"Informative war in the Second Artsakh War". Elada Lazaryan

The paper presents the impact of the information war on the Second Artsakh War.The choice of the topic is conditioned by the modernity it still has.

The work touched upon the information war in the Second Artsakh War, the possible mistakes of the parties, the application of tricks, the existing and possible problems in that process. It also highlights the potential emphasis to be placed on information by warring countries, as well as the issues of freedom of expression in war situations and the ethics of resolving them.

In the 21st century, the right organization and implementation of information warfare (IT) play an important role. Developments in the modern world testify to the importance of the information war, making it one of the most important components of foreign and domestic policy. Information warfare is a continuation or prelude to the usual war that always accompanies a real war.This definition is accurate for Artsakh-Azerbaijani relations. Social networks are now an open platform for information wars.

The work presents in depth what information warfare is and its types.

As is the general presentation of the Artsakh-Azerbaijani information war, the application of methods or tricks, tactics, the possible mistakes of the Armenian side, and, of course, the successful steps of each side. The overall work also includes the analytical description of several experts on the topic.

In order to present the problem in a comprehensive way, I also conducted an expert survey: information security specialist, media expert, co-author-coordinator of Ditord.org, one of the co-founders of “Aregnazan” educational complex, lecturer of Yerevan State University Samvel Martirosyan and Information security expert, Razminfo Website Coordinator, www. with the director of armenianhouse.org electronic library Karen Vrtanesyan.

What is an informative war?

In the 21st century, in parallel with the open military conflicts for most modern states, there is also an information war, which is characterized by the fact that its participants are trying to gain an advantage over the enemy, rather than defeat or completely destroy it.

The term “information warfare” was first used by the American scientist, physicist Thomas Ron in the 1976 report “Arms System” “information wars” prepared for Boeing, and today it is of great practical application, but the definition of “information warfare” has not yet been fully established. However, according to Russian experts, this concept is more used to define conflicts between conflicting countries in this area, but they also occur within one country.

In other words, information warfare involves information – communication manipulation, data collection, propaganda, logistics – electronics sabotage, surveillance – other measures. Such information conflicts usually take place between the authorities, “political unions and armed groups that oppose them.” Information warfare is an interstate confrontation in the information space, the aim of which is to damage information systems, processes, resources, and other extremely important structures, to undermine political, economic, and social systems.

And, of course, to put psychological pressure on the mass population in order to destabilize the society, the state, as well as to force the state to make decisions based on the interests of the opposite side.

According to another assertion, information warfare is a large-scale information war based on the interests of the parties, under the influence of methods and means of influencing the enemy. The definition of informative warfare can be interpreted as actions to achieve information advantage, aimed at protecting the adversary’s information, influencing its own information sphere, influencing information processes, where the main goal of the activity is to spread the relevant culture to the adversary. Speaking of “informative wars”, it is necessary to take into account that it is not a set of petrified, permanent, but changing, evolving actions.

In the process of information wars, changes in the components of the system begin and continue, so it is difficult to clearly predict what the final process will look like with its many elements.

1.2 Types of information warfare

According to the direction of information influences, information warfare is divided into two main types.

Psychological war
Information technology war

The information war has a gradual effect on the state’s military-control system of the other side, as well as on its military leadership, which in peacetime leads to favorable decisions for the party initiating the information influence, completely paralyzes the enemy’s control infrastructure. Information warfare is the competition of the conflicting parties in the field of information potential; they are organized actions that are carried out in order to reduce the possibilities of using the given state military-combat potential.

Every war includes three elements.

Moral war, breaking the will of the enemy, separating them from the allies, achieving victory through that division, breaking the common faith, the common views.
Mental war – it is a distortion of the perception of reality by the enemy and distortion, which is based on misinformation creating misconceptions about the situation.
Physical war is the destruction of the enemy’s physical resources, that is, the destruction of information and telecommunication systems.

According to the scale, information wars take place: global, regional, interstate-domestic, competitors, groups, organizations, companies, everyday-domestic, etc. In information warfare, the main means of hitting the target or delivering information to the target are the media, special services, informal communications, diplomatic sources, the business environment, and so on.

The main purpose of targeted information is to persuade, influence, retaliate, discredit, introduce new values and rules.

Informative war in the second Artsakh war.

The war between the Artsakh Republic and the “Republic of Azerbaijan” started on September 27 with the military aggression of Azerbaijan and ended on November 10 with the capitulation agreement of Artsakh.

In the second Artsakh war, during the Artsakh-Azerbaijani information war, a number of tricks were used and methods that worked against each other, with a very clear propaganda tool tried to involve the international press, for example, Azerbaijan bought journalists, and the Armenian side, on the contrary, invited to the forefront of the international media.

In the days of the information war, public involvement also worked to spread the country’s main theses, with both warring factions using fake users. In February 2021, the social network “Twitter” revealed that Armenia had used fake Azerbaijani accounts, which imitated officials. For example, a fake account worked as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan. There have been cyber-attacks against the enemy press, he has also worked blockades. Azerbaijan has shut down social networks, and Azeri-Turkish websites have been shut down in Armenia to block the flow of propaganda. A large number of fake messages and e-mails were also used.

The warring parties have resorted to changing information tactics, but Azerbaijan has tried to block the flow of information as much as possible, to ensure that neither outside journalists nor its own journalists cover anything out of control. He closed the main platforms of social networks, took people to one channel, and the Armenian side, on the contrary, tried to attract as many people as possible by bringing news from abroad, so that the flows would be as diverse as possible.

The emphasis of the Armenian side in the second part of the war was very clear – minimal information and inspiring statements. The Azeri side was constantly demonstrating its successes, a significant part of which was the strikes fired from ATS on the Armenian positions.

The main information error of the Armenian side was that the people were presented with the opposite picture of reality, and in the end they encountered the fact that the public received a silent opposite picture in an hour, which would be a big problem in terms of restoring trust in the long run. Azerbaijan “pressured” the Armenian audience mainly with videos (videos of attacks on Armenian positions, photos of prisoners and killed and videos, videos confirming the advance of their army).

The same visual materials were used to keep the spirit of the Azerbaijani audience high. The Armenian side almost did not work on the Azerbaijani audience (the Razm.info team does not count the small state team), the propaganda work of the Armenian side was mainly focused on the Armenian audience. And they worked more with memes, gossips, notes hinting at something (for example, the notes of RA Ministry of Defense spokeswoman Shushan Stepanyan and speaker Artsrun Havhannisyan).

The most important mistakes of the Armenian side and successful steps.

Filling the field with false statements, misinformation, creating unrealistic expectations for people.
Censorship of the Armenian media by censoring foreign sources, including hostile ones.
Following the above two points, when the propaganda bubble began to “burst”, people began to doubt what the government propaganda said, and sometimes what it did not say, a vacuum appeared in the information field, which began to be filled by Azerbaijani sources. In other words, they started working directly with the Armenian audience.

Conclusion

While doing the work, I came to the following conclusions.

The influence of the media on the start, course and outcome of conflicts, socio-political events has increased unprecedentedly.
States’ dependence on information technologies is growing year by year.
In war situations, the media become a direct party to the conflict, the logic of the work of the media is automatically changed.
The role of journalism in conflicts remains controversial. Many intergovernmental institutions and international journalistic organizations have repeatedly emphasized in their declarations the important role of the media in constructive coverage of conflicts and the prevention of ethnic animosity.
In times of war, the media should at least seek to promote a peaceful solution to the conflict, rather than fueling prejudices that exacerbate the conflict.
It would be naive to hope that the media in general will consider it their professional duty to actively defend the values of peace and civil society.

Interviews

Information security specialist, media expert, co-author and coordinator of Ditord.org, one of the co-founders of “Aregnazan” educational complex, with Yerevan State University lecturer Samvel Martirosyan.
Interview Information Security Expert, Razminfo Website Coordinator and with the director of armenianhouse.org e-library Karen Vrtanesyan.

The article was written by Elada Lazaryan, a second place winner in the second round of the “Article Contest” organized by the “Restart Gyumri” Initiative Center NGO