Warfare has dramatically changed in the post-Vietnam era. RAND Institute researchers Bruce D. Berkowitz and Allan E. Goodman's scenarios include: conflicts (ethnic, religious and economic), revival of nineteenth century-style geopolitics (notably, "the Great Game" being fought in the Caucasus region and Caspian Sea oil reserves) [2] and an increasing role by NGOs (non-governmental organisations) and NSAs (non-state actors) [3], particularly in 'nation-building' by civil society institutions and detecting "instantly emerging threats" like industrial espionage. [4] Geopolitical analyst Michael T. Klare argues that the international political system faces wars fought over supplies of scarce natural resources, re-shaping strategic geography and creating geo-economic alliances [5] rather than Cold War ideological blocs. [6] He cites diamond (Angola, Sierra Leone) and copper/diamond (Democratic Republic of the Congo) wars as examples of the wars to come. [7]

New wars require new threat assessments by media personnel and military-information policy-makers alike. While embracing Morgenthau realpolitik, Mark Alleyne noted that U.S. policy-makers have relied upon diplomacy, psychological operations (PSYOP), [8] and military weapons superiority to enforce their objectives. [9] Techno-determinists described Vietnam as the "living-room war", [10] and policy-making response to the "Vietnam Syndrome" [11] acknowledged the media's effects, inadvertently creating a framework for Gulf War perception management.

"Was the United States defeated in the jungles of Vietnam, or was it defeated in the streets of American cities?" asked Colonel Paul E. Vallely and Major. Michael A. Aquino in a 1980 article originally drafted for Military Review journal. [12] The authors believed that the U.S. had "lost the war - not because we were outfought, but because we were out-PSYOPed." [13] Perhaps casting an eye to Hanoi Jane, they felt that domestic media had failed to "defend the U.S. populace at home against the propaganda of the enemy." [14] MindWar ("the deliberate, aggressive convincing of all participants in a war that we will win that war") [15] would replace outmoded PSYOP techniques, utilising electronic and global media [16] to control "frames-of-reference" (schema) and impel the enemy's defeat by Clausewitzean methods ("War is the imposition of Will"). [17] MindWar was directed at foreign enemies as both a defensive strategy and deterrent to prevent escalating conflicts (and supporting diplomatic initiatives), not to deceive the U.S. domestic population. [18] It befits futurist Alvin Toffler's "Third Wave" outlook ("the new battlefield is the battlefield of knowledge") [19] and "Information War" (IW). MindWar was implemented during the Gulf War, modified as SoftWar ("the hostile use of global television to shape another nation's will by changing its view of reality"), minus Vallely and Aquino's ethical usage guidelines. [20] MindWar became an issue when Alexander Cockburn discovered that CNN was using U.S. PSYOP specialists--as policy analysts, although they were involved in actual news production. [21]

"Our Peace Dividend: The New Military Humanism" [22]

Military strategist Colonel John B. Alexander of the Los Alamos National Laboratory acknowledged that "perception management is ubiquitous in today's society," and that perceptions shape leadership styles and national policy. [23] Vietnam war reportage meant "the time between events and broadcast was shortened." [24] Berkowitz and Goodman claimed that this created further "Low Intensity Threats" (terrorism, industrial espionage) between warfare and peace, requiring a strategic shift-in-data and weapon capabilities. [25] A related strategic problem is "Blowback", the Central Intelligence Agency's term for unintended consequences and unforseen outcomes (such as the possibility that Depleted Uranium shells may have caused Gulf War Syndrome, [26] or that Islamic muhajadeen use American and Russian weapons discarded from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Iran-Iraq war). Berkowitz and Goodman cited the U.S. intelligence community's susceptibility (to "groupthink" or "herd mentality") [27] during May 1998 to an Indian disinformation campaign, conducted through diplomatic and military circles, regarding the BJP's election campaign commitment to nuclear weapons testing. [28] The disinformation campaign was effective due to issues overload on analysts and policy-makers: " NATO expansion, Iraq, tobacco legislation, and the continuing Whitewater and Lewinski [sic] cases." [29]

Military commanders face information/issues overload within combat situations of greater complexity (including peace-keeping missions and "operations-other-than-war"), so Alexander created the concept of Non-Lethal Defence ("Weapons that are explicitly designed and primarily employed so as to incapacitate personnel or material, while minimising fatalities, permanent injury to personnel, and undesired damage to property and the environment") [30] to facilitate more choice beyond "deadly force." Media representations of Non-Lethal Defence have focused on its James Bond techno-utopian aspect, while human rights activists have raised concerns, citing the Rodney King incident and the LAPD's RAMPARTS division scandal, about "civil disobedience planning", a perceived growing demand for private "security forces", and operations language justifying the dehumanisation of 'anti-globalist' protesters as violent terrorists threatening the corporate sphere. [31] Whilst acknowledging that U.S. armed forces have not always occupied the moral high-ground (such as the World War II fire-bombings of Dresden and Tokyo, or racialism in Korea and Vietnam), [32] Alexander argued that Non-Lethal Defence is crucial in the new media environment, which is ruled by the 'CNN Effect' ("the coverage of world events by CNN is so pervasive that almost every key office and operations center around the globe keeps a set constantly tuned to that channel"). In real-time warfare, everyone knows as soon as events happen. [33]

"Simply Going "Global" Could Mean Global Nightmare." [34]

News is "what mass media sees fit to report." [35] A journalist "creates media news coverage." [36] Herbert Gans contended that "the primary purpose of the news derives from the journalists' functions as constructors of nation and society, and as managers of the symbolic arena." [37] The new media environment, however, is constantly in a chaotic flow, whereby journalists and institutions must negotiate different accounts and meanings. [38] Gans warned that "story selectors can only be objective by choosing news from several perspectives." [39]

Wire and television agencies' coverage isn't neutral, Chris Patterson noted. Journalism has an "ideological component--a way of seeing the world." [40] News has a "predominantly North-South flow," [41] along vectors (defined by Paul Virilio "to mean any trajectory along which bodies, information, or warheads can potentially pass"), [42] which create networked structures "of political, economic, and cultural power." [43] International news agencies will treat Western governments and trans-national corporations as 'priority' sources over institutions from developing countries. [44] Media has filled a vacuum created by the decline of a Cold War framework for stories, [45] and U.S. coverage of international affairs has declined in quality [46] as news has become subjugated to geo-economic imperatives. [47]

The simple explanation is that some nefarious group, usually the Central Intelligence Agency [48] or Project Echelon, controls global media flows. There is some truth to this, as the CIA used the press for Project Jennifer: The Glomar Explorer (1975) and Project Ivy Bells (1986), [49] but cognitive errors in the news-gathering process are more likely due to editorial formulae ("The more searing the images, the more quickly that they spread") [50] and information overload ('Value of information = Utility + Speed + Quality'). [51] Howard Bloom cited how the Palestine Liberation Organization had used political 'spin control' tactics in the media sphere: a photo of a Beirut infant wrapped in bandages, alleging 75 percent burns due to an Israeli bomb attack. Despite the truth being revealed (the photo was of Palestinian-caused damage), "everyone remembered the mislabeled image." [52]