The Strategy of Information Confrontation of the Countries of the Collective West in the Arab Countries of the Middle East and North Africa

Since the middle of the 20th century, the phenomenon of information-psychological confrontation and its components have been in the focus of attention of domestic and foreign researchers. As technology develops, the information front has been growing in importance/significance superiority over the enemy in the information and psychological sphere in the conditions of modern conflict is sometimes more important than superiority on the battlefield. Currently, in the context of global tension, there is another aggravation of information confrontation in the Arab world, the participants of which are both Western and Eastern countries, including Russia. The current configuration of the conflict is significantly different from all previous ones: the bloc nature of cooperation between countries is gone (as it was the case during the Cold War), while the development of information and communication technologies has allowed each side of the conflict to have an information and psychological impact on all countries of the region at once. To build the most effective national information policy, it is necessary to study in detail the approaches of other countries, determine the main and secondary vectors of their work, and identify the mechanisms of information and psychological impact. The analysis of the information and psychological strategies of the leading Western states (the USA, Great Britain and France) showed the absence of a unified approach to the implementation of activities in the information field at the theoretical and practical levels. The current state of disunity of the countries under consideration, while maintaining the leading role of the United States as the leader of the collective West, is caused by both historical prerequisites and objective political and economic reasons. Due to the current situation, as well as in connection with the active work to counter Western propaganda by Russia, China and Iran, the information and psychological campaigns of the United States, Great Britain and France are less effective than before, which nevertheless does not mean their complete collapse.