AUSA 2023 — Of the many, many lessons American military leaders and tacticians are taking from Ukraine’s fight against Russian invaders, one stands above the rest for the head of US Army special operations: the criticality of information operations.
“I think [information ops] … could be the most important lesson learned from the crisis in Ukraine,” Lt. Gen. Jonathan Braga, commanding general of US Army Special Operations Command, said today. “I mean, the world has rallied to support the Ukrainian armed forces, in my belief, because of information operations and gathering support.
“I think the resistance and the resilience capability of the Ukrainian people is there because of successful information operations,” he said. “There’s tragedies all around the world that the world doesn’t necessarily pay as much attention to, but I think information operations is key.”
Beyond global support, Braga credited Ukraine’s aggressive and sophisticated public campaign for contributing to some 17,000 Russians deserting the military. (Last November, then-US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley said Russia has seen 100,000 casualties, which presumably includes defections in addition to those killed or wounded.)
“Messaging has played a huge role in the tactical and operational sense,” he said. “You’ve had 17,000 Russians desert. That’s 17,000 soldiers you haven’t had to blow up on the battlefield or destroy.”
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Braga said there’s a clear tactical benefit to “eroding the will of individual soldiers” and “impos[ing] doubt into the mind of the adversary.”
Ukraine’s military, and President Vlodomyr Zelenskyy personally, have been extremely aggressive in public messaging from the outset of the war — including a key video of Ukrainian leaders standing steadfast in Kyiv as Russian forces closed in on the first days of the invasion. Ever since, social media, as well as traditional media, has been saturated with videos of Ukrainian military successes as well as purported Russian depravity, each bolstering Western support for Ukraine.
Braga suggested the US Army has supported its Ukrainian partners in its information campaign, and that the US would be well served to follow Kyiv’s example in a future conflict.
Ultimately, he said, “warfare is about a contest of wills. You can have an annihilation strategy where you destroy every red icon on the map … but at the end of the day, you have to convince a human to stop doing what you’re doing.”
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