Is warfare becoming more performative?
In the span of three weeks this June, the world witnessed three extraordinary military operations: Ukraine’s decimation of Russia’s strategic bomber fleet, Israel’s sweeping overnight key leader and air defense neutralization in Iran, and America’s ultra long-range bunker busting at Fordo and other Iranian nuclear sites. Each operation shared commonality in audacity, scale, and something surprising: detailed and immediate operational disclosure. These weren’t the limited scope press briefings or carefully circumscribed military reports seen in other high profile missions, like the raid that killed Osama bin Laden or the drone strike that killed Qasem Soleimani. Instead, presidential statements were quickly augmented by comprehensive overviews from that nation’s senior defense officials, complete with easily distributed media: drone footage, confirmational imagery, and mission graphics.
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Like the “shock and awe” of the 2003 Iraq War or CNN’s coverage of the first Gulf War, the June operations captured global attention using novel tools — social media, real-time distribution, and comprehensive disclosure.
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While precedents like Desert Storm showed conflict in real time, they did not bring the viewer into the metaphorical planning room. The June operations showed both conflict and the means and methods used to wage it. Details disclosed were not guessed at by talking heads or pundits, but were officially relayed by the highest levels of national authority. Rather than achieving tactical objectives through one channel and strategic communication through established signaling formats, Ukraine, Israel, and the United States integrated tactical execution with strategic messaging into single operational frameworks.
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Ukraine, Israel, and the United States all sacrificed valuable military information — details that might limit similar methods, capabilities, and flexibility in future missions — in exchange for immediate strategic communication gains.
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In many ways, the evolution of performative warfare is predictable within modern information operations. Even highly successful influence campaigns face the challenge of retaining attention in today’s saturated information environments, and the natural method of recapturing audience focus is through increasingly dramatic and credible demonstrations.
Propaganda – a word carefully missing from the article – is off all ages. Much like the Doolittle raid these “three extraordinary military operations” seem of limited military strategic value and primarily designed for media consumption in the West.
A country that doesn’t rely entirely on propaganda but has actual strategic strength can do more damage with less boasting.
Only «becoming»?
So «United States, United States, and the United States all…»
NT says:
The entire problem is that the power in question is not «a country». It’s a cancerous oligarchy made up mostly of nu-Vatican and embezzlers (significantly overlapping), both of whom are intrinsically and obviously averse to things required to make countries work, like accountability, clear chains of command or even borders.
To run like a country again would require one part of the oligarchy to get their act together, abandon its niche and purge the rest. While restructuring power thoroughly enough that not a single local vestigial structure remains compatible with modus operandi of the previous regime.
Experimental data shows stomping out anarcho-tyranny is entirely possible, at least with absolute monarchy. But this may require someone as capable of riding tigers as Stalin. And even he failed to prevent slow backslide from beginning the day he croaked, which shows how well “reforming” the system without explicitly breaking its continuity can stick.
Evidently, “nu-Vatican” is a euphemism for “Israel.”
Demonstrated strategic strength is the most effective propaganda.
Bob Sykes says:
Who needs euphemisms for Israel? It’s a 99% euphemism for United States itself. Most of the time.
Reading anything after <> has as much value as using CNN or Fox as “news” source.
The author of the quoted musings, along with all of his ilk, are confusing echoes of the chatter they create inside of the chambers they barricaded themselves in, with the real world outside.