narrative_warfare_113118.html

"Lies are intended to serve the meaning and identity goals of a hostile power, and we defeat that power, not by recourse to the truth (a natural human inclination but not helpful in this fight). To the extent that truth-telling is part of our strategy, it cannot be reactive; we cannot chase our adversaries around matching their lies with the truth, because, as cognitive science has demonstrated, countering lies by repeating them with the word “no” (or some other negative) actually has the opposite effect. That strengthens the false statement in the mind of the audience. Truth and facts should be a part of our narrative, but it is the meaning of the truth and lies that the narrative must tell. We need to go after adversarial attempts to project meaning and undermine it with our own narrative."