Information Warfare Evolves: From WWII Colonial Propaganda to Modern AI Battlegrounds

In an active war, communication becomes as important as combat itself. The current U.S.-Iran conflict showcases this reality through a new visual vocabulary. While the United States pushes video game-style edits reminiscent of Call of Duty and Top Gun, Iran turns to rap music and Lego-style animation for its messaging. Though the styles differ, the objective remains consistent: to win not only on the battlefield but also in the battle over narrative. This represents the essence of psychological warfare—the weaponization and manipulation of information to shape public opinion, influence morale, and generate fear, consent, or hostility.

Some scholars now describe this new information environment as “slopaganda,” a blend of ‘AI slop’ and ‘propaganda,’ referring to AI-generated content designed to manipulate emotion and attention for political purposes. While slopaganda operates faster, cheaper, and with greater personalization than earlier influence campaigns, the underlying strategy remains unchanged. Long before social media, wars were fought through posters, rumors, leaflets, films, and carefully managed narratives.

To understand how little the fundamental approach has evolved, examining India during the Second World War proves instructive. The subcontinent became an intense propaganda battleground shaped by competing British and Japanese messaging campaigns.

When World War II began in September 1939, Viceroy Lord Linlithgow declared India at war with Germany without consulting the Legislative Assembly or any Indian political leaders. The Indian National Congress, the country’s largest political party, resigned from provincial governments in protest. Yet by August 1945, more than 2.5 million Indians had enlisted under the British flag, creating the largest volunteer force in history.

This paradox—a colonized nation sending an unprecedented volunteer army to fight for its colonizer—was not accidental but engineered through sophisticated propaganda. At the war’s beginning, the British Indian Army numbered just over 200,000 men. After France fell in June 1940, London abandoned earlier assumptions that India would contribute only modestly to the European conflict. Recruitment expanded rapidly: 456,000 by late 1940, over 900,000 by the end of 1941, and more than 1.5 million by late 1942.

British authorities presented the war not as an imperial imposition but as a shared cause in which Indian dignity, family, and national honor were at stake. Recruitment posters, produced in multiple Indian languages, depicted soldiers protecting their homeland and families. One such poster showed an Indian soldier standing before a map of the subcontinent with Hindi text reading: “This soldier is protecting Hindustan. He is protecting his home and his family. The best way to help your family is to enlist in the army.”

After the Quit India Movement of August 1942, the propaganda effort intensified. The colonial government established the National War Front (NWF) under the Director of War Publicity, focusing on grassroots outreach. Its pledge captured the tone: “I solemnly pledge myself to stamp out defeatism and suppress alarmist rumour, to face and defy every peril threatening India’s national honour and security.”

As Japanese forces advanced through Southeast Asia, India became the site of a parallel propaganda battle. While British posters urged enlistment in the name of duty and family, Japanese propaganda sought to convert anti-colonial sentiment into political opportunity. It positioned Japan as Asia’s liberator and Britain as the brutal oppressor whose rule had brought famine, massacre, and humiliation to India.

Japanese leaflets targeted both civilians and soldiers stationed near the eastern front along the Burmese border. Their imagery was designed to be immediately emotional and accessible even to those with limited literacy. One recurring figure was a hybrid imperial villain resembling Winston Churchill, shown chaining Indians or feasting while Indians starved.

By 1944, the British had mounted a massive counterleaflet campaign, dropping an estimated 1.5 million leaflets monthly on Indian National Army positions. One anti-Japanese leaflet portrayed Subhas Chandra Bose as the “quisling son of India,” showing him handing a chained Bharat Mata to a Japanese soldier with a bloody sword.

Despite nationalist resistance and Japanese appeals to anti-colonial grievances, Indians enlisted in unprecedented numbers, serving across multiple theaters from North Africa to East Asia. This success stemmed partly from recruitment’s material benefits—steady wages and land grants—and partly because propaganda effectively framed military service as compatible with Indian dignity.

Today’s information warfare operates with new technologies but familiar strategies. From lithographic posters to AI-generated videos and algorithmically amplified memes, the basic approach remains recognizable. What the Second World War material reveals is that emotional resonance, strategic simplification, and mass distribution were already present in the leaflets falling into Assam paddy fields in 1944. Generative AI hasn’t invented a new type of information warfare; it has simply industrialized an old one.

The significant change lies in scale and speed. Content that once required print facilities in Bombay or transmitters in Zeesen can now be produced instantly by anyone with access to AI tools and distributed to precisely targeted audiences automatically.

Today’s India, now an independent nation and major Asian power, occupies a vastly different position than its colonial predecessor. It has the option to refuse participation in the emotional theater of other nations’ conflicts, maintaining strategic clarity to protect its citizens, secure its regional interests, resist disinformation, and continue advocating for de-escalation and dialogue.