Issue ? 33. August 2012

Propaganda and the Information War Against Syria: The Latest War for Peace

Ph.D., researcher, Centre for Crisis Management Research and Training, Swedish National Defence College; researcher, Uppsala Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Uppsala University.
E-mail: greg.simons@ucrs.uu.se

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, there has been a string of small wars that have been fought on “humanitarian grounds”. The reasoning and the propaganda that paves the way by cultivating public opinion to accept these wars has been developed over a number of decades in countries deemed to be democratic in nature. This article deals with the current propaganda campaign and the information war that is currently being fought against Syria’s Assad regime, nominally on “humanitarian grounds”. However, a closer inspection and analysis reveals the true nature of the debate that may yet lead to another Western intervention and so-called “humanitarian” war.

Keywords

Humanitarian war, western intervention, propaganda, information war, democracy.