Victory in the war must be achieved before the first shot.
The military operation of Russia against the Islamic State (IG) banned in Russia caused a flurry of anti-Russian information-psychological hysteria on the part of Western countries. Using the media and communications, Western countries continue to escalate the atmosphere of hostility towards the leadership of Russia and its policies. Representatives of the domestic “fifth column” joined the anti-Russian choir of the Western countries, by and large conducting subversive sabotage activities inside the country. As a result of the unbridled informational and psychological impact, the international authority of Russia is undermined, protest sentiments are forming inside the country, enormous damage is caused to the state in all spheres of its life activity. In this regard, there is a need for closer attention to the information-psychological confrontation, careful analysis of its characteristics and features.
PURPOSE, OBJECTIVES AND MEANS OF CONFLICT
Information and psychological confrontation has a long history. It arose simultaneously with the emergence of armed confrontation as an integral part of the armed struggle in the form of a psychological means of weakening the enemy’s combat power and raising the morale of its troops.
Currently, the information-psychological confrontation has emerged as an independent form of struggle, which can be waged both without direct use of military violence, and in combination with military force. For many states, the information-psychological confrontation, especially manifested in the most acute and aggressive forms, has become an extremely dangerous phenomenon.
Scientific and technical progress in the field of information and communication technologies, erasing national boundaries, and the successes of social psychology in studying the behavior of the masses force the leadership of leading world powers to revise their military concepts. The practice of purposeful information-psychological pressure, which causes significant damage to the national interests of the opposing states, is being extended.
Currently, the leadership of the United States holding events on the informational and psychological impact on the military-political leadership and public opinion of various countries, on the world community as a whole, is being elevated to the status of the main content of preparation for military actions.
The purpose of the information-psychological confrontation is to control people, forcing the population of the victim country to support the aggressor, acting contrary to their interests, without employing the existing socio-psychological defense mechanisms.
On this occasion, American publicist Robert Green writes: "Influence people so that they draw conclusions that are desirable for you, believing that you have thought of what you are looking for on your own."
According to the staff of the Belarusian Regional Branch of the Academy of Military Sciences of the Russian Federation, Yu.E. Kuleshov, B.B. Zhuddiev and D.A. Fedorov, the goal of information-psychological confrontation is achieved by solving the following tasks:
- the substitution of traditional moral values and orientations of citizens, the creation of an atmosphere of spiritlessness, the destruction of national spiritual and moral traditions and the cultivation of a negative attitude to the cultural heritage of the enemy;
- manipulation of public consciousness and political orientation of social groups of the population of the country to implement the so-called "democratic transformations" in the interests of creating an environment of political tension and chaos;
- disorganization of the public administration system, the creation of obstacles to the functioning of state institutions;
- destabilization of political relations between parties, associations in order to provoke conflicts, forcing an atmosphere of distrust in government bodies;
- intensification of the political struggle, provoking repressions against the opposition - a network of non-governmental organizations (the so-called “democratic forces”) and individual “independent” activists;
- reducing the level of information support of the authorities and management in order to make it difficult to make important decisions;
- Disinformation of the population about the work of state bodies, undermining their authority, and discrediting of management bodies;
- provoking social, political, national and religious clashes;
- mobilization of protest moods and the initiation of strikes, riots and other economic protest actions;
- undermining the international authority of the state, its cooperation with other countries;
- damage to the vital interests of the state in political, economic, defense and other fields.
When information and psychological confrontation, the objects of influence and protection are the population and the personnel of the armed forces of the opposing sides, as well as the system of formation of public opinion and decision-making, which include political and military leadership.
The main means of information and psychological confrontation are information and communication networks, communication networks, military information infrastructure, and the media.
The analysis of the informational-psychological confrontation at the present stage allows us to single out several basic trends in the development of means and methods that will determine its essence and character in the near future.
SOCIAL NETWORKS AND INTERNET RESOURCES
Social networks are a new modern tool used in the interests of activating protest sentiments, coordinating the actions of protesters, informing the international community about current events.
Information flows from social networks Facebook and Twitter by sending protest actions to e-mail and mobile phones of users allow you to collect a critical mass of people at the right time and place.
According to experts, communication on Facebook or Twitter creates a sense of ownership among people, and putting photos or video clips provides the effect of presence. Thanks to this, millions of people abroad will instantly learn about events, who can join the struggle, demanding from their governments decisive actions in support of one or another of the opposing sides.
Thus, involvement of the population in social virtual networks is a new promising method of manipulating the minds of people, allowing citizens to mobilize for the necessary actions, being far from the epicenter of events.
Currently, the USA has developed a personal management program (Persona Management Software), with which you can create and manage dummy social network accounts to distort the truth and create the impression that there is a generally accepted opinion on controversial issues. The program allows a small number of people to report and promote false information, creating at the same time at the expense of the “army” of fictitious users the impression of their universal acceptance. With the help of the program, you can also follow public opinion and find genuine points of view, so that with the help of “fictitious” people you can carry out dirty campaigns to distort these points of view and discredit “real” people practicing them.
In the modern world, the decomposition of statehood, including Russian, occurs as a result of the activities of transnational media corporations (TNK-media), carrying out cross-border activities through a multi-stage network of branches, subsidiaries, affiliated companies and other resources.
Being interconnected with international political and economic structures, TNC-media contribute to the weakening of the national state through informational influence. To influence decision-making, state and intergovernmental structures of TNK-media use, for example, information pressure or control of the “global political agenda”. To do this, they seek to acquire the most popular Internet resources, social networks and other media. As a result, their “informational strength” increases, by which is meant an endless, but controlled flow of information resources in the sphere of global politics and international relations. The impact of this force can lead to the disintegration of society, the decentralization of state power, the virtualization of life, the asymmetry between the economic and political spheres of society, a revolution in the means of ensuring security.
TNK-media began to penetrate the domestic market in the period of publicity in the second half of the 80-s of the last century and played a significant role in the collapse of the USSR. Currently, foreign TNK-media are paying great attention to various kinds of problems in Russia and, under the guise of protecting the rights of citizens, spread anti-Russian information on their resources. An attempt of the state to resist the information pressure of TNK-media is positioned in foreign sources as a restriction of freedom of speech.
Under these conditions, the development of a program of information countering TNK-media, aimed at exposing unfair and deceitful messages distributed on social networks and Internet resources, minimizing their negative impact on public opinion at home and abroad, as well as on expanding influence of Russian media resources in the international arena. Within the framework of this program, the government of Russia should initiate bills that ensure effective state control over the mass media and limit the influence of TNK-media on the Russian audience.
MEDIA
Modern technologies allow agitators of terrorist organizations to penetrate directly into the mobile devices of citizens. Reuters Photos
The mass media (mass media) include an expanded arsenal of ways to influence the psyche of the individual and the masses in order to introduce psychological attitudes into the subconscious mind and form patterns of behavior in the unconscious psyche. The media includes television, press, radio, cinema, theater, circus, all entertainment events and literature, videos, billboard and public transport advertising, sound recordings and video recordings, etc., which can be used to influence a mass audience.
Of all the media on the highest manipulative effect television stands out.
When watching TV shows of any orientation, the right hemisphere of the brain works mainly in a person. The right hemisphere thinks in images and is responsible for a comprehensive vision of the world, that is, assembles individual frames of what he saw into a single holistic composition. This turns off the work of the left hemisphere with its analytical thinking. Thus, all the information seen through watching TV seamlessly penetrates the subconscious, where it forms the corresponding psychological attitudes and patterns of behavior. As a result, the sponsors of the TV channels program the population of the country to perform the specified actions, practically leaving no chance for the person to resist, using his strength.
In addition, the "necessary" information is often repeated. In this case, another important principle of hypnosis is applied. Repetition dramatically enhances the power of suggestion, reducing as a result the behavior of many people to the level of ordinary reflexes of the nervous system.
A particular danger is watching television for children. With regard to the manipulative effect aimed at children, it should be said that children, by virtue of age, have not developed a skill of understanding the information that is served by means of television.
Television has no less danger on the psyche of adults.
Television with its huge flow of visual information, a quick change of images does not give the opportunity to go back and once again see insufficiently understood frames, and therefore - to comprehend them.
While watching TV, the viewers' brain connects to a single system, which, using signs and symbols representing the coded signal, forms the corresponding psychological attitudes in the human subconscious. Thus, viewers get a certain code. Being encoded, they begin to think in the algorithms given by the manipulators.
Television is a spiritual drug, as Professor SG once said. Kara-Murza. In his opinion, the impact of television is such that a person loses free will and spends much more time at the screen than his information and entertainment needs require. At the same time, as in the case of drug addiction, a person continues to watch television, even if he understands his harm.
Reportages “from the scene of events” mounted and retouched in special laboratories make it possible to create an atmosphere of mass psychosis, to contribute to destabilization of the situation in the world, to form an appropriate world public opinion.
The main ways of manipulating the information used by the media, according to Yu.E. Kuleshov, B.B. Zhuddiev and D.A. Fedorov are:
- a blatant lie in order to disinform the population of their country and the foreign public;
- hiding critical information;
- immersion of valuable information in an array of information garbage;
- simplification, approval and repetition (suggestion);
- the substitution of terminology: the use of concepts and terms, the meaning of which is not clear or has undergone qualitative changes, which makes it difficult to form a real picture of the event;
- Introduction of taboos on certain types of information and sections News;
- recognition of the image: well-known political figures, representatives of show business can participate in custom-made political actions, thereby exerting a certain influence on the worldview of their fans;
- submission of negative information, which is better perceived by the audience compared with positive news.
Television and other mass media (radio, cinema, newspapers, magazines, etc.) change the habits of people by their activity, introducing into their subconscious new attitudes initiated by the West and their agents of influence. There is a zombie mass consciousness. And coded people act in the interests of their ideological opponents, without even knowing it.
The last decades of our country's life have been marked by an incredible immoral media pressure on society, which is virtually devoid of any means of control in this area. Some media engaged in the imposition of "democracy" in the form of legal nihilism and permissiveness, the cultivation of violence and moral maladjustment, the propaganda of the most unbridled mores and unnatural lifestyle - nudism, homosexuality, feminism, transsexualism. The ill effects of such media are that they form misconceptions about the meaning of human life. Therefore, for their own security in the country, it is necessary to develop a critical attitude towards information disseminated by the media. The disappearance of a stable national-cultural identity, the rejection of the spiritual and moral values of the Russian people is the way to the disappearance of the nation as such.
Unfortunately, the government has little concern for the media situation. This is manifested in inadequate control over the activities of TV channels, publishers, connivance in issuing licenses for television and radio broadcasting, lack of censorship of what is shown on screens of cinemas and televisions, published in books, newspapers and magazines, published on the Internet. All this leads to the spiritual and moral impoverishment and depravity of Russian citizens.
In this regard, I would like to cite as an example Western countries, many of which have passed laws providing for harsh criminal penalties for criticizing the authorities and law enforcement agencies. Long-term imprisonment threatens those who dare to criticize the constitutional order and state policy. You can criticize private companies, banks, stock exchanges, individual politicians and businessmen, but not the power structures.
16 May 1918 The US Congress passed an amendment to the "Spying Act", still in force, according to which those who "speak orally in writing in a disloyal, sordid, rude or insulting tone about the form of government or concerning the Constitution of the United States, or in relation to the armed forces, ”faces up to 20 years in prison.
In the interests of ensuring the security of the state, it would be nice for Russia to learn from the experience of Western countries with regard to the media and its individual representatives.
NEUROLINGUISTIC PROGRAMMING
Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is one of the new methods of influencing the brain and mental state of a person.
Everyone has a particular picture of the world (event), which is fixed in his psyche as a definite stereotype. In its depths, this picture consists of the reactions of the brain to certain combinations of sounds, colors, colors, visual images, etc.
By influencing these images and stereotypes with a certain set of sounds, visual images, words and thought constructions (a way of presenting information in a form convenient for the interlocutor, but creating the necessary changes to his previous stereotypes and behavioral constants), one can definitely achieve one’s own definite goals.
Due to the fact that in any management process the most important element is direct communication between decision makers or specialists preparing this decision, NLP can be considered as one of the ways of information-psychological confrontation.
The problem of using NLP is currently more relevant than ever in connection with the growing impact on human consciousness from all parts and spheres of society (politicians, media, advertising, family, corporations, etc.).
To counteract NLP, it is first necessary to exclude the possibility of influencing the brain and mental state of people using media and communication. To do this, it is necessary to tighten censorship on television, radio, on the Internet. It is necessary to put a barrier to the activities of all kinds of “specialists” conducting sessions of mental influence on a mass audience. On the other hand, it is necessary to make great efforts to cultivate the will power of people, reduce their tendency to suggestibility, and develop their critical thinking.
COGNITIVE WEAPONS
Cognitive weapons, by definition, the Russian scientist S.S. Sulakshina, is the introduction of false scientific theories, paradigms, concepts, and strategies that affect her government in the direction of the weakening of defensively significant national potentials into the intellectual environment of the enemy’s country.
In practical application, false scientific theories, paradigms, concepts, strategies are transformed into weapons of immense destructive power, affecting the national science and education, government, economy, defense.
Sulakshin cites the following examples of the use of cognitive weapons in modern Russia: the theory of post-industrialism; the theory of monetarism; theory of radical liberalism in economics; the concept of advancing productivity in relation to wages (in conditions of low wages); migration topics; topics of reorganization of the contour of education in the Russian Academy of Sciences, etc.
Along with the false theories, the West carried out false information about the trends in the development of modern science in general and military science in particular with the aim of directing scientific research along the wrong path.
For example, at present, the USA is actively introducing the proposition that future wars will, as a rule, be non-contact, using mostly non-nuclear high-precision means. If this point of view becomes dominant, the Russian Armed Forces will prepare for a war in which they will not have a chance to win (programmed defeat).
But if as a “asymmetric response” we prepare a contact war using the entire arsenal of armament and military equipment available in the country, then the character and the final of such a future war will be different.
To counter the cognitive weapon, it is necessary first of all to verify scientific theories, paradigms, concepts, strategies and identify those “pseudo-scientists” and those public and state institutions that are generators of false, dummy, disruptive theories.
For verification of scientific theories, paradigms, concepts, strategies, it is necessary to form a national strategic intellectual scientific expert direction and a national strategic intellectual center under the direct supervision of the Russian government.
Based on verification, the activities of “pseudo-scholars”, public and state institutions, aimed at hitting the cognitive potential of the country, should be stopped, the institutions should be disbanded, and the “pseudo-scholars” should suffer the most severe punishment for undermining the country's defense and treason.
The National Strategic Intellectual Center should develop authentic verified nationally oriented strategies, programs, development theories and projects of state management decisions, promote scientific activities in the interests of national security, and develop methods to counter intellectual sabotage.
SYSTEM OF INFORMATION-PSYCHOLOGICAL ANTI-COMBINATION OF RUSSIA
The information and psychological confrontation of Russia should be conducted not sporadically and diversely on individual sources and goals, but systematically and simultaneously in all directions.
When planning and putting into practice the information-psychological confrontation, it is necessary to be guided by the following, established by Yu.E. Kuleshov, B. B. Zhuddiev and D.A. Fedorov, principles:
- continuity and flexibility of information and psychological impact;
- efficiency and flexibility of the events of information and psychological confrontation;
- offensive, aggressive and initiative;
- concreteness;
- ideological and political orientation.
The system of information and psychological confrontation of Russia can be formed in this form:
- State Council on the information and psychological confrontation under the President of the Russian Federation;
- regional councils for information and psychological confrontation with plenipotentiary representatives of the President of Russia in federal districts;
- Advisor to the President of Russia on information and psychological confrontation;
- national strategic intellectual center under the government of the Russian Federation;
- Coordination councils on information and psychological confrontation at the federal ministries of the Russian Federation;
- interdepartmental coordination center for information and psychological confrontation;
- advisory commission on legislative counteraction to the operations of information-psychological struggle against the leadership and the population of Russia;
- State Committee for the Control of Social Networks and Internet Resources;
- State Committee for the Control of Mass Media;
- management of military censorship of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation;
- management of information and psychological security of Russia.
Such a system is capable of effectively counteracting the threats to the information and psychological security of Russia both now and in the future.
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