Chinese scholar Sun Tzu rightly stated: “The highest art of warfare is to conquer the enemy without fighting.” Fifth Generation Warfare (5GW) aptly reflects this century-old quote. 5GW is not about fighting; it is about shaping insights and perceptions. Today, the focus has shifted to non-kinetic means of warfare. To achieve this objective, the role of information, or the “right” information, becomes essential. Information has become a key element of power. Information superiority determines winners and losers. Soft power pioneer Joseph Nye rightly stated: “In the information age, the mark of a great power is not only which armies win, but which stories win.” Barbara Haskell first explored the idea that information is power in her International Organization article “Access to Society: An Overlooked Dimension of Power.” Similarly, Richard Rosecrance in his book The Rise of the Virtual State talks about the role information plays in the conduct of foreign policy. The RAND Corporation defines IW as “a conflict or struggle between two or more groups in an information environment.” IW is a virtual tool that helps nations achieve their strategic objectives as well as advance their foreign policy goals. IW also represents civil-military friendship, or how a nation’s government and military interact skillfully with power leaders, media companies, civilians, and think tanks to positively influence public opinion. Human cognition is the penultimate goal of IW activities.
The convenient combination of information and technology has made cyber attacks, dominance tactics, media smear campaigns, internet spam, etc. Lessons learned from Bosnia, Kosovo, and Rwanda have taught the U.S. military the raw power of information. The advent of artificial intelligence has made information warfare a difficult problem.
My brief interaction with eminent military officers at the Eastern Command last month will remain a memory of a lifetime for me, during which I suggested that India needs a cadre of technical linguistic strategists who will be able to resource the information warfare wing of our armed forces.
Recently, ORF hosted a discussion on India-EU cooperation on Russian-Chinese disinformation and propaganda. Long ago, Greek philosopher Plato recommended censorship of literature, poetry, stories and music in the education system. This was to ensure that impressionable youth are not exposed to harmful information and ideas. Information also depends on the context. For what the West calls Soviet propaganda, Russians refrain from using the word “propaganda”. As of today, Russia is not only manipulating the US elections but is also skilfully using information warfare in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. With tensions between Russia and Ukraine rising and likely to escalate any minute, the role of information warfare will play a major role there.
On the Language of Strategy
As the balance of power spreads from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the rise of civilized nations like Russia, India, and China has become an undeniable reality. The ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war, India’s Indo-centrism and asymmetry in South Asia, and China’s relentless pursuit of power attest to this fact. Today, learning Russian and Chinese has become a strategic necessity. Russia, India, and China are also participants in many multilateral groupings such as BRICS, SCO, and others. China remains India’s major competitor, while Russia remains India’s strategic ally, i.e., its major defense partner. Learning Pashto, Tibetan, and Arabic also remains important for our intelligence officers. Seeking intelligence in a language is only one aspect. Listening, reading, writing, and understanding are entirely different things. While Russian still has similarities with Sanskrit and has a designated alphabet, this is not the case with Chinese. It is a tonal language and has characters that are easy to obfuscate. Here the role of technical language strategists becomes important. Engineers well versed in Chinese will code in Chinese. In addition to that, their knowledge of Chanakya Neeti and strategy gives them multi-domain expertise and allows them to skillfully utilize their skills in battle. Chinese programmers primarily use English for coding, but they are not limited to using Chinese as a programming language. There are ongoing efforts to develop Chinese versions of computer languages, which are also used for documentation.
Leveraging technology
Two famous quotes by Napoleon Bonaparte, “Ninety percent of war is information” and “The secret of war is communication” sum up the importance and significance of information warfare. From the Middle Ages to current conflicts, this element of warfare has been repeatedly emphasized and history is filled with examples of battle outcomes shaped by the innovative use of information warfare. Interestingly, while the fundamentals remain the same, the various aspects of this tool of warfare are only expanding in their connections and dependencies, many of which are due to technology. From information search, collection, collation, analysis, dissemination to decision-making, technology has become the main driver of the critical locks of the OODA loop.
The Industrial Revolution contributed greatly to shaping this dimension, but IR 4.0 in particular is becoming a game changer. Emerging technologies are really causing disruptions. Which are these technologies and how likely are they to change the status quo in the role of the strategic tech-linguist? It all comes down to the convergence of sensors and processing power. The technologies used are IoT, Big Data, Cloud Computing, Quantum Computing, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, Blockchain, and of course, advanced materials that serve as the foundation for many of the above technologies. The essence is that the strategic tech-linguist now has to deal with a lot to shape the war and the outcome, not in a near real-time frame, but in a virtually future realm. It is a powerful tool, and many of the so-called “difficult tasks” are now eased by the adoption of technology. However, this comes with challenges for the Tech-Lingua Strategist in the form of information overload and saturation, which requires caution.
But back to the context, and focusing specifically on “linguists”, this is the scientific study of language, with subfields including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. Artificial intelligence and speech recognition technology will be extremely useful in both encoding information warfare packages to the enemy and deciphering the enemy’s web. This will be a real challenge for technology to capture emotional aspects such as elation, confidence, arrogance, fear, anguish, anxiety, etc., centered around subfields such as phonetics, syntax, semantics and phonology.
The first hacking incident that comes to mind was in 1903, when British inventor and magician Neville Maskelyne corrupted the public Morse code and replaced it with a barrage of insults. So, does technology succeed in conveying and executing the authenticity and originality of a message, theme, intent and story? In the realm of information warfare, one might argue that it is just another tool, but in the Indian sub-context, given that the border is long, much of it unsettled and has become a hotspot of conflict, be it Galwan or Demchok, this is crucial. Here, the role of tech-savvy technical language strategists becomes crucial and needs to be developed and a dedicated cadre trained.
Conclusion
As India evolves into Vishwaguru, it will be imperative to stay updated with the latest information at all times. The dynamic nature of warfare will only pose serious challenges. The role of culture, language and technology will determine how to avoid or fight a war. In this regard, the information warfare wing of the Indian Army can turn to multitasking ventures where different skills like strategist, linguist and technological expertise can help in the battle and the unfolding of the narrative.
Dr Aparna Varma is an Assistant Professor at Rashtriya Raksha University, Gujarat.
Lt. Gen. Sanjay Verma (PVSM, AVSM, VSM, Ret.) is a former Director General, Capability Development Division, Ministry of Defence and currently serves as a Consultant to DRDO.
