IW in the Age of Social Media

Brigadier Rajiv Williams YSM (veteran)

Op Sindoor was launched after midnight on 7 May 2025 as a response to the narrative built around the dastardly terror attack carried out by ‘The Resistance Front, a proxy of Pakistani-based terror group, Lashkar-e-Taiba’ and supported by the Pakistan military. The terrorists killed 26 tourists, holidaying in the quiet precincts of Pahalgam in South Kashmir on 22 April 2025. The news spread far and wide with much angst across the country resulting in various retaliatory measures—from abrogation of the Indus Water Treaty to diplomatic isolation of Pakistan to the launch of military operation codenamed Op Sindoor. And all these responses had much to do with Information Warfare (IW), as a whole, and media operations in particular.

Near real-time information was shared across the world through various media formats, and a narrative was created that war was imminent, though may not have been in the classical sense of the term, yet a war-like act had commenced. For, it was on the night of 7-8 May 2025 that the Indian Air Force (IAF) sorties of different types of aircraft struck terror infrastructure targets deep inside Pakistan. The destruction of intended targets, initially non-military and subsequently military targets without crossing the International Border (IB) or the Line of Control (LC) had to be communicated to all.

Indiaresponded swiftly to the demonstration of its military might and doctrine, which was a good thing to show the world that India walks the talk as the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had once said, ‘Ham ghus ke marenge’ (We will enter and kill), or words to that effect. That action, which was made public early morning of 8 May 2025, brought to reality the assurance given by the Prime Minister to the families of those killed at Pahalgam. The military action carried out over three and a half days brought the citizens together and encouraged them to support the decision of the government. The element of power, ‘national will’, was on full display with highs in media reportage to follow.

Transactional Media in IW

The media briefings by foreign secretary Vikram Misri along with two officers, both women, of different faiths and different services, was a well-thought-out media strategy and I may add essentially for optics, that the Indian armed forces are secular and united with a distinct display of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). While the Misri gave the overview of the warlike situation, the two in toe, read out the script of the day’s happenings in English and Hindi respectively. Soon after the first press release issued by the government of India during the early hours of the morning of 8 May 2025 came the hype with television anchors in their respective studios cringing on reality bites, amazingly and quite quizzically, claiming to be the first to report while telecasting similar stories almost at the same time. Media war rooms were created in TV studios and the so-called defence experts of mixed credibility, having limited or no experience of yester-wars, moustached or clean, fiery or docile—yet sensible—were invited to discuss and give their views on the options that the military should take after the first strike with long range precision guided munitions. Some even postured as if they were almost in control of all operations that were being professionally carried out by the three services.

The general public, I am sure, was bemused by the over-dramatic events displayed on television.At times, they even displayed their urgency in getting the task done, posing as if they were literally guiding the projectiles onto the targets and bailing out just before the acclaimed hit. In quite a few cases, I found the studio discussions irrational and mere sensationalised expositions, especially when the field TV cameras were made to zoom on the lit-up skies, showing missiles/ anti missiles and drones/ anti-drones flares being fired by the two adversaries at war. A supposed serious debate became an irresponsible spectacle of theatrics, and to some extent, even stupid with energy levels of anchors and invited guests above accepted decibel levels. It was apparent that the purpose of such melodrama was to attract viewers and boost the TV channel’s TRPs.

Formats of IW

IW has many facets of manipulation and control of information to gain an advantage in conflict. It encompases a wide range of actions, from cyberattacks to psychological operations and aims to degrade an adversary’s decision-making process, enhance friendly operations, and potentially influence public opinion or political systems. It potentially is a form of warfare that leverages the information environment to achieve strategic goals, short of an all-out traditional concept of war.

Media, the focus of this article, is one of the components of IW, which is critical in altering opinions and decisions. The other areas, which come under the realm of IW, are cyber warfare, electronic warfare, influence warfare, psychological warfare and so on. The display of a successful cyber and electronic warfare effectively undertaken by the Indian armed forces during Op Sindoor, demonstrated the technological advances made in