Launching Narrative into the Information Battlefield

It has long been understood that competition in the narrative battlefield impacts outcomes on the physical battlefield.The impact of narrative only increases in our era of gray zone narrative warfare conducted via social media.Valid norms constrain democratic militaries from developing forms of narrative competencies that autocratic states have available for use -namely, those involving fictionalization, misattribution, and other forms of deception.To compete in the narrative battlefield, democratic militaries should enhance their capability for disseminating truthful, close-to-real-time, extended stories of military activities with real-world, value-based stakes, crafted using age-old formulas of characterization and plot to appeal to wide as well as targeted audiences.