Political warfare: the obvious choice against our Maginot Line by Matt Armstrong
Access the entire essay by Matt Armstrong HERE.
This is just another great essay from one of our nation’s true experts on all things related public diplomacy, information and influence, psychological operations ,and political warfare, Matt Armstrong.
Hopefully this will make the light bulb go on in the minds of some:
Even if you’re not interested in political warfare, political warfare may be interested in you. I wrote “maybe” because a neat trick of political warfare is the ability to bypass or neutralize resistance, like an island-hopping campaign.
We must get better at political warfare if we want to be successful in strategic competition.
I recommend that people read and reread this paragraph at least a dozen times.
It is useful to know that Russia and China, among others, would be dumb not to wage political warfare against our interests and those of our democratic allies. Political warfare is inexpensive, especially relative to traditional warfare. Munitions, which include but go well beyond mere “information,” are cheap. The damage to physical infrastructure from political warfare is virtually or completely nil compared to a traditional invasion. If we want to be glib, we can throw in that political warfare is environmentally friendly. Political warfare is tolerant of mistakes and missteps. It allows for multiple and simultaneous, even potentially contradictory, lines of effort along multiple fronts, audiences, and territories. Further, political warfare can result in a deeper and longer-lasting positive result without post-invasion reconstruction, occupation troops, or possibly a directly appointed viceroy, depending on the objective.
And I think this is the best definition of political warfare I have found:
My definition of political warfare is derived primarily from Burnham:
Political warfare is the expression of power for hostile intent through discrete, subversive, or overt means, short of open combat, onto another. It is not mere rivalry or competition, it may have strategic or tactical objectives, and it may operate in one or more areas—political, societal, economic, psychological, or other—that are available for exploitation to affect change.
Political warfare: the obvious choice against our Maginot Line
