فصلنامه راهبرد فرهنگ
پیاپی 16 (زمستان 1390)

Soft war is beyond military confrontation of states in a geographical space. This war is formed in minds and beliefs and if the tricks of the enemy bear fruit it is hard to preserve the society against it. There are different criterions for identification of soft war. The guidelines of the Leader of Islamic Revolution are a beacon that sheds light on the nature and dimensions of this war. Relying on some of his enlightening, practical and theoretical viewpoints that are based on analysis of the existing conditions and imaging of the future prospects in this field as well as cognition of the enemy’s front and cognition and promotion of the capability of the forces of the insider’s front, attempts have been made in the present paper to introduce and analyze the nature of soft war and ways to confront it.

Soft war is extension of battle to the field of beliefs and subjective factors involved in determination of individual and social behavior. This battle has its context as well as factors, features, theoretical principles, structure and texture, which are different from those of armed war. These exclusive factors and aspects can be analyzed from different perspectives and angles. The present paper focuses on conceptual aspects of soft war and its related elements as well as the process of transformation of beliefs, thoughts, behaviors and structures, enemy’s methods in this battle in the light of the ultimate goal (globalization of Western culture), the addressees and its agents.

Although protection of human dignity and rights has its roots in divine cultures and religions, particularly in Islam, the international human rights system has a Western base, which is influenced by particular thoughts and schools and emerged at a specific stage of history in international society. Taking into account some of the essential aspects and principles of international human rights system as well as its practical role in establishment of domination system and globalization of Western culture, it seems that international human rights system is one of the significant means and tools of soft war against the Islamic Republic of Iran and independent countries in the intellectual, managerial and organizational environment. The present paper is an attempt to study the relationships between international human rights system and soft war and their practical and theoretical aspects.

Several years before the decline of the Soviet Union and collapse of communist model in the world, there was an incentive in the United States to introduce its capitalist democracy in line with democratization as a superior model in the world. As a result, some successful foundations were strengthened in their confrontation with the Soviet Union and after the cold war such institutions as The National Endowment for Democracy targeted other regions of the world, including the Middle East. The question that is raised in this regard is whether the process of democratization and attempts of the said foundations as an executive arm of this process are really directed towards promotion of real democracy in other countries or such endeavors are indeed the very measures of the Western intelligence services in a popular guise in order to wage soft war. The theory of cultural imperialism of the United States (as a deceptive aspect of soft war general strategy) under the title of public diplomacy has been used to analyze the problem. The present paper’s argument is that democratization is a suitable veneer for covering up the policies which are full of deception and concealment to impose imperialism and such foundations as the National Endowment for Democracy in fact implement the clandestine policies of the CIA under a charming appearance.

According to existing evidences, there are logical relationships between the social classes and conditions of developing and developed societies and hence class analysis is one of the methods of strategic analysis of order and change inthese societies. Due to being in the age of information, knowledge and technology, the Middle class compared to other classes, enjoys a significant status. Also in the current age, information, knowledge and software technologies play an effective role in maintenance of security and emergence of soft war – with roles and functions similar to classic wars – and thus a logical relationship has been established between the middle class and security and soft war. This relationship has underlined the significance of understanding of the existence or absence of social class in a society, its size, the size and expanse of the middle class in the said society and designing of a suitable model for assessment of the role and function of the middle class in security and soft war. In the present research, the said model has been designed with four criteria of class structure of society; relations of middle class constructions and the political system; solidarity or lack of solidarity of the middle class; and the organization and identity of middle class. The relationship between the middle class and the political system enjoys a special status in this model.

Advancement of information and communications technology, particularly those related to cyberspace, has led to fundamental changes in the nature, means and modern methods of war, causing fundamental change and transformation in different kinds of security threats. Given the concentration of the domination system on utilization of the cyberspace capacities and capabilities to create ethnic, sectarian and social compressed tensions and spread mistrust between the public and the government and launch aggressive network attacks to paralyze the management of the affairs, cyber war is one of the most important manifestations of threats to national security of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Acting in this space requires proper understanding of all its aspects, capacities and case study of application of cyberspace to soft war. Through proper understanding and operational assessment of threats and through adopting offensive and defensive approaches, not only it is possible to thwart them but also prepare the strategic grounds for utilization of cyberspace capabilities within the framework of strategy of cyber soft operations against the enemy.

As a new form of contemporary battle, soft war concentrates on the perception Scope of human beings, transferring the battle from bulwarks to hearts, feelings and beliefs of human beings. This battle has three levels in the stage of planning and implementation: strategic, operational and tactical. These stages indicate the domain, depth, objective, significance and influence of soft war in the target society. Hence, understanding of these levels, not only sheds light on the plans and strategies of the enemy in this field but also makes it possible to adjust the counter attacks with the said levels. Therefore, in order to confront the strategic level of the soft war, one should adopt solution at strategic level or through understanding the level of actions and plans of the enemy prioritize the counteractions. In fact, at lower levels of soft war, adoption of some solutions as the same level will be enough without requiring investing at strategic level. While analyzing the three levels of soft war, the present paper also discusses the objectives of the enemy in every stage and elucidates some outstanding referents related to Iran.