The Communist Party of China’s (CPC) narrative warfare aims to kill the will of the people, the basis of democracy, because it threatens the party’s self-righteous rule. The CPC does this by targeting a person’s sense of free will and, therefore, cognitive capability. Biologically, that’s a kinetic kill that sustains the party’s influence. Why are narratives so influential?
Understanding Narratives
Narratives can achieve all eight effects in the combined effect influence strategy. Because narratives are primarily psychological, we’ll enter the strategy’s 3-D framework from the psychological-physical dimension. The other two dimensions are cooperative-confrontational and causative-preventive.
As shown above, in the octants of the x-y-z axes, the four psychological effects are:
- Persuade
- Dissuade
- Compel
- Deter
The physical effects are:
- Induce
- Secure
- Coerce
- Defend
All these effects can combine to produce synergistic results. Moreover, because this framework defines the effects separately, it’s easier to assess them than the compellence and deterrence (subsets of coercion) in coercion theory.
You can integrate narrative formulas into any effect. Narratives cause psychological effects directly and physical effects indirectly. An example of a psychological combined effect is compellent persuasion, which works well on people under constant surveillance (Skynet) and behavioral accreditation (the social credit system). A psychophysical combo of dissuasive coercion is another unfortunate effect if you live under centralized authority (the Central Committee of the Communist Party) with zero political opposition (any organization must proclaim loyalty to the Communist Party).
To appreciate the destructive power of an enforced narrative, let’s establish how psychological narratives cause physical behavior.
How Psychological Narratives Cause Physical Behavior
Narratives are activities that influence will and capability. Identity-based meaning, structured content, and a motivational purpose are one formula for constructing a narrative. In Dangerous Narratives: Warfare, Strategy, Statecraft, ed. Ajit Maan, the authors explain how practitioners use narratives with other actions to achieve wartime effects in different contexts.
Any activity that structures content and assigns it a meaningful identity for a motivational purpose is a narrative. Using joint US military doctrine’s definition of “information” (data assigned meaning in context), we can say that any activity that structures information for a motivational purpose is a narrative.
That definitional breadth and flexibility permit us to think of narratives as more than stories. Information can have multiple meanings in various contexts. Some people accept information in a story format because they like a good story. Others are more skeptical, justifiably so.
Narratives Aren’t Just Stories
Most people think of narratives as chronological accounts, but a narrative’s content can be structured differently. That’s important when considering which venues might influence a particular target.
Entertaining venues like media that use humor, cognitive biases, and logical errors to deflect critical thinking and fit into what an audience wants to hear. Embedded within that is content that shapes audience beliefs. Anger works well to coat conclusions.
Free Will is Relative
Influencers also change their messages depending on the individuals they target. Competitors can think differently about values, interests, priorities, products, and services. That’s why advertisers target you with personalized information–filter bubbles. They work, despite our convictions.
Inner beliefs influence behavior, but not as much as people think they do. We’re vulnerable to all sorts of information. Robert Sapolsky argues that biology, personal experience, and other factors undermine a person’s sense of “free will.” The logic is that so many previous influences shape a decision that free will does not exist.
If free will were an absolute, I would agree. However, realistic competition is about achieving a relative advantage. There is no silver bullet solution for all circumstances. Democracies promote relatively free will compared to authoritarian systems. Democracies have narratives, too, like American exceptionalism. The freedom to compare different narratives is not automatic. We must fight for it.
Beliefs Usually Win Over Logic
People express their beliefs differently, depending on personality type and context. A democratic context permits more individual expression than an authoritarian one. What people believe is difficult to discern from what they say, especially so in an authoritarian regime where non-compliance has significant consequences. Authoritarians know that an influential narrative does not have to be logically consistnet–“true.” The activity has to be believed, accepted, or at least tolerated.
Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.
Attributed to John Stuart Mill, Inaugural Address at St Andrew’s (1867)
Narratives are more psychological than physical because they try to get people to think in a certain way. They repeat their mantras over and over to nurture a physical change in behavior. Thus, narratives can be insidiously confrontational even though they appear to be cooperative. They can also be overtly aggressive, such as forced compliance with party propaganda. Authoritarians only have so much patience with independent-minded people.
What?! Narratives Cause Physical Effects?
Psychological narratives can stir up psychological effects, such as emotions—anger, fear, motivation, and commitment—but, physical effects? Yes. Narratives indirectly cause physical behavior as our biological processes react to structured information. How?
When we encounter environmental stimuli, chemical reactions in our neural networks cause us to think and act. We can represent those interactions as psychological, but they are physical, too. Our neural networks process information to create awareness from stimuli, thoughts, emotions, and memories. Those interactions are psychophysical.
We can characterize narratives as psychological because different people processing the same stimuli into information can easily reach different conclusions. Their thinking may be fast or slow, as Daniel Kahneman’s work shows, and then people act behaviorally.
Narratives matter not because they are a single cause of behavior but because they are singularly effective in shaping behavior. They can play on beliefs, evoke emotions, and recreate memories, which affect a person or group’s physical behavior.
Complex Causes versus Competitive Effects
Of course, there are many causes of behavior, so we can’t always determine that this thing caused that. However, we do know that the absence of an alternative narrative in the presence of an authoritarian one enables intolerance, injustice, and unequal rights that the post-World War II United Nations Charter resolves to prevent. Instead of surrendering that competitive space to a single-party version of fascism, we mist compete to shape the terms of cooperation and conflict.
Effective narratives ought to produce desired effects, which can take a long time. Joint planning and operations doctrines provide a logic to do so.
The idea is to create and align Activities to achieve Effects for Objectives that set conditions called End-States in support of Goals. Granted, the higher we go in this hierarchy of ends, the more uncertain the results. So, we’re focusing here on influencing will and capability to achieve effects. The PRC already does this.
Influencing Will and Capability
Will and capability also interact with each other. Treating them separately is another analytical distinction that merges at the biochemical level of interactions. We need to make such distinctions to understand and strategize how to shape complex cause-and-effect relationships. Strategy involves rearranging relationships to create advantages. Because will and capability interact as psychophysical systems, we must understand both aspects to influence behavior.
Creating Effects with Influential Narratives
Narratives are concepts of influence that act on will and capability to bring about advantageous effects—at least, that is what influencers intend them to cause. Narratives compete with one another, and uncertainty disrupts any narrative’s intended effects. Environmental factors, individual preferences, and group dynamics influence a person’s thinking and behavior. All that is information.
In the PRC, the CPC is the most potent combatant waging narrative warfare to influence will and capability for desired effects. The party fully intends to persuade or compel desired behavior and dissuade or deter undesired behavior. How do the ways and means work? The party’s government and People’s Liberation Army (PLA) use narratives to assure and intimidate will and enhance and neutralize capability.
Look at the examples in these narratives: The China Dream, Respect China, China’s Destiny, and Unrestricted Warfare. I provide a gratuitous contrast with an American narrative, too.
A Sample of PRC Narratives
The China Dream
The China Dream persuades desired behavior by assuring citizens to believe in an inspiring vision with “Chinese characteristics.” The latter, a constant refrain in party propaganda, assigns meaning by referring to Mao ZeDong’s heroic modification of Marxism-Leninism to fit China’s rural context. Mao’s strategic brilliance mobilized the revolution that established Communist Party rule. The party continues the manipulation by appropriating the meaning and identity of being a good Chinese citizen while seeking prosperity. The “China Dream” enforced by the party means that dreaming about individual rights, multi-party representation, market-driven economics, or even wearing Western-style clothing is not approved.
In contrast, “The American Dream” doesn’t care what clothes you wear.
Respect China
Respect China dissuades undesirable behavior by assuring citizens and foreign actors that China expects foreign powers to act with mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation as if China does. The party-government repeats this demand via state media to reinforce a common Chinese identity and national purpose as a responsible great power deserving respect after a century of victimization by foreign imperialists. “Respect China” means following the party’s version of non-interference (does not include the CPC or the PRC), complying with PRC policies and actions (does include seizing new territory by artificial construction), and “cooperating” on China’s terms.
In contrast, even “America First” does not expect other nations to behave any differently, does not seize territory, and is transactionally transparent about the terms of cooperation, whether you like it or not.
China’s Destiny
China’s Destiny in a “New Era” amidst “great changes not seen in a century” compels desired behavior in China and among foreign powers by intimidating and neutralizing any political opposition to the party line. This narrative reinforces China’s historical identity as a great power (while omitting 2000 years of imperial characteristics). The narrative crystallizes in “Xi Jinping Thought,” imperiously written into the PRC Constitution. There is no separation of powers. The desire to believe in a better future is supposed to inspire sacrifice, which the party particularly demands of China’s youth. The meaning of “China’s Destiny” is the certainty of China’s rise, which is only possible under CPC rule.
In contrast, America’s destiny, as expressed by American exceptionalism, permeates both major parties–free will, for better or worse.
Unrestricted Warfare
“Unrestricted Warfare” deters behavior by intimidating foreign audiences into believing that China will use any means and ways to wage warfare against its enemies. The book by that title, written by two PLA officers, details how the PRC should wage all-effects all-domain warfare. Most CPC leaders today are savvy enough to deny this narrative externally while promoting it internally. The party’s central research arm recently published general laws about how great powers seize scientific, technological, commercial, and political advantages. The study urges every cadre to accept the party’s holistic approach to security as their worldview and methodology in every task.
In contrast, the United States and most democracies fixate on deterring warfare, defined narrowly as lethal conflict, in the hope that its aftermath produces relative peace.
Which narratives do you prefer?
The Inexhaustible Power of Narratives
lTo summarize, narratives work psychologically in cooperative ways to assure will and enhance cognitive capability. They also work in confrontational ways to intimidate will and neutralize cognitive capability. Democracies refer to that as competition. The catch is that competition sets conditions for warfare.
Our brains are the battlespace of narrative warfare. They translate psychological narratives into physical behavior. That biological translation doubles the effects that narratives can bring about. In the language of combined effect influence strategy:
- Persuade becomes Induce
- Dissuade becomes Secure
- Compel becomes Coerce
- Deter becomes Defend
That’s a powerful capability. Narratives can cause all eight effects, directly or indirectly. To compete with ridiculous authoritarian narratives, democracies must muster better means and ways to produce competitive effects.
By integrating narratives into operations, the possibilities to influence behavior are, as Roger Ames quotes Sunzi (p. 119), inexhaustible:
There are no more than five cardinal notes, yet in combination, they produce more sounds than could possibly be heard.
There are no more than five cardinal colors, yet in combination, they produce more shades and hues than could possibly be seen.
There are no more than five cardinal tastes, yet in combination, they produce more flavors than could possibly be tasted.
There are no more effective ways to gain strategic advantage in battle than surprise and straightforward operations, yet in combination, they produce inexhaustible possibilities.
