Propastop library: Saara Jantunen „Information Warfare“

At the end of January the book, „Info Warfare“ published in Finland in 2015, written by military doctorate Saara Jantunen was released in Estonian.

According to the author, the book is not a research-academic work but rather an attempt to speak easily and understandably about information warfare, which Jantunen has certainly been able to do successfully.

The short chapters, which have inserted texts from other authors, form a simple total picture while giving quite a comprehensive overview of information warfare as well as the current state of affairs and developments in the years 2014-2015.

Along with theoretical basic material, Russia’s activities in the occupation of Ukraine and the Information warfare component of the situation are reviewed; along with US and Russian trends in information conflicts; Russia’s reaction to NATO’s expansion and activities as well as global hybrid- and cyber threats, fake news and propaganda victories.

As the author promises at the beginning of the book, it reviews throughout the book the influence on Finland from all types of topics. It is viewed and described through the statements of politicians and other public figures, through commentaries on stories published, in the media, twitter postings and the through the author’s direct experience as part of Finnish society.

The book is a good overview and summary of the evolution of the past couple of years in influence activities, including a large number of real-life events, along with theoretical background. This book also provides a quick overview of all these topics, which may be the biggest complaint of this 280-page book.

The book has a voluminous, almost like a prologue type, epilogue written by Imbi Paju, stating that the book has been core material in the previous years for Finnish society.

Propastop has been writing in its blog about the differences in the national features of Finnish Information warfare since its inception in 2016.

Photo: Propastop