Kohei Nozaki's general blog

"Hybrid War" is a relatively new term which appeared several years ago. It means a war which involves irregular factors such as cyber attacks, irregular forces, propaganda and so on.

Those factors are observed during the conflict between Ukraine and Russia which started in 2014 - appearances of unknown forces without insignia who came from Russia are observed in Ukraine. Propaganda which observed on TV and the Internet includes social networks.

Let’s see a couple of tweets written by institutions of countries that have a conflict between them. This is a tweet of Ukraine Embassy in Japan which states that "some Russian journalists never have an objective perspective in their work. On the other hand, in the aggression towards Ukraine, they have a biased view at a whole new level which no one has even seen.":

Also this is a tweet of Russia Embassy in Japan which states that "Kiev administration claims that there are no nazis in Ukraine, but if it’s true, which country’s intelligence agency held a new parade with torches in Odessa?":

Two of official institutions of countries blamed each other directly, in their foreign language on the Internet - this is an aspect of a hybrid war.

So how can they be won in that field? Getting attention on social networks takes much effort. If a country hires many professionals who produce more catchy and SNS-friendly information constantly, it will be a big advantage to be a winner. Hiring those professionals requires money, so apparently a richer country is likely to be a winner which spreads their opinion more effectively than an opponent. Unfortunately, whether the information is based on a fact or not doesn’t contribute to effectiveness in that field.

But the question is the following: does a country which spreads catchy, fake or biased information make people happy? I don’t think so because decisions or opinions based on inaccurate information are sometimes very harmful. In Japan at the time of World War 2, there were media which controlled by the government and kept spreading fake information. They led the army to make wrong decision, refuse to surrender for a long time, then eventually they killed many people who did not have to die.

So the question which needs to be asked is the following: how can people be winners of a hybrid war? In my opinion, good education about media literacy is a key. Modern people should be careful when receiving information - for example, considering these things before sharing would be a good idea: who wrote it, who will benefit from it or whether it is based on a fact or not.

Finally, I’d like to mention another key to winning - it is individual journalism which didn’t have much power in the past. Nowadays, virtually every person can become media on the Internet which influences the world. For a good example, there is a well-organized set of presentation slides that helped me to understand the situation of Ukraine (In my opinion, the cause of the conflict in Ukraine is that non-democratic and violent procedures were used by their government, not ethnical issues that tend to be reported by media, as the slides state).

I believe proper use of modern technologies helps people to win a hybrid war, spread the truth and make the world better.