One of my daily rituals is to listen to the program "To the Point", hosted by Warren Alney and broadcast by NPR.
Alney read the article I linked to from the New York Times too and started asking questions, which ended up with a large portion of his show devoted to the topic. He certainly racked up a very interesting and enlightening series of guests to talk about it.
While it's billed as 'soft deterrence', by my read, what it really seems that they're up to is a basic psy-ops and disinformation campaign balanced with liberal doses of new works by prominent Muslim clerics who have changed their minds on the purpose and scope of Jihad as it is preached by the militants. Essentially muddling the internet communications network by making them all wonder which posts are real and which are disinformation. If you can make your target second-guess their every move... you win.
It's an interesting application of an old idea and made for an interesting show. I encourage all of you to click the link above and listen. The array of experts ex-CIA and ex-State Dept that he got on the show were illuminating and often frustrating. I'd be curious to hear the crew's take on things.
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Admittedly, I haven't listened to the show yet, but how is psy-ops and disinforrmation "deterrence" by any definition, soft or hard? There's propaganda (which is a very useful tool) and there's deterrence (which arguably kept the Cold War from going hot, among other things) but how are those even close?
Maybe I'll shut up and listen to the show first.
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