When Misinformation Wears a Uniform: Grey-Zone Warfare and the Collapse of Civilian Resilience
As Britain supposedly confronts cyberattacks, sabotage, and digital coercion in the "grey zone," with an extra £80BN a year 5% defence hike, we must ask: who defines truth, and who defends it?
Grey Zone a nicely malleable term to cover defence - and everything that isn't defence.
Despite warnings from the Commons Defence Committee and think tanks like the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Cent(e)r, the UK’s response remains overly militarised—dominated by khaki doctrine and shadow actors like MI5, MI6, and the 77th Brigade.
But grey-zone threats don’t just target army barracks or army budgets—they target web infrastructure, broadcast narratives, and public trust.
The Invisible Uniform: 77th Brigade and Information Operations (IO)
Created in 2015, the 77th Brigade specialises in information warfare—including online influence, behavioural analytics, and psychological operations. Initially framed as anti-extremism work abroad, its remit expanded astonishingly during the pandemic to include domestic UK social media monitoring and nudge techniques.
Civil liberties groups raised concerns over surveillance and manipulation of lawful dissent.
MPs demanded greater transparency into how behavioural insights intersected with military planning.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, 77th Brigade worked with the Cabinet Office Rapid Response Unit to:
Monitor social media for misinformation about vaccines, lockdowns, and virus origins
Flag "misleading posts" to platforms like Facebook and Twitter for removal
Disseminate “counter-narratives” through official accounts and behavioural nudges
This raised concerns about military involvement in domestic discourse, especially when lawful dissent or satire was swept into moderation algorithms.
In exercises like Dragoon Ready 20, 77th Brigade deployed teams to:
Conduct civil engagement and counter-propaganda in simulated conflict zones
Use "deception planning" and image capture to "shape public perception"
Operate in soft posture (no weapons, berets on) to build trust with civilian actors
These tactics mirror real-world IO strategies used in grey-zone environments, from Eastern Europe to Africa.
As Elisabeth Braw and others have warned, grey-zone deterrence must not slide into grey-area democracy, where IO becomes indistinguishable from propaganda. Or military mission creep in the absence of war or credible major threats. Thailand facing concerted army IO activity on its own citizens to provide justification for ultra nationalist views and threat fear mongering.
Thailand's 400 generals perhaps only outpaced by UK's 40 Admirals for 20 warships/drones. Frilly defence spending also under review for UK's 485 ceremonial horses as Pentagon ends its 140 horse units? Horses of minimal Resilience except as food if the supermarket lights go out?
And Grey Zone theory already tasks MI5 and MI6 with spy/Cyber threats - so if UK is vulnerable as say the Manchester Arena bombing then questions need to be asked of those services.
Think Tanks or Thought Silos? The Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Cent(e)r and the Echo Chamber Problem
The Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, housed within the Atlantic Council, presents itself as a nonpartisan hub for strategic foresight and transatlantic cooperation. But its funding and affiliations raise serious questions about intellectual independence and policy capture.
The Atlantic Council receives millions in funding from:
Foreign governments, including the UK’s FCDO, MoD, and Cabinet Office
Pentagon contractors like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman
The U.S. government, including the Department of Defen(s)e
This mirrors the funding structure of RUSI, another UK-based think tank with deep ties to the MoD and defence industry.
Both institutions routinely publish reports that reinforce existing strategic orthodoxy—often framing threats in ways that justify increased military spending, surveillance powers, and deterrence postures.
Arms industry funding viewing every societal problem as needing more missiles? JFK famously hogtied over the supposed Russian Missile Gap, that never was and Saddam's WMD or 45 minute threat more recently.
Groupthink in Strategic Disguise
Critics argue that these think tanks function as echo chambers, where dissenting views are filtered out and policy recommendations reflect donor interests more than public deliberation. Eisenhower's Military-Industrial Complex Threat best reformatted as Military-Industrial-ThinkTank Threats of a Khaki echo chamber and say War Studies dept giving an intellectual veneer?
War-gaming exercises, strategy papers, and testimonies to Parliament or Congress often recycle the same threat narratives of The Next Enemy (DragonBear the latest empty slogan hyped by NATO's Daddy Rutte)—Russia, China, Iran—while downplaying domestic resilience, diplomacy, or civilian-led alternatives.
Amusingly the Defence Committee Report struggling to find any China or Iran threats to UK - only to their own citizens. MI5 separately cites just 20 Iran plots over 3 years and on their dissidents in UK as the Salisbury Russian Poison Plot. Again a regiment of Khaki Horses of little use. Nor an RAF Regiment xylophone platoon.
The Grey Zone report struggling with an Undersea Cable Threat to UK citing the Shetland islands(!) once losing its ATM feed from an errant trawler. And questions remain on the Baltic cable explosions in NATO's heartland.
The Scowcroft Cent(e)r’s Forward Defen(s)e initiative explicitly aims to “promote an enduring military advantage” for the U.S. and allies—a mission that aligns more with defence contractors than democratic pluralism.
This creates a feedback loop: military-industrial donors fund strategic analysis, which then justifies further procurement and expansion, all under the banner of “nonpartisan security.”
Who Polices State-Aligned Misinformation?
In this landscape, state misinformation—whether about pandemic modelling, foreign policy, or domestic dissent—is rarely challenged by the very institutions tasked with strategic oversight.
D Notices (DSMA notices) allow the UK government to quietly suppress media coverage of sensitive topics, including defence exports and covert operations.
The BBC’s editorial silence on UK–Israel arms ties and the reality of undersea sabotage risks reflects a broader reluctance to confront state narratives.
Meanwhile, MI5, MI6, and the 77th Brigade operate with minimal public scrutiny, shaping perception through behavioural influence and information operations.
Editorial Silence: BBC, D Notices, and Foreign Policy Narratives
In theory, D Notices (now DSMA notices) are voluntary media blackouts coordinated by the Ministry of Defence to protect national security. But critics argue they increasingly function as government vetoes on public debate, similar to the Palestine Action protest group fluffed up as Terrorists, particularly on:
Sensitive alliances and arms exports (UK's F35 RAF jets parts and Israel again)
Undercover operations and metadata collection (Palantir or ICE facial data next for UK?)
Coverage of Israel’s military actions and UK defence ties—where BBC reporting often avoids scrutiny or dissent (Israeli troops and jets in UK?)
The danger lies in conflating editorial responsibility with state messaging, leaving outlets like the BBC vulnerable to both accusations of bias and institutional capture as with Israel/Gaza/West Bank or the sudden appearance and disappearance of a nuclear threat with B2 raids by USA/Israel.
And questions muffled over UK's RAF role from the EU Cyprus mega bases.
A Civilian Template: Resilience Without Camouflage
So, instead of defaulting to military command structures and over hyped threats to Khaki budgets, the UK should adopt a civilian-led resilience model, borrowing from successful public health frameworks.
A Military format may well be needed in Finland or Baltics on Russia's borders but hardly in the UK islands far from Putin's Moscow already bogged down in Donbas and sanctions.
Those sanctions performing well, plus Tax Haven Reform in The City, perhaps the best UK response to Russian Cyber attacks etc?
The NHS’s pandemic infrastructure and vaxx availability - despite the Baroness Mone frauds worked well - and demonstrated what’s possible:
Web and electricity backups for remote care and coordination
Deployment of overflow hospitals
Data transparency and public dashboards
Embedded behavioural science with accountability safeguards
We now need similar systems for:
Digital sabotage (e.g. undersea cable cuts, telecom blackouts) - more from hacktivists/mafias than KGB?
Disinformation resilience (in schools, journalism, and civic spaces) - 77th Brigade IO propaganda case studies? BBC/Israel review? Russia report classes?
Crisis communication independent of political spin
And any Grey-zone defence must be whole-of-society, not whole-of-soldiery.
Conclusion: Who Guards the Guardians?
If the military polices speech, the intelligence services curate threat perception, and public broadcasters defer to MoD vetoes—then what remains of democratic scrutiny?
The KGB will have won by default as the UK turns itself into a Militarised and Authoritarian Society - and all the poorer for it. And the Pentagon outgunning DOGE on its $1TN spend.
State misinformation is no less dangerous than foreign propaganda.
The UK must invest in transparent civilian defences and institutional humility. Otherwise, the next crisis won’t need tanks or warships—it’ll win via silence, shadows, and simulated consent.
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