In a recent Small Wars Journal article, "Losing the Information War and How to Win," U.S. Army infantry officer Michael Anderson contends that America's adversaries have been beating the U.S. in the propaganda battles of recent years. While not the first to suggest that the U.S. has been grasping for an effective messaging strategy against … Continue reading How to keep losing the information war
Author: mirrorwilderness
Jonathan Riley is a multimedia journalist from Oakland, California. He has a bachelor's degree in psychology from California State University East Bay and a master's in journalism from Boston University. He has covered US politics at the local, state and federal level, writing for newspapers in California and Massachusetts, as well as working with the investigative unit at CNN in Washington, DC.
The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives voted to approve a massive military budget of nearly $700 billion late last year and President Donald Trump has signed the legislation, but it remains unclear whether Congress will pass a bill appropriating the necessary funds as a potential government shutdown looms. Though the latest partisan disagreements over … Continue reading Pentagon balances secrecy, demands for more funding
Most observers seem to agree that future conflicts around the world will involve greater use of electronic and cyber warfare. A new document published this month, titled The U.S. Army Concept for Cyberspace and Electronic Warfare Operations 2025-2040, offers some insight into how military planners are currently looking at this issue. "This document describes how the … Continue reading Army outlines future electronic warfare, cyberspace plans
Developing more complex and invasive methods of mass surveillance seems to be a constant goal of governments around the world as they pursue ever-increasing control over their citizens' lives. While much has been revealed about Western governments' communications monitoring programs in recent years, however, new developments in China and India offer insights into the potential … Continue reading Flawed biometric schemes in Asia highlight mass surveillance risks
In the first year of Donald Trump's presidential administration, the United States has been busy selling weapons to the rest of the world -- "busier than ever" as one official put it over the summer, although while America reportedly surpassed its fiscal 2016 tally by several billion dollars in exporting nearly $42 billion of arms … Continue reading Pentagon’s New Year’s resolution? Speed up arms sales
Fueled by a series of stories in the New York Times, the legacy media have recently piloted their often painfully conventional craft into largely uncharted territory with extensive coverage of the mysterious phenomena known as unidentified flying objects (UFOs). While certainly a fascinating subject, the timing of the Times' UFO articles (and "teaching … Continue reading Conspiracy-dismissing media hypes UFO coverup disclosure effort
Nearly a decade after agreeing to stop using cluster bombs, the Pentagon has reversed course, indefinitely delaying a ban on the controversial weapons that was previously planned to take effect at the beginning of 2019. "The Department of Defense last month abandoned a 2008 policy that would have reduced the U.S. inventory of cluster munitions … Continue reading U.S. scraps plan to ban cluster bombs
The term "information operations," interpreted broadly, could cover anything from old-school psychological warfare like the kind of leaflet bombing schemes that have gone on since the First World War, to blocking internet access or faking the origin of a cyber attack. Recognizing this, U.S. Army planners hope to further integrate all aspects of information operations … Continue reading Army looks to further integrate psy-ops with electronic warfare
A new study from two neuroscientists at Rochester University is the subject of a New York Times article this week, which describes their apparently successful efforts to "'inject' information into monkeys' brains." To study the premotor cortex, doctors Kevin Mazurek and Marc Schieber "trained two rhesus monkeys to play a game," the Times reports: The … Continue reading ‘Injecting information’ to control the minds of monkeys
It seems somewhat unlikely that Washington will muster the willpower to regulate "big tech" in any meaningful way any time soon, even as the industry becomes the focus of growing criticism in the United States. Yet increasingly, the American companies that dominate the digital world are finding themselves the target of foreign critics and regulators. … Continue reading U.S. tech giants come under increasing scrutiny abroad
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