(AGENPARL) – ven 22 luglio 2022 [ISW Logo]
Addressing the New Era of Deterrence and Warfare: Visualizing the Information Domain
The Institute for the Study of War and the IBM Center for The Business of Government have launched a three-event series, “Addressing the New Era of Deterrence and Warfare: Visualizing the Information Domain.”
Blog Co-Authors: [Kimberly Kagan](https://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001CHiZ_eWDvZuFNh6k6BYuBJiKFyT4UbSh9tm_4_pwDX-Z-dJlG9Vg58-kBJ4DkLBSc6hHK8PIws765TSEEnhnpFZZa9ZHQ2-gFA0cHiGw8d_sHY2-IYWUEcfFgrEYG-RYHA7RrO8AmVk2_o0NNgLOU8VZSfbSJlrpTyQq8DiLtaDxfJ-kXDxRQkivDHC4LZzzIk7SiyW0GZDUzHzVYqQRRQ==&c=NaMJKdIwuPDi6kF5bLd3EVOOFoGweprouZbdjDfV55xfgW4miN_vqw==&ch=U_mVAIu2eZZVbsUE6aLWWUQ1NqHTv0fF0l3Pb8jY7ROvvqXwe7PkAQ==), founder and president of the Institute for the Study of War; [Frederick W. Kagan](https://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001CHiZ_eWDvZuFNh6k6BYuBJiKFyT4UbSh9tm_4_pwDX-Z-dJlG9Vg52poIEf1mEkqb0RkT_Dhm6XhDPV9OusonxE62qQanaL8dJ42yyfyqC4xZWJL1Sm2iKGcOUsItG1NjAf9rb_Ra7MAMK-68fpj_TPa8vXKBtLfnPaLZS59NfGB4pyabidy-g==&c=NaMJKdIwuPDi6kF5bLd3EVOOFoGweprouZbdjDfV55xfgW4miN_vqw==&ch=U_mVAIu2eZZVbsUE6aLWWUQ1NqHTv0fF0l3Pb8jY7ROvvqXwe7PkAQ==), senior fellow and director of the Critical Threats Project at American Enterprise Institute; and [Brian Babcock-Lumish](https://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001CHiZ_eWDvZuFNh6k6BYuBJiKFyT4UbSh9tm_4_pwDX-Z-dJlG9Vg51L9GxgPRICZM12S4NsHme9BgwzynHkvS0gDFPnufe7KYGSnoiUzqC1clNGZNqDOV1LoFwwgZLm6L4pdveOXyWGzwLaJR3sw5vyoKY0dfNGUqIas6uV5I9OnWdu5orXWFep-1vp4mNbgshJqXt2rwC363qJwwXhrNGk0FCBM3n3x&c=NaMJKdIwuPDi6kF5bLd3EVOOFoGweprouZbdjDfV55xfgW4miN_vqw==&ch=U_mVAIu2eZZVbsUE6aLWWUQ1NqHTv0fF0l3Pb8jY7ROvvqXwe7PkAQ==), director of the General David H. Petraeus Center for Emerging Leaders at the Institute for the Study of War.
These expert roundtable discussions are convening global leaders from the military, government, academia, and technology sectors to consider conceptually what it means to visualize the information domain.
[Click here to read the full blog post.](https://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001CHiZ_eWDvZuFNh6k6BYuBJiKFyT4UbSh9tm_4_pwDX-Z-dJlG9Vg58-kBJ4DkLBSumGoJBK0Iu6D3br4ScHjZebhwLNGGWz73dK_2_-avF_TZdSMlDWN08GIw33xnZDtF4UAAc6_QHDMDCEcJWt_jPctMODl02XB&c=NaMJKdIwuPDi6kF5bLd3EVOOFoGweprouZbdjDfV55xfgW4miN_vqw==&ch=U_mVAIu2eZZVbsUE6aLWWUQ1NqHTv0fF0l3Pb8jY7ROvvqXwe7PkAQ==)
The overarching objective of the series addresses these core questions:
– How do information operations impact governments and stakeholders in the current era?
– What challenges and opportunities do information operations pose to swift and effective decision-making? What interactions do they have with other domains?
– How can emerging technologies provide pathways for faster and more reliable development of a common operating picture and common understanding in order to enable effective decision-making?
– How should governments and stakeholders combat misinformation as a tool of modern conflict?
– How can information operations best be visualized alongside other domains?
Key to the discussions on this issue at the first roundtable, held in Washington DC in May, were two definitions proposed in advance:
– The information domain is the sum of the wills of each actor, where the will is the composite of convictions, perceptions, and influences that drive toward action.
– Information operations are deliberate campaigns to influence others’ wills in which the means of influence is not (primarily) the use or threat of violence, but rather non-violent, non-kinetic methods aimed at shaping others’ perceptions, motivations, and convictions.
In the DC session, the group reached broad (though not universal) consensus on several fundamental premises. First, information constitutes a sixth domain of warfare alongside the five traditional domains: air, sea, land, space, and cyber. At the same time, the group recognized the institutional challenges inherent in adding a new domain of warfare as well as the counter-arguments against the idea. Robust discussion of this point concluded that the question of whether information is a domain of warfare need not be settled to pursue the challenge of visualizing information operations. In the end, however, the balance of the group agreed that assessing information as a domain of warfare was analytically and conceptually helpful.
Second, the information and cyber domains overlap but are not co-extensive. Discussion on this question centered on the recognition that while most (but not all) information now flows through the cyber domain, operations primarily aimed at affecting computers and networks differ from those oriented on shaping human perceptions. The group saw the latter as “information operations” warranting further discussions, and distinct from cyber operations per se.
Third, the “information space” could be defined too broadly, to include cyber activities on the one hand, or all activities aimed at shaping the perceptions of a target audience on the other. The group did not converge on a precise set of boundaries for the definition, but did identify the requirement to do so.