INFORMATION WARS AND NKR
Gagik Ter-Harutyunyan
nalitics&nid=1246
23 June 2008
It is obvious that the NKR information security (IS) issues have
their specificity: according to many objective indices, this second
Armenian Republic is in the fore part of the information war front. At
the same time it is to be stressed up that the IS issues of the
NKR should always be considered in the context of Armenia’s IS (RA,
NKR and from the informational standpoint – Javakhk) and the Armenian
people. Separate, discrete perception of IS of the mentioned subjects
is methodically wrong and counterproductive.
It should also be pointed out that in the very article are not
discussed issues relating to the cyberspace security (hackering
and etc.). However, the intense activity of the Azerbaijani special
structures in this direction is to be stated as a fact. More often
the objective of hackers is monitoring the correspondence among the
state officials, which, in comparison with other countries, is not
enciphered, but is sent with an open text.
Information wars of the first generation and NKR It is considered
that informational flows can be of two types:
Information flows which represent or light up different spheres of
human vital functions and form a global information field.
Purposeful information flows, which are called to influence on
military-political, social-economic and spiritual-psychological
condition of a certain addressee.
As a rule, information flows of the first type are not much
controlled by the society and the state. At that, they may pose a
well known threat to the society’s psychological and moral condition
(especially to the traditional ones). At the same time, suchlike flows
may create a certain information-psychological background, which may
be used by the authors of the purposeful information flows of the
second type. In this context, the information field of any society,
especially the one facing military-political conflict (like MKR),
needs expert monitoring, and, if necessary, correction from the
direction of the state and society.
As a rule, the information flows of the second type correspond with
the definition of classical information actions and information wars.
Involvement of Armenia and the Armenian people into a scale, in
a certain sense global, political processes (in the context of
recognizing Genocide and the NKR), automatically turn them into a
subject of information wars. In case of the NKR, the most obvious and
main information aggressors are sure to be considered the Republic
of Azerbaijan and its allies.
At the same time, analysis of information flows give the impression
that the Azerbaijani structures waging information war get certain,
in particular methodological support of the specialists from Turkey
and other ally states of Azerbaijan. It is also not excluded the
participation of experts of big energy companies based in this country
in information operations against the NKR: the latter ones are known
to be well experienced in carrying out information operations. This
circumstance is an important element to give a right estimation to
Azerbaijan’s information resources and is to be a subject to more
detailed study.
The total of information operations against the NKR may be
characterized as a classical information war of the first generation
called to supplement the operations carried out by Azerbaijan
in military, political and economic fields. In this context the
information flows from the direction of Azerbaijan may conditionally
be denoted by three vectors, one of which is internal, and the other
two are external:
The internal vector is directed to the Azerbaijani audience and has
an objective of preserving memories about Nagorno-Karabakh in the
society as an integral part of Azerbaijan and bringing up the younger
generation in the spirit of militarization, revenge and Armenophobia.
The first external vector is directed against the Armenian community
and is being carried out in the genre of psychological war. For
example, are presented progress in the fields of energy and finance
and they are correlated with strengthening of their own IS and,
accordingly, with territorial pretensions to not only the NKR, but
also to the RA (Sevan, Yerevan etc.) The second external information
vector is directed to different segments of world community and has
an objective to form a positive image of Azerbaijan which suffered
from the Armenian aggression and blacken everything connected with
Armenia and the Armenian people.
It goes without saying that the mentioned directions of information
flows don’t have clear-cut outlined borders: they are often
synthesized and are mutually complimentary. It is to be accepted
that the Azerbaijanis have certain progress in their information
operations; at present they use a number of chrestomatie methods and
technologies. Whereas, the Armenian party does not always respond
adequately to these challenges – post factum refutations are not
effective: a systemized approach should be applied here.
Information wars of the second generation and NKR At the same
time we think that for the NKR are more dangerous the information
operations carried out on the basis of conception information wars
of the second generation, worked out by the specialists of "REND"
corporations. Let’s mention that if the information aggression of
the first generation is considered to be an important component and
is used in a general context of traditional war, than infowars of the
second generation have independent significance and are considered to
be a principally new type of strategic opposition "which is brought
to life by information revolution, introducing information space and
a number of other fields into the circle of possible opposition fields
and lasting months and years in time frame… "
Among the problems to be solved with the help of information wars of
the second generation we will in particular single out the following
ones:
Manipulation with social consciousness and political orientation of
social groups of a country’s population with an objective to create
political tension and chaos.
Destabilization of political relations among parties, unions and
movements aiming at provoking conflicts, stirring up mistrust,
suspicion, aggravating political struggle, provoking repressions
against opposition, instigating mutual destruction.
Decline in the level of providing the authority with information,
inspiration of wrong administrative decisions.
Disinformation of population about the work of governmental bodies,
undermining their reputation, discredit of authorities.
Undermining of a state’s international reputation and its collaboration
with other countries.
The above mentioned suggests that in a certain sense the RA and NKR are
already subject to information attacks of "the second category." A
more typical manifestation of suchlike wars is so called "color
revolutions." An example of such a revolution is in particular the
processes we witnessed not long ago in the RA during presidential
elections and which are directly connected with the NKR security. In
particular, the well known political powers widely used the following
slogans:
"Down with the Karabakh clan," in that way certain domestic perceptions
were raised to the political level, and an attempt was made to project
these perceptions over the idea of "Karabakhian" in general.
Thus, as a matter of fact, an attempt was made to realize the above
mentioned first point "manipulation with social consciousness and
political orientation of social groups of a country’s population with
an objective to create political tension and chaos."
"The unsettled Karabakh conflict is the source of misfortune we have,"
in that way in particular was spread the idea of handing over the
liberated lands.
RA and NKR information integration problems The fact that that the
above mentioned "color slogans" got certain resonance in society, is in
particular sequent of mistakes made in the information policy of the RA
and NKR. In spite of the success in integration in military-political
and economic spheres, it is still not time to speak about information
integrity of the two countries. At the period of "Karabakh movement"
the Armenian society was quite well informed (taking into consideration
rallies and private sources providing information) about the situation
in the NKR. At that, today there is an impression that the NKR is
in the zone of "radio silence:" only on the occasion of arrival of
international observers the TV channels broadcast conventional reports
on the background of the presidential residence in Stpenakert. In this
connection let’s mention that that problem is common for the whole
Armenia: the social system with "its own TV reporters" has collapsed,
and in this century of globalization almost all the regions found
themselves isolated from the standpoint of information.
Some conclusions Basing on the above mentioned one comes to the
conclusion that it is necessary to create a specialized expert
structure, which will be engaged in the NKR IS problems and together
with the RA specialists will work in the following directions:
Classification of infogen threats, revelation of centers working out
information operations against the NKR and working out efficient,
asymmetric methods to neutralize these operations.
Working out preventive information operations of attacking character.
Making attempts to shape a joint RA-NKR information plane.
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