After reading a new non-fiction book iWar: War and Peace in the Information Age by newspaperman Bill Gertz, OpenCdA wonders if when it comes to information warfare awareness, President Trump and some of his designated appointees aren’t light years ahead of many of the Clinton-Bush-Obama straphangers that are now finding themselves being spun off the Washington merry-go-round.
Trump and his Tweeter machine are driving the national skews media nuts with his conflicting and ambiguous answers to their failing attempts at gotcha questions. It was a short drive for the rabidista Hillary Clinton worshippers at ABC, CNN, MSNBC, and of course Bezos’ Bozos at the Washington Past.
Gertz’s book is a remarkably readable account of the information war to which the United States has been subjected since after World War II. His book astutely shows how several recent US presidents including Ford, Carter, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and Obama haven’t just been ignorant of information warfare; some of them were seemingly in denial of its existence. Reagan may have had the best understanding of what the Soviets were doing with it to undermine our national security.
President Trump not only seems to get it, but he also seems to be using it himself to keep the skews media and our international adversaries confounded.
That’s not to suggest that he doesn’t take the existence and continuing threat of information warfare seriously. Clearly, he does. In fact, he may take it more seriously and have a more intuitive understanding of it than any of his predecessors.
Gertz’s book is fascinating reading. It’s no doubt just coincidental that not long after comp’d copies were delivered to Foggy Bottom, Ft. Fumble, Langley, JB Anacostia-Bolling, and Ft. Meade, Rolaids and Prevacid were added to the GSA procurement schedule.
Thanks for the tip on the book, sounds like a good one to read. I think CNN et. al. would lose it if President Trump stopped tweeting. He is the entire story. They cannot keep up. On a daily basis, their news sounds more and more desperate as they build more hysteria surrounding his Presidency. Ridiculous fear mongering.
Comment by Stebbijo — January 29, 2017 @ 8:34 am
Stebbijo,
It is a very good book. Even though he knowledgeably writes about the technology of information warfare, his book is less about that than about how other nations and armies, most notably the People’s Republic of China and the People’s Liberation Army, are effectively using information warfare influence operations so that more destructive military means will not be as necessary to defeat and subjugate an enemy.
The book is eye-opening.
Comment by Bill — January 29, 2017 @ 9:23 am