Member-only story
This is Why Ukraine is Winning the Information War
In 2022 certain images stuck in our collective minds: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying, “I need ammunition, not a ride”; a 35-mile-long line of Russian trucks stuck outside of Kyiv; the bodies of Ukrainian civilians killed by Russia’s indiscriminate strikes; and young Ukrainian lovers getting married before going off to fight.
Ukraine has deftly woven various media to tell a compelling story: It’s a story of a country that was brutally attacked by a nation many times its size and yet still stands defiant.
But there is a name for what Ukraine is doing so well and it’s called information operations (IO).
Information Operations is a military specialty that combines multiple functions and multiple domains to convey selected information to audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning, and ultimately, the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and individuals.
In the U.S., we use non-kinetic resources like psychological operations, civil affairs, electronic warfare, and cyber war to gain and maintain information superiority.
Also, Western nations take full advantage of consumer-facing products like social media, television, radio, and many other channels to sway opinions.
