(How to Ignite an) Online Moral War
We have numerous online moral wars underway. Here's how to start one (using China as an example).
Online moral warfare has become a salient feature of our new socio-political environment. They’ve been used in the following settings:
Politics (primarily against Trump)
Warfare (most recently against Russia)
and Society (racism, sexism, etc.)
Most of these moral wars have emerged organically from what was once called the ‘left’ wing of the political spectrum. In contrast, the ‘right’ has had more difficulty waging them, instead opting for online maneuver warfare (aimed at disrupting the psychology of the opposition).
The Types of Warfare
This experience suggests an interesting question: is it possible to intentionally ignite a moral war, and if so, how would you do it? To answer this question, let’s start with the basics of online warfare and build from there. Since warfare is a contest between minds, we can divide it into three major realms of the mind:
Moral
Physical
Psychological
We fight in each of these realms using the following methods (for early thinking on this topic, see the 2017 Global Guerrillas report: Weaponized Social Networks):
Guerrilla warfare (moral). Use menace, uncertainty, and distrust to create alienation, fear, and anxiety within the opposition.
Attrition warfare (physical). Physically diminish the capacity of the enemy to wage war while building up your ability to do the same.
Maneuver warfare (psychological). Use ambiguity, deception, and novelty to disorient, disrupt, and overload an opponent’s decision-making capacity.
Online Moral Warfare
With this groundwork in place, let’s develop a framework for online moral (guerrilla) warfare. Let’s start this process with a couple of questions.
First off, why an online moral war?
Fast mobilization (far faster than alternatives), partly due to its open-source nature (no barriers to participation).
Unlimited scale (only limited by the reach of the network)
Easy to maintain once ignited (it fuels itself)
What are the downsides of an online moral war?
It’s nearly impossible to stop once it starts (as we are finding out), although the intensity can diminish if it isn’t regularly pulsed.
It can intensify to dangerous levels (think: the swarm’s response to the Russian invasion and its willingness to ignore the danger of nuclear war)
It can sprawl (adding enemies and avenues of attack)
Now, let’s develop a formula for manufacturing online moral warfare, using China as an example.
First, a moral war can’t ignite if there isn’t some kindling to start it. China is a good target because it is acting aggressively; many people already oppose it. The kindling exists.
Second, we need to build a pattern of behavior. Online warfare leverages network pattern matching (a recently learned behavior for dealing with the torrential flows of information found online). To target China, we need a pattern of behavior that increases alienation (particularly within the Chinese diaspora), fear, and anxiety domestically and internationally. Here’s an example: