This volume develops information strategy as a construct equal in importance to military strategy as an influential tool of statecraft. John Arquilla and Douglas A. Borer explore three principal themes: the rise of the ‘information domain’ and information strategy as an equal partner alongside traditional military strategy the need to consider the organizational implications of information strategy the realm of what has been called ‘information operations’ (IO) - the building blocks of information strategy - has been too narrowly depicted and must be both broadened and deepened. Information Strategy and Warfare will be essential reading for students and practitioners of information strategy, as well as scholars of security studies and military strategy in general.

Future U.S. national security strategy is likely to be profoundly affected by the ongoing, rapid evolution of cyberspace--the global information infrastructure--and in particular by the growing dependence of the U.S. military and other national institutions and infrastructures on potentially vulnerable elements of the U.S. national information infrastructure. To examine these effects, the authors conducted a series of exercises employing a methodology known as the Day After ... in which participants are presented with an information warfare crisis scenario and asked to advise the president on possible responses. Participants included senior national security community members and representatives from security-related telecommunications and information-systems industries. The report synthesizes the exercise results and presents the instructions from the exercise materials in their entirety.

This book provides a systems-level introduction of the means by which information technology is changing conflict and warfare. This book is for war fighters, as well as the policy makers, commanders, and systems engineers who will implement the transition for strategy and concept to system design and implementation.

Ongoing discussion around the Russian development of hybrid warfare and the revelations about meddling in the 2016 United States Presidential election have focused the public's attention on the threats posed by coordinated campaigns of propaganda and disinformation. These recent events have also raised concerns around the broader challenge posed by the emergence of a "post-fact society," the notion that the weakening ability for civil society and the public to analyze truth and falsity is creating a threat to the health and sustainability of democratic institutions. Technology and the Internet, in particular, play a key role in shaping the flow of information through society. Not surprisingly, the role of these systems in enabling new types of information warfare has figured prominently in the discussion as policymakers and scholars begin to develop their thinking about the appropriate response to these issues. Platforms such as Facebook and Google have been seen as having had a significant role in facilitating Russian propaganda efforts, incentivizing the distribution of false information, and encouraging the creation of extremist "filter bubbles." As the defense community develops its approach to countering present-day online propaganda and disinformation techniques, it will need to place concerns around immediate threats into a broader understanding of the nature of the challenge. In short, the defense community will require an articulation of a unified strategic concept. This monograph offers an initial sketch of such a concept, proposing one approach to characterizing the strategic situation in the current information space and, based on that, some conjectures about the effective conduct of online information warfare.

The modern means of communication have turned the world into an information fishbowl and, in terms of foreign policy and national security in post-Cold War power politics, helped transform international power politics. Information operations (IO), in which time zones are as important as national boundaries, is the use of modern technology to deliver critical information and influential content in an effort to shape perceptions, manage opinions, and control behavior. Contemporary IO differs from traditional psychological operations practiced by nation-states, because the availability of low-cost high technology permits nongovernmental organizations and rogue elements, such as terrorist groups, to deliver influential content of their own as well as facilitates damaging cyber-attacks ("hactivism") on computer networks and infrastructure. As current vice president Dick Cheney once said, such technology has turned third-class powers into first-class threats. Conceived as a textbook by instructors at the Joint Command, Control, and Information Warfare School of the U.S. Joint Forces Staff College and involving IO experts from several countries, this book fills an important gap in the literature by analyzing under one cover the military, technological, and psychological aspects of information operations. The general reader will appreciate the examples taken from recent history that reflect the impact of IO on U.S. foreign policy, military operations, and government organization.

Investigating the logic, conduct and nature of war on the highest political and strategic levels, these essays put less emphasis on operational and tactical aspects. They look at the impact of technology on warfare, the political nature of war and the limits of rational analysis in studying war.