ABSTRACT
This contribution stems from an accepted stance: with the rise of social media, disinformation campaigns are increasingly easier and cheaper to pull off than in past decades. As a consequence, the military consider communication a way to control the environment of operations and establish supremacy over the enemy, even in peacetime. Several labels have been used to denominate, at the doctrinal level, these activities: information operations, psychological operations, and more recently, inform and influence activities. Given the nature of these, the military is quite secretive about their nature and the way they are operationalised. This contribution relies on the author’s activities as an academic coordinator of NATO’s Working Groups on information and psychological operations complemented by original research on the role of language in these activities. NATO, US, UK, China, and Russia’s military doctrines on these topics are analysed and compared, starting from a terminological level up to the strategic effects they obtain in the public discourse. Although several documents are protected by nondisclosure agreements, and given the nature of this research, some confidential sources will be treated according to the Chatham House Rule.
