The Art of Perception Management in Information Warfare Today

Sudheer Kumar Reddy

Introduction

Recent Technological innovations have created such a context

where in it is said that all the future wars can be prevented, won or lost
based on the skills of waging a cyber war based on information superiority.
Some of the recent alarming developments such as intrusion into the
website of the Ministry of External Affairs by Pakistani hackers and reports
of Chinese hackers accessing sensitive information from closed Indian
networks reveal that it is high time that India takes systematization of
Information warfare infrastructure and strategy seriously.

Simultaneously, while India appears to be doing well off late in

terms of Perception Management as is reflected in its recent election as non
permanent member to UN and the lifting of nuclear sanctions by the west
which is a clear shift in foreign policy issues of many countries in favor of
India, we need to have a long term strategic approach towards perception
management , Information Warfare and their convergence like in case of
US which has systematized its information warfare operations long back.

The US’ waging of Iraq war in 2003 and its public perception
management during the time by trying to give the world, an American view
of the war so as to prejudice political and public relations is a very
powerful demonstration of the use of Perception Management in
information warfare in management of international and domestic public
perceptions.

Information Warfare and Perception Management

Information Warfare refers to information activities carried out

during war or conflict to promote any nation’s objectives over a specific
adversary. These activities may be a combination of command and control
warfare, intelligence based warfare and hacker warfare. In the late nineties,
the global media companies like CNN, Disney etc. which were susceptible
to government perspectives reported information given by official sources
without any objective assessment and information management started
even in a non- war time and these came to be called as information
operations.

Information Operations are those actions taken to affect adversary’s

information while defending one’s own information system. As such
Information Warfare has got both offensive and defensive sides. Defensive
side of Information Warfare deals with protection and maintenance of
integrity of data, communication networks and technologies so that
required data is available to those authorized in a timely and reliable way.
It involves activities of operation security and counter deception like
denials, fire walls, encryptions etc. The offensive side of Information
Warfare deals with doctoring the adversaries’ perceptions and uses
Perception Management and its strategies as a main tool.

Perception Management as a term has its origin in US Military. In

simple terms, Perception Management can be defined as “the activities to
convey or deny selected information so as to mislead the enemy so that he
acts in a way favorable to the originator’s interests and prejudicial to his
own interests.

The advances in technology have made it very easy for enemies to

access, modify, create or interpret others’ data very easily as has been
recently witnessed where china could hack into more than a thousand US
websites on a single day. But by a proper Perception Management, even
this can be converted into an advantage as information warfare is all about
having an objective view of adversary’s information and his opinion about
us while not letting him know our own perception about him.

Perception Management in information generally uses the following

broad set of strategies

• Denial of Information which includes concealment and

camouflage.
• Deception and Mimicry which include insertion of
intentionally misleading information in one’s own information
so that the receiver can’t distinguish a phony signal from the
real signal.
• Disruption and Destruction which consists of insertion of
information which triggers a self destructive process in the
opponent target system.
• Disinformation/ruse and conditioning including PSYOPS
(Psychological Operations)

History and International Initiatives

Although the art of Perception Management has been a time honored

feature of warfare, only in the twentieth century has governments
developed doctrines and started using it formally. The most important
component of Perception Management is media management and countries
are trying to make best possible use of it.

The US had learnt its first lessons in perception management during

the debacle of Vietnam war. The manipulation of news by the US during
the Falkland war of 1982 was a classic case of Perception Management
where all press releases were controlled and communicated by the
government. Similar sophistication in information control by military was
displayed in Gulf war of 1991. Though there was a high resentment against
US in these war torn states, for US, the perception it could successfully
create that the military operation was not only a success but welcomed by
all parties was all that mattered.

The 9/11 attacks have severely affected the objectivity of the

reporters and they deliberately started getting involved in shaping
perceptions. As a consequence, the second Iraq War presented a true
Information War and the role of media in managing Perception
Management. Another glaring example was the highly successful CIA
funded plan by Rendon Group which is a leader in Perception Management
which doctored public perceptions about presence of WMDs in Iraq. These
activities are confined not just to US, but also to other west and oriental
nations.

The Soviets used the term Maskirovka to represent their doctrine of

Perception Management and they almost had it as a function of statecraft
not just confining to military and have used it to great effort during cold
war and were the first to develop it as a part of normal diplomatic and
military procedure. Similarly Germany started developing information
operations as an integrated functioning area with in military called as
MINOE (Multi National Information operations experiment.

Even our neighbors Srilanka have been quite successful in Perception

Management during the war with LTTE where the complaints of human
rights violation were very rarely heard of which is not so typical with the
region and the victory was acclaimed all over. The Chinese have showed
India, the classic application of Perception Management techniques when
they attacked Arunachal Pradesh first in the 1962 war while their actual
designs were for the part of Ladakh which connects Tibet. It has also been
reported recently that China is also planning to build a Net Force to
specialize in cyber wars to be fought in future.

The Indian Context

Given the above international developments, it becomes highly

imperative that India should do well to practice the art of perception
management in the doctrines of information warfare. At the same time, it
should also be able to appreciate the advantages of proper perception
management in various diplomatic, public and civil affairs.

Perception Management in diplomatic sphere helps in wielding

strategic influence in the international arena and it is all about trying to
influence foreign government policies to support our political interest.
Public Affairs management relates to manipulation of military/government
interaction with media. Civil Affairs management relate to actions needed
to influence relations between military/government and civilians. This is
very important to achieve domestic support for strategic international
policy decisions.

If properly appreciated the advantages from the art of perception

management can be nurtured to bear fruits in other non-military operations
like shaping business perceptions (marketing), political campaigning (the
recent Paid News debacle) etc. Paid News can also be considered to be a
type of perception management which comes under public diplomacy but
in a highly inappropriate sense.

But the real time application of techniques of perception management

have become even more important for India in recent times due to the
necessity to counter terrorist activities (while not offending any
community), CBT and separatist activities (so as not to lose public
support), Naxal Activities and other internal problems with greater
ramifications in the longer run.

All this neither means that India is not good at perception

management nor that it has not taken any initiatives in that direction. Our
techniques of perception management during the kargil war have changed
the world’s perception of Indo-Pak relations that existed previously biased
against India. We have started asserting ourselves in the international fora
and a cognizable shift is found in policies of many foreign countries hither
to not in favor of India.

Indian Initiatives

Indian military is also catching up with the west in Perception

Management and Information Warfare activities and started creating its
own infrastructure. Some of these initiatives include plans to set up DIWA
(Defense Information War Agency) as an information war agency under tri
service defense staff head quarters. It will provide military inputs to
National information board and will handle all aspects of information war
including PSYOPs, cyber war, Electro Magnetic disruptions, denials,
destructions etc. The Army institute was established in Hyderabad to teach
officers about fundamentals of Information Warfare and Perception
Management techniques. Some of the Army teaching institutes have
introduced Information Warfare and Perception Management as a part of
their syllabus and Army officers are also being sent to IITs for training.

But all these adhoc measures will not suffice and a solid doctrine and
strategy along with necessary infrastructure and technical support are
required for developing our Information Warfare Operations into a
specialized area in near future to face general problems involving
information warfare and perception management system. Such problems
may include understanding and analyzing complex deception strategies of
adversaries involving many variables, detection of inconsistencies,
countering the opponent’s deception management strategy etc.

Conclusion

Since Perception Management is more an art than a science, there is

every chance that it may lead to unintended adverse consequences. So the
strategies of mass perception management should be used judiciously with
proper strategy and expertise if India has to dominate/win future
Information wars effectively. Ironically, the technology loaded information
rich novel environments make perception management both more and less
achievable.