Sections

China: Agile Doctrines and Structures

Pakistan: Focus on CeSIO

Democratic vis-a-vis Autocratic Regimes: Ideological Underpinnings

References

[This piece is in continuation to “Strategies and Capabilities of Major Players – Part I”, which covered the CIO doctrine, operations and organisations of Russia and the US]

China: Agile Doctrines and Structures

Doctrinal Moorings

The Chinese version of Information Operations is captured in their concepts of Integrated Network Electronic Warfare (INEW) [1, 2] and Three Warfares [3]. The INEW concept is based on the convergence between CO and EW, which is now chartered to the PLA Strategic Support Force (PLASSF). The Three Warfares theory covers Psychological Warfare, Media Warfare and Legal Warfare, and its conduct is the operational responsibility shared by the SSF as well as the Political Work Department (erstwhile General Political Department), which functions directly under the Central Military Commission (CMC). This theory reflects China’s intent to make a strategic shift from engaging in kinetic conflicts to waging political warfare.

China is believed to have evolved its version of IO after an in-depth study of US concepts and literature. However, while US doctrine largely restricts information domain activities to military operations, the Chinese perspective is more aggressive, viewing IO as continuous across the spectrum of conflict, thus blurring the boundaries between peace and war [4].

Integrated Network Electronic Warfare (INEW). INEW is one of the two concepts which drives Chinese doctrinal thought on IO. In a seminal article by Dai Quingmin, a leading IO proponent in the PLA, INEW is the “organic combination of electronic warfare and computer network warfare” [5]. Enunciated in 2002, this concept was considered revolutionary, as it recognised the importance of achieving convergence between the seemingly diverse fields of CO and EW. The INEW concept finds a parallel in the US Army notion of Cyber Electromagnetic Activities (CEMA), which however has not yet been adopted at the DOD level. The areas of differences and convergence between CO and EW have been dealt with in some detail in an earlier work. In generic terminology, INEW and CEMA may be termed as Information-Technical Operations (ITO), a logical grouping of IO disciplines distinctly different from Information-Psychological (or Cognitive) Operations (IPO) or Inform and Influence Operations (IIO) (please refer to preceding sections on Russian and US CIO). In relation to CIO, CeTIO would find its moorings in INEW/ ITO.

Three Warfares. In 2003 the CCP Central Committee and the CMC adopted the concept of the Three Warfares in the revised “Chinese People’s Liberation Army Political Work Regulations” [6]. Out of its three components, Psychological Warfare and Media Warfare resonate with various conceptualisations of Cognitive Operations, while Legal Warfare is a unique Chinese concept. The CeSIO sub-stream of CIO is a manifestation of the Three Warfares concept in cyberspace. Briefly, the three components may be defined as under [7]:-

• Psychological Warfare seeks to undermine an enemy’s ability to conduct combat operations through operations aimed at deterring, shocking, and demoralizing enemy military personnel and supporting civilian populations.
• Media Warfare is aimed at influencing domestic and international public opinion to build support for China’s military actions and dissuade an adversary from pursuing actions contrary to China’s interests.
• Legal Warfare uses international and domestic law to claim the legal high ground or assert Chinese interests. It can be used to thwart an opponent’s operational freedom and shape the operational space. It is also used to build international support and manage possible political repercussions of China’s military actions.

Operational Employment

CIO: Overall Strategy. Unlike Russia which is widely believed to have conducted aggressive CIO in conflict scenarios such as Estonia, Georgia and Ukraine, there is no evidence of similar campaigns having been conducted by China, with its intrusive activities in cyberspace largely confined to cyber espionage. This is perhaps because the strategic objectives of China are quite different from those of Russia, as under [8]:-

• At this juncture, the primary objective of CCP propaganda is to project China as a peace-loving country, with a trustworthy leadership, and present itself as a global player. The “Chinese Dream” is portrayed as being beneficial to the international community as well. At the same time, it also seeks to undermine values such as freedom of speech and religion which are seen to be threatening to its authoritarian culture.
• China has promoted a model of cyber sovereignty, which propounds the right of the state to exercise control over national cyberspace. President’s Xi’s well-known remark that “without cyber sovereignty, there is no state sovereignty”, summarizes this concept [9].
• Towards this end, influence operations are aimed at both domestic and international audiences, and specifically target cultural institutions, media organisations as well as business, academic and policy communities.
• Although a significant part of Chinese influence operations is conducted by non-cyber mechanisms such as broadcast media, Confucius Institutes, etc, CIO play a major role in the overall strategy. The media houses in China being almost entirely state-owned or controlled, online platforms of media organisations such as Xinhua, CGTN and the People’s Daily are focused towards influencing foreign audiences. These organisations are also very active content generators on western social media platforms.

CIO: Specific Examples. A more belligerent flavour of Chinese influence operations in cyberspace has been observed against the backdrop of its recent aggressive and expansionist moves in Ladakh, Taiwan, South China Sea and Hong Kong. Some examples of specific influence operations in cyberspace carried out by China are as under:-

• There have been reports that China is carrying out psychographic profiling of political, military and scientific top brass in India in preparation for follow-up CeSIO at the appropriate time [10].
• Unlike Russia, there was not much evidence of China interfering in the 2016 US presidential elections, and only feeble attempts were made to influence the 2018 US mid-term elections. However, China was more actively involved in the recent 2020 presidential elections, although the intent was apparently to create confusion and chaos amongst the American electorate rather than to side with either of the two candidates [11].
• In 2017, the German government levelled the charge that Beijing had used LinkedIn and other social media to target more than 10,000 of its citizens to influence and possibly recruit them for intelligence operations, including lawmakers and other government employees [12].

Organisations

Influence operations in China are coordinated at a high level and executed by multiple agencies including the United Front Work Department, the Propaganda Ministry, the Ministry of State Security and the PLA. This work mainly focuses on the CIO capabilities available within the PLA [13].

In a major restructuring as part of ongoing military reforms, the PLA Strategic Support Force (PLASSF) was raised in Dec 2015, bringing most space, cyber, EW and psychological warfare capabilities at the strategic level under one jurisdiction. The PLASSF comprises of two operational departments, namely, the Space Systems Department (SSD) and the Network Systems Department (NSD). The former controls nearly every aspect of PLA space operations, including space launch and support; telemetry, tracking, and control; information support; and space warfare. The NSD is responsible for cyber, electronic and psychological warfare. Such a re-organisation also implies that cyberspace and cognitive domains, together with electromagnetic domain, are being treated as warfighting domains in their own right, rather than supporting elements in the traditional land, sea and air domains [14].

The integration of space, cyber, EW and psychological warfare capabilities under one umbrella may be contrasted favourably with the corresponding organizations in the US, where these capabilities are chartered to four separate unified combatant commands, namely, the US Space Command (USSPACECOM), the USCYBERCOM, the US Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) and the USSOCOM. The creation of the SSF reflects the evolution of Chinese military thought, which now clearly considers information to be a strategic resource in warfare.

The organisations and capabilities available with the CMC and the PLA for carrying out CIO, by leveraging CO and cognitive operations capabilities, are briefly discussed below:-

• Cyber Operations/ CeTIO. The NSD is responsible for PLA’s cyber exploit/ espionage missions as also for cyber-attack missions [15]. Such an integration reflects the felt operational need for close coordination between these two missions, as well as the commonality of expertise required for carrying them out. It is likely that the 12 Technical Reconnaissance Bureaus (TRBs), which are mandated to carry out cyber exploit/ espionage as well as signal intelligence (SIGINT) missions, have been placed under the NSD. It is also expected that elements integral to the erstwhile GSD’s Fourth Department, which were trained for carrying out cyber-attack missions, have also been transferred to the NSD, perhaps by integrating these into the TRBs. In addition, the 56th, 57th and 58th Research Institutes (RIs), which are known to possess the R&D and weaponization expertise for cyber as well as SIGINT missions, have also been placed under the NSD. Lastly, the PLA Information Engineering University has been moved to the NSD for enabling the necessary cadre development. It is to be noted that cyber responsibilities are also shared by the Network-Electronics Bureau (NEB), which is part of the Joint Staff Department (JSD) of the Central Military Commission (CMC). In addition, there are cyber elements placed under the theatre commands as well. Finally, cyber defence of networks is not entirely with the PLASSF, with responsibility for this being shared with the Information and Communication Bureau, which too is part of the JSD (JSD-ICB) [16]. The exact division of responsibilities between the JSD and SSF to fulfil cyber missions is not yet very clear.
• Three Warfares/ CeSIO. In the pre-reform era, responsibility for the conduct of Three Warfares, also termed broadly as political warfare, was entrusted to the GPD. Within the GPD, political warfare at the strategic level was handled by the GPD’s Liaison Department, while at the operational level this was carried out by the 311 Base along with its six subordinate regiments, all of which were placed under the command of the GPD. After the re-structuring, the GPD has taken the form of the new CMC Political Work Department, while the 311 Base has been shifted to the SSF. Within the SSF, although the location of the 311 Base has not yet been confirmed, it is expected to be either under the SSF Political Work Department or, more likely, under the NSD. Since the PLA is inherently a party army and not a national one, one of its imperatives is to ensure ideological loyalty amongst its cadre and propagate party ideals. This aspect will now fall within the purview of the new CMC-PWD, while the operational effects of Three Warfares across the entire spectrum of conflict would be the responsibility of the SSF, thus achieving a decoupling between party and military requirements. Finally, while some aspects of psychological warfare have evidently been shifted to the SSF, the other two components of “Three Warfares”, ie, legal warfare and public opinion warfare, fall outside the SSF’s charter [17].

Pakistan: Focus on CeSIO

Doctrine and Organisation

As per information available in the open domain, there are no organisations in Pakistan with the mandate for carrying out offensive cyber operations, neither is there any cyber operations strategy at the joint services or individual service levels.

As regards psychological operations, there is apparently no doctrine or military units in the Pakistan Armed Forces specifically tasked for psychological operations. However, unlike India, it does have an effective tri-Services Directorate of Inter-Service Public Relations (ISPR) with objectives specified across the spectrum of conflict. Another obscure think tank, namely, Command Eleven, also plays a significant role in furthering the psychological operations objectives of its Armed Forces [18].

Directorate of Inter-Service Public Relations (ISPR)

The Pakistani Armed Forces operate a unified public relations system for its Defence Forces through the ISPR Directorate. The Directorate was established in 1949 and is staffed with personnel from all the three Services alongside many civilian officers. ISPR’s primary aim is to ensure information superiority and protect troops from effects of propaganda, misinformation and rumours, and it has well laid out objectives and roles during war and counter-insurgency operations. It functions as part of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Secretariat and its purpose is to garner national support for the Armed Forces and strengthen their resolve to accomplish the assigned mission while undermining the will of the adversary. It also acts as an interface between the Armed Forces, the media and the public. It formulates much of the media policy of Pakistan’s military, safeguards the Armed Forces from negative influences and monitors both international and domestic media. The director general of ISPR directly reports to Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Secretariat, but is also responsible to the Chiefs of Staff of the Services.

Command Eleven

Another infamous player in Islamabad’s psychological operations effort is ‘Command Eleven’. This organisation is not officially a part of the Pakistan Army or its intelligence apparatus. Command Eleven, despite having no official ties with the Pakistani government, is said to be one of the ISI’s premier black propaganda outfits. This shadowy organisation is a mysteriously funded think tank headed by retired Lieutenant General Tariq Kahan and Colonel Azam Quadri, along with a team of cyber analysts and strategic experts. Some of its members have linkages to another equally obscure think tank known as the Centre for Strategic and Contemporary Research (CSCR). Post the Pulwama attack in Feb 2019, Command Eleven is reported to be responsible for flooding the social media with fake news and videos.

Democratic vis-à-vis Autocratic Regimes: Ideological Underpinnings

It may be worthwhile to compare the difference in approaches towards CIO adopted by liberal democracies (such as the US) and autocratic regimes (such as Russia and China) as a result of their ideological convictions [19].

Democratic Regimes

In democratic set-ups, Influence Operations in general and CIO in particular may be characterised as follows: CIO are likely to be governed by strict legal provisions, such as the US Smith-Mundt Act, which prohibits any form of influence operations by the DOD against its own citizens and news agencies; democratic governments are committed to freedom of speech and, being accountable to their electorate, are sensitive to public perceptions; CIO are likely to be more transparent, with greater focus on white propaganda, public diplomacy and civil affairs for influencing the target audience; influencers of all hues are likely to engage actively on social and broadcast media; and finally, while CIO would certainly be permissible against adversaries, full leeway to conduct these may be limited to conflict scenarios and not be freely available across the spectrum of conflict.

Autocratic Regimes

In autocratic regimes, on the other hand, rules of engagement for CIO may differ significantly, as follows: influence operations against domestic audience may not only be legally permissible but considered essential as a means of social control of the population, as exemplified by CeSIO resorted to by Russia during the Snow Revolution of 2011-13, or the raison d’etre for the Political Work Department of the CMC; even for external audiences, the most aggressive operationalisation of CIO to date is attributed to Russia, as witnessed during its conflicts with Estonia, Georgia, Ukraine and the US presidential elections; the deliberate blurring of boundaries between peace and war in the context of CIO has been codified in the doctrinal thought of both Russia and China, while in the case of the US, the doctrines are more tailored to address warlike situations; the scope of CIO attacks undertaken by autocratic regimes against their adversaries is also broader, such as influencing the electoral processes of adversary nations, which would go against the ideological convictions of liberal democracies, and hence not be undertaken; finally, as a consequence of strict control over information flows in autocratic regimes, their vulnerability to CIO would also be lesser as compared to their democratic adversaries.

Conclusion

This article has endeavored to provide key insights into the CIO capabilities of Russia, US and China as part of their overall influence strategies under the three sub-heads of doctrines, operations and organizational structures. Since CIO are the manifestation on IO in cyberspace, doctrines and organisations referred to in this work are largely tailored for conduct of IO. However, the respective sub-sections on Operations bring out how these are being leveraged for the conduct of CIO.

Having studied the conceptual underpinnings, tools, and techniques of CIO in the previous two articles in this series, and operational capabilities of major players, including our adversaries, in this work, the final article will attempt to analyse India’s existing CIO capabilities and suggest a way forward for it to keep pace with the challenges posed by this new form of warfare in the Information Age.

References

(1)     Gurmeet Kanwal, China’s Emerging Cyber War Doctrine, Journal of Defence Studies, Vol 3 No 3, IDSA, July 2009, pp. 14-22, Accessed 30 Nov 2020.

(2)     Deepak Sharma, Integrated Network Electronic Warfare: China’s New Concept of Information Warfare, Journal of Defence Studies Vol 4 No 2, IDSA, Apr 2010, pp. 36-48, Accessed 30 Nov 2020.

(3)     Elsa B Kania, The PLA’s Latest Strategic Thinking on the Three Warfares, China Brief Vol XVI Issue 13, Aug 2016, pp. 10-14, Accessed 30 Nov 2020.

(4)     Edwin S Cochran, China’s “Three Warfares”: People’s Liberation Army Influence Operations, International Bulletin of Political Psychology, Vol 20 Issue 3, 09 Jul 2020, Accessed 30 Nov 2020.

(5)     James Mulvenon, PLA Computer Network Operations: Scenarios, Doctrine, Organizations and Capability in Beyond the Strait: PLA Missions other than Taiwan, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2009, pp. 260-61, Accessed 30 Nov 2020.

(6)     Dean Cheng, Winning Without Fighting: The Chinese Psychological Warfare Challenge, Backgrounder No 2821, The Heritage Foundation, 11 Jul 2013, pp. 04, Accessed 30 Nov 2020.

(7)     Office of the Secretary of Defense (DoD), Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2011, Annual Report to Congress, US DoD, 16 August 2011, Accessed 30 Nov 2020.

(8)     Insikt Group, Beyond Hybrid War: How China Exploits Social Media to Sway American Opinion, Recorded Future, CTA-2019-0306, 06 Mar 2019, Accessed 30 Nov 2020.

(9)     Chapter Five: China’s Cyber Power in a New Era, Asia Pacific Regional Security Assessment 2019, International Institute for Strategic Studies, May 2019, pp. 77-90, Accessed 30 Nov 2020.

(10)   Jay Mazoomdaar and P Vaidyanathan Iyer, China is watching – Hybrid warfare: What data they collect, why it’s a cause for concern, The Indian Express, 16 Sep 2020, Accessed 30 Nov 2020.

(11)   Josh Rogin, There’s Chinese interference on both sides of the 2020 election, The Washington Post, 30 Oct 2020, Accessed 30 Nov 2020.

(12)   Daniel Wagner, China Is Waging a Silent Media War for Global Influence, The National Interest, 19 Sep 2019, Accessed 30 Nov 2020.

(13)   Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2019, US OSD Annual Report to the Congress, 02 May 2020, pp. 112, Accessed 30 Nov 2020.

(14)   John Costello and Joe McReynolds, China’s Strategic Support Force: A Force for a New Era, China Strategic Perspectives, No 13, NDU Press, Washington, Oct 2018, pp. 11-12.

(15)   Ibid., pp. 23-25.

(16)   Ibid. 25-28.

(17)   Lt Gen (Dr) R S Panwar, China’s Strategic Support Force and its Implications for India – Part II: Organisational Structures for Information Operations (Sections: Integrated Network Electronic Warfare; Three Warfares and Psychological Operations), Future Wars, 16 Jun 2020, Accessed 30 Nov 2020.

(18)   Lt Gen (Dr) R S Panwar, IW Structures for the Indian Armed Forces – Part III: Organisation Structures in Other Defense Forces (Section: IW Structures: Pakistan), Future Wars, 14 Apr 2020, Accessed 30 Nov 2020.

(19)   Sean Cordey, Cyber Influence Operations: An Overview and Comparative Analysis, Centre for Security Studies, ETH Zurich, 2019, pp. 26-27, Accessed 15 Oct 2020.