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The U.S. Cyber Command's Online Fight Against the Islamic State

(War on the Rocks) Brig.-Gen. Len Anderson, Lt.-Col. Nathan Fleischaker, and Col. Brian Russell - Key Islamic State propagandists removed from the battlefield via missile strike, critical documents and files missing from jihadist web servers, and Islamic State leaders and adherents fighting with each other over issues of orthodoxy: These are just several of the tangible results from U.S. Cyber Command's operations in its highly classified fight against the Islamic State. Shifting from exclusively planning for major combat operations with adversaries to competing with them before conventional combat arises - and working in concert with a network of domestic and foreign partners - are precisely what is necessary as the U.S. moves toward finding solutions. We served with Joint Task Force ARES, a Marine-led joint unit under U.S. Cyber Command, as it learned how to persistently engage the Islamic State's propaganda machine and its fielded forces. This requires a force that can operate in both combat and gray zones, seeking to achieve political and strategic objectives. When U.S. Cyber Command created the task force in 2016, the Islamic State was winning the information battle in blitzkrieg fashion with cell phones and Internet access: demoralizing Iraqi troops, recruiting adherents from afar, and inspiring global jihad. "Glowing Symphony" was a months-long campaign to fight the Islamic State's global information system. The relentless, combined application of physical and informational power reduced the quantity and quality of Islamic State media. Elements of the Islamic State's propaganda machine spanned the globe. The group's physical defeat was accelerated because the joint task force either helped remove resources that sustained Islamic State combat forces or identified connections between those forces and their supporters that could be used to create internal strife in the organization.
2020-09-10 00:00:00
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