Information Operations: Facts Fakes Conspiracists

**awaiting clearance from the Ministry of Defence**

Foreword by H.R. McMaster, Former US National Security Advisor

We all live in an information rich environment. It is congested, complex and highly competitive. Its mastery, if such a thing is possible, is becoming central to military operations. But the West has been slow to adapt; ISIS, AQ, Russia, Iran, China - all have recognised and resourced information to grow support, demonise their opponents and sow seeds of distrust in western democracies. And those same democracies have become imperilled from within by the manipulation and faking of information to distort and deceive.Steve Tatham spent nearly 25 years as an Information and Psychological Operations Officer. From southern Afghanistan to eastern Europe. From West Africa to Somalia and across the recruiting grounds of ISIS and AQ he has seen, and in many instances, run Information Operations. He provides an insider’s view of the truth and mythology of Information Operations and with his unique access across the global community he provides a very different perspective to one of the biggest international news stories of the decade - Cambridge Analytica, Trump and the BREXIT referendum. Like so much in Information Operations, all is not what it seemed.

'This book captures how information shapes - even dictates - events and outcomes. The masters of managing the information that reaches us in all sorts of ways, and Steve Tatham is a master of over 25 years’ experience, take the rest of us where they want us to go, in peace and in war.'

General Sir Richard Barrons KCB CBE, Former Commander Joint Forces Command

'For the first time one of the western world’s most experienced practitioners takes us inside the world of the ‘information operators’, practitioners of the most misunderstood and the most effective form of modern warfare, used by friend and enemy alike.'

Frank Ledwidge, Author Losing Small Wars

'Steve Tatham is THE essential voice on info ops. Decades of experience make him the UK's most experienced practitioner and theorist. If you want to know about information operations read this book.'

Dr Mike Martin, Author Why We Fight

c.224 pages I Size: 234 x 156mm

Publication date: c. October 2023

Information Operations: Facts Fakes Conspiracists

£19.99

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Foreword by H.R. McMaster

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1: What are Information Operations?

Chapter 2: From Eunachs to the Archers: Britain and IO

Chapter 3: The USA - Bigger and Better?

Chapter 4: Iraq and Afghanistan

Chapter 5: Understanding Audiences

Chapter 6: Past IO Campaigns

Chapter 7: Russia and Ukraine

Chapter 8: Iran, North Korea and China

Chapter 9: It’s All About Psychology

Chapter 10: Conspiracy Theories and Useful Idiots

Chapter 11: The Cambridge Analytica IO Conspiracy

Chapter 12: The Future?

Chapter 13: Conclusions
Steve Tatham spent 35 years as an Officer in the Royal Navy. For most of his career he worked in Information Operations, including nearly three years as the Commanding Officer of the UK’s Psychological Operations Group – a period that spanned operations in Afghanistan and Libya. He has also seen operational service in Sierra Leone and Iraq as well as advising, globally, on Information Operations development and training. He spent over ten years as one of the principal visiting lecturers at the NATO School, Oberammergau, senior officer’s Information Operations Course and has been a regular lecturer at military Staff Colleges across Europe and North America.

With an MPhil in International Relations from the University of Cambridge and a PhD from the University of Southampton, Tatham has become one of the most recognised and authoritative experts on Information and Psychological Operations. He has written two previous books on related issues. His study of the US led coalition campaign in Iraq, ‘Losing Arab Hearts and Minds’, was published in 2006. In 2011, with former Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan, General Andrew Mackay, he wrote ‘Behavioural Conflict’ which has become one of the standard texts of running Information Operations in conflict and pre- and post-conflict environments. His work has been included in several edited works and he is the author of over twenty academic papers in Information Operations, Audience Analysis and Psychological Operations.

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Information Operations: Facts Fakes Conspiracists

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