The US military is carefully studying the lessons of the Russian-Ukrainian war to prepare for possible clashes with its main adversaries, such as Russia or China. According to the training scenario, the enemy controlling the conditional city of Ujen makes false accusations against an American brigade preparing for attacks. A constant flow of posts on social networks is used for accusations.

“I think right now the whole Army is really looking at what’s happening in Ukraine and trying to learn lessons. The Russia-Ukraine experience is a very powerful illustration for our Army of how important the information domain is going to be.We’ve been talking about that for about five years. But really seeing it and seeing the way Zelenskyy has been incredibly powerful…This is a world war that the actual world can see and watch in real time,” said US Secretary of the Army Christine Wormouth, who spent two days watching military training in the Mojave Desert.

Army Colonel Ian Palmer notes that friendly and hostile forces use more drones for reconnaissance and attacks during the exercises. So his military is trying to disguise and gain a foothold in the area to go unnoticed. In the training city, the opponents are confident that they will be able to restrain Palmer’s team despite the difference in size. The improvised enemies have only about 1,350 soldiers, but they throw everything they have against the brigade, from jamming and other electronic attacks to propaganda.

Opponent role players also have phones. They are ready to quickly take photos or videos and post on social networks to expose the military in the worst light and constantly distort events. So Palmer’s military must understand that they are fighting for the truth.

“It’s a challenge, when I’ve got a bunch of casualties and I’m getting overrun on my left flank and my supply trains aren’t where they need to be and I can’t find the bulldozers, it’s hard to think about something that someone said about me on Twitter,” said the colonel.