Alessandra Nisch
Putin’s Wars: Testing Boyd’s Strategy of ...

President Putin made three foundational assumptions in launching his war against Ukraine that should have been correct but were not. First, Putin assumed the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick and easy fight. Second, he assumed the world would denounce the invasion but tacitly allow it. Third, Putin assumed the war would deter NATO expansion.

Putin’s Wars: Testing Boyd’s Strategy of Applied Friction

Information

Countering China's Use of Information Laundering Via Minds and Media

Countering China's Use of Information Laundering Via Minds and Media

China’s influence operations have evolved to employ “information laundering” to shape global narratives. Information laundering—the process of introducing disinformation into the Internet ecosystem and legitimizing it through transitions from fringe sites to public discourse—is the next generation of information operations. While Russia’s 2016 election interference is a well-documented and heavily litigated example of this process, China’s social media forays have been characterized as more overt and less skillful.Their actions have garnered minimal engagements, were easily attributed, and were ultimately blocked as state-sponsored content. However, China’s recent history with influence operations demonstrates a continually evolving tactic and narrative, with information laundering as the most recent and successful approach.

The Damage of Disinformation: A Glaring Omission in the U.S. Global Health Security Strategy

The Damage of Disinformation: A Glaring Omission in the U.S. Global Health Security Strategy

Although it has been over five years since the Ebola crisis devastated West Africa and energized the global community to more effectively prevent, detect, and respond to health threats, the COVID-19 pandemic exposed America’s lack of preparedness for high-consequence disease outbreaks. While America’s Global Health Security Strategy is an important framework to strengthen global health security, as written, the strategy is insufficient.

The Evolution of Disinformation: How Public Opinion Became Proxy

The Evolution of Disinformation: How Public Opinion Became Proxy

Western governments and corporations will seek ways to counter mounting threats related to disinformation, but they cannot eradicate its existence, nor can they dictate how information is processed by its consumers. The fight against disinformation is a generational struggle that will only be won through education and long-term cultural shifts related to the manner in which populations seek, consume, and validate information.

Russian Battlefield Awareness and Information Dominance: Improved Capabilities and Future Challenges

Russian Battlefield Awareness and Information Dominance: Improved Capabilities and Future Challenges

The Russian military is developing the doctrine and capabilities for gaining and contesting battlefield awareness that will pose a significant challenge to U.S. forces in any future conflict with Russia. The military’s focus on information dominance extends from a broader belief among Russian leadership that information confrontation is one of the fundamental ways in which states compete. While the Russian military has always been adept at bringing tremendous firepower to bear during combat operations, it has also been a brawler, needing to get in contact with its opponent before being able to fight.

Welcome to the Disinformation Game—You’re Late

Welcome to the Disinformation Game—You’re Late

Although the vehicle of social media has certainly increased the speed by which disinformation reaches its recipients, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to sow internal division among his adversaries is in no way a novel undertaking, and western leaders should be hesitant to paint Russian propaganda as an earth-shaking revelation in the 21st century. This isn’t a reinvention of Russia’s unconventional warfare paradigm; it’s a continuation of it.

DIME, not DiME: Time to Align the Instruments of U.S. Informational Power

DIME, not DiME: Time to Align the Instruments of U.S. Informational Power

All the instruments of U.S. informational power must become stronger because of the surge of non-state actors in international affairs, the need to integrate advocacy and influence with more coercive tools of statecraft, and the urgency of again considering the war of ideas. The information environment of the 21st century will feature contested narratives, information blocking, Islamist social media, Russia’s hybrid warfare, and China’s three warfares.

Defense and Self-Defense in the Information Age: Collaborative Strategy and Collective Vision

Defense and Self-Defense in the Information Age: Collaborative Strategy and Collective Vision

The United States needs a unifying information strategy. America’s adversaries gain political and military advantages every day the U.S. goes without clear priorities in the current information war. To succeed, American military leaders and political scientists emphasize prioritizing the use of resources. The prioritization of these resources requires a comprehensive strategy.

Nine Links in the Chain: The Weaponized Narrative, Sun Tzu, and the Essence of War

Nine Links in the Chain: The Weaponized Narrative, Sun Tzu, and the Essence of War

Weaponizing a narrative resembles weaponizing a disease in several ways. One similarity is that neither is kinetic, yet both can have immense effects. Both are dangerous and chaotic, but are less dangerous to the faction prepared for the risks—or with less to lose. Like viruses, narratives can combine to create overwhelming effects, and can appear and propagate with unnerving rapidity. Unlike viruses, though, the narrative is so inexpensive that almost anyone can weaponize and deploy it. Also unlike viruses, the weaponized narrative targets our minds.

数字化 – 网络化 – 智能化: China’s Quest for an AI Revolution in Warfare

数字化 – 网络化 – 智能化: China’s Quest for an AI Revolution in Warfare

As the U.S. and China compete to innovate in this domain, the relative trajectories of U.S. and Chinese advances in artificial intelligence will impact the future military and strategic balance. China’s ability to leverage these national strategies, extensive funding, massive amounts of data, and ample human resources could result in rapid future progress. In some cases, these advances will be enabled by technology transfer, overseas investments, and acquisitions focused on cutting-edge strategic technologies.

Making Old Things New Again: Strategy, the Information Environment, and National Security

Making Old Things New Again: Strategy, the Information Environment, and National Security

Developing the depth and flexibility of mind and understanding to work effectively within the information environment, in addition to the operational environment, is challenging. However, given the systemic changes in virtually every field of human activity during the new century, and the threats they may pose to our country’s security and prosperity, this is a challenge we must accept.

#Reviewing Success and Failure in Limited War

#Reviewing Success and Failure in Limited War

Strategic performance is strongly affected by the state’s information management capabilities. Top policymakers must have the ability to understand the environment in which they are acting (outside information) and how their national security organizations are behaving in that strategic environment (inside information). Strategic risk assessment is based on an understanding of the opponent’s strengths and weaknesses, the challenges and opportunities present in the international environment, and the capability of the state to act in a purposeful way along multiple lines. Without sound outside and inside information, risk assessments will suffer, as will the quality of strategy.

#Reviewing Success and Failure in Limited War

#Reviewing Success and Failure in Limited War

In the Information Institution Approach, Bakich gives critical importance to whether or not key decision makers have access to multi-sourced information and whether the information institutions themselves have the ability to communicate laterally. When information is multi-sourced and there is good coordination across the diplomatic and military lines of effort, Bakich predicts success. When information is stove piped and there is poor coordination, he predicts failure. Where the systems are moderately truncated, Bakich expects various degrees of failure depending on the scope and location within the state’s information institutions.

In the Information Age Centers of Activity > Centers of Gravity

In the Information Age Centers of Activity > Centers of Gravity

After the 1991 Gulf War, the character of war changed dramatically, and not in the way America believed it would. While spell-binding CNN footage sold us on the value of precision attack, our adversaries across-the-board learned two very different lessons. First, if it matters, it has to move and hide. Second, reclaiming the initiative from the US is always possible, as Iraqi SCUDS nearly proved. Their new playbook was clear — absorb, re-form, and reengage. Shock and Awe had its moment, but is gone for good. That is, unless we shift away from the idea we can take down a resilient, adaptive system by attacking centers of gravity, and instead harness our ability to observe and affect a system’s centers of activity.