U.S. intelligence officials say the Chinese Communist Party‘s military is likely to use cyber technology, which has a significant impact on society, to support its “three wars” strategy and undermine its adversaries’ social cohesion, economy, morality, and social governance. Schematic diagram.
Senior Pentagon intelligence officials recently disclosed that the Chinese Communist Party and Russia are conducting a sophisticated information war against the United States, spreading false narratives, undermining social cohesion, and sowing a sense of division. The Chinese military is actively using the global media to conduct what intelligence officials call the “three wars” of public opinion, legal and psychological warfare.
The Washington Times reported that James Sullivan, a cybersecurity expert at the Defense Intelligence Agency, told a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Military Intelligence and Special Operations that both adversaries are using disinformation – deliberately fabricated and deceptive information – to wage a covert information war against the American public and government.
“The Communist Party’s military is likely to use cyber technology, which has a significant impact on society, to support its ‘three wars’ strategy and to undermine the social cohesion, economy, morality and social governance of its adversaries.” Sullivan told the House panel.
CCP Applies High-Tech in Information Warfare
On Capitol Hill, lawmakers were told that Moscow is waging what the Defense Intelligence Agency calls an “information confrontation” war, using propaganda warfare that has been refined by the Soviet communist regime since the 1920s.
“It’s been said in the past that in the area of propaganda information, Russia sets the tone and China (the Chinese Communist Party) is advocating it.” Sullivan said, “I think it’s Russia that’s setting the tone now, while I think it’s China (the Chinese Communist Party) that’s the one setting the tone.”
The Defense Intelligence Agency analyst said the Chinese Communist Party, however, is strengthening and refining its ability to spread strategic disinformation in its global anti-U.S. propaganda campaign.
“As the CCP grows, it will assume the leading role in this propaganda war.” He said, “The CCP will apply high technology to the information war. Communist China will use computerized machine learning and artificial intelligence faster than the Russians.”
Rep. Trent Kelly of Mississippi, a senior Republican, accused Beijing of an “aggressive and coercive” propaganda war in the online information space, including by spreading false information to blame the source of the Chinese Communist virus.
“The spread of malicious information has sought to create a sense of fear and distrust within the United States, even to the point of creating rumors that the U.S. military brought the virus to China,” Kelly said. Kelly said.
A Communist Party foreign ministry spokesman said last year that the U.S. military may have brought the Communist virus to China to deflect attention from Beijing’s irresponsible handling of the Communist virus (COVID-19) outbreak in its early days and to avoid accusations and criticism that the Communist Party faced for indulging in the worldwide spread of the highly contagious virus.
Adm. Philip S. Davidson, commander of Indo-Pacific Command, also told a congressional hearing that Chinese Communist Party officials operate “a huge disinformation creation and dissemination machine.
“They use conventional and social media and employ nearly 1 million people through their propaganda machine to fabricate and disseminate disinformation to the detriment of the United States and to create distrust between us and our allies and undermine our international environment,” he said. He said.
Sullivan said, “The threat and challenge from the information domain will always be there because it is part of the traditional military confrontation.” Neither Moscow nor Beijing is challenging U.S. military power.
U.S. military is developing effective methods to counter information warfare
The testimony of Sullivan and two other Pentagon officials suggests that the U.S. military is working to develop effective methods to counter information warfare, the dissemination of enemy disinformation, in peacetime and in war.
In January 2020, nine U.S. combatant command leaders signed what became known as the “36 Star Memo” urging intelligence agencies to do more to combat foreign disinformation.
The Pentagon and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence will not complete their response to the generals until September.
During the hearing, it was revealed that the 1st Special Operations Group at Fort Bragg, N.C., recently established an information warfare center and plans to prepare “information artillery” to engage in information warfare.
“I think it shows what we’re trying to do across the force, which is to really focus on this (information warfare) issue.” said Christopher Maier, acting assistant secretary of defense for special operations and non-intense conflict management.
“I don’t want to elaborate or even speculate on what they mean by ‘information artillery,’ but I think it speaks to the fact that information warfare is already part of our modern concept of warfare.” He said.
The Special Operations Command is the primary military unit responsible for “military information warfare operations (MISO).
In a recent study, the Pentagon’s Defense Science Board said the U.S. military needs to build soft power capabilities in areas such as cybersecurity, intelligence and social influence.
The committee concluded that the U.S. military “needs to be more operational and threatening in gray areas and treat every action as a deterrent to competitors from acting contrary to U.S. objectives.”
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