US-China infowar escalates as America deploys task force in battle for power and influence
- Information war includes use of traditional media, social media, cyberwarfare, propaganda and disinformation
- US says allies are critical to ensure ‘our competitors are not getting that free pass and to recognise what is truth from fiction’
Military and security analysts said the creation of the task force meant the United States was integrating military and non-military instruments of warfare to counter China.
The creation of the task force in the Pacific region was revealed by General Richard Clarke, commander of Special Operations Command, in a House Armed Services Committee meeting in March when he said the US needed to tamp down disinformation by China.
The task force would work with “like-minded partners” in the region, he said.
“By working closely with those partners to ensure that our adversaries, our competitors are not getting that free pass and to recognise what is truth from fiction and continue to highlight that, to using our intel communities, is critical,” Clarke was quoted by US-based military website C4ISRNET as saying.
At an earlier committee meeting that month, Christopher Maier, acting assistant secretary of defence for special operations/low-intensity conflict, said the US military would step up countering propaganda, disinformation and deception, force protection and disrupting adversarial influence capabilities.