| Popis: |
The United States has no peer competitors in conventional military power. But its adversaries are increasingly turning to asymmetric methods for engaging in conflict. This paper advances the idea of cyber-enabled information warfare and influence operations (IWIO) as a form of conflict or confrontation to which the United States (and liberal democracies more generally) are particularly vulnerable. IWIO is the deliberate use of information against an adversary to confuse, mislead, and perhaps to influence the choices and decisions that the adversary makes. IWIO is a hostile activity, or at least an activity that is conducted between two parties whose interests are not well aligned, but it does not constitute warfare in the sense that international law or domestic institutions construe it. IWIO takes advantage of systematic biases in human cognition towards non-rational thought. Cyber-enabled IWIO exploits these biases even more through the use of modern communications technologies to facilitate high connectivity, low latency, high degrees of anonymity, insensitivity to distance and national borders, democratized access to publishing capabilities, and inexpensive production and consumption of information content. Some approaches to counter IWIO show some promise of having some modest but valuable defensive effect. But, on the whole, there are no good solutions for large-scale countering of IWIO in free and democratic societies. Development of new tactics and responses is therefore needed. |
