Nation-states and violent nonstate actors (VNSAs)-- including terrorists and insurgents-- rely on positive perceptions (or at least acceptance) among key constituencies in order to muster support necessary for achieving their strategic objectives. As illustrated in the chapters of this volume, the information domain requires a sophisticated strategic communications ability in order to influence the policy and behavior of states as well as the hearts and minds of citizens. A core objective of this volume is to help develop a deeper understanding of this ongoing struggle for what some have called strategic influence, and particularly how states can counter the role that ideologies, the media and the Internet play in radicalizing new agents of terrorism.

This book examines Russian influence operations globally, in Europe, and in Russia’s neighboring countries, and provides a comprehensive overview of the latest technologies and forms of strategic communication employed in hybrid warfare. Given the growing importance of comprehensive information warfare as a new and rapidly advancing type of international conflict in which knowledge is a primary target, the book examines Russia’s role in Global Knowledge Warfare. The content is divided into three parts, the first of which addresses conceptual issues such as the logic of information warfare, the role of synthetic media, and Russia’s foreign policy concepts, including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on influence operations. The second part analyzes technological, legal and strategic challenges in modern hybrid warfare, while the third focuses on textual, cultural and historical patterns in information warfare, also from various regional (e.g. the Western Balkans, Romania, Ukraine, and the Baltic) perspectives. The book is primarily intended for scholars in the fields of international relations, security and the military sciences who are interested in Russian foreign policy and influence operations, but also their impact on the global security environment.

Because the nexus of information conflict is most easily viewed in the world's contemporary violent confrontations, this anthology is heavily weighted toward military personnel who have managed these difficult issues."--BOOK JACKET.

In Dwight D. Eisenhower's last speech as president, on January 17, 1961, he warned America about the "military-industrial complex," a mutual dependency between the nation's industrial base and its military structure that had developed during World War II. After the conflict ended, the nation did not abandon its wartime economy but rather the opposite. Military spending has steadily increased, giving rise to one of the key ideas that continues to shape our country's political landscape.In this book, published to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of Eisenhower's farewell address, journalist James Ledbetter shows how the government, military contractors, and the nation's overall economy have become inseparable. Some of the effects are beneficial, such as cell phones, GPS systems, the Internet, and the Hubble Space Telescope, all of which emerged from technologies first developed for the military. But the military-industrial complex has also provoked agonizing questions. Does our massive military establishment--bigger than those of the next ten largest combined--really make us safer? How much of our perception of security threats is driven by the profit-making motives of military contractors? To what extent is our foreign policy influenced by contractors' financial interests?Ledbetter uncovers the surprising origins and the even more surprising afterlife of the military-industrial complex, an idea that arose as early as the 1930s, and shows how it gained traction during World War II, the Cold War, and the Vietnam era and continues even today.

In this vital book, thirteen experts in public diplomacy, counterpropaganda and political warfare lay out the components of what the U.S. and its allies need to win the war of ideas around the world. Strategic influence is much more than strategic communication. Communicating with others has somehow become a goal in itself, when the real issue is influence - to modify the perceptions, attitudes, and most of all, the behavior of people, movements and governments around the world. This book is designed for the diplomat, intelligence officer, warfighter and policymaker.

This important work, edited by an expert on terrorism, focuses on the 21st-century struggle for strategic influence and ways in which states can neutralize the role of new media in spreading terrorist propaganda. In an era where anyone can have access to the Internet or other media forms that make widespread communication easy, terrorists and insurgents can spread their messages with complete freedom, creating challenges for national security. Influence Warfare: How Terrorists and Governments Fight to Shape Perceptions in a War of Ideas focuses on the core of the ongoing struggle for strategic influence and, particularly, how states can counter the role media and the Internet play in radicalizing new agents of terrorism. As the book makes clear, governments need to find ways to effectively confront non-state adversaries at all levels of the information domain and create an understanding of strategic communications within a broad range of technologies. The essays from the international group of authors who contributed to this work offer a deeper understanding of the ongoing struggle. Influence Warfare also provides a set of case studies that illustrate how the means and methods of strategic influence can impact a nation's security.

"This book examines the rapidly growing industry of "digital influence mercenaries"-shady online marketing firms and entrepreneurs who use online technologies to exploit the uncertainties, fears, and biases of their targets to gain profit and power. Students, researchers, policymakers, and the general public need this book to help them make sense of how and why each of us is being manipulated, and what we can do about it"--