What impact will the information war centered on the digital media environment have on national belief systems? Meta-strategy reviews the latest research of the Institute of Modern Warfare at West Point, and explores the evolution of the information landscape and the formation of a "digital state". The study points out that the essence of information domain conflict is the overlap between "the layout of emerging information" and "existing national belief systems". At present, the development of digital platforms in the information age has broken the limitations of geographical distance, and the information domain has become a new arena for global conflicts.
01
Information threats
Today, information warfare may have become an intrinsic part of inter-state conflicts, and the information domain is seen as a new arena of warfare and is often referred to in parallel with the digital environment. In fact, there is a synergistic relationship between the two, and emerging digital technologies, such as social media and artificial intelligence, have enhanced the efficacy of information tools and expanded the coverage of information attacks. More and more countries and regions are looking for ways to maximize their own interests in the information domain and avoid and reduce threats.
On 11 January 2018, Singapore established the Special Committee on Intentional Online Falsification, which aims to review fake news and propose actionable measures; On May 8, 2019, a comprehensive piece of legislation, the Prevention of Online Disinformation and Manipulation Act, was passed, which allows authorities to intervene in false or misleading statements that threaten the public interest, with the aim of curbing the harmful effects of disinformation.
Conflicts in the information age present a new perspective, in which civil society protests against the government's stance and attitude to events abroad. "Method-centric" information warfare research typically assumes a top-down sequence of actions, in which actors initiate actions and then achieve results with the help of the information domain. However, there is also a more natural "bottom-up" effect of information warfare.
02
The "bottom-up" effect
A simple mapping of protests around the world reveals that the contexts are very diverse, spanning multiple continents and regions. An in-depth survey of participants has shown that these protests transcend traditional social barriers such as culture, religion, ethnicity, gender, and age.
Moreover, protests appear to be a spontaneously organized and generated global phenomenon. There is little or no coordination between groups from different countries or even within the same country. At the same time, there are commonalities in the ideas and symbols adopted by the various groups involved in the protests. How, then, can we explain that these ideas or symbols, despite their different backgrounds, present a consistency that is broadly representative of the aspirations of the majority of protest groups? To answer this question, it is necessary to study the concept of the "information-state", in particular the concept of the "digital nation-state" in the information age.
03
The State and the Envisioned Community
American political scientist Benedict Anderson, in his influential study of nationalism, famously made the idea that the nation is an imaginary political community. It was conceived because it represented a common fraternity. Although it is not possible for all its members to come into contact with each other face-to-face and to fully understand all aspects of its constitution, this fraternity still exists.
At the same time, Israeli scholar Yair Tamir points out that national identity is defined by its exclusivity relative to other groups, and its members are bound together by a unique and shared sense of destiny, the idea of "us and them." In the process of its construction, national narratives and symbols may be appropriated or constructed to glorify the resulting belief system. However, as Anderson and Tamir describe, the "true connotation" of these beliefs is not so important, but the degree to which they are accepted by its members.
It is also worth noting that a nation is different from a State, which is a sovereign political entity whose Government exercises control over a spatially defined area, including all the peoples and resources that inhabit it. States, in turn, form an integral part of today's international system, and their respective countries are officially recognized within the framework of the United Nations. Historically, there has been a close connection between the two concepts of nation and state, and the state has often been formed around national identity as a form of political expression for these groups in the international arena. Stability is more likely to be achieved when a country's territorial borders correspond to populations with broadly homogeneous ethnic identities.
However, this is rare, especially for countries with a long tradition of immigration. Immigrant countries are made up of numerous communities, which often have competing national identities. When these different groups can coexist within the framework of national governance, the collective interest can be safeguarded and harmony can be maintained. However, inter-group tensions and the resulting desire for greater political autonomy were at the root of many post-World War II conflicts.
04
Digital nation-building
Historically, information has been an important factor in the formation of nations. Anderson credits the birth of "modern nationalism" to the advent of the printing press, which made it easier to build communities around national belief systems, which was not possible before. However, despite the expansion of coverage by the new modes of transmission at the time, the country was still largely geographically constrained. The print medium, while groundbreaking, was not active enough to allow the information revolution to transcend geographical boundaries.
Nations are generally formed on adjacent landmasses. As the political embodiment of the emerging community, these states were formed along geographical and ethnic boundaries, with the exception of the colonial era that spanned the globe with maritime empires. However, the advent of the information age has changed the layout of the information domain. Digital platforms expand the possibilities of connecting people over long distances, making the transfer and exchange of ideas smoother. This essentially changed the organizational framework of the state completely. Since distance and geography are no longer limiting factors, "information-based communities" can be formed in non-contiguous spaces. Just as maritime lines of communication were essential to the survival and development of colonial maritime empires, these emerging communities were connected by digital contexts.
When new communities coalesce according to the contours of emerging information layouts, they create friction with existing national belief systems (which, as Anderson describes, are themselves conceived communities) create new sources of conflict. Therefore, conflicts in the information domain should not be seen as driven solely by actors. The social forces of digitalization drive spontaneous collective action, which can also trigger conflicts in the information domain.
05
Information layout
Threats to the information domain cannot simply be addressed or deterred from the actions of actors, which can be States or regions, whose role has historically been emphasized in the concept of the information domain. To address the root causes of conflict, it is necessary to have a deep understanding of how the information landscape has evolved. New information-based "states" must be identified to trace the sources of tension, especially metropolises, and the digital lines of communication that connect these information nodes to their satellites.
The complexity lies in the uniqueness of the information domain layout. Like airspace, the information domain is almost ubiquitous, and wherever there is a digital infrastructure, there is an information domain. Due to the constant law of gravitation, it is impossible to build a permanent object in the air, but it can leave a lasting trace in the information domain, especially if the target audience embraces the idea being propagated. At the same time, there is a physical intersection between the land, sea and air domains (i.e., the traditional space where the conflict occurs), but the information domain exists independently. Thus, the "information state" coexists with the entity state, sometimes overlapping each other, but does not always correspond to the same territorial borders.
Anderson argues that if the state is only an imaginary community, then competing identities coalescing within the information domain pose a real threat to the concept of the state and all that it represents. When the value proposition of the "information state" is influential enough to convince large sections of its population to question their national loyalty, the likelihood of triggering instability and conflict increases. This is particularly true when the prerequisites for the formation of emerging communities are combined with a clear political direction. Therefore, it is not surprising that fierce conflicts in the information domain often precede the outbreak of war.
06
Control the information domain
If the information domain is laid out, then, according to the American military theorist Alfred Thayer Mahan and the British naval historian Julian Corbett, the security of the state means competing for and gaining superiority in the corresponding information space, and actively controlling these spaces. To this end, it is necessary to actively seek out and destroy the "cities" of hostile "information states" and replace them with "information fortresses" that support their own belief systems. Otherwise, it will cede control of the field to potential adversaries, allowing them to shape the information battlefield according to their own ambitions.
However, due to the uniqueness of the information domain layout, the conflict in the information domain will revolve around symbols and narratives, rather than actual firepower. In the sense that the envisaged community will be the front line of conflict in the information age, the world is already at war, but this war is being fought in the vast expanse of the information domain.
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