Fourth, by targeting strategy and creating chaos, the weaponized narrative favors revisionist powers. Chaos can undermine rules-based international order aligned with the values of the principal state. While chaos is risky for rising powers, it tends to be more damaging to a predominant or status quo power.[13] The weaponized narrative can distract, allowing a slow series of gains, such as claiming small, contested regions while keeping potential adversaries focused on new crises.[14]

Fifth, narrative is a low-cost weapon. “Indirect tactics, efficiently applied, are inexhaustible as Heaven and Earth, unending as the flow of rivers and streams; like the sun and moon, they end but to begin anew; like the four seasons, they pass away to return once more.”[15] Similarly, weaponized narratives exploit short-term stories to support long-term themes. In Iraq, the theme of shock and awe, apparently intended to deter resistance by portraying U.S. and allied forces as invincible, used multiple actions and stories for a single intended effect. An actor can now create and propagate such stories in seconds, rather than months or years. The stories only matter in context, like skirmishes. The narrative is the campaign plan that coordinates repeated, rotating themes.[16]

“Though the enemy may be stronger in numbers, we may prevent him from fighting.”

Sixth, narrative can win a conflict by preventing it. Sun Tzu suggests,“Though the enemy may be stronger in numbers, we may prevent him from fighting.”[17] He goes on to say, “A clever general, therefore, avoids an army when its spirit is keen, but attacks it when it is sluggish and inclined to return.”[18] Key themes might assert that a conflict is unimportant, for example.[19] While Sun Tzu was referring to an army’s mood during a day, the concept also applies to a nation’s mood and the criticality of national will.

Seventh, weaponized narratives leverage combined energy. Varied sources amplify assorted crowd-sourced stories, bolstering one narrative.[20] Sun Tzu described this: “The clever combatant looks to the effect of combined energy, and does not require too much from individuals.”[21] Beyond patriotic hackers, organizations such as Bellingcat use crowd sourcing to debunk Russian narratives of the flight MH17 shoot-down.[22, 23] Botnets multiply crowd sourcing by orders of magnitude (e.g., astroturfing—making a message appear to come from a grassroots movement when it actually comes from a sponsoring organization).[24] Bots will prove increasingly powerful as chatbots convincingly replicate humans.

“Knowing the place and the time of the coming battle, we may concentrate from the greatest distances in order to fight.”

Eighth, narrative is typically fast, difficult to predict (which benefits those with little to lose over those with much to lose), and concentrates actions. Narrative resembles the way a commander’s desired end state paints a picture of goals and objectives to concentrate the actions of those under his or her command. Sun Tzu advised, “Knowing the place and the time of the coming battle, we may concentrate from the greatest distances in order to fight.”[25] In the information environment, distance means little, but the first mover advantage means a great deal. A new idea can take root before it can be debunked. We’ve all seen or heard of flash mobs, for example, assembling for actions from performance to theft and then dispersing in minutes. Groups such as Anonymous can similarly mass thousands of hackers, each perhaps with dozens of autonomous attack programs/bots for a cyberattack, exemplifying Sun Tzu’s directives to “let your rapidity be that of the wind.”[26] and “take advantage of the enemy's unpreparedness; travel by unexpected routes and strike him where he has taken no precautions.”[27] The information environment’s nature challenges principles of war (or battle) like mass, maneuver, speed, and surprise—not just for cyberattacks on physical targets, but against the minds of the public.[28] Crowd sourced authors, multiplied by botnets, can create a faux movement instantly, making counteraction impossible. The appearance of many sources and supporters make the movement persuasive unless targets are inoculated beforehand.

“You can be sure of succeeding in your attacks if you only attack places which are undefended.”

Finally, weaponized narrative targets our minds- and we rarely defend our minds well. We tend to accept stories uncritically (the illusory truth effect).[29] Even if we know a story is false, a desire for the story to be true, or a story framed to support preexisting beliefs (confirmation bias) might make us believe the story in part.[30] When people trust very few sources for truth or facts, it’s difficult to inoculate against adversary narratives going viral. When someone lacks the ability or will to think critically about incoming information, that individual has no analog to disease resistance. The mind is undefended territory in the information war. Sun Tzu noted, “You can be sure of succeeding in your attacks if you only attack places which are undefended.”[31] Actors worldwide are targeting undefended and unwitting minds.

Conclusion