By Maarten Van Horenbeeck

While I was driving to work this morning, there was a great song on the radio. "Silent Running" is a classic Mike & The Mechanics hit, dated 1985. It was their first song, and hit 6th place in the US Billboard Hot 100 and 21st place in the UK charts.

It was written in the same era as Sting's "Russians", which has perhaps after all these years has retained a little bit more of its hit value. Dated in the mid eighties, both songs had very much of a cold war feel to them. They were written at a time when the prospect of foreign dominance (not so much invasion) was a real threat, even in the United States and Western Europe.

The lyrics of  "Silent Running" make you think about some aspects of information warfare:

"Swear allegiance to the flag
Whatever flag they offer
Never hint at what you really feel
Teach the children quietly
For some day sons and daughters
Will rise up and fight while we stood still."

This piece of pop culture clearly identifies an important warfare aspect that everyone knows and believs they understand, but is generally not taken into account. You can dominate militarily, without actually repressing people's souls. The latter is what comes back to haunt you, especially if you have alienated  the population. People made songs of this in the 80's, when they were at risk themselves. When it applies to others, it's disregarded. Despite cultural differences and simplification, this is an important lesson.

Another brilliant piece of text:

"Take the children and yourself
And hide out in the cellar
By now the fighting will be close at hand
Don't believe the church and state
And everything they tell you
Believe in me, I'm with the high command"

Hide out in the cellar, and only come out when opportunity rises. Believe in the High Command. This is typical for network centric operations - groups are only linked through a central ideology, and arise when they feel their assistance is required to further it.

Click on the links above to see the Youtube videos for these tracks, and enjoy a completely different view of the world than the common one today. If you then feel like reading an insightful piece of work on the issue of persuasion and winning "hearts and minds", have a look at RAND's Strategic Influence and the Struggle against Terrorism.