Senior U.S. Pentagon intelligence officials recently disclosed that the Chinese Communist Party is actively using the global media to conduct malicious disinformation campaigns against the United States, undermine social unity and sow a sense of division. In response, military intelligence experts said the U.S. military is developing strategies to counter the spread of disinformation by the Chinese Communist Party in peacetime and in war.
James Sullivan, a cybersecurity expert with the Defense Intelligence Agency, told a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Military Intelligence and Special Operations that the Chinese Communist Party is likely to use online high-tech methods to fabricate and disseminate disinformation to deceive the U.S. public and government in order to undermine social unity, the economy, morality and social governance, according to The Washington Times.
Sullivan emphasized that the threat and challenge from the information domain will always exist because it is part of the traditional military confrontation. He noted that as the Chinese Communist Party grows, it is strengthening and refining its ability to disseminate strategic disinformation and will assume a leading role in global propaganda operations against the United States.
Adm. Philip S. Davidson, commander of Indo-Pacific Command, also told the congressional hearing that Chinese Communist Party officials operate “a huge machine to create and disseminate disinformation. “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 U.S. interests and to generate distrust between us and our allies and undermine our international environment.”
Republican Rep. Trent Kelly (R-Ky.) has accused the Chinese Communist Party of spreading disinformation in an attempt to create a sense of public fear and distrust in the United States, including fabricating rumors that a Chinese Communist virus was brought to China by the U.S. military.
Testimony by Sullivan and two other Pentagon officials at the hearing indicated that the U.S. military is working to develop effective methods to counter the spread of CCP disinformation, whether in peace or war.
During the hearing, it was revealed that the First Special Operations Group at Fort Bragg, N.C., has recently established an information warfare center and plans to prepare “information artillery” to engage in information warfare.
Christopher Maier, acting assistant secretary of defense for special operations and non-confrontational conflict, believes the Army wants to do something that really focuses on information warfare. Whatever the term “information artillery” means, he said, it means that information warfare has become part of the modern concept of warfare.
Last January, 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.
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 U.S. military also needs to be more operational and threatening in gray areas, targeting any adversary that acts contrary to U.S. objectives and must be deterred and combated.
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