Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Kyiv has controlled the narrative with a hybrid approach of news, public opinion, psychological and cognitive elements, and disinformation. Information warfare has displaced traditional political warfare and gained new strategic importance.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been broadcasting live daily, as well as at significant times during the conflict, to show his country and the world his resolve to fight to the end and to castigate Russia for launching an unjust, unprovoked war.
During particularly tense episodes, he has given impassioned speeches, telling Ukrainians to stay alive so that they can once again sit down to eat together.
Reports have referenced the “Ghost of Kyiv,” a suspected flying ace who the Ukrainian Security Service claims has shot down 10 Russian fighter jets; the civilian army — comprised of men and women, young and old — willing to die for their country; and the weapons — Javelin anti-tank missiles, Stinger surface-to-air missiles and shoulder-fired next generation light anti-tank weapons — which have been crucial in repelling the Russians.
There have been images of destroyed or abandoned Russian military vehicles, and stories of poorly trained Russian soldiers.
These accounts have all found their way onto social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube — all while people refuse to report on Ukrainian troop movements.
Public opinion around the world — with the exception of Belarus and China — sides with Ukraine, which is pressuring EU countries to provide military equipment and humanitarian aid.
Even SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has donated his company’s Starlink terminals to Ukraine to sidestep Russian efforts to block its Internet access.
Such support has enabled the EU to assist Ukraine, and paint Russia forces and Russian President Vladimir Putin as inhumane invaders.
The lack of a legitimate cause for the war and Russia’s inadequate preparation, amplified by Ukraine’s effective media use, has led to low morale among Russian troops and reportedly caused some invaders cast aside their equipment and abandon their vehicles.
Stories of derelict equipment and soldiers going AWOL are regularly replayed online. One video on YouTube shows a Russian mother saying that her son told her that he was deployed on a military exercise, only to later discover he was a prisoner of war in Ukraine.
People from around the world, as well as Ukrainians living abroad, are traveling to Ukraine to enlist in a volunteer army.
What Ukrainians have achieved is straight from the pages of the political warfare handbook: consolidate at home, bring others together and disrupt the enemy.
Taiwan’s armed forces can learn from this approach. The military should consolidate its operations, bringing together instructors and political warfare operatives to form a psychological operations and warfare unit responsible for utilizing social media to control the narrative during a potential war.
The military should reinforce training related to online campaigns — including the use of keywords, broadcasts, statistical analysis, visualization, and methods to increase online traffic and facilitate the setting of agendas — to shift away from relying on conventional “psy-op” techniques.
It should procure the equipment needed to avoid Internet disruptions and the blocking of online accounts.
The time is right for the military to learn from how Ukraine’s armed forces organized and consolidated its operations so that Taiwan can be ready to control the narrative.
Chu-Ke Feng-yun is director of a medical management department at a hospital.
Translated by Paul Cooper
A failure by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to respond to Israel’s brilliant 12-day (June 12-23) bombing and special operations war against Iran, topped by US President Donald Trump’s ordering the June 21 bombing of Iranian deep underground nuclear weapons fuel processing sites, has been noted by some as demonstrating a profound lack of resolve, even “impotence,” by China. However, this would be a dangerous underestimation of CCP ambitions and its broader and more profound military response to the Trump Administration — a challenge that includes an acceleration of its strategies to assist nuclear proxy states, and developing a wide array
Eating at a breakfast shop the other day, I turned to an old man sitting at the table next to mine. “Hey, did you hear that the Legislative Yuan passed a bill to give everyone NT$10,000 [US$340]?” I said, pointing to a newspaper headline. The old man cursed, then said: “Yeah, the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] canceled the NT$100 billion subsidy for Taiwan Power Co and announced they would give everyone NT$10,000 instead. “Nice. Now they are saying that if electricity prices go up, we can just use that cash to pay for it,” he said. “I have no time for drivel like
Twenty-four Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers are facing recall votes on Saturday, prompting nearly all KMT officials and lawmakers to rally their supporters over the past weekend, urging them to vote “no” in a bid to retain their seats and preserve the KMT’s majority in the Legislative Yuan. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which had largely kept its distance from the civic recall campaigns, earlier this month instructed its officials and staff to support the recall groups in a final push to protect the nation. The justification for the recalls has increasingly been framed as a “resistance” movement against China and
Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) reportedly told the EU’s top diplomat that China does not want Russia to lose in Ukraine, because the US could shift its focus to countering Beijing. Wang made the comment while meeting with EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas on July 2 at the 13th China-EU High-Level Strategic Dialogue in Brussels, the South China Morning Post and CNN reported. Although contrary to China’s claim of neutrality in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, such a frank remark suggests Beijing might prefer a protracted war to keep the US from focusing on
RSS