Information, Disinformation and Misinformation: A New Character of Conflict in the Twenty-First Century? By Chris Fogarty - Wavell Room
In a speech in December 2018, the UK Chief of the Defence Staff acknowledged that the prevalence of information, in many forms, has changed the character of conflict. Four years earlier the Commander of Joint Forces Command, released a paper entitled “Warfare In The Information Age”, which highlighted how the Information Age was affecting warfare. Warfare has always required information, in the form of command and control or to support a commander’s understanding or even to liaise with an adversary. Vice Admiral Cebrowski stated that “for nearly 200 years, the tools and tactics of how we fight have evolved with military technology”. Technology underpins the information age; however military forces need to understand how the information environment has changed the character of conflict. There are three examples of how information has fundamentally changed the character of conflict. First, how a state actor has used the information environment (Russia). Secondly, how a non-state actor was able to galvanise power and resources from information (Daesh). Thirdly, the power of the citizen hacktivist or online investigative journalist (Bellingcat).
It is important to understand how the information environment has changed. The Fourth industrial revolution was a phrase that Klaus Schwab coined in his book of the same name in 2016. He describes how technology is transforming humankind and changing the way in which people live, he also states that emerging technology is producing profound shifts due to its use, which includes governments and institutions. If this background is blended with the premise that war is now ‘amongst the people’, this assists with the understanding of how the character of warfare has changed. General Rupert Smith argues in his timeless book, ‘The Utility of Force’ war is now ‘among the people’ and inevitably includes a complex mix of both state and non-state actors. If this analogy is extended to the virtual persona or homo digitalis, then war amongst the people not only refers to physical confrontation and winning the hearts and minds of the population in your geographic area of operations, but also winning them in the virtual. And this is but one aspect. The change is more fundamental when looking at how these different actors are using the information environment…