Strategy, at its best, knits together ends and means, no matter how various and disparate, into a cohesive pattern. In the case of a U.S. information strategy, this requires balancing the need to guard and secure access to many informational capabilities and resources, with the opportunity to achieve national aims by fostering as much openness as practicable. The authors' term to represent such strategic balancing is guarded openness. They go on to describe noopolitik (nu-oh-poh-li-teek)--an emerging form of statecraft that emphasizes the importance of sharing ideas and values globally, principally through the exercise of persuasive soft power rather than traditional military hard power. This study discusses the opportunities that may be raised by the emergence of noopolitik--ranging from construction of a noosphere (a globe-spanning realm of the mind) to recommendations that, for example, the U.S. military should begin to develop its own noosphere (among and between the services, as well as with U.S. allies). In the area of international cooperation, the authors offer strategic approaches for improving the capacity of state and nonstate actors to work together to address transnational problems. In addition, the authors recommend specific doctrinal developments, implied by the emergence of information strategy--including the pressing need to deal with such ethical concerns as the first use of information weapons, concepts of proportional response, and the need to maintain the immunity of noncombatants. Ultimately, the authors call for an innovative turn of mind as policymakers and strategists rethink how best to adapt to the epochal transformations being wrought by the information revolution.

In this Perspective, the authors urge strategists to consider a new concept for adapting U.S. grand strategy to the information age-noopolitik, which favors the use of "soft power"--As a successor to realpolitik, with its emphasis on "hard power." The authors illuminate how U.S. adversaries are already deploying dark forms of noopolitik-e.g., weaponized narratives, strategic deception, epistemic attacks. The authors propose new ways to fight back and discuss how the future of noopolitik might depend on what happens to the global commons-i.e., the parts of the Earth and space that fall outside national jurisdictions and to which all nations are supposed to have access. The authors expand on many of the ideas they first proposed in a 1999 RAND Corporation report titled The Emergence of Noopolitik: Toward an American Information Strategy, in which they describe the emergence of a new globe-circling realm: the noosphere. The authors explain that Earth first developed a geosphere, a geological mantle, and then a biosphere, consisting of plant and animal life. Third to develop will be the noosphere, a global "thinking circuit" and "realm of the mind"-a collective form of intelligence enabled by the digital information revolution. As the noosphere expands, it will profoundly affect statecraft; the conditions favoring traditional realpolitik strategies will erode, and the prospects for noopolitik strategies will grow. Thus, the decisive factor in today's and tomorrow's wars of ideas is bound to be "whose story wins"-the essence of noopolitik. To improve prospects for the noosphere and noopolitik, U.S. policy and strategy should, among other initiatives, treat the global commons as a pivotal issue area, uphold "guarded openness" as a guiding principle, and institute a requirement for periodic reviews of America's "information posture."

The information revolution--which is as much an organizational as a technological revolution--is transforming the nature of conflict across the spectrum: from open warfare, to terrorism, crime, and even radical social activism. The era of massed field armies is passing, because the new information and communications systems are increasing the lethality of quite small units that can call in deadly, precise missile fire almost anywhere, anytime. In social conflicts, the Internet and other media are greatly empowering individuals and small groups to influence the behavior of states. Whether in military or social conflicts, all protagonists will soon be developing new doctrines, strategies, and tactics for swarming their opponents--with weapons or words, as circumstances require. Preparing for conflict in such a world will require shifting to new forms of organization, particularly the versatile, hardy, all-channel network. This shift will prove difficult for states and professional militaries that remain bastions of hierarchy, bound to resist institutional redesign. They will make the shift as they realize that information and knowledge are becoming the key elements of power. This implies, among other things, that Mars, the old brute-force god of war, must give way to Athena, the well-armed goddess of wisdom. Accepting Athena as the patroness of this information age represents a first step not only for preparing for future conflicts, but also for preventing them.

Today, political participation takes place in schools, at home, at work, and in the courts. We have made "informed citizenship" an overwhelming task. Schudson argues that it is time for a new model, in which we stop expecting everyone to do everything. The new citizenship must rest on citizens who are monitors of political danger rather than walking encyclopedias of governmental news. This tour of the past makes it possible to imagine a very different - and much more satisfying - future.

This book outlines the concept of Fifth Generation Warfare (5GW) and demonstrates its relevance for understanding contemporary conflicts. Non-kinetic modes of attack and war waged by groups or non-state actors at the societal level has been termed 5GW. This book discusses the theory of generational warfare and explores the key ideas of 5GW, such as secrecy, the manipulation of proxies, the manipulation of identity and culture (including disinformation and big data), and the use of psychological warfare. These techniques are used to achieve strategic objectives, such as inducing desired behaviour and controlling human terrain, without resorting to overt war or overt violence. The text expands the debate on 5GW by exploring emerging technologies and how they could be used for maliciously shaping human society and even for maliciously changing the genetic makeup of a population for the purpose of unprecedented social control. The work closes with comments on the possibility of a Sixth Generation of Warfare, which targets technical systems to possibly collapse a society through strategic sabotage. Overall, the book demonstrates the relevance of 5GW for understanding contemporary conflicts, from the Arab Spring to the war in Ukraine, in terms of the need for dominating the human domain. This book will be of interest to students of security and technology, defence studies and International Relations.

This report builds on what we have accomplished so far in a set of studies, since 1991, about future military affairs (cyberwar), societal-level conflict and crime (netwar), and information strategy (see the Bibliography for relevant citations). Here we advance the idea of "noopolitik" (nue-oh-poh-li-teek), a new approach to statecraft based principally on the primacy of ideas, values, laws, and ethics, as enabled by the emergence of the noosphere (an all-encompassing realm of the mind), to extend our research agenda in a new direction. Primarily of interest to U.S. policymakers and strategists, this report will also interest those in academia and think tanks concerned with how the information revolution is altering the conditions for and conduct of strategy.

The Routledge Handbook of Public Diplomacy provides a comprehensive overview of public diplomacy and national image and perception management, from the efforts to foster pro-West sentiment during the Cold War to the post-9/11 campaign to "win the hearts and minds" of the Muslim world. Editors Nancy Snow and Philip Taylor present materials on public diplomacy trends in public opinion and cultural diplomacy as well as topical policy issues. The latest research in public relations, credibility, soft power, advertising, and marketing is included and institutional processes and players are identified and analyzed. While the field is dominated by American and British research and developments, the book also includes international research and comparative perspectives from other countries. Published in association with the USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School based at the University of Southern California.