TY - GEN

T1 - Georgia-Russia military conflict

T2 - 11th International Conference on Cyber Warfare and Security, ICCWS 2016

AU - Pashentsev, Evgeny

PY - 2016/1/1

Y1 - 2016/1/1

N2 - Local armed conflicts that face the collision of interests of great powers usually lead to serious geopolitical consequences. In this case, the coverage of the events in mass media goes far beyond the countries directly involved in the conflict. The public assessment of the situation without doubt becomes a field of acute psychological warfare. The Georgia-Russia military conflict of 2008 was no exception in this respect. In spite of its short duration and the relatively small number of victims, it became the focus of international attention and was accompanied by a high level of confrontation in the information environment. The conflict was, firstly, a phase of sharp aggravation of the Georgia-South Ossetia conflict within Georgia, secondly, the direct interstate military conflict between Georgia and Russia, and thirdly, an indirect conflict of interests between Russia and the U.S. and their NATO and the EU allies (only slightly related to the events in Georgia). This multilevel nature of the conflict involves the imbalance of economic and military-political potentials of Tbilisi on the one hand, and the opposition to the central authorities in South Ossetia and Abkhazia on the other hand. It is necessary to take into account the asymmetry of the potentials of Russia and Georgia, Russia and NATO, the EU (the latter one is only partially offset by the support of Russia on behalf of China and several other countries). The existence of the above-mentioned asymmetry of potentials of direct and indirect participants of the conflict naturally raises the question about the difference in objective opportunities of the parties in the field of psychological warfare. This idea shaped the author's approaches to the solution to the research tasks, and the structure of the paper itself. The paper analyses specific circumstances when false, but professionally fabricated information or factoids dominated and to a certain extent controlled the public opinion in this conflict. A special focus is on the involvement of senior officials in psychological warfare, the role of the mass media in the conflict, methods of influencing the public consciousness (information channels blocking, misinformation, counterpropaganda, the use of psychological effects of cyberattacks, the management of the foe's decision-making process, etc.).

AB - Local armed conflicts that face the collision of interests of great powers usually lead to serious geopolitical consequences. In this case, the coverage of the events in mass media goes far beyond the countries directly involved in the conflict. The public assessment of the situation without doubt becomes a field of acute psychological warfare. The Georgia-Russia military conflict of 2008 was no exception in this respect. In spite of its short duration and the relatively small number of victims, it became the focus of international attention and was accompanied by a high level of confrontation in the information environment. The conflict was, firstly, a phase of sharp aggravation of the Georgia-South Ossetia conflict within Georgia, secondly, the direct interstate military conflict between Georgia and Russia, and thirdly, an indirect conflict of interests between Russia and the U.S. and their NATO and the EU allies (only slightly related to the events in Georgia). This multilevel nature of the conflict involves the imbalance of economic and military-political potentials of Tbilisi on the one hand, and the opposition to the central authorities in South Ossetia and Abkhazia on the other hand. It is necessary to take into account the asymmetry of the potentials of Russia and Georgia, Russia and NATO, the EU (the latter one is only partially offset by the support of Russia on behalf of China and several other countries). The existence of the above-mentioned asymmetry of potentials of direct and indirect participants of the conflict naturally raises the question about the difference in objective opportunities of the parties in the field of psychological warfare. This idea shaped the author's approaches to the solution to the research tasks, and the structure of the paper itself. The paper analyses specific circumstances when false, but professionally fabricated information or factoids dominated and to a certain extent controlled the public opinion in this conflict. A special focus is on the involvement of senior officials in psychological warfare, the role of the mass media in the conflict, methods of influencing the public consciousness (information channels blocking, misinformation, counterpropaganda, the use of psychological effects of cyberattacks, the management of the foe's decision-making process, etc.).

KW - EU

KW - Georgia

KW - Military conflict

KW - Psychological warfare

KW - Public opinion

KW - Russia

KW - South Ossetia

KW - The USA

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84969134694&partnerID=8YFLogxK

M3 - Conference contribution

AN - SCOPUS:84969134694

T3 - Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Cyber Warfare and Security, ICCWS 2016

SP - 269

EP - 275

BT - Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Cyber Warfare and Security, ICCWS 2016

A2 - Zlateva, Tanya

A2 - Greiman, Virginia A.

PB - Academic Conferences and Publishing International Limited

Y2 - 17 March 2016 through 18 March 2016

ER -