Hey Shorts,
I thought of you when I read this, in the basher sense of course.
In an Information Combat Campaign there are principles which need to be adhered to be successful.
A. Confusion: Make it so the opposition does not know which way to turn.
1. Principle:
Confuse the opposition so they do not know which way to turn and will not expect what you do next.
2. Effect:
When a person is confused they hesitate, wondering what will happen and what they should do. Hesitation can be fatal when it hands the opposition the initiative, giving them first strike or the choice of the next move. Hesitation has a devastating effect among longs who assume that if leaders are not sure what is going on then their doom is assured.
3. Invoking:
Confusion is invoked when the opposition expects a particular thing to happen and then something else happens instead. This includes nothing happening when, for example, an attack was expected. Confusion may also be invoked by acting unpredictably. The enemy will always be trying to second-guess you, typically by studying your past moves. If you deliberately break past patterns then their predictions will be wrong and their counter-moves counter-productive.
4. Analogy:
In argument include random and unnecessary element in your arguments that make the other person wonder what you are doing and what it all means.
B. Demoralization: Make it so they do not want to fight.
1. Principle:
Drain them of their morale so they tire of the fight.
2. Effect:
Morale in Information Warfare is a remarkably important thing. An impassioned small group can and has, many times, defeated a much larger group that has been carefully demoralized beforehand. Those who lose the will to fight either fight poorly or quit fighting with relatively little encouragement. Leaders who are demoralized will likewise avoid battle and more readily sue for peace. Demoralization also works with the general board readers. If the generalized group of readers supports the conflict, then there will be many more impulsive volunteers and broad support for a bellicose governing principle. If, on the other hand, the general board population believes the conflict is unwinible and unjust, then any party supporting the conflict will be seen as arrogant and out of touch with the readers.
3. Invoking:
Demoralizing the opposing posters can be done in many ways and the effect of constant attacks on their confidence can be like a death from a thousand cuts. One of the main demoralizing forces is unexpected defeat, for example when a weaker opponent outsmarts you with a superior strategy. Likewise, a smarter enemy who keeps you guessing can lead you to fear humiliating or decisive defeat at any time.
4. Analogy:
In argument, constantly keep the other person on their toes. Let them think they are winning, then snatch victory from them at the last minute. Show them your intellect and let them think you can beat them at any time. Lead them to realize that their arguments are fundamentally flawed and just plain wrong.
C. Disabling: Removing opposing capability.
1. Principle:
Gain advantage by removing a key capability.
2. Effect:
Removing capability creates weakness, which can be taken advantage of in some way. Removing capability also removes threat and can result in opposition losing a strategic advantage.
3. Invoking:
Blind them by attacking their posting capabilities and eliminating TOS capable responses. Strike them deaf and dumb by taking out their favored posting locations and reducing their ease of communication. Bomb them with questions requiring definitive responses. Banning and removal are particularly effective disabling actions.
4. Analogy:
In communications prevent them from using particular arguments or exchanges, for example by pre-emptively showing these to be invalid.
D. Discipline: Train the troops.
1. Principle:
Instill strict discipline in your fighting circle.
2. Effect:
Disciplined posters are efficient on the attack and in preparing for response. They are tidy and sharp in their actions and follow principles with alacrity. In attacking they are courageous and effective, acting in close coordination for maximum results. Disciplined posters can seem relaxed at times, but they know the importance of rest and recuperation (R&R) yet are always alert and can snap into full action at a moment's notice.
Discipline is particularly important in backing away from a winning attack, where a pursuing opponent can cause panic and consequent havoc. Like attacks it should be well-practiced.
3. Invoking:
Discipline starts with practice and ends with respect and affection.
Disciplined posters rehearse until they are blue in the face and can maneuver blindfolded. Poor discipline is dealt with immediately and consistently and reflects the importance of leaders also being well-disciplined. Discipline is a mental principle and thinking about both strategy and immediate action needs to be rigorous and complete.
4. Analogy:
Prepare your arguments before the debate. Know the likely actions of the other side and have counters ready to their moves. Do not be aroused by their trickery and stick to your plans. As necessary, pull back and rethink.
E. Division: Divide and conquer.
1. Principle:
"A house divided against itself cannot stand."
2. Effect:
Large, coordinated attacks are difficult to defeat. When you separate the opposition into individual opponents you can more easily defeat each one.
Separation cuts opponents off from one another, making communication and coordination difficult. Use Private Messages to isolate and divide the opposition. Posters which are cut off responding to Private Messages cannot even call for help. Dividing them also makes information supply difficult and some of the posters may stop due to limited ammunition.
3. Invoking:
Lure away posters from the board during group attacks. Create lure locations where you can isolate and divide strong opponents. Coordinate your own posters, attacking opponents on several subjects so they have to divide their attention to counter your action. Drive a wedge into their main attack, separating leaders of the main attack from the group. Use disinformation and spies to sow dissent in their ranks, dividing their thinking from within. Use experienced "nice guys/gals" as moles. Use female identity posters to insinuate into a macho S&D group.
4. Analogy:
Make multiple demands in an exchange, forcing opponents to divide their attention and distribute responses. In a post to a group, PM neutral individuals beforehand to get them each onside. In the board setting it should then be just a matter of rubber-stamping your comments.
F. Distraction: Make them look the other way.
1. Principle:
Make them look elsewhere so you can act as you wish. Hand waving and unusual communication means is often effective.
2. Effect:
The opponent looks where you want them to look, and away from things that you would rather that they did not see.
3. Invoking:
Attract their attention in the direction you want them to look. Move posters to unexpected locations. Make a loud noise. Create explosive revelations.
Attack opinions from an illogical perspective. Make the area you want to hide in uninteresting or unobtrusive. Use camouflage.
4. Analogy:
In discussion, conceal your true goals. Put a lot of attention on one area so they 'beat you down' on this. Then slip in what you really want to say as an 'acceptable alternative'.
G. Fear: Make it so they do not want to fight you.
1. Principle:
Invoke fear in your opponent. Create dread, anticipation, terror and any other form of fear such that they worry and become weaker.
2. Effect:
One of the basic human fears is the fear of annihilation, which is naturally very prevalent in conflict. Fear in information warfare is a most debilitating condition that leads to abject flight, paralysis and suing for peace. It can also lead to a nothing-to-lose all-out last stand, and so needs to be managed carefully. Sudden fear thus invokes the Fight-or-Flight response. More effective can be the cold, gnawing fear that erodes and saps the will to fight. Implied threats of legal action are usually very effective. Most people have never been sued and fear of the unknown is quite effective.
3. Invoking:
A simple way of invoking fear is with a display of overwhelming information or predictive superiority. If the opponent sees that you can destroy him utterly with little loss, then they will fear your capability. Showing a predilection for using that might multiplies the fear. If they believe you will show no mercy or actively enjoy harming and torturing them, they will fear you more again. Uncertainty will also create fear. If they cannot predict what you will do next then their imagination will work overtime, dreaming up all kinds of horrors. And if they cannot predict when or where you will strike, they will constantly look over their shoulder, growing deeply weary in the process.
4. Analogy:
In negotiation or argument throw a fit of anger about something such that they learn to fear your ire. Don't bluff, and don't be bluffed. Replace heated anger with stone cold silence. Your silence will speak volumes. Never concede on fear alone. Always test an opponents resolve.
H. Generosity: Be kind to them so they are kind in return.
1. Principle:
"Love your enemies and drive them nuts!"
2. Effect:
If you are generous towards your opponents then their experience of you may well be opposite to what they were told, where you may well have been portrayed as a heartless barbarian. In the face of your kind concern, they will likely develop good feelings towards you, and in doing so will tell others on their side, spreading the word of your goodness. As a result, they may fight with less vigor and will give in more easily, secure in the knowledge you will treat them fairly. Also, when your posters are defeated, there is greater chance of them not being ridiculed as strongly.
3. Invoking:
When you defeat them, be magnanimous, sparing their dignity and tending their wounded spirit. Be civil and treat them well and with respect. With care, you can use disinformation techniques to convert them to your perception of the truth. The most effective soldier is one who fought on the 'other side.'
4. Analogy:
In negotiation, concede on a point that is of moderate importance to them. Then see if they give you something in return.
Example
Alexander the Great, after conquering a new country would be conciliatory, worshiping at the local temples and seeking only to leave his own people in charge. He wouldn't raze, murder, and rape.
I. Intelligence: "The side that knows most wins."
1. Principle:
The side that knows the most about any opponent ultimately wins all conflicts.
2. Effect:
Intelligence about your opponents strategy, plans, capability, argument positions, force composition and so on, lets you make effective tactical and strategic decisions and avoid fatal decisions. Managing intelligence includes the supply of disinformation to the other side in order to trick them into making the wrong decisions. Use electronic databases of information. Plan ahead and use keyword searches to instantly show your knowledge superiority.
3. Invoking:
Situational Intelligence is a critical principle. Decisions play with the lives of thousands of investors and the fate of companies. The truth of the facts and observations on which decisions are identified and made thus has a highly significant effect.
Example
In the second world war enormous efforts went into gathering information through spies across Europe, local resistance movements, intercepted messages, aerial photography and so on. This activity, coupled with clever disinformation tactics and massive public encouragement to protect information ('Walls have ears!'), probably led directly to the final outcome.
4. Analogy:
Before negotiations and arguments begin, do your homework about the other person, what motivates them, what they might want and how they might react to your arguments. In the discussions, test your understanding and update it with your discoveries about them. Exchange those profiles among all your personnel. Test them on it and role play arguments to practice winning strategies.
J. Overwhelm: Show and use far greater force.
1. Principle:
Display and use far greater force than the opponent.
2. Effect:
If you have greater strength than the other person, then by simple application of that strength, you can overwhelm them, as an avalanche overwhelms a forest in its path. Strength can be held in several dimensions, so it is important to use your superiority directly against an opposing weakness.
If you have more posters, engage them in direct argument. If you have greater informational firepower, use it upon their strengths. If you have superior technology, use this to attack them with great accuracy from afar. Force multiply your strengths to weaken their resolve.
3. Invoking:
Overwhelm is the simplest and oldest approach, where the pitched battle between posters of roughly equal ability and motivation is won by the largest number of posters.
Quite simply, the last man standing determines the victor, even though this may still be a Pyrrhic victory. Sometimes the best way of using overwhelming power is in display. When your enemy hears the din of your shield-beating and sees the massing of your troops, they may well, quail in their boots and concede without fighting.
4. Analogy:
One way of using overwhelm in argument is to demonstrate a high level of intellect, for example in a comprehensive dismemberment of their argument, showing in excruciating detail how they are intellectually inferior. Another form of overwhelm is simply in energy. As you put forward your points with great enthusiasm and question every detail they portray, they may well give up in the realization that your terrier personality will exhaust them before they persuade you of their arguments.
Yet another form of overwhelm is supreme confidence and predictive behavior. If you can make a prediction of activity or response based on a high percentage of probability that it will occur, then do so with arrogance and confidence. When it comes to pass ensure the opponent knows who predicted it. If it doesn't then rely on the fallacies of the opponents argument to cloak it.
K. Provocation: Make them angry so they act impetuously.
1. Principle:
Make them angry so they respond before they think it through.
2. Effect:
When a person is angry, they will seek to fight, and the more enraged they become, the greater will that desire for battle be. Also, and very importantly, annoyance is usually accompanied by a reduction in rational thinking as the burning desire for battle overwhelms logical considerations as to the wisdom of early conflict. Ridicule of the anger is particularly effective in illiciting even higher levels of irrational thinking.
3. Invoking:
Anger is invoked when a person is insulted or their sense of identity is otherwise damaged. Thus, for example, if a smaller group inflicts a defeat on a larger group (perhaps through some deceptive means), the leader of the larger force may well become enraged and seek early revenge. Insult may also be delivered by other means, for example ridiculing an opposing leaders's wife or mistress, late night phone calls, and computer email bombs. The greater the ego of your opponent, the easier it is to insult them and hence enrage and manipulate them.
4. Analogy:
In everyday argument, anger is invariably a losing strategy and winding up the other person can be an easy way to derail them. Manage angered persons to your great benefit.
L. Sacrifice: Pay any price for success.
1. Principle:
Do whatever it takes, including giving "lives."
2. Effect:
When your opponents show themselves ready to make huge sacrifices, it can be both bewildering and terrifying. Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do. Sacrifice in the form of giving up positions or other gains is confusing as the other side wonders why. Are you giving up from weakness or is it a ploy, perhaps a lure or to attack elsewhere?
Sacrifice in terms of giving up "lives" in exchange for gains shows an ultimate determination that is both fearsome and demoralizing. Multiple posters banned or banished invoke images of an endless stream of opponents willing to do whatever it takes to win.
3. Invoking:
Think strategically and be ready to expend "lives" in order to get tactical gain. Sometimes losing a "life" now saves more "lives" later. When fighting, do so with great ferocity and abandon. Always appear courageous and heroic.
Face opponents with determination and no sign of fear. Encourage your posters to "die" for the cause. Promise reward in the "aftermath" and good support for those who fight hard. Acclaim those who go on "suicide missions" as heroes, and pay them well.
4. Analogy:
In argument, be prepared to capitulate on some point and situations if you can use this for a greater future gain.
Example
In the second world war the Japanese kamikaze pilots terrorized not only American shipping but all those who opposed Japan. The 9/11 attacks were very effective in drawing America and its allies into war and hence polarizing and radicalizing sections of the Muslim world. The same analogy applies in Information Warfare. Poster IDs are expendable.
M. Seamlessness: Present no chink in your armor.
1. Principle:
Present no chink in your armor through which the enemy can attack the group. This includes revealing anonymous identities for anonymous posters.
2. Effect:
You are as strong as the weakest link in your defense system. The opponent will prod and probe your defenses to test their efficacy and to seek out the weak points and attack these with vigor. You are also as strong in advance as the weakest part of your attack. Do not hesitate to eliminate weaknesses.
Even strong allies or posters that present weaknesses should be considered expendable.
3. Invoking:
In an advance, use a seamless wall of information to protect the posters on the attack. Ensure that your information is effectively distributed and accessible. In attacks advance with a consistent wall of both information and personnel so, as you tighten the noose, there is no escape for your opponent.
4. Analogy:
In argument, present only evidence with a consistent level of evidence to back it up. Beware of the other side destroying your position by attacking weak minor points. See Sacrifice above.
N. Speed: Be quicker than them. Be able to react fast.
1. Principle:
Be quicker and more nimble than your opponent. Be able to react to informational events more rapidly than your opponent.
2. Effect:
No matter how powerful you are, if you cannot land a punch or the other person gets one in first, then you are doomed. Speed conquers might every time, not only allowing its wielder to avoid the attack of others but also to get in effective attacks and then get out again before the other person can respond.
Speed also multiples the damage of an attack. Newton noted that force equals mass times acceleration. Speed also increases emotional shock, as the suddenness of your attack causes surprise and fear.
3. Invoking:
Be fast. Train rigorously so you can react at maximum speed. Use small groups who can move quickly. Sheer speed makes up for many weaknesses. If you can react in time to unexpected attacks, then you need less defensive readiness. Sometimes speed is helped by apparent prescience.
If you can read the other side's moves before they move, then you can move before they do and with the illusion of lightning reflexes. Martial artists thus appear to be quick less because they have faster reaction but because they read the intent of others. Information Groups can also appear fast when they pre-empt the opponent. Use distributed computing and centralized databases to provide lightning fast communications.
4. Analogy:
If you give the other person no time to think and argue then they will not be able to think and argue, and your points will stand unchallenged. If you respond immediately and powerfully to their comments, they will be left reeling and impotent. Speed in argument, just as speed in war can dis-empower and confuse the other side, and sometimes may not even need to make sense as the psychological impact suffices to win the day.
When I saw this I thought of you.
News 
Market Data 
Discover 
AI
