives to lead a front company that could make the program more viable commercially.
[69] According to former U.S. officials who spoke to Reuters, the Trump administration authorized a covert influence campaign across social media in China in order to turn public opinion against the Chinese government.
The CIA used the same method during the Cold War when it planted daily articles against the former Soviet Union, but this risks backfiring from counter-accusations by Beijing and endangers Chinese dissidents as well as journalists, who could be falsely accused for being spies.
