Professional Soldiers ® - View Single Post - Jihad in a social media age: how can the west win an online war?

Old Dog New Trick · 08-27-2014, 08:07

Social media today is the equivalent of the airborne letter drop and AFN (Armed Forces Network - aka America Free Radio) of WWII. It should be as important to command leadership and PSYOPS as a weapon today as it was back then.

They have successfully used SM to rally the dissidents to the focal cause du jour of the day across the middle east and North Africa. As with all things the US is lagging behind the message and slow to use it as either a weapon of opportunity or a counter measure to change the intended purpose.

I like the way TR and Brush Okie are thinking but would add that using SM to set lethal traps of opportunity would also cause them to rethink its usefulness. I.e., clone ISIS or other known leadership accounts and send fighters into an ambush hook-line-sinker and see how useful it would be in the future - create doubt!

08-27-2014, 08:07	#6
Old Dog New Trick Quiet Professional Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: Just above the flood plain in Southern Texas Posts: 3,611	Social media today is the equivalent of the airborne letter drop and AFN (Armed Forces Network - aka America Free Radio) of WWII. It should be as important to command leadership and PSYOPS as a weapon today as it was back then. They have successfully used SM to rally the dissidents to the focal cause du jour of the day across the middle east and North Africa. As with all things the US is lagging behind the message and slow to use it as either a weapon of opportunity or a counter measure to change the intended purpose. I like the way TR and Brush Okie are thinking but would add that using SM to set lethal traps of opportunity would also cause them to rethink its usefulness. I.e., clone ISIS or other known leadership accounts and send fighters into an ambush hook-line-sinker and see how useful it would be in the future - create doubt! __________________ You only live once; live well. Have no regrets when the end happens! “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” (Sir Edmund Burke)
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