Brexit, and what I’d do if I were the Queen’s enemies — Information Operations, nuanced and opportunistic.
There are many nations who would benefit from UK degradation derived from the impending BREXIT, even temporarily. There are many who would seek to capitalise on UK economic reduction, political in-fighting and certainly who might value a reduction in the UK’s reinvigorated presence on the global military stage. If nothing else, there are many who would simply revel in seeing UK reputational damage. Embarrasing the UK and reducing its credibility could result in a commensurate reduction in confidence in dealing with the UK, undermining “Global Britain" and potentially deliver a long-term reduction in the value of sterling, globally. However, there are few nations with the resources to design, enable and deliver a complex, multi-layered subversive campaign, making attribution at least easier to narrow down, if not pin point.
If I were the sort to think about these things, I wonder how I might capitalise on the initial chaos that BREXIT (hard or, increasingly less likely, with a good deal in place) will bring. If I were sat in another office in another country, not beset on all sides by the beauty of the UK in all its green and blue glory, what might I do?
Overall, I think I would identify existing schisms and amplify them — those within the UK and between the UK and its global neighbours. I wouldn’t take sides in any debate but I would use what I have to amplify those divisions back in to the relevant communities — stick a wedge between groups and hammer it in — let the fighting take place, energise the crowd, but don’t be a protagonist.
I would use overt and covert technical capabilities to expose and amplify the personal opinions and off-the-cuff comments of UK and neighbouring leaders and of key opinion-formers — the aim would be to create new divisions and to further amplify existing divisions between individuals and groups. I’d probably generate lying disinformation in the lower, less attributable levels, using unsubstantiated or partially-substantiated rumours about local and national decision-makers. Social media would be rapidly overcome with those emotive and easily shared memes that just don’t seem to die away.
There would definitely be value in specifically targeting decision-makers with misinformation — direct to their inboxes, mailboxes, and notice boards, although in this case those higher level individuals are likely to be less susceptible to mainstream broadcast and social media-derived information — I’d still give it a go on there though as any mud sticking is better than none, especially as it is cheap to deliver.
Right now, I’d be capturing all of the information about potential BREXIT-related factory closures, the associated job losses, and the real comments of those affected. All of this would then be played back to the public closer to the time — not so much dis/misinformation as ‘simply’ replayed, highly emotive information. Associated to this, I would look to amplify the reduction in foreign investment in to the UK — the consequence being that other corporations would be forced to think again about potential UK engagement, at least for the time being. I would definitely look to use social personalities with existing high audience appeal by artificially amplifying their output; those with prominent public profiles (bloggers, vloggers, social media influencers) that have definite and public feelings on the subject already — again, not taking sides but bringing a level of credibility to all divergent messages through the use of local voices with a high level of trust behind them.
With BREXIT occuring on Halloween, I would definitely be using that as a meme tool. Perhaps to promote economic scare tactics — incoming food shortages, fuel shortages, the miles and miles of traffic jams in to Dover, NHS medicine shortages, and a possible run on banks — all to generate low/medium level chaos. I would use Halloween as an excellent vessel to deliver horror memes and stories; what perfect timing! I might even layer it with the odd cyber attack on a bank, supermarket, or major transport hub — nothing too great or obvious, just disruption. The effect being to generate long queues in shops, low level shortages at the pumps, all of which can then be played back to the public with real live footage, perpetuating the message.
This might take the UK’s focus off of foreign matters and fix focus internally. We know that the value of sterling is likely to slump in the very short term anyway but extending that slump would potentially reduce ability of defence assets to deploy, as well as reduce likelihood of short-term foreign investment. At a time when tensions appear to be ramping up in the northern Arabian Gulf, there are definite winners in a scenario where the UK is forced to rethink how it spends its money.
Of course, a message that falls out of this, and that I would be sure to seize upon and amplify would be UK’s inability to maintain internal and global stability (true or not, someone will be writing it and I would amplify it via multiple broadcast channels), just to further undermine its credibility abroad.
Finally, I’d specifically promote all of the above on foreign platforms. While generating chaos internally through social media and chattering forums, I’d probably not be specifically discussing it on any of our ‘reputable’ English-speaking media channels — but I would absolutely discuss it, amplify and promote in foreign language media, where there might be better traction and where there is less monitoring by UK. By not using English-speaking mainstream media, the immediate obvious attribution is also obscured, at least for a short enough time for the effect to take hold.
But, as I sit here with my Batman mug of Nescafe Azera coffee, looking across the blue waters of the Solent, I reflect that I’m not employed by the Queen’s enemies and should probably get back to staffing a note on something.
