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RECHERCHE ET DÉVELOPPEMENT POUR LA DÉFENSE CANADA (RDDC)

Understanding Department of National

Defence / Canadian Armed Forces (DND/CAF)
Research and Capability Needs to Deter and Limit
the Impacts of (Adversary) [Dis]information
A Critical Self-Examination
Brett Boudreau
Veritas Strategic Communications

Prepared by:
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Technical Authority: Eric Ouellet, Professor, Canadian Forces College
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 Understanding DND/CAF Research and Capability Needs to
Deter and Limit the Impacts of (Adversary) [Dis]information:
A Critical Self-Examination

For Canadian Forces College &

Defence Research and Development Canada

Prepared by:
Brett Boudreau (Col., Ret’d)
Principal Consultant
Veritas Strategic Communications
Ottawa, Ontario

PSPC Contract Number: W8160-22-0027

Technical Authority: Dr. Eric Ouellet, Canadian Forces College Toronto
Contractor’s date of publication: 30 March 2023
 Executive Summary
Disinformation poses a fundamental threat to peace, security and democracy…1
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau & European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen

The three-fold objective of this Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) study is to:

• Better understand the near- and longer-term research and capability needs of the DND/CAF to
more effectively deter and counter adversary disinformation;
• Improve the resilience of National Defence against disinformation; and,
• Describe issues germane to achieving greater resilience and more effective deterrence.

The report is informed by a broad review of relevant literature, media content and civil society reports
about disinformation; unclassified DND/CAF reviews of inform-persuade-influence (cognitive domain)
information-related capabilities; and 31 interviews with select serving and retired military officers, senior
officials/thought leaders, and subject matter experts in the information field.

This report identifies five uncomfortable truths about the informational space:

• The CAF approach is ad hoc, tactical and bottom-up, not deliberate, strategic and leader-driven;
• Home-grown disinformation is more dangerous than that which is foreign-inspired and enabled;
• People are more vulnerable to disinformation because of underlying social issues that remain
unaddressed: exposure to false information amplifies vulnerability, but this is not the root cause;
• More “good” and less “bad” information does not provide immunity to disinformation. A
protective measure (not a cure), is a commitment to much more transparent internal and external
communications, thereby bolstering public trust and credibility in national institutions; and,
• There is a real imbalance of resources and effort put toward countering just Russian
disinformation. While important, that is a very well researched field and comes at the expense of
focus on more serious domestic, and foreign information manipulation and interference threats.

The report findings demonstrate that National Defence is poorly placed and inadequately prepared to
substantively defend its interests and equities against mis- and disinformation, particularly in the domestic
context. Many in the DND/CAF acknowledge the informational space needs to be central to its operations
and activities, but this is not yet realized through actions or effort by senior-most leaders and remains an
aspirational view. This blatant “say-do” gap is the inevitable outcome over many years of a lack of
strategic-level, institution-wide direction and guidance for information-related capabilities, no strategic
command HQ, and no institutional champion. The problem set is habitually viewed mainly through a
public affairs lens and as an Army Reserve force generation issue, not as a joint, command-led integrated
capability requirement. Doctrine and rules that govern public communications are nearly all more than
twenty years old, predating the invention of the iPhone (2007) by a decade. The organization in large
measure remains allergic to outside advice to help inform the progressive development of fit-for-purpose
policy, and is reluctant to “share” or meaningfully collaborate with external partners. Fear of public
missteps and further reputational damage stalled important reform initiatives for years, though there is
now evidence of some welcome momentum in the key area of policy and doctrine development.

This situation should be of particular concern to an organization in a self-described “existential crisis,”

which makes the DND/CAF more susceptible to harm by mis- and disinformation wherever the
provenance, but especially to domestic forms. On overseas operations as part of a NATO or coalition
effort, the CAF is substantively better placed to defend itself and manoeuvre in the information space

1
News Conference, 07 March 2023; see: https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-releases/2023/03/07/joint-press-release-
occasion-visit-canada-european-commission-president-ursula-von-der-leyen.
even if not able to decisively counter and obtain strategic success. There is significant extant DND/CAF
capability to more effectively tackle mis- and disinformation, but this remains largely untapped due to an
institutional mindset toward the informational space that is rooted firmly in the pre-Internet Cold War.
This analysis is explained in 25 key findings grouped in five observations in each of five thematic areas.

Situational overview
1. Public (external and internal) trust in the institution is the key variable.
2. Strategic-level direction, guidance, planning and oversight is a prerequisite, but is lacking.
3. Significant extant and prospective capability: problem is mindset and organization, not resources.
4. Treated as a CAF Public Affairs and Army Reserve problem, not an integrated/joint requirement.
5. The institution is spooked: progress on information-related capability reform has atrophied.

Mindset
6. Institutional transparency translates to more public and internal trust, and a more resilient force.
7. Identify the “one neck to choke” to lead related reform initiatives.
8. No effective “5F” capability lead to Force Generate, Manage, Develop, Employ, Support.
9. Related policy, doctrine, orders, and legislation are antiquated and unfit-for-purpose.
10. Shift to a proactive deliberate strategy from an ad-hoc reactive approach.

Process
11. Know the baseline.
12. Learn from benchmarks.
13. Adopt “open source” information-related policy development.
14. Widen the communications aperture.
15. If you like current outcomes and effects, keep doing the work that way.

Capabilities
16. Protect the force and family.
17. Train and educate the force, treating information-related capabilities like a joint enabler.
18. Develop professional information practitioners.
19. Reinforce and amplify success.
20. Leverage inherent civil society advantages to help build resilience.

Organization Of Effort
21. Need a federal government strategy, and a DND/CAF strategy.
22. Need effective coordinating bodies at a Central Agency, and at DND/CAF.
23. Need better mechanisms for senior-leader direction, guidance, oversight and governance.
24. Need to re-energize the public affairs (PA) functional authority.
25. Need to publicly explain the need better.

Five Key Research Areas

This report also suggests five key areas for targeted DND/CAF research-related and capability
investments in the short and medium term:

• A tool to visualize the information environment to assist planners, practitioners, and leaders;
• A model to replace the broken IO/Influence Activity construct, and formally acknowledge
“cognition” as a sixth operational domain (alongside air, land, sea, space, cyber);
• Guidelines to reduce ambiguities about what DND/CAF information-related activities are
permissible, not permissible, and situation-dependant in the informational space;
• A comprehensive open-source repository of tradecraft, techniques, case study examples, and
lessons about military-related counter-disinformation needs and requirements; and,
• Create appropriate cognitive domain education, training, and talent management for the force.

ii
 Preface
This report was commissioned by Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC), through
the Canadian Forces College (CFC). The objective of this study is to better understand the
research and capability needs of the Department of National Defence (DND) and the Canadian
Armed Forces (CAF) with respect to disinformation, and how to achieve greater resilience and
more effective deterrence.

As signalled in the report’s title, one quickly sails into contested and choppy waters when
exploring the phenomenon that is disinformation. Each of the title’s elements helps illustrate the
insufficiency and limitations of the problematic language and lexicon associated with the subject
of mis-and disinformation and the cognitive (inform-persuade-influence) domain capabilities that
support military activities and operations at home and abroad.

Understanding DND/CAF Research and Capability Needs: This report’s 25 key findings are
drawn from observations, recent lessons learned and best practices from the contemporary
information landscape; a review of unclassified Defence documentation; and, 31 interviews with
senior serving and retired CAF leaders, senior officials/thought leaders, and information studies
subject matter experts. This report does not consider classified technical information-related
domains, aspects and applications of cyber and space, nor the collection, processing and
exploitation capability of joint ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) assets. As such,
this report is a contribution to better understand current thinking and needs in the unclassified
inform-persuade-influence space for international and domestic military applications.

To Deter and Limit Impacts: National Defence is just one actor in a whole-of-society wicked
problem set of considerable complexity. There is no “fix” or defined end-state where
disinformation is eliminated or even substantively reduced. However, mitigation measures are
possible. To deter and limit the volume, reach, and speed of transmission and impacts, efforts
need to be sustained over long periods of time—a generation or more. “Doing better than now,”
is a reasonable outcome though reliably measuring performance and effects is often informed
guesswork. “Deter and limit impacts” refers to two main target audience groups: the DND/CAF
and the broader Canadian public; and, to two geographic dimensions—operations plus activities
at home, and expeditionary deployments abroad, especially in contested environments.

(Adversary): This word appears in brackets because not all creators and distributors of mis- and
disinformation are clearly adversaries in the traditional military sense. Often, definitive
attribution, and ascribing intent or malign motivation can be challenging and problematic.

[Dis]information: Square brackets are used to indicate that information now takes many
adjectival or prefix forms, with only general agreement and no consensus about what each mean.
And, determining what constitutes fact, truth, and false information is a charged field of
enquiry, with a high correlation to one’s political affiliation and preferred media.

Critical Self-Examination: At times, the commentary and findings of the report will seem
pointed. This reflects the often stark style of DND/CAF documentation, and the frank
observations of many of those interviewed. The author is grateful to all who shared their time
and experiences to inform this report. Of course, the views and conclusions expressed herein,
along with any errors or omissions are the author’s alone.

iii
 Table of Contents

i
Executive Summary

Preface iii

Introduction 1

General Context 3

Disinformation Defined 3
- Table 1: The Challenge of Problematic Lexicon 4

Impact and Effect 6

Recent Developments in the Information Ecosystem 9

Jurisdictions Respond 12

The Threats 14

Tackling Disinformation 15
- Figure 1: Techniques Identified by Leading Institutions 20

DND/CF Context 22

Defence Capabilities 22

A Sensitivity 26

Defence Documentation & Content Review 29

- Table 2: Statistical Overview of Key DND/CAF Twitter Accounts 39

Key Findings 41

Conclusion 50

Interviewees 51

Bibliography 53

About the Author 56

iv
 Introduction
Adversaries are using the information environment to create an arena where
disinformation, misinformation, and propaganda are mixed to obscure the
truth, so that those adversaries can achieve their goals and objectives to the
detriment of Canada and its allies.
Gen. Jonathan Vance & Jody Thomas2

With the rise in importance of other domains, the centrality of the land domain
in conflict has been arguably supplanted by the information domain.
Gen. Wayne Eyre3

[The] CAF is operating today, every day, in the Grey Zone. We are in conflict
with nation states below the threshold, largely in the informational space
which is fast becoming the CENTRAL theater for strategic competition.
Lt.-Gen. Michael Rouleau4

As the character of war evolves, being faster than our adversaries in the
information space is essential. Sensing, making sense, and acting on
information, while curbing disinformation, wins wars.
Lt.-Gen. Joe Paul5

These categorical statements reflect current thinking by some of the senior-most Canadian
military and civilian leaders about the nature, purpose, character, and profound impact of
information (and its many prefixed forms) on defence, security, and national interests in today’s
complex, interconnected, hyper-networked operating environment. A “domain”6 that is so
“central” to the fight that it “wins wars”–or conversely loses–wars and conflicts that are less-
than-wars, suggests broad institutional acknowledgement that the informational aspect of all
DND/CAF activities, plus defensive and offensive operations, is a key investment by, and
component of, the entire Defence enterprise. At issue is to what extent do these and other similar
statements find actual expression in fit-for-purpose organizational structure, policy, doctrine,
processes, resources, governance, training, force generation of practitioners, and institutional

2
National Defence, “Department of National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces Policy on Joint
Information Operations,” cover letter by Gen. Jonathan Vance (as chief of the defence staff) and Jody
Thomas (as deputy minister DND), 03 April 2018.
3
Then Lt.-Gen. Wayne Eyre (as commander Canadian Army), “Professional Discourse in the Canadian
Army: A Call to Arms,” in Canadian Military Journal, Vol. 18.2 (2020), p. 7.
4
Emphasis in the original. Lt.-Gen. Michael Rouleau (as commander Canadian Joint Operations
Command), “How We Fight, Commander CJOC’s Thoughts,” 10 February 2019.
5
Lt. Gen. Joe Paul (as commander Canadian Army), @Army_Comd_Armee Twitter post, 02 February
2023.
6
Settling on key terminology is critical to moving forward with policy, doctrine, education and training: in
the DND/CAF, the Defence Terminology Board (DTB) is the definitive authority in this respect. As of mid-
March 2023, the discussion may finally be settled in the CAF that information is considered to be an
environment and not a discrete domain alongside land, air, sea, space, cyber (per DTB record 695898).
This remains an unsatisfied discussion that many militaries are having. “Cognition” is frequently referred
to in military literature as a “dimension” or a “domain” (this author suggests “cognitive” or “cognition”
rather than “information” is a better choice for CAF consideration as a domain).
mindset–or is it merely aspirational commentary? This merits careful reflection to determine if
these sentiments translate well into actual practise and, if they do not, what insights are there to
inform the best ways to “get at” disinformation affecting the DND/CAF.

Objectives. The objectives of this study are to:

• Better understand the near- and longer-term research and capability needs of the
DND/CAF to more effectively deter and counter adversary disinformation;
• Suggest ways to improve the resilience of National Defence against disinformation; and,
• Describe issues germane to achieving greater resilience and more effective deterrence.

Methodology. This study is informed by multiple sources including a review of notable literature
about the information environment; related media reporting and social media; observations and
conclusions by DND officials/CAF leaders from unclassified Defence reviews, reports, and
investigations; and, 31 semi-structured interviews with select senior military officers (many with
experience in joint capability development, or having employed information-related capability
assets in combat), senior civilian officials/thought leaders, and subject matter experts in the
information field.

Parameters. This report focuses mainly on the inform-persuade-influence (cognitive domain)

space, acknowledging a deceive-compel component to military operations in areas of tension or
on contested expeditionary operations. This report does not consider the technical information-
related domains, aspects and applications of cyber and space, nor the collection, processing and
exploitation capability of joint ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) assets. That is,
excluded are reflections about CAF capability: to deter disinformation by punishment or
coercion such as through kinetic attacks; use offensive information operations (IO) to take down
or interfere with malign actor networks and disrupt a specific disinformation node or affect its
functionality; or, to impact the amount of available information. These activities require specific
rules of engagement and designated engagement authorities, and are part of targeting and
information operations.

Organization. The report is structured as follows. Key terminology and some of the associated
challenges of the related lexicon are explained, followed by an overview of impacts and effects
of mis- and disinformation. A summary of notable recent developments of how the phenomenon
has evolved and how key jurisdictions have reacted, sets the stage to describe the specific threats
the DND/CAF organize to face, in turn suggesting vectors of prospective attack by those who
actively propagate mis-and disinformation. Next, we explore the advice, techniques, best
practices and strategies used by various jurisdictions. Armed with this background, we can better
understand current DND/CAF unclassified capabilities, and assess to what extent these are fit-
for-purpose for the challenge. Important insight is discoverable from a review of unclassified
DND/CAF documents and other of their public information postings. This, plus input from
participant interviews informs 25 key insights explained in some detail, consisting of five
commentaries in each of five thematic areas. This also serves to suggest five potential important
further research and development focus areas.

2
 General Context
Disinformation Defined

We live in, and are expressly shaped by the information environment, succinctly described as
“the space where human cognition, technology and content converge.”7 This space is ubiquitous
in our lives and shapes how people receive, think, and act on information. It includes the
technology used to access, process and share the information, and any content created on any
channel (such as television, social media, books, in-person exchanges, and much more). NATO
and the CAF have adopted a broader treatment of the meaning of information environment,
defining it as, “the information itself, the individuals, organisations and systems that receive,
process and convey the information, and the cognitive, virtual and physical space in which this
occurs.”8 Many NATO militaries, including the CAF, for nearly three decades have organized
the effort to manage and coordinate this unbounded space using a general, non-specialized staff
function and process called “information operations” or InfoOps.

Information scholars and experienced practitioners stress the importance of understanding and
agreeing a taxonomy of information and related terms to help inform and shape policy,
strategies, and actions. How to “get after” an activity or item of concern in the informational
space depends on a sufficient and accurate assessment of whether one is dealing with mal-, mis-,
or disinformation, foreign interference, or some other form such as “influence operations,”
“information warfare,” “information manipulation” or other characterization. Table 1 sets out
how various large organizations or groups explain terms relevant to this discussion.

There are several reasons why consensus on these definitions does not yet exist, but lack of effort
is not one of them. Like “propaganda,” “information warfare,” and “fake news,” mis- and
disinformation have become politicized catchphrases in general public discourse to discount the
communicator and the content, and have lost objective meaning and value. Some clarity in this
respect is needed to narrow down a diagnosis of the problem, and to reasonably propose
prescriptions. In today’s information ecosystem, what is “truth” or even what are “facts” is less
certain and highly situational. The thinktank RAND refers to the diminishing role of facts, data
and analysis in social and political discourse as “truth decay,” noting four trends: “increasing
disagreement about facts and data, blurring of the line between opinion and fact, increasing
relative volume of opinion compared to fact, and declining trust in institutions that used to be
looked to as authoritative sources of factual information.”9

7
Alicia Wanless and Jacob N. Shapiro, “A CERN Model For Studying The Information Environment”
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 17 November 2022.
8
NATO Military Committee, Policy on NATO Information Operations 422/5, 22 January 2015. This is the
definition adopted by Canada per the DND/CAF Policy on Joint Information Operations, 3 April 2018. The
CAF is working hard to bring to fruition an important re-think of 25-year-old InfoOps doctrine with CFJP
3.10 – Operations in the Information Environment (OIE), now in study draft, that defines the IE as the
“individuals, organizations and systems that collect, process, disseminate or act on information as well as
the information itself. It is where the actors observe, orient, decide, and act on information.”
9
Jennifer Kavanagh and Michael D. Rich, “Truth Decay: An Initial Exploration of the Diminishing Role of
Facts and Analysis in American Public Life.” Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2018.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2314.html.

3
 Table 1: The Challenge of Problematic Lexicon
Source Definition
Misinformation
CAN Government False information that is shared without intention of misleading. Any type of false
information can cause harm.
Canadian Centre False information that is not intended to cause harm.
for Cyber Security
G7 RRM (GAC) False or misleading information that is spread unwittingly.
EU False or misleading information shared without harmful intent, though the effects
can still be harmful.
UK Government Verifiably false information that is shared without an intention to mislead.
NATO False information spread unintentionally.
UNESCO Information that is false but not created with the intention of causing harm.
Malinformation
CAN Government Does not explicitly define.
Canadian Centre Information that stems from the truth but is often exaggerated in a way that
for Cyber Security misleads and causes potential harm.
G7 RRM (GAC) Does not explicitly define.
EU Does not explicitly define.
UK Government Deliberately misleads by twisting the meaning of truthful information.
NATO Factual information distorted intentionally.
UNESCO Information that is based on reality, used to inflict harm on a person, social group,
organization or country.
Disinformation
CAN Government False information that is deliberately intended to mislead. It is sometimes called
“fake news.” Any type of false information can cause harm.
Canadian Centre False information that is intended to manipulate, cause damage, or guide people,
for Cyber Security organizations, and countries in the wrong direction.
G7 RRM (GAC) All efforts to deceive in the information environment, with a focus on
disinformation propagated by state actors and their proxies.
EU Verifiably false or misleading information that is created, presented and
disseminated for economic gain or to intentionally deceive the public, and may
cause public harm. Public harm comprises threats to democratic political and
policy-making processes as well as public goods [health, environment, security],
UK Government Verifiably false information that is shared with an intent to deceive and mislead.
NATO Deliberate creation and dissemination of false and/or manipulated information
with the intent to deceive and/or mislead.
UNESCO Information that is false and deliberately created to harm a person, social group,
organization or country.
DISARM The deliberate attempt to influence perception and decision making by presenting
Foundation10 information that is incomplete, incorrect, or out of context.

10
The sources for this table are as follows:
CAN Govt: “Online Disinformation”; see https://www.canada.ca/en/campaign/online-disinformation.html

4
If one is convinced that COVID-19 vaccines alter human DNA, are deliberately made to cause
infertility especially of white people, are a means for Bill Gates to insert a nano tracking device
into humans, are deliberately made to allow repressive state intervention into privacy rights, or
that the veterinary medicine Ivermectin is more effective than a series of inoculations against
COVID-19, then that’s “your truth” and any alternative explanations are disinformation. The
Russian state initiating or amplifying any of those stories is disinformation, and others sharing
their version of these “truths” on social media is technically misinformation (“information that is
false, but the person disseminating it believes that it is true”). Some elements of a related story
could be malinformation (“based on reality, but used to inflict harm on a person, organisation or
country”). Disinformation is routinely associated with foreign interference and the various
distinctions quickly get messy, stalling efforts to evolve institutional actions and policy.11
Lexicons that are legacy holdovers further inhibit progress, such as how NATO defines
“propaganda” (“information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a
political cause or point of view”), which could reasonably be considered to apply to a wide
spectrum of public and political discourse.12

Information experts and government organizations widely agree that “disinformation” shares
three features: it is information that is both false and known to be false by the person deliberately
disseminating it, and the person or agent creating and promoting it has some kind of malign
intent. Examples in this category are often used to describe state- or insurgent-sponsored
campaigns by malign actors like that of Russia against Ukraine, or the Taliban against the West–
unless of course, you are decidedly on “the other side” of those conflicts, and then
disinformation is what the West propagates. Attributions of the term in the domestic space such
as for public health (abortion, mask-wearing, COVID-19 vaccines) or social issues (gun control,
immigration, election integrity, climate change) are fraught with equal peril. The problem with

Canadian Centre for Cyber Security: “How to identify misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation,”
February 2022. See: https://www.cyber.gc.ca/en/guidance/how-identify-misinformation-disinformation-
and-malinformation-itsap00300.
G7 Rapid Response Mechanism (GAC): G7 RRM: G7 Rapid Response Mechanism, Annual Report 2021.
European Union: European External Action Service (EEAS). 1st EEAS Report on Foreign Information
Manipulation and Interference Threats. February 2023.
UK Government: UK Government Communication Service, RESIST 2, Counter-disinformation toolkit,
2021.
NATO: “NATO’s approach to countering disinformation: a focus on COVID-19,” 17 July 2020; See
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/177273.htm;
UNESCO: UNESCO, Journalism, ‘Fake News’ and Disinformation: A Handbook for Journalism Education
and Training. See https://en.unesco.org/fightfakenews.
DISARM Foundation: “Disinformation Analysis and Risk Management Framework.” See
https://www.disarm.foundation/
11
Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI): “A mostly non-illegal pattern of behaviour
that threatens or has the potential to negatively impact values, procedures and political processes. Such
activity is manipulative in character, conducted in an intentional and coordinated manner, by state or non-
state actors, including their proxies inside and outside of their own territory.” European Union External
Action Service, 1st EEAS Report on Foreign Information and Manipulation and Interference Threats,
February 2023, p. 25.
12
Elizabeth Fry, “Persuasion not Propaganda: Overcoming Controversies of Domestic Influence in NATO
Military Strategic Communications,” Defence Strategic Communications, NATO Strategic
Communications Centre of Excellence, Vol. 11, (2022).

5
such definitions is a presumption that “intent” can be surmised, and also, that there are
immutable “truths” that are easily and objectively distinguished from untrue information.

Similarly, what constitutes “misinformation” is also generally agreed by many information

experts and governments to be information that is false or incorrect, but that the disseminator
believes it to be true: harm may result, but doing harm is not the intent. “Malinformation” is
information with some truth, but twisted or exaggerated so as to be misleading, and wielded to
inflict harm on a person, group or country. What constitutes any form of information be it mal-,
mis-, dis-, or prefix-free is inherently problematic because what is unequivocably “true” for one
person can be patently “untrue” for another—even amongst people with similar education,
upbringing, and culture. For this report, the following definitions will be used for the
information-related prefixes:13

• Mis-: False information/unreliable content spread unintentionally, not intended to harm.

• Mal-: At least partly true/genuine information distorted intentionally, intended to cause
harm (to a person, group, organization or country).
• Dis-: False information created intentionally, knowingly shared, intended to harm.

Impact and Effect

The spread of misinformation and disinformation is directly challenging the

stability of even the most long-standing democracies.
Budget 2022, Chapter 5, “Canada’s Leadership in the World14

The threat of online mis- and disinformation is one of the greatest challenges
facing democracy, human rights, and social cohesion today.
UNDP/Digital Public Goods Alliance15

The internet is enabling the spread and hyper-targeting of disinformation at an

unprecedented scale. Disinformation and its related terms comprise a
fundamental issue for humankind. It also undermines our ability to collectively
address other existential challenges.
DISARM Foundation

We have a lot to unpack in this country in terms of understanding what’s going

on and its impact on democracy, our institutions in our society—and this
[misinformation] is a problem that is not going away.
Jody Thomas, PM’s National Security & Intelligence Advisor

13
These are adapted from definitions by UNESCO. The UNESCO definitions were used in an excellent
paper by the researcher on this subject for the Rouleau Commission. See Emily Laidlaw, “Mis- Dis- and
Mal-Information and the Convoy: An Examination of the Roles and Responsibilities of Social Media,”
Report of the Public Inquiry Into The 2022 Public Order Emergency, Vol. 5, Chapter 8, 17 February 2023.
14
See: https://www.budget.canada.ca/2022/report-rapport/chap5-en.html.
15
See: https://digitalpublicgoods.net/blog/dpgs-information-integrity/.

6
Mis- and disinformation has proven to be a superb asymmetric weapon of choice for foreign
malign actors seeking to cause harm across political, military, social, financial, and military lines
given its many advantages, especially relative to the costs of kinetic activity. It can physically be
done from nearly anywhere, is fast, easy and cheap to produce at scale, is difficult to attribute
and difficult to counter or disprove once made public, all the while remaining “under the
threshold” of conflict. Even when of poor quality, it can generate reaction and impact quickly
since creating confusion in the public space about what is truthful information is a desired effect.

The domestic environment is a particularly complicated informational space, and not just
because of long-standing constitutional protections in Canada and the US afforded to free
speech. What constitutes “false information” is regularly contested; this is highly correlated to
political belief, party affiliation, and media choice. Many well-educated people trust Fox News,
Rebel News, or even InfoWars as “fact-based,” and view CNN or CBC as “disinformation,”
while many equally well-educated people believe the opposite. These views are largely
immutable no matter the facts or argument.16 And, impugning motive is always tricky.

Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons much of what reasonably passes as “obvious”

disinformation remains broadly appealing to an uncomfortably large domestic audience prone to
manipulation. Once launched, the content can burrow easily into the domestic informational
space to be rebroadcast and amplified by media whose business model trades on those inclined to
conspiracy theory, and who are inherently distrustful of government, certain media, or a
particular political party. Mis- and disinformation forces institutions and leaders to spend
considerable time and resources to review, assess, and reflect on a response strategy, and to
publicly follow-up to try to re-assert one’s own narrative. As such, disinformation as a tactical
“nuisance” activity, let alone as a major strategic interference and influence campaign, offers an
unparalleled return on investment. This is how the Canadian government describes the impacts:

• Disinformation about polarizing issues spreads and can lead to division in our society;
• Disinformation about persons and institutions can lead to mistrust in those persons and
institutions;
• Disinformation influences the political landscape and can affect people’s voting
decisions; and,
• Over the long term, disinformation may even pose a threat to democracy itself.17

Members of the CAF serving at home and those deployed overseas to areas in crisis, near-
conflict, or in actual contested space regularly face many obvious, direct influence tactics by
malign actors such as Russia, China, Iran, Daesh, Taliban, and violent extremist organizations.
These efforts take place with regularity (and it should be noted, always have in every contested
theatre where CAF have deployed), but the actual impact of these activities on the force is highly
variable, often immaterial, and sometimes even laughable. That disinformation is used to try to
call the CAF into disrepute does not in and of itself mean there is actual effect. For instance,
efforts to discredit Canadian members deployed in Latvia with NATO by labelling the force a
“gay” battlegroup, or claiming that members have imported and spread COVID, have limited

16
Frank Graves, founder of the Canadian polling firm EKOS Research, has done extensive research in
this area, regularly posting findings on his Twitter account (@VoiceOfFranky).
17
Canada disinformation site, see https://www.canada.ca/en/campaign/online-disinformation.html.

7
effect when the vast majority of the host nation is highly grateful for the protection afforded by
the troops’ presence.18

Other forms of mal- and disinformation on operations can have real operational and strategic
effect though. Malign actors are skilled at playing on Canadian domestic sensitivities, as the
Afghan detainee issue, civilian casualty allegations during RCAF sorties during air campaigns in
the Middle East, or reports of CAF members training/associating with Ukrainian units with
historical ties to the Nazis illustrate. These stories have resonance because in many cases of such
reporting there is enough of a kernel of truth to lend credence to the allegation or at least to
create reasonable doubt about the specifics of what happened (recalling, it was a Canadian
foreign affairs official based in southern Afghanistan whose testimony before Parliamentary
Committee lent real fuel to the Afghan detainee issue). Such stories, reported on by Canadian
media, directly impacts ongoing CAF operations, particularly if the reaction by Defence to
allegations and criticism is sub-optimal. These issues can resonate for years after, requiring very
significant senior leader engagement and public communications over sometimes long periods to
try to articulate a DND/CAF position, and “manage” the impacts.

While foreign malign actors initiate and enable mis- and disinformation in Canada and other
countries, the reality is much of this originates domestically and spreads organically with a mind
and impetus of its own. As US information specialist Ajit Maan explains, “the same factors that
make an audience vulnerable to recruitment by ISIS make an audience vulnerable to recruitment
by the Proud Boys. We ought to focus on understanding the factors that create an audience ripe
for recruitment.”19 This is a much greater threat to democratic institutions, defence, and national
security than anything foreign adversaries can do in the informational space. Examples of this in
the US are now legion, with tens of millions of news consumers bearing witness each day to
blatant and patent domestic disinformation on mainstream media, cable TV, and radio.

Canada is hardly immune. CSIS, for example, acknowledges the interconnectedness of the
Canadian and American media ecosystems: “Canadians become exposed to online influence as a
type of collateral damage.”20 Two notable examples are the northward effects of right-wing
extremism21 and, particularly, the similar consequences of government COVID-19 policies. A
major report issued in early 2023 estimated that over the course of just a nine-month period,
COVID-19 misinformation in Canada cost at least 2,800 lives, and $300M in hospital expenses.

18
See: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/latvia-propaganda-1.4162612.
19
Ajit Maan, “Disinformation Is Not the Problem and Information Is Not the Solution,” Homeland Security
Today, 6 November 2022.
20
CSIS/Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, “National Cyber Threat Assessment 2020.”
21
In July 2020, Reservist Master-Cpl. Corey Hurren crashed the gates of Rideau Hall and walked the
grounds with three loaded guns looking for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: Hurren was sentenced to six
years in prison. In August 2019, Reservist Master-Cpl. Patrick Mathews was exposed as a neo-Nazi
supporter and fled Canada, where he was caught, tried and sentenced in October 2021 to nine years for
firearms-related and other offences trying to instigate a race war in the U.S.. In March 2021, Reserve Pte.
Erik Myggland was released from the CAF following counter-intelligence investigations into his
associations with a right-wing extremist organization. See:
https://nationalpost.com/news/judge-expected-to-sentence-military-reservist-who-rammed-rideau-hall-
gate-with-truck; https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/featured/2019/06/12/homegrown-hate-2;
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/patrik-mathews-sentencing-1.6226116; and
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/erik-myggland-rangers-three-percent-soldiers-odin-1.6085006.

8
The report also estimates misinformation led to more than 2M Canadians not getting a vaccine
when it was first available, leading to 13,000 hospitalizations.22 In a related vein, the CAF is
expected to release as many as 1,000 members for refusing to follow orders to take the COVID-
19 vaccine as a force protection measure, though all of them—subject to short-notice
deployments overseas to inhospitable environments—would have received many inoculations
over the course of their lives and military careers.23

Direct threats to the DND/CAF or its interests and equities from the disinformation space,
“adversarial” or otherwise, are not always clear. For instance, climate change regularly features
high on lists of risks to national and international security in Canada.24 Climate change has
serious domestic security impacts and is a major priority for National Defence. Canada has
announced its intention to establish a NATO-affiliated Climate Change and Security Centre of
Excellence (CoE) based in Montreal, Quebec, in a joint initiative by Global Affairs Canada and
National Defence.25 Climate change is a subject of passionate debate on all sides, and subject to a
high degree of aggressive mis- and disinformation; it should be expected the CoE will be a direct
target. Challenges like far-right extremism, vaccine hesitancy, and climate change raise
legitimate and difficult questions about the role and prospective contribution of National Defence
in dealing with whole-of-society problems demanding whole-of-government responses, in areas
where clearly the institution has major equities in the outcomes.

Recent Developments in the Information Ecosystem

Major and rapid advances in communications technology in the last two decades have fueled an
explosion of platforms and the means to easily create and share content including visually
appealing forms of video and imagery at very low cost. The benefits (and costs) to society and
quality of life have been enormous. Mis- and disinformation has been super-charged by three
developments: the rise of “anything goes” cable news/punditry and radio programming; big data
analytic capability that enabled micro-targeting of audiences; and lackadaisical government
regulation of social media giants and their algorithms specifically designed to attract people to
spend more time on their sites thereby increasing advertising revenue.26
22
Council of Canadian Academies, “Fault Lines: The Expert Panel on the Socioeconomic Impacts of
Science and Health Information,” 26 January 2023.
23
See: https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/fewer-than-300-military-members-kicked-out-for-failing-to-get-
covid-19-vaccine-1.6088518; https://globalnews.ca/news/8793602/canadian-armed-forces-1000-
members-denied-covid-vaccine-exemption/; and
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/military-vaccine-mandate-discipline-1.6616424.
24
A stark report in 2021 by CSIS sets out numerous impacts especially in B.C., with rising sea levels and
the potential to destroy “significant parts” of the province: see, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-
columbia/csis-climate-change-bc-impact-1.6773801?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar.
25
See: https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_relations-relations_internationales/nato-
otan/centre-excellence.aspx?lang=eng.
26
The late 1990s also saw the introduction of new forms of ‘false news’ to the mix. Particularly clever
English-language news satire TV and online programming included The Daily Show (1996), and The
Onion (1998, billing itself as “America’s Finest News Source”). The Colbert Report (2005) broke new
ground in the satire genre, with Stephen Colbert playing the role of a right-wing commentator as cleverly
disguised parody discussing domestic politics and world events. In the opening show, Colbert coined the
word ‘truthiness’ and used it frequently thereafter to refer to people understanding something as ‘truth’
because it intuitively ‘felt right’ to them rather than being based on logic, evidence or fact. The American
Dialect Society named truthiness their Word of the Year, as did Merriam-Webster in 2006. More

9
No single event was a 9/11-like catalyst for the West to start to take seriously the impacts of mis-
and disinformation on their societies. Rather, that outcome was the result of a steady
accumulation over time of decidedly harmful experiences in the domestic space in multiple
countries (with repercussions felt widely elsewhere) and on the international security front. The
2014-2016 period, though, marks a discernable watershed in the volume, scale and impact of
foreign malign actor disinformation, foreign-sponsored disinformation in Western nations, and
domestically produced disinformation, with protagonists increasingly unconcerned with even
veneers of truth. From a defence and security perspective, the attack by Russia on Ukraine in
February 2014 featuring “little green men,” and the July 2014 downing of Malaysian Flight 17
(MH17) by Russian-backed proxies in Ukraine27 that killed nearly 300, served as a giant wake-
up call that galvanized international organizations like the EU and NATO into action.

Immediately after the airliner crash, the international open source and social media investigative
group Bellingcat began to expose truths behind MH17, displaying the awesome new power of
volunteer online sleuths using advanced open-source analysis techniques.28 By mid-2014, ISIS
was also at its peak strength in Iraq and Syria, having been successful in operations to capture
large swathes of territory and recruiting shockingly large numbers of followers through social
media. Also in 2014, the NATO International Security Assistance Force mission in Afghanistan
wound down and was transitioning to the much smaller NATO Resolute Support Mission, with
the Taliban proving to be stubborn adversaries on the battlefield and beating the West at the in-
country information campaign. The sources of disinformation and reasons for its successful
spread and impact began to be studied more carefully, and a ‘countering disinformation’ cottage
industry was born. Efforts in the West to understand the phenomenon and enhance resilience
against foreign-sponsored hybrid threats redoubled following the March 2018 chemical
poisoning attack by Russian operatives in Salisbury, UK.29

The pernicious effects of mis- and disinformation really came home to roost in Western nations
from about June 2016 beginning with the Brexit referendum in the UK;30 the 201631 and 2020

recognition of words that had become part of the zeitgeist followed: in 2016, ‘fake news’ (Macquarrie
dictionary); also in 2016 ‘post-truth’ (Oxford University Press); in 2017 ‘fake news’ (Collins); in 2018
‘misinformation’ (dictionary.com); in 2020, ‘deepfake’ was a word to watch (Merriam-Webster); and in
2023, ‘gaslighting’ (Merriam-Webster), or to “grossly mislead someone especially for a personal
advantage.” See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Colbert_Report and, https://www.merriam-
webster.com/words-at-play/word-of-the-year
27
The circumstances were investigated by the Dutch Safety Board. See
https://www.government.nl/topics/mh17-incident/investigation-by-the-dutch-safety-board.
28
See Bellingcat, “MH17 The Open Source Evidence,” uploaded October 2015.
29
A key development was publication of the European Commission’s, Action Plan Against Disinformation,
December 2018.
30
A sobering assessment is provided by Carole Cadwalladr, “The great British Brexit robbery: how our
democracy was hijacked,” The Guardian, 7 May 2017.
31
The Washington Post, concerned at the number of false and misleading claims by the Trump
administration, in February 2017 began using the slogan, “Democracy Dies in Darkness”: the Post’s fact
checker team calculated that by the end of his term President Trump had publicly lied 30,573 times. While
not the first to use the term ‘fake news’, Trump popularized its use in the U.S. and around the world, using
increasingly hostile verbal attacks on the fourth estate, initially labelling “fake news media” as the “enemy
of the people,” but by April 2019, the characterization had extended to all press. Not surprisingly, vitriol
against mainstream media become more pronounced, with one U.S. poll showing nearly 33% considered
the press as ‘enemy of the people’ over an ‘important part of democracy.’ See,

10
US Presidential elections; the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol;32 and the COVID-19
pandemic, in particular the political and public dialogue to try to identify the origin of the virus,
and the many global health challenges stemming from vaccine mis- and disinformation. The
subsequent invasion of Ukraine by Russia in February 2022 and the decisive response by the
West—led by the US—at calling out Russian disinformation and exposing intelligence ahead of
the attack (known as “pre-bunking”), was a notable departure from Crimea 2014, and a key
“lesson learned.” Domestic accidents and disasters also now have a decidedly conspiratorial
aspect: fantasists and malign actors were quick to claim that the February 2023 train derailment
in East Palestine, Ohio, showed the government was purposefully not helping white farmers and
intentionally letting the local white population be poisoned, as a means of “white genocide.”33

A spate of domestic developments in Canada in close succession led to many uses, references,
and accusations of mis- and disinformation that affected public policy and impacted trust in
governance and leaders. Much underlying social angst including but not limited to the COVID-
19 pandemic, found active expression in the January/February 2022 trucker “freedom” convoy
protests in Canada, leading to a public inquiry and a report a year later into use of the
Emergencies Act.34 Public demonstrations such as this offer fertile ground for malign actors to
help foment and leverage societal disruption and dissension–Russian state-funded propaganda
efforts were active and engaged.35

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/24/trumps-false-or-misleading-claims-total-30573-over-
four-years/; https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/437610-trump-calls-press-the-enemy-of-the-
people/; and, https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/451311-poll-a-third-of-americans-say-news-
media-is-the-enemy-of-the-people/.
32
On election night in 2020, President Trump addressed the nation saying, “This is a fraud on the
American public … frankly, we did win this election,” catalyzing a sequence of events that culminated in
the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters seeking to disavow and overturn the
election results. The subsequent House of Representatives investigation detailed many instances of
people “provoked to act by false information”, and among only 10 recommendations was a call for the
U.S. Congress to continue to “evaluate policies of media companies that have had the effect of
radicalizing their consumers, including by provoking people to attack their own country.” U.S. House of
Representatives, “Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the
United States Capitol,” Celadon Books/The New Yorker, December 10, 2022, p, 692.
33
Research by behavioural scientist Caroline Orr Bueno; see,
https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/1625884920257171457, 15 February 2023.
34
The inquiry led by Commissioner Paul Rouleau had a mandate, amongst other areas of investigation,
to examine the sources and impact of misinformation and disinformation including the use of social
media, which was a significant factor throughout the demonstration. The final report issued in February
2023 called to continue “to study the impact of social media, including misinformation and disinformation,
on Canadian society, with a focus on preserving freedom of expression and the benefits of new
technologies, while addressing the serious challenges that misinformation, disinformation and other
online harms present to individuals and Canadian society.” (Recommendation 53). See:
https://publicorderemergencycommission.ca/final-report/.
35
Caroline Orr-Bueno, “Russia’s Role in the Far-Right Truck Convoy: An analysis of Russian state media
activity related to the 2022 Freedom Convoy,” The Journal of Intelligence, Conflict and Warfare. Vol. 5,
No. 3 (2022). And some, perhaps many, are just downright kooky. Recently, one Ottawa trucker convoy
social media channel combined multiple conspiracy theories to suggest Malaysian Airlines flight MH17
was shot down in 2014 by Freemasons because AIDS researchers on board were going to tell the world
that Dr. Anthony Fauci created the AIDS virus. “Yes,” some will claim, “But you can’t prove otherwise, can
you?”. Research by Caroline Orr Bueno. See:
https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/1629040810145579008.

11
Other significant commentary around the same time featuring the notable use of mis- and
disinformation included: the provision of Leopard-2 tanks to Ukraine to fight the war against
Russia; protests in Edmonton and elsewhere over the urban planning concept of “15-minute
cities” (prompting fears by conspiracists that the anti-fossil fuel lobby would restrict where
people can live and drive);36 the initial frantic commentary about four unidentified objects
floating in North American airspace, downed by US fighter jets under NORAD command; and,
various media reports purporting to detail Chinese Communist Party tactics to influence
outcomes in recent Canadian federal elections. These developments pressured the federal
government to announce several actions to combat foreign interference and counter
disinformation, as well as other initiatives to better protect our democratic institutions.37

These developments, on top of the continuing aftermath of the COVID pandemic, have brought
the subject of disinformation to the fore, resulting in a new, more intense awareness of the
problem in Canadian politics, media, and the public. This sampling of examples offers
compelling evidence that suggests home-grown mis- and disinformation results in increasingly
polarized societies, thereby posing a more direct threat to democracy, effective governance and
national security even than malign actor-sponsored disinformation.

Jurisdictions Respond

Over time, several major jurisdictions have acted with increasing urgency and dedicated
resources to tackle the problem. In 2011, the US State Department established the Center for
Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (CSCC), to target violent extremists and terrorist
organizations. In 2016, this became the Global Engagement Center (GEC), with a significantly
expanded mission including lead coordinating body within the US federal government to
“recognize, understand, expose and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and

36
This has been adopted by global conspiracy theorists as a socialist planning effort to eliminate cars
powered by fossil fuels, and otherwise restrict how people move around a city in the name of climate
action, with suggestions that people will be fined for leaving their “district.” See
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-edmonton-15-minute-city-protests/ Controversial (and
popular) Canadian academic and media commentator Jordan Peterson weighed in on the subject: “The
idea that neighborhoods should be walkable is lovely. The idea that idiot tyrannical bureaucrats can
decide by fiat where you're "allowed" to drive is perhaps the worst imaginable perversion of that idea--
and, make no mistake, it's part of a well-documented plan.” (@jordanbpeterson, 31 December 2022).
Later, Peterson took offense at a sign on a towel dispenser in a Vancouver washroom that asked patrons
“not to use an arm’s length of towels to dry your hands”: Peterson tweeted, “Up yours, woke moralists.
Tyranny is always petty--and petty tyranny will not save the planet.” (@jordanpeterson, 22 February
2023). This is the level of public discourse on 15-minute cities and towel dispensers–perhaps illustrative
of the breadth and scope of the challenge for government and national institutions.
37
This included announcing a special rapporteur, consultations to inform creation of a foreign influence
registry, a new ‘national counter foreign influence coordinator’ in Public Safety Canada, and $5.5M to
“strengthen the capacity of civil society partners to counter disinformation.” It is not clear if this is new
money, or a re-announcement of previously known investments. In the March 2023 federal budget, the
Government also announced its intention to provide $48.9M over three years to the RCMP to protect
Canadians (diaspora communities in particular) against foreign interference, and to establish a National
Counter-Foreign Interference Office at Public Safety Canada. See:https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-
releases/2023/03/06/taking-further-action-foreign-interference-and-strengthening.

12
disinformation efforts” against the US, its allies, and partner nations.38 Amongst large
organizations, the European External Action Service (the diplomatic service of the European
Union) has led the way since Crimea 2014 in developing significant action plans and real
capabilities to detect, highlight, and counter disinformation, albeit with a focus mainly on Russia.
One of their many initiatives is EUvsDisinfo, a flagship project begun in 2015 to increase public
awareness and understanding of Russia’s disinformation operations and to help develop
resistance and resilience to digital and media manipulation.39

Other new, significant capabilities followed in short order. The NATO Strategic
Communications Centre of Excellence in Riga, Latvia (established January 2014), was overdue
recognition that, “Strategic communications are an integral part of our efforts to achieve the
Alliance’s political and military objectives.”40 The Hybrid Centre of Excellence in Helsinki,
Finland (established 2017), examines how hostile state and non-state actors acting as proxies
“use influence tools in ways that attempt to subvert democracy, sow instability, or curtail the
sovereignty of other nations and the independence of institutions.”41

At the Brussels Summit in 2018, NATO declared that, “We face hybrid challenges, including
disinformation campaigns and malicious cyber activities,” and made even more investments in
public communications capability on top of an already robust baseline.42 At the Charlevoix,
Quebec, summit in 2018, the G7 leaders established the Rapid Response Mechanism (G7 RRM),
with a secretariat provided by Canada, to improve coordination amongst countries in response to
“hostile state activity targeting democratic institutions and processes” (more on this later).43

In 2022, the Swedish Psychological Defence Agency in Karlsad stood up to identify, prevent,
and counter “foreign malign information influence activities and other disinformation directed at
Sweden or at Swedish interests,” actively supporting “municipalities, regions, the business sector
and organisations.”44 The stand-up was good timing, given that Sweden holds the EU presidency
for the first half of 2023, actively supports Ukraine, and has applied to join NATO. Sweden has

38
See: https://www.state.gov/bureaus-offices/under-secretary-for-public-diplomacy-and-public-
affairs/global-engagement-center/.
39
EUvDisinfo includes an open-source database of more than 12,000 examples of pro-Russian
disinformation. See, https://euvsdisinfo.eu/.
40
In NATO policy, strategic communications is the coordinated use of NATO communications activities
and capabilities that includes five discrete capabilities: public diplomacy, public affairs (civilian), military
public affairs, information operations and psychological operations. See: https://stratcomcoe.org/.
41
See: https://www.hybridcoe.fi/.
42
See: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_156624.htm, 11 July 2018. NATO HQ explains
how it responds to disinformation this way: “As a values-based organisation, NATO counters
disinformation with fact-based, credible public communications …This involves understanding and
analysing the information environment, engaging audiences to build resilience, communicating proactively
and exposing major cases of disinformation. This work is underpinned by strong cooperation with
partners, as we cannot act alone. From international organisations and national and local governments, to
private companies, civil society and free and independent media, all actors – including NATO – have a
part to play in countering disinformation.” See: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_184036.htm, 25
May 2021.
43
Australia, New Zealand, NATO, the Netherlands and Sweden are observers. See:
https://www.international.gc.ca/transparency-transparence/rapid-response-mechanism-mecanisme-
reponse-rapide/index.aspx?lang=eng#a1.
44
This agency reports to the Swedish Ministry of Justice. See https://www.mpf.se/en/mission/.

13
been the subject of numerous incidents of right-wing extremism and allegations about the
Kurdish diaspora there, that the national security service attributes mainly to Russian
disinformation and instigation, leading Turkey to delay Sweden’s accession to NATO. From a
Russian perspective, this is a great return on the disinformation investment.45

This brief overview suggests broad, significant, recent and new investments by many Western
nations including in shared joint capability. This is illustrative of how disinformation is
increasingly regarded not just as a domestic threat, but one that needs to be treated from a
collective security, “whole of society,” and “whole of government” perspective. Before assessing
current DND/CAF capabilities and how effective these may be, we first need to examine where
the disinformation threats come from, and what the relevant literature offers in terms of
evidence-based advice on any effective approaches to take.

The Threats

Keeping current about the array of direct and indirect threats to Canadian national security, and
the various crises affecting National Defence specifically, takes quite an effort. A wide array of
prospective threats, by definition, makes Defence a target for an even wider range of persons or
groups abroad or at home having grievances or who mean the institution harm. In these spaces,
disinformation abounds. The June 2017 Strong Secure Engaged (SSE) defence policy elaborated
many concerns including the return of major power military rivalry that threatens the rules-based
international order, and the destructive influence of organized crime cartels, hacker groups,
terrorists and violent extremist organizations—"a global scourge that, left unchecked, can
undermine civil society and destabilize entire regions.” Climate change also figures
prominently—its effects must “be considered through a security lens.” In addition, malign actors
“often rely on the deliberate spread of misinformation to sow confusion and discord in the
international community, create ambiguity and maintain deniability.”46 Separately, Gen. Eyre has
noted the significant security challenges posed by “climate change, pandemic disease,
homegrown and international extremist terrorism, population migration, weak governance,
inequalities, the scarcity of resources, and truth manipulation.”47

In April 2022, the federal government announced its intent to update the defence policy. While
the CAF’s eight core missions are unlikely to change,48 the CDS has recently set out four key
lines of effort shaping CAF priorities: reconstitution, culture change, operations, and

45
See: https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/threats-from-russia-disinformation-rises-in-
sweden/.
46
National Defence, “Strong Secure Engaged, Canada’s Defence Policy,” June 2017.
47
Lt.-Gen. Wayne Eyre, “Professional Discourse in the Canadian Army: A Call to Arms,” in The Canadian
Army Journal, Volume 18.2 (2020, p.6.
48
Strong Secure Engaged. In abbreviated form these are: Detect, deter and defend against threats to or
attacks on Canada; defend against an attack on North America; lead and/or contribute forces to NATO
and coalition efforts to deter and defeat adversaries, including terrorists; lead and/or contribute to
international peace operations and stabilization missions; capacity building to support the security of other
nations and their ability to contribute to security abroad; assist civil authorities and law enforcement,
including counter-terrorism; provide assistance to civil authorities and non-governmental partners
responding to disasters and emergencies; and, conduct search and rescue operations.

14
modernization.49 While this remains a work in progress as of end-March 2023, some insight into
the way ahead can be gleaned from the language of the recent solicitation for public input into
the defence policy review. It declares that all threats set out in SSE are said to remain valid, but
“they have intensified and accelerated over the last few years at an unprecedented rate,” with the
country facing a broader spectrum of threats including advanced artificial intelligence and cyber,
as well as new economic and institutional pressures.50

At the same time, the CAF continues to reel from crises of culture and leadership stemming from
17 self-identified inappropriate and negative behaviours in a “military culture that needs to
change.”51 The CDS has identified this as “the greatest challenge of our times. Because it is
existential.”52 He has committed to “repairing our military’s credibility–to rebuilding the trust
that is essential to our success as an institution.”53 At the same time, new(ish) concerns are bound
to surface complicating things further, such as renewed public interest in foreign interference in
Canada by the Chinese Communist Party, described by a Canadian Security Intelligence Service
(CSIS) spokesperson to CBC/Radio-Canada as the “greatest threat to our national security.”54
The key take-away from this is how mis- and disinformation is the one common factor
underpinning all threats—enabling the condition, and impacting the institution’s ability to
respond. What then, might work best as a counter-measure?

Tackling Disinformation

There is not one right approach: “it depends” is the answer to the question, what works best? To
defend against, disrupt, and counter disinformation requires a working understanding of three
elements–what content is being created, what are the actor motivations, and how is the material
being disseminated. Differences in each makes for prospectively different strategies and tactics.
A brief review of the Russia and Taliban approaches serves to illustrate this point. Russian
disinformation tactics are by far the most studied in the field and there is little left to identify of
their tactics, techniques, or procedures that is not already well known and publicly dissected.55

49
Gen. Wayne Eyre, “Chief of the Defence Staff 2023 Focus Areas,” The Maple Leaf, 8 February 2023.
See: https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/maple-leaf/defence/2023/02/chief-of-the-
defence-staff-2023-focus-areas.html.
50
See: https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/corporate/policies-standards/canada-
defence-policy/we-want-to-hear-from-you.html.
51
Department of National Defence, “CDS/DM Initiating Directive for Professional Conduct and Culture,”
29 April 2021.
52
Gen. Wayne Eyre, “DND/CAF Sexual Misconduct Apology,” 13 December 2023. See:
https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/services/conduct-and-culture/sexual-misconduct-
apology.html.
53
Gen. Wayne Eyre, “Kingston Conference on International Security,” Keynote Speech, 25 October 2021.
54
See: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/foreign-interference-csis-china-allegations-1.6783031.
55
There are literally, several dozen major organizations and independent non-profit groups and many
leading scholars dedicated exclusively or mainly to researching this one agent of disinformation. Four
examples of many that are worthy of note are the social media accounts @EUvsDisinfo (Twitter) and EU
vs Disinformation (Facebook); Ukraine’s PR Army (https://www.pr.army/); relevant publications by Atlantic
Council; and Russian security expert Keir Giles.

15
One of the most frequently cited explanations of the Russian Federation’s effort is RAND’s
“Firehose of Falsehood” propaganda model, that identifies four distinctive features of their
approach:56

• High-volume and multichannel.

• Rapid, continuous and repetitive.
• Lacks commitment to objective reality.
• Lacks commitment to consistency.

As RAND analyst Christopher Paul explains, “Don’t expect to counter Russia’s firehose of
falsehood with the squirt gun of truth. Instead, put raincoats on those for whom the firehose is
aimed.” This is because literally thousands of channels are used to spread pro-Kremlin
disinformation in as many as 18 languages, all creating an impression of seemingly independent
sources confirming each other’s message.57 Christopher Paul suggests several best practises,
including: forewarning of misinformation to come, this being more effective than trying to refute
propaganda already out there; directing attention at the targeted audience, not to the source of the
disinformation; to compete by increasing the amount of persuasive information; and, if in a
hostile environment, [such as in Ukraine] turn off or turn down the flow using technical means.58

Here, it is worth mentioning the prospective limits of obtaining short- or medium-term desired
effects even with the most well-resourced counter-disinformation campaign—that being the
West against Russia. There is deep, widely shared knowledge of Russian assets and tactics, and
on balance, the response of the West has been notably robust and consistent (including
Canada)—at least in communicating with audiences in the West.59 Despite significant actions,
such as major donations of war equipment to Ukraine, the war continues. This is not to suggest
not to continue with an aggressive counter-disinformation strategy–because the alternative of
doing less would be highly immoral and dangerous to national security–but to have modest
expectations about outcomes based on counter-disinformation efforts alone in the face of a
malign actor’s willingness to absorb punishment of many sorts.

The advice particular to countering Russian disinformation does not necessarily translate well to
other campaigns such as those waged by the Taliban. A leading UK public communication firm
calculates that between 2014 and 2020, the Taliban published some 71,725 Pashto-language
items and 37,250 Dari-language items, and in the six years up to 2021, published 104,777 items
in languages other than Pashto and Dari (71,272 in Arabic, 17,910 in Urdu, and 15,595 in

56
Christopher Paul and Miriam Matthews, “The Russian ‘Firehose of Falsehood’ Propaganda Model: Why
it might work and options to counter it,” RAND Corporation, 2016. See:
https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html.
57
See: https://www.ispionline.it/en/publication/means-goals-and-consequences-pro-kremlin-
disinformation-campaign-16216.
58
Paul, “Firehose of Falsehood.”
59
The reach and breadth of the Russian effort extends globally and with notable success in places like
the Middle East, Africa, and in other areas where less communication effort is made by many Western
countries (US and UK excluded); Canada is a serious laggard in this respect. See Idayat Hassan and
Kyle Hiebert, “Russian Disinformation Is Taking Hold in Africa,” Centre for International Governance
Innovation, 17 November 2021; and, Anna Borshchevskaya, “Russia’s disinformation machine has a
Middle East advantage,” Foreign Affairs, 23 March 2023.

16
English).60 In this respect, the Taliban’s media effort was systematic, continuous, and exhaustive,
with a heavy in-country focus, yet still featured a very considerable effort to reach external
audiences including in the West. The Taliban example suggests a counter-disinformation strategy
that should be weighted more toward interdicting the means of production, along with enabling
better Afghan government communications.

Afghanistan is illustrative of a compelling truth often ignored or forgotten, that information or

counter-disinformation efforts begin to be successful only when the underlying fundamental
conditions leading to conflict or crisis are changed decidedly in favour of national leadership. As
information scholar Gavin Wilde explains, “The biggest failure in countering disinformation is
the idea that it’s the result of outside actors influencing communities, when it’s really about the
communities that form organically, and how we respond to that. It’s a lot simpler to blame
Russia and factcheck than address the fundamental social issues that lead to this, especially when
a lot of it is caused by real betrayals of the public trust by the media and governments.”61

Billionaire Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, advises that the “best way to fight misinformation
is to respond with accurate information, not censorship.”62 Certainly, limiting information or
affecting platform access to try to counter-disinformation can have the opposite intended effect.
For example, the ban of the popular social media app TikTok on federal government
communications devices was expanded to some provincial governments, including Quebec. Two
doctors in that province who gained a large following on TikTok for their explanations of the
medical profession’s role during the pandemic expressed their fear that COVID mis- and
disinformation would surge if the public lost access to quality information on the platform of
choice for many information consumers.63 However, the idea that “responding” with factual
information is the best strategy is a common but simplistic (and reactive) refrain, suggesting the
problem is mostly about a shortage of information, and relies on an assumption that presenting
enough facts wins the day. A growing body of research proves otherwise.64 As information
researcher Caroline Orr-Bueno, explains, “People believe and share information for reasons that
go far beyond its informational value. Information behaviors have personal, emotional,
ideological, and attitudinal underpinnings, and people engage with info for myriad reasons other
than just filling information deficits.”65

There is now very considerable literature—a large body of that stemming from COVID-19-
related research—suggesting that the “success” of mis- and disinformation is because of a lack of
trust in government and institutions—and building back public trust through more transparent

60
The Global Strategy Network, “Taliban Comms, A Full-Spectrum Approach to Political Outreach,” 2021
(PPT presentation). Thanks to David Loyn, a former BBC journalist with decades of experience working in
Afghanistan and South-East Asia, for bringing this data to my attention.
61
Gavin Wilde, “The Problem With Defining ‘Disinformation’,” Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, 10 November 2022.
62
See: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1636453969491836930, 16 March 2023.
63
See: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-tiktok-ban-doctors-1.6781063.
64
An accessible treatment of this is Elizabeth Kolbert, “Why facts don’t change our minds,” The New
Yorker, 19 February 2017. See: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont-
change-our-minds.
65
See: https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/1636554934094110723.

17
actions is a key need inside and outside the DND/CAF.66 This intent is acknowledged, if not well
practised, by National Defence: “Transparency, inclusivity, and accountability in communicating
are essential to improving public understanding of Canada’s defence priorities, and building and
maintaining trust between Canadians and the institution of Defence.”67 That idea featured
prominently with many interviewees for this report. As one person explained, DND/CAF
transparency can be either a key motivator or a key dissatisfier, and “we really need to do a lot
better at this or we will lose people because of it. Transparency builds trust. We can track
movement of a package ordered from Amazon at every step of its journey, but a corporal with a
grievance six months later still hasn’t heard anything.” David Johnston, former Governor-
General and recently appointed special rapporteur looking into claims of Chinese interference in
Canada, in his book Trust, writes that “the worst leaders manipulate by failing to disclose vital
information or by disclosing only the information that supports their views, decisions and
actions. The best leaders persuade in great part by being open about their motives and goals.”68

Understanding the motivations for engaging in deception, and why some people are especially
vulnerable, should be key aspects of any counter-strategy. Foreign and domestic actors are not
publishing information for the sake of it, but to cause some form of action, reaction, behavioural
or attitude change (thus, an “information operation”). Motivations for creating and consuming or
acting on disinformation vary widely. A noted researcher suggests a “6P” model: poor
journalism, parody, to provoke or ‘punk’, passion, partisanship, profit, political influence/power,
and propaganda69 (this report’s author would add a seventh “P” for psychological, and note that
more than one reason can apply simultaneously).

Not surprisingly, the prospect for financial gain factors in much disinformation, even in
deliberate campaigns that on first look appear “political.” For instance, a deposition filing in a
Delaware court in support of a $1.6B defamation case by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox
News included detailed evidence of emails and messages clearly showing the media outlet’s top
personalities knowingly falsified information about the 2020 US Presidential election to improve
ratings, thus advertising revenue, and thus their salaries and bonuses.70

66
See Sander van der Linden, “Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects Our Minds and How to Build
Immunity,” W.W. Norton and Company (2023); Ed Pertwee, Clarissa Simas and Heidi Larsen, “An
epidemic of uncertainty; rumours, conspiracy theories and vaccine hesitancy,” Nature Medicine, Vol. 28,
March 2022.
67
National Defence, DND/CAF 2022-2023 Departmental Plan, p. 86. The online social media backlash to
the roll out of a progressive new housing benefit in March 2023 is a case in point. No doubt, many people
worked hard for a long time for a change that likely provides the greatest good for the greatest number,
and is the most equitable of many options. The widespread and broad-based negative response is an
unfortunate outcome of the way that policy in Defence is progressively elaborated—worked on in silos,
then launched as a big surprise with some tactical communications to support an announcement “the day
of.” Personnel are now keen to know more about, and see the actual evidence of the process and
thinking of how decision-makers got to an ‘end-point.’ Judging by the online response, this major policy
initiative to encourage recruitment and retention, instead, likely hurt trust and confidence in the institution.
68
David Johnston, Trust, Signal (2018).
69
See: https://medium.com/1st-draft/fake-news-its-complicated-d0f773766c79#.c9dlode5k.
70
Charles Kaiser, “How Dominion Voting Systems filing proves Fox News was ‘deliberately lying,’ The
Guardian, 16 February 2023. See: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/feb/20/fox-news-dominion-
voting-systems-defamation-case-analysis.

18
Deleterious impacts on society frequently are incidental to agents seeking prospective financial
gain. In one now infamous case, the UK PR company Bell Pottinger deliberately sought to
inflame racial tensions in South Africa using disinformation campaigns in support of a client.71 A
recent series of articles by the French non-profit investigative journalist group Forbidden
Stories72 details the business mechanics of how global “disinformation mercenaries” promote
foreign state propaganda, and sell services “to influence opinions, manipulate elections, destroy
reputations and erase the truth,” including convincing online service providers to remove
embarrassing content about their (unsavory) clients. The Macedonian town of Veles, population
55,000, gained international notoriety near the end of the 2016 US Presidential election for being
home to more than 100 pro-Trump websites, many peddling entirely fake news stories to pander
to demand in the US for anti-Democratic Party candidate stories as a means to generate “clicks”
on ads on the sites. The websites were created mostly by teenagers, who didn’t care about the
election outcome, but “only wanted pocket money to pay for things.” 73

Many schemes can have both financial and terrorist components, with real security implications
in literally any economic sector. A 2018 US Department of Homeland Security report for
instance, explained several “hypothetical threat scenarios” that could be employed against
agriculture operations. In one example, terrorists hack into a large livestock farm and steal the
data, modifying it “to look like the herds have foot and mouth disease, and dump the data on the
internet.” It would take a considerable period for test results to confirm the information was
falsified–but by then, trade would be affected, including an import ban by some countries, and
public trust in the food supply damaged. This scenario and many others could just as easily be
concocted by domestic actors seeking financial gain by blackmailing the agricultural business, as
appears to be the case now in Canada.74

This brief overview suggests there is not “one best way” to counter disinformation: strategies and
tactics are situation dependant. Figure 1 shows the advice, recommendations and best practises
by more than a dozen governments and organizations (and the AI tool ChatGPT), with advice
ranging from the tactical to the strategic. Clearly, disinformation is a complex problem set
demanding whole of society engagement—enabled by a whole of government effort. Some
jurisdictions get it, others not so much: Canada is in the category of the ‘not so much,’ and in
terms of mindset, capability and capacity, the DND/CAF are at least a decade behind leading
military actors (UK military, US Marine Corps) in this space. We now turn to ascertain what
DND/CAF capabilities exist, and what its senior leaders say about how fit for purpose they are.

71
Andrew Cave, “Deal that undid Bell Pottinger: inside story of the South African scandal”, The Guardian,
5 September 2017.
72
See: https://forbiddenstories.org/story-killers/, 14 February 2023. Among the stories that made
international headlines, is one by The Guardian detailing how a former Israeli special forces officer’s
company covertly used disinformation to meddle in and influence nearly three dozen elections and private
companies that wanted to secretly influence public opinion. See:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/15/revealed-disinformation-team-jorge-claim-meddling-
elections-tal-hanan.
73
Samanth Subramanian, “Inside the Macedonian Fake-News Complex,” Wired, 15 February, 2017.
See: https://www.wired.com/2017/02/veles-macedonia-fake-news.
74
Jake Edminston, “Safety Net: A flock of chickens, held for ransom—Growing cyberattacks on Canada’s
food system threaten disaster,” Financial Post, 10 March 2023.

19
20
21
 DND/CAF Context
Defence Capabilities

Considerable capacity and capability exists now in the DND/CAF to defend against, and to
counter mis- and disinformation affecting National Defence equities as well as (in more limited
applications) other government departments, NATO members and partners more broadly. The
DND/CAF’s size, composition, and work on international operations, exercises, and other
activities affords it many prospective advantages in the informational space, but also brings
many risks, including an elevated susceptibility of the force to mis- and disinformation attacks.

The upside prospects for National Defence from a countering disinformation perspective are
many, stemming from being by far the largest federal government department. Comprising
approximately 127,000 members and employees in more than 3,000 communities across the
country,75 the DND/CAF is bigger than the next five biggest federal employers combined.76 The
retired military community is estimated by Veterans Affairs Canada to be nearly 620,000.77
Including retired, serving, and immediate family members of those serving, the broader Defence
family is roughly 1M people. This is a huge, distinct cohort of Canadian society.

National Defence has the largest discretionary budget of any department and is charged with a
key mandate ultimately affecting all Canadians. Serving members conduct a wide breadth of
international and domestic activities very often in public and media view, including in actively
contested settings rife with malign actor hybrid activity including disinformation. There are
significant opportunities to connect with allies and partners to learn and share information and
best practises including through the military foreign attaché programme; liaison, student, and
exchange officers with the US, UK, and other assignments; personnel serve at NATO HQs or
affiliated organizations such as the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence, and
with the UN or coalition forces. Defence also counts many Services, Commands and other
organizations and distinctive entities having considerable public profile (The Canadian Forces
Snowbirds, Royal Military College, Ceremonial Guard, Honourary Colonel appointments,
military bands, and a community-based Reserve Force structure, to name a few). There are also
several decades of still and video imagery of forces on operations and conducting activities in
peace, conflict, and war (though notably, this archival material is not readily available in online
searchable form, this being a major visual information capability shortcoming).

75
As of March 2020, consisting roughly of 68,000 Regular Force, 27,000 Reserve Force, 5,200 Rangers,
and 27,000 civilians. See National Defence, “Canadian Armed Forces 101”; see:
https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/corporate/reports-publications/transition-
materials/defence-101/2020/03/defence-101/dnd-caf-footprint.html.
76
As of 2022, in rounded figures these being: Canada Revenue Agency (55,000), Employment and
Social Development Canada (35,600), Correctional Service Canada (17,900), and Canada Border
Services Agency (15,400). See: https://www.canada.ca/en/treasury-board-
secretariat/services/innovation/human-resources-statistics/population-federal-public-service-
department.html.
77
As of 31 March 2021; see https://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/about-vac/news-media/facts-
figures/summary.

22
The DND/CAF also disperses significant monies to various civil society initiatives through
programs like MINDS (Mobilizing Insights in Defence and Security) and IDEaS (Innovation for
Defence Excellence and Security) to seek insight and build capability, supports defence and
security-minded institutes, and maintains its own research and development program including
defence scientists working exclusively in this field and sharing some research.78 The CAF
provides a wide range of professional development opportunities through its many schools and
Colleges, and produces a wide range of products and content for internal and public information
purposes including journals, social media, and podcasts. Defence has significant assets to
conduct external and internal communication and the DND/CAF—compared to public service
counterparts such as Revenue Canada or Transport Canada employees for instance—enjoys
unique opportunities for its members to engage with the broad general public (such as
NHL“appreciation nights”), and very favourable conditions for media engagements, especially at
the community level.

Further, the Assistant Deputy Minister Public Affairs (ADM(PA)) as the functional authority for
public affairs and unclassified imagery draws on the collective energy and output of nearly 1,000
military and civilian staff,79 including 329 military PAOs and 274 imagery technicians.80 The
ADM PA acknowledges 141 social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn,
YouTube, and Pinterest) as being ‘officially’ registered with the Government of Canada
principal publisher, with approximately 700 other known accounts still under review to
determine if others should be registered.81 The potential for creative content output is significant.

The persuade-influence suite of capabilities that supports overseas CAF operations including to
defend against and to counter state- (Russia, China, Iran) and non-state-sponsored (like Daesh,
and the Taliban) disinformation is less well known within and outside the DND/CAF. These
assets almost exclusively belong to the Army Reserve. Personnel figures for the “influence
activity” function (principally CIMIC, InfoOps, PSYOPS) are not proactively released, but it is
public knowledge the capability consists of 10 Influence Activity “companies” supporting 10
Canadian Brigade Groups within a four-division structure, plus an Influence Activity Task Force
within 5 Canadian Division, and so the personnel tally at least by the number of approved

78
Such as Meghan Fitzpatrick and Dominique Lafrerriere on Army Podcast, “Disinformation”, S4E6, 15
February 2023; and Matthew Duncan, “A Human Science Approach to Capability Development;” Emily
Robinson, “Deterrence in the Information Space: Attribution and Escalation;” and Suzanne Waldman,
“Can Democracies Improve at Narrative-Driven Communication?,” at Peace Support Training Centre
workshop, Countering China’s Information Attacks, 21-22 March 2023. Notably, several interviewees for
this report strongly encouraged more sharing of research, and greater engagement with academics and
civil society organizations by DRDC.
79
DND Media Liaison Office email to author, 23 December 2021. The number of media queries fielded by
the main DND/CAF media liaison office over the course of a year can’t be easily or reliably calculated,
since any one subject (like high-altitude objects over Canada) can result in dozens of requests on the
same subject in very short order and while all queries are answered they are not necessarily logged
individually. As a general indication of scale though, over the last five years the office has fielded at least
2,000 queries per year on average. (DND Media Liaison Office email in possession of author, 28
February 2023).
80
This includes 196 Regular Force and 133 Reserve Force positions. (DND Media Liaison Office email to
author, 16 March 2023).
81
DND Media Liaison Office email to author, 28 February 2023. This number significantly undercounts
the actual figures for just those social media platforms alone, since the majority of DND/CAF members
would not seek ‘official’ status for their accounts.

23
positions can be reasonably estimated. In addition, course training in CIMIC, InfoOps, and
PSYOPS takes place at the Peace Support Training Centre in Kingston, Ontario (PA training is
conducted under the auspices of ADM(PA) mainly in the National Capital Region).82

A baseline assessment of what is spent on the DND/CAF inform-persuade-influence cognitive

domain capability does not exist, nor have the functions been subject to an operational or
performance audit. Measures of performance, effect, and outcomes can only be surmised. That
said, in the informational space, Defence brings a prospective range of communication activities,
capabilities (including the national cryptologic agency the Communications Security
Establishment or CSE), actions, and leadership visibility at a scope and scale that other Canadian
security-related organizations like Public Safety simply cannot. And, as a “Five Eyes” member,
the military community also has privileged access to the means to share information,
intelligence, insight, and best practices with trusted allies and partners, particularly the US. By
any reasonable measure then, Defence is in the most prospectively advantageous position from
the perspective of a federal department vis-à-vis defending against and countering
disinformation. Notably, though, this bounty of capability remains largely untapped.

While technological capability is necessary for a national institution like National Defence to
successfully operate in the chaotic informational space, many interviewees for this report insisted
that “right mindset” regarding force preparation and employment, geared to protecting
organization credibility and institutional reputation was demonstrably more important. The
fundamental challenge looks to be creating the conditions of “right mindset” to inform the
effective organization of information-related functions to extract maximum efficiencies and
achieve desired effects in the informational space from all DND/CAF capabilities and
capacities.83

Defence Does Not Operate Alone. As big as Defence is, it is by no means an independent actor
in this space but instead works within an information ecosystem, as one part of a Canadian
federal government collective effort. Given recent expressions by political authorities and senior
officials of disinformation’s impact on national security, economic affairs and democracy writ
large, it is useful to briefly consider how much of a “whole of government” strategy there is,
what are the means to operationalize it, and assess whether Defence’s prospective role should be
more of a contributor or a consumer.

Aside from actual approved resource levels, real insight into what is really important to federal
departments can be gleaned from mandate letters issued to ministers of the Crown, budget

82
See: https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/services/benefits-military/education-
training/establishments/peace-support.html.
83
By comparison to the UK as a benchmark nation: the UK has updated strategic policy (Joint Concept
Note 2/18 Information Advantage, and Joint Doctrine Note 2/19 Defence Strategic Communication: An
Approach to Formulating and Executing Strategy); organizational mechanisms including an operational-
level asset (77 Brigade) within an operational HQ (6 UK Division) focused on joint enabling capabilities
designed to achieve ‘information advantage’, under a four-star Strategic Command Headquarters;
national level direction, guidance and capability (led by the Government Communication Service); and
extensive Central Agency capability (Rapid Response Unit, Counter Disinformation Unit, and the
Government Information Cell). Excepting the small G7 RRM secretariat, Canada has none of these
elements in its toolkit.

24
documents, and respective Departmental Plans. These documents set out present and near-term
priorities and also suggest whether there are government-wide, initiative-specific strategies, as
well as who is expected to lead the effort.

The current ministerial mandate letters date from December 2021. As it turns out, the
disinformation lead, not apparent by title, is Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs,
Infrastructure, and Communities Dominic Leblanc, who is charged to, “Continue to lead an
integrated government response to protect Canada’s democratic institutions, including the federal
electoral process, against foreign interference and disinformation, working with domestic and
international partners.”84 Aside from routine responsibilities of the CSE and ongoing efforts to
enhance cyber defence, the Minister of National Defence mandate letter does not detail any
specific initiative or priority related to disinformation or its variants.85 Canadian Heritage has a
key role, having the lead (with Justice and the Attorney General) to “develop and introduce
legislation as soon as possible to combat serious forms of harmful online content to protect
Canadians and hold social media platforms and other online services accountable for the content
they host.”86 And, the Minister of Foreign Affairs is charged to “work with G7, NATO and
likeminded partners to develop and expand collective responses to … foreign interference in
democratic processes.” 87

Providing the secretariat for the G7’s Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM) is a signature
contribution of Global Affairs Canada (GAC), and of the federal government’s effort to confront
state-sponsored disinformation and other foreign interference threats to democracy. This group is
part of the Office of Human Rights, Freedoms and Inclusion, under the Assistant Deputy
Minister International Security. In 2022, Canada through GAC also chaired the Freedom Online
Coalition88 and co-chaired the Media Freedom Coalition,89 both focused on combatting
disinformation and threats to democracy. Canada—GAC in particular—has been active in
publicly calling out Russian disinformation regarding Ukraine, and recently sanctioned 38
individuals and 16 entities “complicit in peddling Russian disinformation and propaganda.”90

These initiatives, well-received in their field, arguably marks GAC as the unstated, de facto
federal government leader in the (unclassified) informational space, recognized in Budget 2022
with money to “renew and expand” the RRM over five years, alongside other efforts to combat
misinformation. This includes supporting research at public institutions, ongoing cyber activities

84
See: https://pm.gc.ca/en/mandate-letters/2021/12/16/minister-intergovernmental-affairs-infrastructure-
and-communities.
85
What seems an oddity is a hold-over from the ‘Democratic Institutions’ ministry and other iterations like
“democratic renewal” or “democratic reform” previously since 2003, and is included in Machinery of
Government in the Privy Council Office. See https://pm.gc.ca/en/mandate-letters/2021/12/16/minister-
national-defence-mandate-letter.
86
See: https://pm.gc.ca/en/mandate-letters/2021/12/16/minister-canadian-heritage-mandate-letter.
87
See: https://pm.gc.ca/en/mandate-letters/2021/12/16/minister-foreign-affairs-mandate-letter.
88
Including the publication of the Ottawa Agenda, a set of recommendations promoting Internet freedoms
and widespread access. See: https://freedomonlinecoalition.com/the-ottawa-agenda-recommendations-
for-freedom-online/.
89
See: https://www.canada.ca/en/global-affairs/news/2022/02/minister-joly-participates-in-third-global-
conference-for-media-freedom.html.
90
See: https://www.canada.ca/en/global-affairs/news/2023/02/canada-sanctions-additional-russian-
propagandists.html.

25
to protect Canadians against disinformation, and, cryptically, “expanding its efforts into
important new areas.” The budget allocated $10M ($2M over each of next five years) for the
Privy Council Office “to coordinate, develop, and implement government-wide measures
designed to combat disinformation and protect our democracy.”91 Heritage Canada has also
made substantial investments in its Digital Citizen initiative to build “citizen resilience against
online disinformation and building partnerships to support a healthy information ecosystem.”92

Improving government capability in this area, especially within Defence, is not without inherent
risk. Initiatives poorly explained to internal and external audiences can easily lead many
constituencies to raise public objections that impact or even derail well-intentioned reform and
change efforts. Understanding these sensitivities and why this is the case, is critical to fashioning
strategy and improving DND/CAF (and government) counter-disinformation approaches.
National Defence ignores this reality at its peril.

A Sensitivity

The appropriate role and place of military-led inform-persuade-influence activities and the
organization of assets that do this work has a long history of being a sensitive topic in several
NATO countries, especially in the post 9/11 period, and this remains the case today. An early
notable public expression of this was the February 2002 New York Times reporting on the
establishment of the Office of Strategic Influence, a US Joint Staff special forces initiative set up
to “roll up all the instruments … to influence foreign audiences,” “from the blackest of black
programs to the whitest of white.” 93 Following considerable media coverage, a week later the
unit was shut down, or was thought to have been, As Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
later commented, “You can have the name, but I’m gonna keep doing every single thing that
needs to be done, and I have.”94

Media, public, and political angst about using these capabilities continued over the course of the
Iraq War and Afghanistan campaign. This included: revelations about US$540M allocated over
four years to the UK firm Bell Pottinger to produce propaganda material, including falsely
attributed material for the campaign in Iraq;95 an organizational change in the International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission under Gen. David McKiernan that sought to merge
public affairs with PSYOPS, but was stopped after media exposés;96 and, in Afghanistan, the
alleged use of US PSYOPS staff to prepare briefing materials for visiting US VIPs.97 Each
“revelation” led to strategic-HQ reviews and investigations.

91
Government of Canada, “Budget 2022: A Plan to Grow Our Economy and Make Life More Affordable,”
21 April 2022.
92
See: https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/online-disinformation.html.
93
Oliver Burkeman, “Lies, damned lies and Pentagon Briefings,” The Guardian, 20 February 2002.
94
Transcript, “Secretary Rumsfeld Media Availability En Route to Chile,” 18 November 2002. See:
https://sgp.fas.org/news/2002/11/dod111802.html.
95
The material in part included fake Al-Qaeda videos embedded with code to track who where they were
being viewed. See https://www.thedailybeast.com/pentagon-paid-for-fake-al-qaeda-videos
96
Jon Hemming, “NATO scraps press, psy-ops merger in Afghanistan,” Reuters, 3 December 2008.
97
Michael Hastings, “Another Runaway General: Army Deploys Psy-Ops on US Senators,” Rolling Stone,
24 February 2011.

26
This media, public, and political sensitivity has not abated over time as recent experiences in
Canada, the US and the UK attest. In Canada, multiple media reports over the course of 2020 of
several public missteps by CAF information-related capabilities led to four major internal
reviews of the activities, with findings that served to stall reform initiatives thereafter.98 In April
2022, the US Department of Homeland Security announced the creation of a Disinformation
Governance Board to “coordinate countering misinformation related to homeland security”
especially related to China, Russia, and violent extremists. The resulting media and pundit
firestorm in mainly right-wing media lasted three weeks before the initiative was put “on pause”
pending a review, and then abandoned shortly thereafter.99

In August 2021, the Pentagon awarded a US$979M contract over five years to help the US
Department of Defense “coordinate, collaborate and fuse information-related capabilities (IRC)
and information operations through effective messaging.”100 A year later, researchers publicly
exposed a decade-long operation of fake online activity including by persons associated with the
US military;101 in response, the Pentagon ordered a “sweeping audit” into how clandestine
information operations is conducted.102 Shortly after, Meta (formerly Facebook) confirmed they
had found and de-activated a number of fake social media accounts by individuals associated
with the US military targeting audiences in the Middle East and Central Asia.103 Other reporting,
drawing from Twitter internal documents, showed how that company helped US Central
Command manipulate the platform to construct anonymized accounts to reach audiences in the
Middle East in their primary language.104

98
See Brett Boudreau, “The Rise and Fall of Military Strategic Communications at National Defence
2015-2021: A Cautionary Tale for Canada and NATO, and a Roadmap for Reform,” Canadian Global
Affairs Institute, May 2022.
99
Nina Jankowitz, a well-regarded commentator about online disinformation particularly by Russia, was
named board chair. The unfortunately named board, and botched launch with little explanation or
socialization of the initiative immediately drew comparisons to the Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth’ with Fox
News leading the charge, fueling increasingly hostile personal attacks on her character and the Biden
Administration. The modest efforts to explain the initiative failed to counter criticism and within a month,
the board was disbanded and Jankowitz resigned. She is planning to sue Fox News for defamation; she
is crowdsourcing funds for the trial, and has been subpoenaed to appear before a new US Congress
Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Government. The incident illustrated many of the
challenges of tackling public policy in this space and serves as the definitive case study of “what not to
do.” See: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/08/former-biden-disinfo-chief-details-harassment-
00085981; and, https:// www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/05/18/disinformation-board-dhs-nina-
jankowicz/.
100
See: https://www.peraton.com/news/peraton-receives-nearly-1b-award-to-provide-u-s-government-to-
advance-national-security-objectives/.
101
Graphika and Stanford Internet Observatory, “Unheard Voice, Evaluating five years of pro-Western
covert influence operations,” 24 August 2022. See: https://public-
assets.graphika.com/reports/graphika_stanford_internet_observatory_report_unheard_voice.pdf.
Activity included nearly 300,000 Tweets on 146 accounts between 2012 and 2022, 39 profiles on
Facebook and 26 Instagram accounts from 2017 to July 2022. One fake account posted a tweet claiming
that bodies of deceased Afghan refugees were being returned to relatives were missing organs.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/19/pentagon-psychological-operations-
facebook-twitter/.
102
See: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/19/pentagon-psychological-
operations-facebook-twitter/.
103
See: https://cyberscoop.com/meta-blames-u-s-military-for-information-operation/, 22 November 2022.
104
See: https://theintercept.com/2022/12/20/twitter-dod-us-military-accounts/.

27
In January 2023, the UK civil liberties organization Big Brother Watch105 reported how
organizations within the UK Government, including 77 Brigade—the military’s information
activities and counter-disinformation unit—as part of a wider UK Government effort, monitored
and reported on UK citizens’ social media accounts regarding COVID disinformation. A detailed
account of 77 Brigade’s work was provided by a uniformed whistleblower who served with the
unit. UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace noted the unit “is not to be involved in regulating,
policing or even reporting opinion that it may or may not agree with,” and ordered an
investigation.106 The story bore similarities to events in Ontario involving “influence activities”
by members of the Canadian Army during the height of the COVID-19 crisis.107

These examples suggest to leaders four important take-aways that directly impact public trust in
Defence and their information-related activities, both international and domestic. First, is that
active debate continues to take place even amongst military practitioners of what are the
appropriate boundaries, tactics, tools, and authorities for their work. Sometimes, their concerns
even find expression in the media. In no small measure, this is due to the pace of technological
change and the introduction of new tools and features creating opportunities for new applications
and questions about what is and is not allowed—much faster than policy and practitioner
knowledge can keep up.108 Second, when these events do generate media attention, they tend to
result in senior authorities calling for reviews and investigations of the activities, as if the events
in question came as a total surprise to leaders and those providing oversight of such functions.
This generally results in temporary pauses or restrictions in types of training until investigations
are completed, makes leaders even more cautious about the capabilities, and otherwise slows
work in the field. Third, these events illustrate the premium on the value and importance of
appropriate policy, doctrine, training, and education in the related functions. And fourth, these
types of incidents illustrate the scale of the challenge—but also the absolute necessity—to
publicly explain the context and rationale of the need for effective military information-related
capability and capacity in the first place.

105
See: https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Ministry-of-Truth-Big-Brother-Watch-
290123.pdf.
106
See: https://www.forces.net/politics/army-monitoring-uk-citizens-social-media-posts-be-investigated-
ben-wallace-says.
107
See: https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/team-with-canadian-military-intelligence-
unit-data-mined-social-media-accounts-of-ontarians-during-pandemic.
108
For instance, in March 2023, US Special Forces Command issued a contracting request setting out a
wish-list of desired technologies to equip the 21st century special forces operator. This included advanced
technologies for PSYOPS practitioners to create “next generation” deep-fake, lifelike artificial intelligence-
enabled video forgeries to “generate messages and influence operations via non-traditional channels.”
The call for proposals also included a request for options to spy on propaganda targets through a “next
generation capability to ‘takeover Internet of Things (IoT) devices” that would enable teams to “craft and
promote messages that would be more readily received by local populace.” See:
https://theintercept.com/2023/03/06/pentagon-socom-deepfake-propaganda/. Capabilities of this sort are
coming to market faster than originally anticipated, and National Defence should plan to have discussions
about their own position on such developments.

28
Documentation & Content Review

Methodology. Important insight into the DND/CAF’s understanding of the information

environment, the disinformation problem set, and institutional views about relevant defence
capability shortcomings can be gleaned from a wide variety of open sources. These include: the
Strong Secure Engaged defence policy; reports and testimonies to Parliament; contracts for
communication services; senior leader statements and social media posts; online papers by senior
officers studying at the Canadian Forces College; publications on the DRDC website; National
Defence’s official professional publication Canadian Military Journal (billing itself online as a
“strategic media asset”) and Service publications; from recent key work inside the CAF to draft
and promulgate concept development papers; extant related policies; doctrine where publicly
available; institutional reviews and investigations of recent information-related capability
initiatives; and, key CDS/DM direction and guidance issued in 2020 and 2021.

Discussion. Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jonathan Vance came to the job (July 2015 to
January 2021) having considerable experience dealing with malign actor disinformation, from
multiple combat tours in command positions in the Balkans and Afghanistan. Vance was a keen
advocate to better align all Defence actions, words, and images to achieve desired strategic
outcomes in the information space.109 On becoming CDS, he directed thinking around how to
force develop more capable, fit-for-purpose information-related capabilities, including for
offensive purposes during conflict and times of tension under the threshold of combat.

This focus by Vance found overt expression in initiatives set out in the June 2017 SSE defence
policy. The policy acknowledged the threat from state and non-state malign actors, who “often
rely on the deliberate spread of misinformation to sow confusion and discord in the international
community, create ambiguity and maintain deniability.”110 In his foreward to SSE, then Defence
Minister Harjit Sajjan acknowledged that “we recognize the distinction between domestic and
international threats is becoming less relevant.”111 Of the eight core missions assigned to the
CAF, the first among equals was the broad imperative to “detect, deter and defend against threats
to or attacks on Canada.”

In that respect, four information-related capability SSE initiatives are notable. Initiative 65 aimed
to improve information operations capabilities, make investments in “situational awareness
projects,” and to develop “military-specific information operations and offensive cyber
operations capabilities able to target, exploit, influence and attack in support of military

109
The effort to transform how the CAF communicated more strategically, unfortunately was initially
characterized to internal audiences as an initiative to “weaponize” public affairs and reported as such in
media. In the face of immediate internal and external criticism the description was quickly changed to
“operationalize”, but the misstep hobbled the program from the start. In September 2017, Armed Forces
Council agreed to an initiative to “operationalize” public affairs and to enhance CAF capability in the
information domain (the ends), but without sufficiently clarifying the ways or means, and after several
public missteps the initiative was shuttered in November 2020 . As the senior-most Defence leaders
would later acknowledge, the various initiatives suffered from a lack of “institution-wide strategic level
direction and guidance” to ensure activities were “governed by appropriate authorities and oversight.”
110
National Defence, “Strong Secure Engaged, Canada’s Defence Policy,” June 2017, p. 53.
111
Strong Secure Engaged, p. 6.

29
operations.” Initiative 70 called for the addition of 300 new intelligence positions to improve
adversary targeting and thereby improve support to operations. Initiative 76 sought to enhance
existing roles for the Reserve Force, including confirming their lead as practitioners to conduct
information operations and influence activities including PSYOPS. Initiatives 88-89 identified
the intent to create a cyber operator occupation and to develop “active” cyber capabilities for use
in government-authorized missions “against potential adversaries.” Notably, SSE did not identify
any public affairs or strategic communications-related initiatives.112

In April 2018, the promulgation of the CDS/DM Policy on Joint Information Operation sought to
translate SSE information-related intent into actionable policy, establishing and/or confirming
accountabilities, responsibilities, and authorities. The defence mandate, the policy claimed,
meant the DND/CAF “may employ InfoOps in support of defence activities and operations,”
including “within Canada,” and directed that Info Ops be incorporated “in the earliest stages of
planning and throughout the conduct of operations.”113

In February 2019, then-CJOC commander Lt.-Gen. Michael Rouleau circulated his thought-
piece, How We Fight, artfully setting out views of how the nature of conflict was changing, and
what kind of joint force the CAF needed for the “future fight.” A key aspect of this analysis
included recognition that non-armed conflict with nation states was taking place every day in the
“grey zone,” “largely in the informational space which is fast becoming the CENTRAL theater
for strategic competition.”114 The SSE, Joint IO Policy, and How We Fight provided significant
policy direction and commander’s intent—How We Fight was intent not policy—to inform
further force concept development work, including in three important initiatives that while not
formally approved and issued, explain much of the work and thinking in this area within the
CAF during 2019-2020, and informed subsequent actions and activity.

The first of these three, the Pan-Domain Force Employment Concept (PFEC), was intended
“first and foremost, to initiate immediate changes to CAF force employment … a driver of
change starting today,” and thereby improve the CAF’s ability to fight and win in contested, all-
or ‘pan domain’ environment. The PFEC argued that adversaries operated effectively and often
simultaneously in six interrelated domains—maritime, land, air, space, cyber, and

112
Military leadership enabled and encouraged the senior military public affairs officer and team in ADM
Public Affairs to lead – if not officially then overtly and tacitly – the overall information-related capability
effort. By January 2018, the senior-most public affairs officers had adopted titles of Military Strategic
Communications and promoted their use in and outside the CAF. This suggested that the initiatives and
proponent lead for all related capabilities including StratCom, InfoOps, PSYOPS, and military deception,
was the responsibility of staff in ADM PA.
113
National Defence, “DND/CAF Policy on Joint Information Operations,” 3 April 2018. This policy also
identified the Director of Staff (DOS), head of the Strategic Joint Staff, as the functional authority for
InfoOps. A functional authority acts on behalf of the CDS or DM for an assigned area of responsibility,
and “sets standards, communicates clear expectations, issues binding functional direction, offers non-
binding functional advice and guidance, consults and obtains feedback, monitors to ensure compliance
with direction, and creates a management framework whereby the DM or CDS can hold senior
commanders and advisors across the organization accountable for compliance.” Ibid., p. 10, footnote 13.
114
Emphasis in the original. Lt.-Gen. Michael Rouleau, “How We Fight, Commander CJOC’s Thoughts,”
10 February 2019.

30
information115—and suggested a new framework to change institutional mindset about
developing, training, and employing CAF military capability to compete with, contest, and defeat
adversaries. To achieve this, the PFEC argued, the CAF “must develop deep expertise across all
domains, particularly in the newer and less understood space, cyber, and information domains,
and incorporate that expertise into operations."116

The Joint Information Operations Force Employment Concept (JIOFEC), another CJOC-led
initiative closely tied to the PFEC, described the requirement for major changes in how the CAF
developed related doctrine, force development, force generation, and force management of
information-related capabilities at the operational level. “The information theatre is the central
theatre of conflict moving forward,” noted the draft foreword attributed to Lt.-Gen. Rouleau,
such that even in the face of tactical battles won, “if you don’t have the information space or the
perception space settled, we are losing.”117

According to the DND/CAF Departmental Plan 2021-22, pending approval the JIOFEC “will
define the CAF’s functional approach to compete with, contest, confront, and, when necessary,
combat our nation’s adversaries in the information domain.”118 The document was unstinting in
its criticism of the “mindset issue in the CAF” respecting the function, noting: “there exists no
champion for the conduct of CAF InfoOps”; processes and structures “are no longer effective at
offering responses to modern operational problems”; and the CAF “have become irrelevant
actors within the IE.”119 A recurring critique levelled was that CAF leadership had not developed
a level of comfort at delegating authorities to conduct information operations outside of conflict
situations, claiming [albeit wrongly] the JIOFEC would “allow us to shift from a responsive
posture to an anticipatory posture vis-à-vis policy authorities, mandates and capabilities.”120

The Military Public Affairs Enhancement and Employment Concept (MPAEEC)—the third draft
concept paper in the series–was the product of the military strategic communications team in
ADM Public Affairs. The MPAEEC—like the other concept papers–was published in a glossy
PDF format designed to appear as if officially approved and was circulated widely; as such,
though ostensibly a draft, it led to significant organizational changes and spending.121

115
“Information” is often referred to as domain by military leaders and in documents but to recall, as of
March 2023, this is not yet DND/CAF agreed policy. (Source: interviewee for this report).
116
Canadian Joint Operations Command, “Pan-Domain Force Employment Concept,” draft 2019, p. 17.
117
Canadian Joint Operations Command, “Joint Information Operations Force Employment Concept,”
draft 2019, p. 2.
118
Department of National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces, “Departmental Plan 2021-22,” page 13.
Work on the JOIFEC was overtaken by CDS/DM direction in November 2020 to “reset” the information-
related capability initiatives; the JOIFEC is not named in the DND/CAF Departmental Plan 2022-23.
119
Joint Information Operations Force Employment Concept, p. 21.
120
Ibid., p. 5.
121
Subsequently, though, the CDS and DM determined that the “effort to expand [the]formal range of
duties of Public Affairs Officers into the IO/IA domain, including the draft [military public affairs]
Enhancement and Employment Concept paper, was incompatible with [government] Communications
Policy … and PA principles.” Department of National Defence, “CDS/DM Directive – Response to
Reviews of Information Operations and Information Activities,” 09 June 2021.

31
The MPAEEC summarized the institutional outlook as follows:

Currently the wider CAF does not adequately understand the information
environment, does not have the expertise required to act effectively, is not
properly coordinating activities and information across the enterprise, and has
little ability to determine if actions are achieving strategic effect … [resulting
in] ineffectual engagement in the military information domain and global
information environment.122

The MPAEEC made a case that over the course of the last two decades “civilian-led”
organizational changes in ADM PA had diluted the military component of the joint enterprise,
leading to a “lack of focus on martial imperatives,” and a “corporate mindset among some PAOs
and Image Techs.” 123 The paper detailed five deficiencies within the military public affairs
community, specifically: insufficient military culture, expertise and readiness; reactive, rather
than strategic-driven engagement; ineffectual management of visual communications; lack of
innovation; and, insufficient CAF capability and mindsets.124 In early November 2020, the
Ottawa Citizen ran this front-page headline: “Canadian military to establish new organization to
use propaganda, other techniques to influence Canadians,” citing details of the MPAEEC.
Though the Defence Minister’s office issued a denial, days later Gen. Vance directed the end of
the experiment, and within a week he and Deputy Minister Jody Thomas issued direction and
guidance to “reset” the information-related capability initiative.125

This “reset” document is key to understanding the evolution of the subject at National Defence.
Four reasons for sub-optimal outcomes to that point were described: insufficient guidance to
staff regarding authorities and responsibilities that led people to work independently, a
consequence of a lack of oversight and accountability; whole functions lacked doctrine or policy
let alone updated versions of the same; terminology had not evolved with time and need; and, a
“learn by doing “domestic trial and error mentality that led to multiple public missteps and much
internal and external misunderstanding of Defence’s intent.

The CDS/DM guidance was direct about the main reason for the lack of progress: the various
information-related capability initiatives require “an entity that provides for the synchronization
of pan-domain effects, including communications, with enabling, well understood authorities.
This function does not presently exist in DND/CAF and consequently, various staffs have
worked independently.”126 The inevitable consequence was that “change initiatives have thus
proceeded along discrete tracks without sufficient touch points between them to ensure an
integrated approach.”127

122
National Defence, Military Public Affairs Enhancement and Employment Concept (October 2020 draft),
p. 9.
123
Ibid., p. 8.
124
Ibid., p. 8-9.
125
National Defence, CDS/DM Planning Guidance – Enhancing Operational and Institutional
Communications – Resetting the Information-Related Capability Initiatives. 12 November 2020.
126
Ibid., p. 5.
127
A subsequent review directed by Gen. Vance in December 2020 to learn why an InfoOps annex had
been issued by CJOC during the Operation LASER pandemic response offered additional explanation.
The Command Process Review by Maj.-Gen. (Ret’d) Daniel Gosselin determined that CJOC “loosely

32
The CDS/DM also assigned 74 tasks to 13 offices to take work forward including these four key
lines of effort:128

• A review of all information environment-related terminology, doctrine and policies;

• Creation of a deliberate and effective approach to force generate qualified military and
civilian practitioners in the various domains with “clear sustainable career paths to force
generate and employ skilled practitioners in the respective capabilities;”
• A complete professional development needs analysis as well as doctrinal and policy
refresh/development for all IRCs and concepts; and,
• The SJS/DOS and ADM Policy were designated as co-lead functional authorities for
strategic communication, the first time such a determination was made (the ADM Public
Affairs has long been the functional authority for public affairs and unclassified imagery;
and the DOS is the functional authority for IO courtesy of the 2018 Joint IO Policy).

As that Guidance was being promulgated, the Canadian Army was dealing with reputational fall-
out over a PSYOPS exercise in Nova Scotia gone wrong, with a training scenario featuring “fake
wolves,” having generated national and international media coverage.129 In addition to a
summary investigation of that incident, the army undertook a broader review of the PSYOPS
function as part of the “influence activity” capability suite (Civil-Military Cooperation or
CIMIC, IO, and PSYOPS). That review detailed a wide range of significant shortcomings in the
PSYOPS function more than three years after the declaration of SSE’s “reinvestment” intent,
including: no doctrine or field publication, no means for sustainable force generation, an
organizational structure (combining CIMIC with IO and PSYOPS) unique to Canada amongst
NATO countries, almost no functioning equipment, few trained and qualified personnel, and no
course to educate CAF leadership “on how to properly employ their elements … in both a
domestic and operational context.”130

The issue of “what to do” about the various warning signs and evidence detailing things amiss in
capabilities central to the information fight weighed on senior leaders. In June 2021, the findings
of four internal reviews examining missteps involving information-related capabilities the year
previous (intelligence collection, “fake wolves,” influence activities, release of the InfoOps
Annex)–plus concerns around the Mil StratCom initiative–were summarized and conclusions
issued in a CDS/DM Directive, that was made available to select media. The two senior Defence
leaders confirmed that “sometimes insular mindsets” had hurt institutional reputation and public

interpreted” the 2018 Joint Information Operations Policy and wrongly assumed they had authority to
independently conduct information operations activities in Canada. Gosselin also found a “palpable,
dismissive attitude … where strategic-level [NDHQ] advice and considerations were considered to be of
limited relevance for those responsible to plan and conduct operations [at CJOC].” Maj.-Gen. Daniel
Gosselin, Command Process Review – CJOC Information Operations Directives,” 28 December 2020.
128
The status of this and all other work directed in the Guidance is not publicly available at this time.
129
David Pugliese, “Forged letter warning about wolves on the loose part of Canadian Forces
propaganda campaign that went awry,” Ottawa Citizen, 14 October 2020. See:
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/forged-letter-warning-about-wolves-on-the-loose-
part-of-canadian-forces-propaganda-campaign-that-went-awry.
130
Canadian Army Doctrine and Training Centre Headquarters, Review of Influence Activities Function
Within the Canadian Army, 27 January 2021.

33
confidence, and created “confusion about the necessity to enhance our ability to conduct
operations in the information environment.” 131

The CDS and DM determined the military public affairs effort was “incompatible” with
government policy and surprisingly, acknowledged a lack of “institution-wide strategic level
direction and guidance” to build information-related capabilities that were “governed by
appropriate authorities and oversight.”132 Several key tasks were assigned, including:

• Refresh by Nov 2021 the DND/CAF Policy on Joint Information Operations;

• Finalize by Nov 2021 a Defence Strategic Communications initiating directive; and,
• Finalize by Dec 2021 a revised DND/CAF social media policy.133

Doctrine, Corporate Administrative Direction, and Orders. Canadian military doctrine, corporate
administrative direction (Defence Administrative Orders and Directives (DAODs)) and
regulations having the force of law (King’s Regulations and Orders) provide real insight into the
state, condition, and quality of institutional thinking about the concepts, functions, and
capabilities pertinent to this study, and whether these are “fit-for-purpose.” These collected
works provide an important touchpoint to help understand the extent to which an inform-
persuade-influence mindset, associated processes, and related capabilities (that is, excluding
technical applications like cyber and EW) form part of institutional mindset–and thus, a bulwark
against disinformation and foreign interference.

Doctrine. Military doctrine expresses fundamental principles that guide actions in support of
objectives: doctrine “represents the distilled insights and wisdom gained from experience,” and
“provides the framework within which military operations are planned and executed.”134
Capstone and lower-level doctrine drives thinking, resources, and decisions about force
development, force generation, force management, and force employment. Doctrine is also a key
component that informs military professional development and training. Former chief of the land
staff retired Lt.-Gen. Mike Jeffrey suggests doctrine development is “the foundation of
maintaining the Army’s relevance to the nation” and a “critical stewardship responsibility of the
Army leadership” that must be driven from the top, not bottom-up by staff officers.135

The process of creating, promulgating, and updating doctrine is very time- and resource-
consuming, and maintaining currency is a particular challenge for small and medium-sized
militaries like Canada. Publishing joint doctrine is a degree of difficulty higher still, given the
requirement for the close engagement with and explicit agreement of multiple Services and
different functional authorities. An even higher hurdle is to update NATO military policy and
joint doctrine, with 30 nations having to agree (under the consensus rule, not all have to say
“yes,” but no-one can say “no”). Refreshing the breadth of one’s doctrine is a constant, never-

131
National Defence, CDS/DM Directive - Response to Reviews of Information Operations and Influence
Activities, 9 June 2021, p. 2.
132
Ibid., p. 7.
133
As of 15 March 2023, the status of work of these pieces is not publicly available.
134
Canadian Forces, Joint Publication CFJP A1 Doctrine Development Manual, January 2010.
135
Lt.-Gen. (Ret’d) Mike Jeffery, “Doctrine Development in Canada’s Army In The 1990s,” Canadian Army
Journal, Vol. 17.1 (2016).

34
ending cyclical process because as soon as updated functional or joint doctrine in one area is
promulgated, related fields are bound to be affected and require amendment.

The present state of CAF information-related capability doctrine is grim, but shows signs of
improvement on the horizon perhaps two to three years hence. Substantial updates of CFJP 01
Canadian Military Doctrine (2009) and CFJP 2-0 Intelligence (2011) are in process. The last
version of CFJP 3-0 Operations dates from 2011. The last version of PSYOPS doctrine (CFJP 3-
10.1) dates from 2004, and Joint PA doctrine from 2007—an update of the latter is in progress,
optimistically for release in 2025.136 The last iteration of Canadian Info Ops doctrine is from
1998, though notably, a draft CFJP 3-10 Operations in the Info Environment is now in
circulation for comment.137 There is no doctrine for Influence Activities (a construct particular to
Canada of InfoOps, PSYOPS and CIMIC), and the latest CFJP 9-0 CIMIC doctrine dates from
1999.138 This situation stands in stark contrast to key allies the UK and US, and in NATO, whose
policies and doctrine are much more current.139

Senior DND/CAF leaders have recently observed that:

CAF doctrine has become less effective and relevant because a number of key
doctrinal documents have not been updated. As a result, responsibilities and
authorities expressed in policies, doctrine and directives for all types of
activities conducted in the information domain for domestic operations are not
clearly understood. Moreover, ‘concept’ documents have been championed by
senior CAF leaders as surrogates for obsolete doctrine, yet they have lacked
policy cover to ensure alignment with [government] intent and executive leader
approval, and have thus been mistaken as authoritative.140

The lack of updated policy and Canadian military doctrine in all of the related areas suggests
major gaps and shortcomings in how the inform-persuade-influence cognitive domain
capabilities are force developed, generated, managed, employed, and supported. By definition,
this would be expected to lead to sub-optimal force-wide professional development, education,

136
DND Media Liaison Office e-mail to author, 28 February 2023.
137
Interview with report participant.
138
Following the 27 January 2021 review of the influence activity function by the Canadian Army Doctrine
and Training Headquarters, there remains ongoing discussion within the Canadian Army about the
disposition and organization of CIMIC, PSYOPS and InfoOps and the particular construct of ‘influence
activities’, the Influence Activity Task Force, and the role of CIMIC domestically.
139
The UK has recently published a significant body of quality content in this area including: Joint
Concept Note 2/18 Joint Information Advantage (September 2018); Joint Doctrine Note 2/19 Defence
Strategic Communication: An Approach to Formulating and Executing Strategy (May 2019); and, UK Joint
Operations JDP 01 (November 2022). Notable recent U.S. military doctrine includes: the U.S. Army’s
Communication Strategy and Public Affairs Operations (FM 3-61) in February 2022, JP 3-0 Joint
Operations (June 2022); and Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication MCDP 8 Information (February 2023).
Even NATO, with the toughest doctrine development challenge of them all, published Allied Joint Doctrine
for Information Operations (AJP10.1) in February 2023, and a bi-strategic command Public Affairs
Handbook in May 2020.
140
CDS/DM Directive—Response to Reviews of Information Operations and Influence Activities, 9 June
2021.

35
and training in all these areas–including capabilities on the public “front-lines” of the CAF’s
efforts to deal with disinformation.

Defence Administrative Orders and Directives (DAODs). The Public Affairs DAOD-2008 series,
issued under the authority of the CDS and DM, sets out how the public affairs function is
organized, governed, and operates during “routine” periods of activity, in times of crisis, and on
operations. Per the DND website, there are presently ten DAODs in the series, six of them being
the originals from 1998, including “media relations,” “planning and program delivery,” and
surprisingly, “internet publishing.” That is, nearly two-thirds of the directives governing Defence
public affairs pre-date by nearly a decade the invention of the iPhone (2007).141

King’s Regulations and Orders (KR&Os). The KR&Os that govern the DND/CAF
communications function are more than two decades old, though read as if written and instituted
at the start of the Cold War. For instance, the key order, 19.36 Disclosure of Information or
Opinion, instructs that no CAF member without permission can “deliver publicly, or record for
public delivery, either directly or through the medium of radio or television, a lecture, discourse
or answers to questions relating to a military subject.” Other regulations include: no member can
without permission, “prepare a paper or write a script on any military subject for delivery or
transmission to the public”; or “publish the member’s opinions on any military question that is
under consideration by superior authorities;” or, “take part in public in a discussion relating to
orders, regulations or instructions issued by the member’s superiors.”142

The antiquated DAODs and KR&Os point to a problematic and deeply systemic condition that
negatively and unnecessarily impacts the ability of the public affairs functional authority (ADM
PA) to lead and manage Defence public communications, particularly in an information domain
or threat environment that moves and changes so rapidly.143 Though outdated orders and
directives create confusion about what is in the art of the possible in the public communication
space, there are offsets of note: Government of Canada/Treasury Board guidelines are fairly
regularly updated and modernized; public affairs is a long-standing, entrenched and well-
resourced capability throughout the DND/CAF; and senior DND/CAF leadership on balance
recognizes, appreciates, and supports the function as an important institutional and
organizational asset.

141
The 2008- Public Affairs series consists of (indicating date issued): -00 Public Affairs (1998); -01
Accountability and Responsibility for Public Affairs (1998) ; -02 Media Relations and Public
Announcements (1998); -03 Issue and Crisis Management (2003); -04 Public Affairs, Military Doctrine
and Canadian Forces Operations (1998); -05 Public Affairs Planning and Program Delivery (1998); -06
Internet Publishing (1998); -08 Official Use of Social Media (2018); -09 Public Opinion Research (2019); -
10 Advertising, Publishing and Visual Identity (2022). The DAOD 2008-07 Canadian Forces
Parliamentary Program DAOD was struck several years ago. See: https://www.canada.ca/en/department-
national-defence/corporate/policies-standards/defence-administrative-orders-directives/2000-
series/2008.html.
142
See: https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/corporate/policies-standards/queens-
regulations-orders/vol-1-administration/ch-19-conduct-discipline.html.
143
For example, the November 2020 CDS/DM “reset” of information-related capabilities Guidance
document directed that the “social media” DAOD be revised—despite the policy being issued just two
years before.

36
Other DND/CAF Publications: Papers, Journals, Social Media. Given the CAF’s significant
operational experiences especially in Afghanistan and the Middle East over the last two decades,
the centrality of “information,” influence, behaviour modification, and perception management
in such environments against malign actors might suggest the subject is of considerable interest
to researchers, leaders, students, and practitioners. A review of other publicly available, on-line
DND/CAF publications and content, does not indicate this to be the case.144

The Canadian Forces College is “Canada’s centre of excellence for joint operational and national
strategic levels of professional military education,” preparing select senior CAF/DND officers,
officials and international students for key joint staff and senior leader appointments.145 A review
of the titles of the some 1,800 staff papers published online indicates only about 35 are directly
and overtly related to examinations of inform-persuade-influence information-related capabilities
including issues of force development and force employment.146 Nearly all are less than five
years old, suggesting a kernel of more recent military academic interest in the subject. At Royal
Military College (RMC), the level of prospective military academic interest in advanced degrees
is less obvious, since these papers are not publicly available on the RMC website. Notably
though, of the 33 research groups, centres, or institutes identified as being affiliated with RMC,
all but one are chemistry or physics-related, the Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran
Health Research being the sole outlier.

The subject features even more rarely in the DND/CAF’s Canadian Military Journal, its flagship
professional development publication “fostering intellectual discussion and debate on defence
and security issues.” A review of online issues going back 10 years reveals only two (non-book
review) articles of obvious direct interest to this study. One paper, by the senior military PAO in
the CAF at the time, argued that in order to break through the chaos of the information
environment and generate desired effects among populations, the CAF and public affairs
practitioners needed to move beyond an “inform” function and adopt “ethical influence” as an
operating principle, on the grounds that all communications at some level are meant to influence.
The paper also suggested the employment of InfoOps personnel and techniques in domestic CAF

144
This curious situation is perhaps explained in part by soldier/scholar Howard Coombs, who argues
“The CAF is not intellectually inquisitive regarding the knowledge required by the Canadian profession of
arms.” See “Left out of Battle: Professional Discourse in the Canadian Armed Forces,” in Canadian
Military Journal, Vol. 18, No. 3, Summer 2018. A review of reports available on the DRDC website
returned three specifically examining “disinformation” and a very small sampling of other works related to
the field in general. A media search seeking to identify whether any of this research has informed media
or public discussion or debate did not turn up any “hits.”
145
Canadian Forces College website; see https://www.cfc.forces.gc.ca/221-eng.html.
146
This figure includes the 1,044 research papers of the Master of Defence Studies component of the
Joint Command and Staff Programme (JCSP), 740 JCSP staff papers and 21 National Strategic
Programme papers posted online. The methodology used: online search function for keywords
“psychological,” “information” and “disinformation” provided a sampling to review the paper title and paper
summary. A review of all titles of the entire online holdings (and a read of the paper’s summary where
needed) was done to confirm the subject matter if the paper title did not contain the keywords. The
subject of disinformation specifically, is addressed in three papers: Maj. Timothy Caines, “Russian
Menace: Is the Canadian Government Capable of Countering Russian Disinformation,” (2019); Maj.
Richard Seidel, “Digital Misogyny: Social Media Based Gendered Disinformation Campaigns and Their
Impact on Gender Equality” (2021); and, Maj. Dustin Slimser, “The Threat That Disinformation Poses to
Liberal Democracies” (2022).

37
roles under public affairs doctrine and guidelines of “ethical influence,” so long as the
communication was “truthful, transparent and helpful.”147

The second paper, by a combat arms officer who served tours doing InfoOps in Baghdad with
coalition forces and with the Canadian-led battle group in Latvia, wrote that in his latter
experience the headquarters did not have capability to identify information attacks, their source
or impact; support from higher headquarters in Canada was “limited at best”; only four of the
nine military staff in that group had relevant training; there was no dedicated budget, nor
translators or cultural advisors; and, “task force planning and activities are focused almost
exclusively on the conventional kinetic capabilities … the mission is seen in terms of deterring
and if necessary defending Latvia against a conventional Russian attack.”148 The Canadian Army
Journal, published just 12 times in the last 10 years, offers surprisingly little content about
‘influence activities’ (IA), considering nearly all such CAF capability resides within the Army.
One piece, though, offers especially keen insight into the situation:149

The most pressing challenge in the area of targeting and effects is the lack of a clear
definition of, or responsibilities for, non-kinetic (i.e., influence) targeting and of any
doctrine, policy, or tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) to guide activities in this
domain. This has been noted across operations and exercises over the last decade, in
particular at the Divisional level. In addition, there is no non-kinetic equivalent of
Collateral Damage Estimate (CDE) methodology when developing a target folder, and
the non-kinetic equivalent of Battle Damage Assessment (BDA), which can be loosely
interpreted as Measures of Effectiveness (MOE), remains (for the most part)
underdeveloped.150

The article, written in 2013, reflects lessons learned from brigade and division exercises from the
decade previous. Tellingly, the article reads remarkably like the Canadian Army and CAF
situation in 2023.

Social Media. There are 141 official DND/CAF social media accounts registered with the
Government of Canada’s “Principal Publisher,” with another approximately 700 unofficial
accounts under review to determine their status: social media efforts are focused on Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube, and Pinterest.151 A limited review of the major
DND/CAF social media accounts152 over the last year demonstrates a very wide breadth, scale,

147
See Brig.-Gen. Jay Janzen, “What if the Pen is a Sword: Communicating in a Chaotic, Sensational,
and Weaponized Information Environment,” Canadian Military Journal, vol. 19, No. 4, Autumn 2019. The
article presaged several problematic aspects of the military public affairs reform initiative to come that the
CDS and DM in June 2021 characterized as “incompatible” with government policy and counter to
Defence public affairs principles.
148
Major Chris Wattie, “Bringing a Knife to a Gunfight: Canadian Strategic Communications and
Information Operations in Latvia, Operation Reassurance 2019-2020,” Canadian Military Journal, vo. 21,
no. 1, Winter 2020.
149
The Canadian Army Journal is undergoing a welcome revival.
150
Matthew Lauder, The Janus Matrix: Lessons Learned and Building an Integrated Influence Capability
for the Future Security Environment,” The Canadian Army Journal, 15;2, Autumn 2013, p. 35.
151
Email from Media Liaison Office to author, 28 February, 2023.
152
The principal social media platform of choice for DND/CAF to publicly communicate about information-
related capability information and counter disinformation content is assessed to be Twitter. Interestingly,

38
and scope of engagement on social media, this being an important part of any anti- or counter-
disinformation campaign strategy (Table 2 refers). From this brief examination, it can be fairly
said that in the last year, the CJOC Twitter account is the one account that features an obviously
deliberate effort to regularly address mis- and disinformation issues relating to the CAF.

Table 2: Statistical Overview: Key DND/CAF Twitter Accounts

(as of 21 February 2023)

Account Owner Twitter Handle Account Start Tweets/RTs Followers

ADM PA @CanadianForces Oct 2008 22,900 164.7K
ADM PA @NationalDefence Oct 2008 4410 30.2K
MND @AnitaAnand Feb 2012 14,200 76.5K
CDSO @CDS_Canada_CEMD Apr 2016 3847 38.3K
DM @DMDND_SMMDN Nov 2017 3537 6.8K
CJOC @CFOperations Sep 2011 12,100 68.2K
CJOC @Comd_CJOC_COIC Oct 2020 580 1,650
RCN @RoyalCanNavy Dec 2011 18,500 64.5K
RCN @Comd_RCN Nov 2011 10,700 12.9K
CA @CanadianArmy Oct 2008 14,500 100.1K
CA @Army_Comd_Armee Dec 2010 5,165 15.7K
RCAF @RCAF_ARC Nov 2013 18,300 96.3K
RCAF @RCAFOperations May 2021 785 8.1K

Key Take-Aways: Documentation Review

• The SSE identifies the “changing nature of conflict” as one of three key security
trends, noting state and non-state actors increasingly use hybrid methods including
disinformation to undermine credibility of national governments and alliances.

• The Strong Secure Engaged defence policy identified a need to enhance offensive
InfoOps and PSYOPS tactical capability, but did not detail any public affairs or
strategic communication-related initiatives.

• Senior-most DND/CAF leaders acknowledge a lack of institution-wide strategic level

direction and guidance to build inform-persuade-influence information-related
capabilities (InfoOps, PSYOPS, strategic communication) that are governed by
appropriate authorities, oversight, and accountability.

• The CDS and DM declared that a military strategic communications/military public

affairs initiative (to November 2020) sought to formally expand Defence Public
Affairs into InfoOps and Influence Activities areas, this being “incompatible” with
government policy and against organizational PA principles.

the three organizations with designated functional authorities for information-related capabilities (SJS for
InfoOps, ADM Policy/SJS for strategic communications, and ADM Public Affairs for public affairs and
unclassified imagery—do not have Twitter accounts).

39
• Public missteps with respect to the development of information capabilities and
insufficient communication about these initiatives have resulted in reputational
damage to DND/CAF, public/elected officials/Central Agency/media
misunderstanding of Defence’s intent, and stalled progress of initiatives.

• An entity to provide synchronization of effort for inform-persuade-influence

capabilities delivering pan-domain effects with enabling, well understood authorities
still does not exist in DND/CAF (nor is one forecast). As a result, various staffs have
pursued change initiatives independently in discrete silos without sufficient touch
points between them to ensure an integrated approach.

• Nearly two-thirds of the directives governing Defence public affairs pre-date by nearly
a decade the invention of the iPhone. The KR&Os that govern the DND/CAF
communications function are more than two decades old, though read as if written and
instituted at the start of the Cold War.

• Relevant operational doctrine is outdated and functional doctrine either does not exist,
or is seriously outdated (up to 25 years old), though current initiatives show signs of
improvement on the horizon. The lack of updated Canadian military doctrine in all of
the related areas leads to notable shortcomings in how the inform-influence-persuade
capabilities are force developed, generated, managed, employed, and supported–
negatively impacting how the force is trained to operate in the information
environment.

• In November 2020, the CDS and DM directed three major reform lines of effort: a
review of all information environment-related terminology, doctrine and policies;
creation of a force generation approach to develop and employ qualified and skilled
military with clear sustainable career paths in the respective capabilities; and, a
complete professional development needs analysis for all IRCs and concepts. As of
March 2023, it is not clear that any of these have progressed.

• The Strategic Joint Staff/Director of Staff (SJS/DOS) and ADM Policy were
designated as co-lead functional authorities for Defence strategic communications in
November 2020. The SJS/DOS was designated as the functional authority for InfoOps
in April 2018. The ADM Public Affairs is the long-standing functional authority for
public affairs and unclassified imagery.

40
Key Findings: Tackling Disinformation

The following key findings are drawn from and informed by multiple sources including a review
of notable literature about the information environment; related media reporting and social
media; observations and conclusions by DND officials/CAF leaders from unclassified Defence
reviews, reports and investigations; and, 31 semi-structured interviews with select senior military
officers (several with responsibility for joint capability development, or having employed
information-related assets in combat), senior civilian officials/thought leaders, and subject matter
experts in the information field. The 25 Key Findings are grouped in five thematic areas:
Situational Overview, Mindset, Process, Capabilities, and Organizational Effort.

Situational Overview
1. Public (external and internal) trust in the institution is the key variable. Measures to
tackle disinformation, while important, can miss the fundamental, underlying reason why
the scourge has particular impact, including the declining measure of public trust and
confidence in government, institutions and governance leadership. Society-wide “trust
deficit,” “truth decay,” and polarization are consequences of, and fueled by
disinformation (and its cousin, malign influence activities). As such, it is insufficient to
view the current situation through a narrow lens just as an information problem: this leads
to an undue focus on technological or legislative solutions such as removing or
interdicting information, regulation to reduce access to “bad” information, and efforts to
increase “good” information as a counterweight. A critical element to reduce the impact
of disinformation is to establish and maintain solid organizational reputation and
institutional credibility, this being based on a foundation of excellent reasons for trust and
confidence on the part of internal and external audiences in what national institutions and
their leaders say and do, and how they act.

2. Strategic-level direction, guidance, planning and oversight is a prerequisite, but is

lacking. In June 2017, the Strong Secure Engaged defence policy set out several
initiatives to develop and enhance military-specific information operations. In June 2021,
though, the CDS and DM determined “the various information-related capabilities have
suffered from a lack of institution-wide strategic level direction and guidance to grow a
joint CAF and integrated DND/CAF capability that is professionalized, sustainable, and
governed by appropriate authorities and oversight.” Nearly two years later, it is not
obvious if the specified shortfalls have been rectified or whether the institution is
demonstrably further along in realizing the desired end-state.

3. Significant extant and prospective capability–problem is mindset, not level of resources.

Considerable capacity and capability exists now in the DND/CAF to fight mis- and
disinformation that impacts National Defence, and (in more limited applications) against
Government partners more broadly. Notably, this extant largesse remains largely
untapped. The upside possibilities stem from being: the largest federal government
department; having the largest discretionary budget; a key mandate ultimately affecting
all Canadians; the breadth of international and domestic activities conducted often in
public view; the wide dispersion of its people across the country and in multiple locations
around the world (NATO HQs, exchanges, deployments, as attachés or liaison officers,

41
 etc.); relatively favourable conditions for members to engage with the public and media;
and, capable public communication assets including a sizeable public affairs and
imagery/combat camera component. A key factor is the high level of trust by the
Canadian public in serving members (relative to other national institutions), and a
positive view overall of the organization and its senior leaders (recent military sexual
misconduct and culture change media coverage notwithstanding). The fundamental
challenge is to create conditions of “right mindset” to inform the effective organization of
information-related functions to extract maximum efficiencies and achieve desired effects
in the informational space from all DND/CAF capabilities and capacities.

“Doing better” will require senior leader acknowledgement that a key shortcoming is the
current approach to organizing the assets, directing the effort, and tracking outcomes.
Implicated groups within the DND/CAF for years have insisted the main constraint is “a
lack of resources,” and over time various capabilities have all independently obtained
incrementally more resources. The stovepipes got bigger, but not any better connected.
The reality is the current investment level, particularly the number of assigned positions,
is very considerable. At issue is a highly inefficient distribution and employment of
extant resources with major deficiencies in policy, process, governance, oversight,
regulations, administrative, and functional authorities, as well as mechanisms to
understand and exert senior leader direction and guidance.

4. Long treated as a CAF public affairs & army reserve problem, not as an integrated, joint
requirement. The inform-persuade-influence cognitive domain capabilities have long
been viewed and treated essentially as an issue for public affairs to fix, or as an Army
Reserve Force wicked problem and liability. The impacts and consequences of
technological change in the information space have accumulated and aggregated over
time, but faster than leaders and practitioners could adapt. There has not been one
“decisive transformational moment” in the informational space to drive necessary
institutional change and reform (such as 9/11, the Somalia crisis, or military sexual
misconduct), and so a “pre-Internet” organizational mindset and status quo remains baked
in. The need is for an enterprise-wide, joint, integrated command-led military/civilian
capability with skilled practitioners operating with fit-for-purpose policies, appropriate
authorities, effective governance, and real oversight to support domestic and overseas
activities and operations up to and including combat.

5. The institution is spooked: progress on information-related capabilities has atrophied.

Recent public missteps left unexplained or poorly explained by the CAF, including the
military strategic communications initiative deemed by the CDS and DM as being
“incompatible” with Government policy and against Defence PA principles, led to
considerable national and international media attention and reputational damage. This has
seriously spooked the CAF, and for more than two years has all but paralyzed efforts
across the institution to progress important information-related capability reforms at the
necessary speed.

42
Mindset
6. Institutional transparency will translate to more trust, and a more resilient force.
Improving transparency inside and outside Defence about routine and special activities,
operations, and decision-making is a critical factor for organizational reputation,
institutional credibility, and for improving external and internal trust in the DND/CAF
and its leadership. The DND/CAF’s risk tolerance respecting information classification,
handling, and release is low, as is its inclination and aptitude to proactively provide
informed context and perspective about many of its issues, activities, and decisions. This
ingrained aspect of professional culture feeds internal and external distrust, and acts as a
super-powered accelerant for disinformation.

7. Identify the “one neck to choke” to lead related reform effort. There is no strategic
command HQ, no lead general/flag officer, and no obvious mechanism to drive reform
and coordinate the effort required in the information-related capability space: authorities,
responsibilities and accountabilities are scattered throughout the DND/CAF. It is here
where the lack of a Strategic Command HQ (the CJOC is an operational, not strategic
level HQ) to nest responsibility for joint capabilities is profoundly felt.

Without a Strategic Command as an option, Defence’s ability to more effectively operate

in the information environment against malign actor disinformation is further
encumbered by designating the extremely busy Director of Staff (DOS) in the Strategic
Joint Staff (SJS) as functional authority for InfoOps, and the DOS and ADM Policy as
co-functional authorities for Strategic Communications (StratCom), but assigning limited
staff. This is highly problematic in practise since InfoOps and StratCom are continuously
active, 24/7 processes across the domestic, overseas, peace-, and war-time spectrum
though not functions or capabilities in their own right. They are intrinsic to all DND/CAF
actions, activities, and operations, they dominate the media and political landscape daily,
and they require constant assessment, analysis, and attention. Issuing direction and/or
guidance to impact the informational space within this organizational framework is
fraught with challenge. In contrast, ADM Public Affairs rightly is designated the
functional authority for DND/CAF public affairs and unclassified imagery: PA is a real
function and actual capability, with nearly 1,000 civilian and military personnel
embedded throughout the organization to carry out its various tasks and responsibilities.

8. No effective “5F” capability lead to force generate, manage, develop, employ, support. A
burst of important communication-related reforms followed in the post-Somalia crisis
period of the mid- to late 1990s, mostly under Defence Ministers David Collenette and
Doug Young. Institutional thinking and organization of effort regarding the “5F”s (force
generation, management, development, employment and support) of the inform-
persuade-influence cognitive domain capabilities has advanced little since. With no
organizational strategy or champion, no career path (excepting PA), and modest relevant
education and training, the attraction for prospective practitioners to join and the
incentive to remain in the respective fields is minimal. This situation is a significant
constraint to building professional, sustainable DND/CAF capability and functionality to
more effectively operate in the informational space.

43
9. Related policy, doctrine, orders, & legislation are antiquated & unfit-for-purpose. Nearly
all extant regulations and administrative orders governing the DND/CAF public
communications function are more than two decades old. For instance, the “internet
publishing” Defence Administrative Order and Directive is the original from 1998, and
the King’s Regulation & Order public “disclosure of information or opinion” regulations
date from 2000. This situation is a significant constraint to leveraging the full
information-related capability and capacity of the institution.

10. Shift to a proactive deliberate strategy from an ad-hoc reactive approach. Putting a
priority on “countering” disinformation, at its heart is a reactive and insufficient strategy
that cedes considerable ground to adversaries, who can create and distribute vast amounts
of content at will. Being effective in a continuously crowded information space demands
a multi-pronged proactive approach along multiple, concurrent lines of effort, including
actions, and communication of actions.

Process
11. Know the baseline. A comprehensive baseline understanding for the total resources spent
on people plus operations and maintenance of the DND/CAF inform-influence-persuade
cognitive domain information-related capabilities—and how that has changed over
time—does not appear to exist. The lack of such quantitative facts hampers the ability of
senior leaders and functional authorities to make informed decisions about the various
capabilities’ force development, management, employment, resource allocations, and
work priorities to improve outcomes. This inhibits efforts to build joint, integrated, and
whole-of-government capability.

12. Learn from benchmarks. A solid understanding of the organization and approach by other
benchmark nations (like the UK or Australia) and other major international organization
benchmarks (like NATO HQ Brussels or the EU) regarding the inform-persuade-
influence cognitive domain capabilities to inform DND/CAF efforts, still does not appear
to exist (or if it does, is not widely shared and understood).

13. Adopt “open source” information-related policy development. It is now a well-

established pattern at National Defence to develop inform-persuade-influence cognitive
domain policy in a vacuum and within functional silos. Lead agents within the CAF are
not just hesitant, but severely allergic to actively engaging outside actors and
stakeholders—even if those actors are deeply informed, well connected, and highly
experienced—to inform policy as it is being progressively elaborated. This is especially
problematic given that most policy development is done by overworked and understaffed
leads doing their level-best, but often having modest, directly relevant experience in the
informational space. With some regularity, the final policy or draft concept then meets
the reality of public attention and in the absence of active CAF explanation about intent
or content, is savaged in media and, upon subsequent “top-down” direction, is withdrawn
or sent back to the drawing board.

44
 Representatives speaking to groups about what Defence thinks about a subject does not
constitute active two-way informed stakeholder engagement: this is instead, a “briefing”
or “presentation.” To obtain better policy and better outcomes, this approach should
change. A “closed system” policy development approach perpetuates group-think and
misses the opportunity to take best advantage of tremendous new, growing capacity and
expertise in the field that exists outside the DND/CAF. A more deliberate approach to
stakeholder engagement would significantly inform and improve policy, and provide
greater assurance that work under consideration better reflects civil society values,
norms, and expectations, while still satisfying military needs and requirements.

14. Widen the communications aperture. Nearly all the DND/CAF inform-persuade
communication effort and content is conceived, planned, and directed for Canadian
domestic audience consumption, in English and French only. According to Statistics
Canada (2021 Census), 4.6M Canadians, or 12.7% of the population, speaks
predominantly a language other than English or French at home: perhaps in growing
recognition of this demographic reality, the key news release for the 2023 federal budget
was issued in 15 languages other than English or French. On active outside-Canada
operations, there is a marginal effort made at best in communicating broadly to local
populations in their language(s), but the effort is highly variable and dependent on the
commander of the day. Malign state and non-state actors operate with more freedom,
abandon and impact in non-NATO nation spaces, particularly in geographic regions or in
states with relatively weak governance. Malign actor mis- and disinformation takes root
more easily there, helping to create conditions of insecurity and future security problems.
It is not clear (at least from an unclassified perspective) what, if any, DND/CAF inform-
persuade-influence activity takes place in these less-governed spaces, that are highly
susceptible to disinformation, and are being used as bases for its production and
distribution.

15. If you like current outcomes and effects, keep doing the work that way. The institutional
stresses on the DND/CAF are significant, operational tempo is high and the demands are
many, with limited capacity to tackle yet another enterprise-wide initiative. Still, as CDS
Gen. Eyre has publicly reiterated, the CAF is an organization facing “existential crisis”:
the success of the four priority lines of effort—culture change, reconstitution, operations,
and modernization—are highly dependent on effective communication to implement, as
well as to pre-empt, address, and counter efforts at mis- and disinformation. A way
forward through this needs to be found, possibly through a temporary Task Force model
led by a notable general/flag officer or senior outside civilian appointment, drawing on
subject matter experts from inside and outside the DND/CAF.

45
Capabilities
16. Protect the force and family. There would be significant and obvious resiliency benefit to
better “protect the force” from disinformation. Digital and media literacy, while not an
inoculant against disinformation, is a proven protection measure. Information pollution
impacts the entire force daily: every DND official and each CAF member at every level
and rank would benefit from new or refreshed skills and knowledge in this field, built
into existing training courses, exercises, and educational endeavours. This would
necessitate a deliberate digital and media literacy strategy with easily accessible tools,
structured on-line education tailored to general Defence needs and in-person training for
specific operational applications and theatres (such as deployments in tense or contested
settings). Easily accessible education and training modules should be available to the
broader DND/CAF community with a particular focus on CAF family members and
retired military–a key target audience of more than a million Canadians. Providing a
better appreciation of the information environment, the techniques and tactics used by
malign actors and profiteers, and critical thinking skills about navigating in this space
would demonstrably help protect the force.

17. Train and educate the force, treating information-related capabilities like a joint enabler.
There would be significant benefit to reconceptualize and reframe the manner and way
the CAF trains, tests, and validates the ability of commanders and staff to plan, operate,
and manage modern-day conflict in the information environment. The CAF should now
be well past the days where a bit of on-camera “media awareness training” and “we will
have a comms strategy as part of our plan” check-box effort in staff officer education
settings is considered sufficient preparation. A serious effort at a training and education
strategy that builds in enhanced cognitive domain-related components featuring realistic
entities, channels, tactics, case studies, red teaming, mentoring, and messaging at staff
colleges and training institutions would demonstrably better prepare staffs and
commanders for the operational reality of the contemporary information environment.

18. Develop professional information practitioners. The CAF still lacks a full- or part-time
professional “information” practitioner occupational or sub-speciality community career
path (excepting PA) including for InfoOps, PSYOPS, CIMIC and Influence Activities.
There is almost no Regular Force investment, no CAF capability champion, an Army
vice joint or integrated focus, limited training, and an ineffective functional authority for
InfoOps and StratCom–with predictable outcomes. The CAF has adopted arguably the
least effective force generation model possible, built on part-time Army Reservists drawn
from a wide variety of occupations and classifications with a heavy emphasis on an
artillery background given the ‘targeting’ nexus. Fixing this is a longstanding and long-
acknowledged structural weakness that is regularly identified as an institutional and
operational requirement.

At the same time, information operations—and operations in the information

environment—are operations, plain and simple. Abandoning InfoOps as a term, staff
function, doctrinal and policy crutch would offer a dramatic break from a construct that is
broken. Replacing the stand-alone InfoOps staff function model with a new operational
communications sub-specialty that embeds more robust information environment and

46
 cognitive domain knowledge in all plans staff and commanders throughout the joint force
would be a major enhancement to the CAF’s ability to identify, and counter mis- and
disinformation.

19. Reinforce and amplify success. Initiatives by other Government departments that are
proven performers at tackling disinformation are an important contribution to national
security and deserve the active support of, and significant funding by National Defence.
Heritage Canada’s Digital Citizen Initiative helps, through civil society, to equip citizens
with tools to critically assess and interact with the digital space. The G-7’s Rapid
Response Mechanism, with a secretariat provided by Global Affairs, is an increasingly
valuable contribution to help strengthen coordination efforts against information and
influence activities by hostile state actors. National Defence’s Innovation for Defence
Excellence and Security (IDEaS) and the Mobilizing Insights in Defence and Security
(MINDS) programmes are welcome initiatives to encourage more private sector
investment and academic involvement, and thus for Defence to access new and
prospectively important insights.

20. Leverage Inherent Civil Society Advantages To Help Build Resilience. There has been an
explosion of high-quality capability in civil society, large organizations, corporations,
not-for-profits, institutes, think-tanks, and academia in the inform-persuade-influence
space including powerful open-source investigative tools. There are many areas where
Defence, armed with a deliberate strategy or an approach with an identified lead, could
seriously leverage and enhance significant extant intergovernmental, civil society, and
academic capacities, thereby helping to improve resilience against mis- and
disinformation in the short, medium, and long term.

Organization of Effort
21. Need a government strategy, and a DND/CAF strategy. Federal departments conduct
several discrete activities to counter foreign actor disinformation, but the effort is ad hoc
and the impact is hampered by the absence of an overarching Government (Privy Council
Office/Treasury Board Secretariat) strategy to guide a holistic approach. There is also no
DND/CAF strategy, plan, or approach to define or describe the problem space and thus,
no lead agent(s) to guide, direct, or shape actions. A “whole-of-government” approach is
particularly important to be able to shape, inform, and guide activities in this space across
the many implicated departments so that Defence is not viewed as an independent or
“rogue” actor. A national-level strategy would provide much needed legitimacy to the
effort, and would ensure appropriate guardrails and oversight. The absence of a national
strategy, though, should not stop the DND/CAF from developing one of their own in the
interim for its own unique needs.

22. Need coordinating bodies at a central agency, and at DND/CAF. There is limited ability
in Central Agencies (Privy Council Office or the Treasury Board Secretariat) or other
federal departments to lead, shape, direct, or guide government-wide efforts in the fight
against disinformation (excepting during federal elections). Neither is there an effective
DND/CAF mechanism, at the operational or strategic level, to do so. The March 2023
federal budget announcement to create an office in Public Safety to counter foreign

47
 influence offers prospect for change and positive momentum, and any DND/CAF
contributions to that office would be a small investment to help the institution counter
disinformation.

23. Need better mechanisms for more frequent senior-leader direction, guidance, oversight,
and governance. Direction, guidance, oversight and governance of the information-
related functions in the inform-persuade-influence cognitive space remains weak. The
principal, and only, specifically designated body to better integrate and synchronize
“strategic effects” within the DND/CAF and with interdepartmental partners and allies is
the Strategic Effects Management Board or SEMB, a body that started just in June 2019.
It was intended this group meet quarterly, but went nearly a year without meeting during
COVID, arguably, one of the most important periods for such work to take place, and it
has met less than quarterly since. With the SJS/Director of Staff as chair of a group with
same- or lesser ranks, the SEMB lacks a senior-most Defence leader presence and
guidance, and so has limited authority and ability to shape the synchronization of effects.

24. Need to re-energize the public affairs (PA) functional authority. The PA functional
authority in the DND/CAF has been allowed to erode and weaken over time. The military
strategic communications initiative (2015-2020) that aimed to separate and resource CAF
military practitioners at the expense of DND civilian counterparts and a joint Defence
communications capability, aggravated and accelerated this condition. The Defence PA
functional authority consists of significant people resources (more than 310 military
public affairs officers alone of about 1,000 staff) that has never undergone a compliance,
performance, or operational audit from a functional perspective. This situation impacts
the Group’s ability to more effectively manage, employ, and support practitioners, and to
provide advice to commanders across the enterprise.

25. Need to publicly explain the need better. Defence as an institution–its senior leaders and
military public affairs in particular–over several years have made at best, a very modest
effort to deliberately set out and carefully explain to internal and external audiences the
work, intent, rationale, and progress of information-related capability reform. This
approach fueled public, media, Central Agency, and even internal-to-Defence mistrust of
intent. Going forward, in view of heightened public sensitivity to the prospective misuse
of techniques to “influence” domestic populations, a dedicated, deliberate, and proactive
Defence communications effort to correct this narrative will be important to enabling
better outcomes.

48
Five Key Areas For Research
This report also suggests five key areas for targeted DND/CAF research-related and capability
investments in the short and medium term:

• A tool to visualize the information environment to assist planners, practitioners, and

leaders. Develop a common operating picture/tool to visually display the non-kinetic
cognitive space, where actors are working to shape perceptions and influence actions.
This is a significant undertaking to determine the data, information, and other elements to
be visually represented, including actions by or against the DND/CF, along with threats
and opportunities.

• A model to replace the broken IO/Influence Activity construct, and recognition of

“cognition” as a domain. Develop a revised policy/doctrine construct for the inform-
persuade-influence (“human perceptions” field) distinct from the cyber/space/computer
network operations field, to make for more effective management of each basket of
capabilities, but especially the former. The “Information Operations as a military staff
function” model is broken, and a major barrier to advancing progress in all cognition
domain-related capabilities in the DND/CAF, and more broadly in NATO militaries.

• Guidelines to reduce ambiguities about what DND/CAF information-related activities

are permissible, not permissible, and situation-dependant in the informational space.
Develop guidelines to reduce ambiguities about what DND/CAF information-related
activities are permissible, not permissible, and situation-dependant in the informational
space. This changes frequently with the fast evolution of various platforms, technical
innovations like AI and deep-fake video, civil society expectations, and the practical
experiences of others, particularly government and other militaries in the media and
informational space.

• A comprehensive open-source repository of tradecraft, techniques, case study examples,

and lessons about military-related counter- disinformation needs and requirements.
Develop an open-source repository (a playbook) of tradecraft, techniques, case study
examples and lessons about military-related disinformation needs and requirements.

• Create appropriate cognitive domain education, training, and talent management for the
force. Develop realistic, practical, and scalable education and training modules for
DND/CAF (much of this also being of use for partners) informed by an extensive body of
case studies and lessons learned. Ideally, this would also include a framework to force
generate qualified military and civilian practitioners in the various domains with clear
sustainable career paths to employ skilled practitioners in the respective capabilities.

49
 Conclusion
The technology underpinning the information revolution has evolved considerably faster than
Governments, institutions, and individuals have been able to adapt ways and means to provide
reasonable protection against malign use. Mis- and disinformation now constitutes a society-
wide challenge of considerable magnitude with dramatic, history-shaping consequences for
democracies, and with significant national defence and security implications. Whether domestic-
inspired and driven or foreign actor-enabled, disinformation undermines public trust and
confidence in government and institutions, creates profound societal division and polarization,
and makes effective governance increasingly difficult. The resultant discord also gives malign
state actors fodder to showcase to their own domestic audiences “proof” of the decline and
inferiority of the West.

While disinformation is a “whole of society” problem that demands a “whole of government” if

not a “whole of society” response, National Defence with its serving population of more than
100,000 people and a broader community including family and retired members of about one
million, has significant extant capabilities to bring to bear and positively impact the
informational space. Many participants for this research suggest the National Defence effort
needs to definitively begin “at home,” in DND but particularly with the CAF given that its
members are more directly exposed and susceptible. Taking stock of the current state and status
of inform-persuade-influence cognitive domain capabilities as informed by DND/CAF
documentation, senior leadership, and outside subject matter experts illuminates how “doing
better” is possible.

The status quo is demonstrably insufficient to need. For the institution to achieve greater
resilience and more effective deterrence against all forms of false information, perhaps the most
important take-away from this examination is this. It is not that DND/CAF leadership does not
know what to do, or they don’t know how to “do better,” or that the various functions lack
resources. The real challenge is that to change the military mindset toward the informational
space; to treat the effort as a complex project with the appropriate management and leadership
structure that entails; to produce and execute a deliberate enterprise-wide strategy; to build
practitioner, planning staff and senior leader capability in these fields; and, to create the
mechanism to take work forward in a coordinated and synchronized way in the face of all other
challenges of an organization in “existential crisis” … is very hard. Until then, regaining and
maintaining institutional trust and organizational credibility of internal and external audiences
through more effective communications, better policy, increased transparency, and active
outside-DND/CAF engagement to progressively elaborate information-related capability policies
offers a viable, reliable and achievable way ahead.

50
 Report Interviewees153
(Current appointment/Previous appointments)

Group I: Canadian Armed Forces (Serving and Retired) (13)

Name Notable Background

Col Fraser Auld Director Strategic Coordination/Chief of Staff, Chief of Force

Development
Commander Joint Task Force Ukraine (2018)

Steven Desjardins (Col, Ret’d) Senior Associate CRT Global Intelligence and Defence Advisor
CJOC Director Intelligence, Intelligence, Surveillance and
Reconnaissance

David Fraser (MG, Ret’d) Commandant Canadian Forces College

Commander, NATO Regional Command South (Afghanistan)

MG Dany Fortin Senior Advisor Commander CJOC

VP Logistics and Operations Vaccine Roll-out Task Force, PHAC
Commander NATO Training Mission Iraq

Col Stephen Haire Director Strategic Effects and Targeting (Strategic Joint Staff)

Col Christopher Horner Commander Joint Warfare Center

Col Ryan Jurkowski Visiting Defence Fellow (Queen’s University)

Director StratCom, Combined JTF Operation Inherent Resolve

Paul Maddison (VADM, Ret’d) Director Defense Research Institute, University of New South
Wales
Commander Royal Canadian Navy
Canadian High Commissioner to Australia

MG Darcy Molstad Deputy Commander CJOC

Director 609th Combined Forces Air Component Command, Qatar

George Petrolekas (Col, Ret’d) Advisor to 3 Chiefs of the Defence Staff

BG Jeff Smyth Director General Strategies, Effects and Readiness (Strategic Joint
Staff)
Commanding Officer Canadian Forces Warfare Centre

Guy Thibault (LG, Ret’d) President Canadian Defence Associations Institute

Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff

Jon Vance (GEN, Ret’d) Chief of the Defence Staff 2015-2021

Commander Canadian Task Force Kandahar 2009, 2010

153
All interviewees agreed to being identified in this report.

51
Group II: Senior Officials/ Thought Leaders (11)

Dr. John Blaxland Professor, International Security and Intelligence Studies,

Australian National University

Dr. Ian Brodie Professor, Dept of Political Science, University of Calgary

Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Stephen Harper

Dr. Jean-Christophe Boucher Assoc Professor, Dept of Political Science, University of Calgary

Dr. John Cowan Principal Emeritus Royal Military College

President Canadian Defence Associations Institute

Tara Denham DG at Global Affairs Canada (responsible for the G7 RRM)

Director, Democracy Unit & Digital Inclusion Lab

Elissa Golberg Canadian Ambassador to Italy

ADM (Strategic Policy), Global Affairs Canada
Representative of Canada in Kandahar

David Mulroney Canadian Ambassador to China

Deputy Minister Afghanistan Task Force
Defence and Foreign Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister

Dr. David Perry President, Canadian Global Affairs Institute

Ben Rowswell Director Global Democracy Program, Canadian Intl Council

Canadian Ambassador to Venezuala

Hugh Segal Director, Centre for International and Defence Policy, Queen’s
Senator

Jody Thomas National Security and Intelligence Advisor to the Prime Minister
Deputy Minister National Defence

Group III: Subject Matter Experts in the Information Field (7)

Paul Cobaugh Vice-President, Narrative Strategies

Dr. Keir Giles Director, Conflict Studies Research Centre

Farhaan Ladhani CEO and Founder, Digital Public Square

David Loyn International Development Correspondent, Author, BBC Journalist

Carl Miller Research Director, Centre for the Analysis of Social Media, Demos

Alicia Wanless Director, Partnership for Countering Influence Operations

Founding Board Member, Information Professionals Association

Dr. Rand Waltzman Adjunct Senior Information Scientist, RAND Corporation

52
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Claverie, Bernard & François Du Cluzel. “Cognitive Warfare: The Advent of the Concept of
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Dobrowolski, Daniel, David V Gioe, and Alicia Wanless. “How Threat Actors are Manipulating
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European Union External Action Service. 1st EEAS Report on Foreign Information Manipulation
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European Commission. Action Plan Against Disinformation. December 2018.

Fridman, Ofer and Alicia Wanless. “Worried About Disinformation? Let’s Get Strategic,” The
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Miller, Carl, & Chloe Colliver. “Developing a Civil Society Response to Online Manipulation,”
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55
 About the Author
Brett Boudreau served in the Canadian Armed Forces for nearly 30 years, mainly in public
affairs, with four assignments as a colonel: at National Defence HQ, NATO HQ Brussels, the
Privy Council Office’s Afghanistan Task Force, and as a Reservist in the CDS Initiatives Group.
He has worked at NATO HQs in Mons, Brussels, and Kabul, is a graduate of the NATO Defence
College senior course, and holds an Honours BA in political science (Western), and an MA in
public administration (Carleton).

Boudreau is the author of the book “We Have Met The Enemy And He Is Us” (2016), that traces
the evolution of Alliance strategic communications through the lens of the NATO International
Security Assistance Force mission. In 2022, his chapter “NATO Information Campaigns in
Afghanistan 2003-2021,” which focused on the Resolute Support Mission, was published in Info
Ops: From World War I to the Twitter Era . In 2022, the Canadian Global Affairs Institute
published his monograph, “The Rise and Fall of Military Strategic Communications at National
Defence 2015-2021.”

He is principal consultant at Veritas Strategic Communications and a Canadian Global Affairs

Institute Fellow.

56
 CAN UNCLASSIFIED

DOCUMENT CONTROL DATA

*Security markings for the title, authors, abstract and keywords must be entered when the document is sensitive
1. ORIGINATOR (Name and address of the organization preparing the document. 2a. SECURITY MARKING
A DRDC Centre sponsoring a contractor's report, or tasking agency, is entered (Overall security marking of the document including
in Section 8.) special supplemental markings if applicable.)

Veritas Strategic Communications CAN UNCLASSIFIED

548 Rowanwood Avenue
Ottawa, ON, K2A 3E1
2b. CONTROLLED GOODS

NON-CONTROLLED GOODS
DMC A
3. TITLE (The document title and sub-title as indicated on the title page.)

Understanding Department of National Defence / Canadian Armed Forces (DND/CAF) Research and
Capability Needs to Deter and Limit the Impacts of (Adversary) [Dis]information:
A Critical Self-Examination
4. AUTHORS (Last name, followed by initials – ranks, titles, etc., not to be used)

Boudreau, B.
5. DATE OF PUBLICATION 6a. NO. OF PAGES 6b. NO. OF REFS
(Month and year of publication of document.) (Total pages, including (Total references cited.)
Annexes, excluding DCD,
covering and verso pages.)
March 2023
61 40
7. DOCUMENT CATEGORY (e.g., Scientific Report, Contract Report, Scientific Letter.)

Contract Report
8. SPONSORING CENTRE (The name and address of the department project office or laboratory sponsoring the research and development.)

DRDC – Toronto Research Centre

Defence Research and Development Canada
1133 Sheppard Avenue West
Toronto, Ontario M3K 2C9
Canada
9a. PROJECT OR GRANT NO. (If appropriate, the applicable 9b. CONTRACT NO. (If appropriate, the applicable number under
research and development project or grant number under which which the document was written.)
the document was written. Please specify whether project or
grant.)
W8160-22-0027
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by which the document is identified by the originating assigned this document either by the originator or by the sponsor.)
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DRDC-RDDC-2023-C092
11a. FUTURE DISTRIBUTION WITHIN CANADA (Approval for further dissemination of the document. Security classification must also be
considered.)

Public release
11b. FUTURE DISTRIBUTION OUTSIDE CANADA (Approval for further dissemination of the document. Security classification must also be
considered.)

12. KEYWORDS, DESCRIPTORS or IDENTIFIERS (Use semi-colon as a delimiter.)

Disinformation; Misinformation; Adversary

CAN UNCLASSIFIED
 CAN UNCLASSIFIED

13a. ABSTRACT (when available in the document, the English version of the abstract must be included here.)

The three-fold objective of this Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) study is to:
• Better understand the near- and longer-term research and capability needs of the DND/CAF
to more effectively deter and counter adversary disinformation;
• Improve the resilience of National Defence against disinformation; and,
• Describe issues germane to achieving greater resilience and more effective deterrence.

The report is informed by a broad review of relevant literature, media content and civil society reports
about disinformation; unclassified DND/CAF reviews of inform-persuade-influence (cognitive
domain) information-related capabilities; and 31 interviews with select serving and retired military
officers, senior officials/thought leaders, and subject matter experts in the information field.

The report findings demonstrate that National Defence is poorly placed and inadequately prepared
to substantively defend its interests and equities against mis- and disinformation, particularly in the
domestic context. Many in the DND/CAF acknowledge the informational space needs to be central
to its operations and activities, but this is not yet realized through actions or effort by senior-most
leaders and remains an aspirational view. This blatant “say-do” gap is the inevitable outcome over
many years of a lack of strategic-level, institution-wide direction and guidance for information-related
capabilities, no strategic command HQ, and no institutional champion. The problem set is habitually
viewed mainly through a public affairs lens and as an Army Reserve force generation issue, not as
a joint, command-led integrated capability requirement. Doctrine and rules that govern public
communications are nearly all more than twenty years old, predating the invention of the iPhone
(2007) by a decade. The organization in large measure remains allergic to outside advice to help
inform the progressive development of fit-for-purpose policy, and is reluctant to “share” or
meaningfully collaborate with external partners. Fear of public missteps and further reputational
damage stalled important reform initiatives for years, though there is now evidence of some welcome
momentum in the key area of policy and doctrine development.

This situation should be of particular concern to an organization in a self-described “existential crisis,”

which makes the DND/CAF more susceptible to harm by mis- and disinformation wherever the
provenance, but especially to domestic forms. On overseas operations as part of a NATO or coalition
effort, the CAF is substantively better placed to defend itself and manoeuvre in the information space
even if not able to decisively counter and obtain strategic success. There is significant extant
DND/CAF capability to more effectively tackle mis- and disinformation, but this remains largely
untapped due to an institutional mindset toward the informational space that is rooted firmly in the
pre-Internet Cold War.

CAN UNCLASSIFIED
 CAN UNCLASSIFIED

13b. RÉSUMÉ (when available in the document, the French version of the abstract must be included here.)

Le triple objectif de cette étude de Recherche et développement pour la défense Canada (RDDC)
est de :
• Mieux comprendre les besoins de recherche et de capacité à court et à long terme du MDN
et des FAC pour dissuader et contrer plus efficacement la désinformation de l’adversaire ;
• Améliorer la résilience de la Défense nationale contre la désinformation ; et,
• Décrire les problèmes liés à l’obtention d’une plus grande résilience et d’une dissuasion
plus efficace.

Le rapport s’appuie sur un large examen de la littérature pertinente, du contenu des médias et des
rapports de la société civile sur la désinformation ; examens de documents non classifiés du MDN
et des FAC sur l’information, la persuasion et l’influence (domaine cognitif) des capacités liées à
l’information; et 31 entretiens avec des officiers militaires en service et à la retraite, des cadres
supérieurs fonctionnaires/leaders d’opinion et experts en la matière dans le domaine
de l’information.

Les conclusions du rapport démontrent que la Défense nationale est mal placée et mal préparée
pour défendre substantiellement ses intérêts et ses actions contre la mésinformation et la
désinformation, en particulier dans le contexte national. De nombreux membres du MDN et des FAC
reconnaissent que l’espace informationnel doit être au cœur de ses opérations et de ses activités,
mais cela n’est pas encore mis en œuvre par les actions ou les efforts des dirigeants les plus hauts
placés et demeure une vue de l’esprit. Cet écart flagrant entre « dire et faire » est la résultante
inévitable de nombreuses années sans orientation véritable au niveau stratégique, et à l’échelle de
l’institution d’un manque de stratégie des QG de commandement et de champion pour les capacités
liées à l’information. La problématique est généralement vue principalement à travers une lentille
d’affaires publiques et comme une question de génération de force de la Réserve de l’Armée, et non
comme un besoin intégrée interarmées, commandé par le plus haut niveau hiérarchique. La doctrine
et les règles qui régissent les communications publiques ont presque toutes plus que vingt ans,
précédant d’une décennie l’invention de l’iPhone (2007). L’organisation dans son ensemble reste
allergique aux conseils extérieurs pour aider à éclairer le développement progressif de politiques
adéquates aux besoins, et hésite à « partager » ou à collaborer véritablement avec des partenaires
externes. Peur des faux pas publics et d’autres atteintes à la réputation ont bloqué d’importantes
initiatives de réforme pendant des années, bien qu’il y ait maintenant renouveau dans les domaines
clés de l’élaboration des politiques et de la doctrine.

Cette situation devrait être particulièrement préoccupante pour une organisation qui se décrit
elle-même comme étant dans une « crise existentielle », ce qui rend le MDN/FAC plus susceptible
d’être endommagée par la mésinformation et la désinformation peu importe sa provenance, mais en
particulier à celles d’origines nationales. Sur les opérations extérieures dans le cadre de l’OTAN ou
d’une coalition, les FAC sont nettement mieux placées pour se défendre et manœuvrer dans l’espace
d’information même si elles ne sont pas en mesure de contrer de manière décisive et d’obtenir des
succès stratégiques. Le MDN et les FAC ont beaucoup de potentiels pour lutter plus efficacement
contre la mésinformation et la désinformation, mais cela reste largement inexploité en raison d’un
état d’esprit institutionnel envers l’espace informationnel qui est fermement enraciné dans la guerre
froide d’avant Internet.

CAN UNCLASSIFIED