Information War

Hsin-Wei TangHsin-Wei TangMarch 4, 2009March 4, 2009

AgendaAgenda

• Information WarIndustrial War vs. Information WarPerception Management

•What is war?

• War is hostility expressed by resource to armed conflict by more or less organized bodies of combatants. (Tumber and Webster, 2006)

Major Features of Industrial WarMajor Features of Industrial War

• Conducted between nation states over territorial disputes

• With large-scale mobilization• With strenuous efforts to plan the war effort,

including harnessing media to assist the war effort

Examples of Industrial WarExamples of Industrial War

• World War I (1914-1918): about 10 million people killed

• World War II (1939-1945): about 60 million people killed

Information WarInformation War

• Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA)• Knowledge Warriors• Instant Wars• Flexibility of Response

RMARMA

radical changes in military technologies, such as satellites that surveille the enemy and make pinpoint accuracy possible, computers and their programs which record and assess military and material requirements rapidly and across vast distances, or smart weapons that “fire and forget”, finding their way to targets on which they have been fixed

Knowledge WarriorsKnowledge Warriors

• Information war no longer requires the mass mobilization of the population. Conduct of war rely on small numbers of professional soldiers, pilots and support teams.

• The possessor of appropriate capability will always prevail over an identified enemy that is forced to rely on the commitment, training and even experience of its soldiers.

Instant WarInstant War

• War after the collapse of the Soviet Union, such as the Gulf War (1991), the Balkan War (1999), the Afghanistan War (2001) and the Iraq War (2003), lasted between just four and eleven weeks.

• Very few Western soldiers were killed when they kill about thousands of enemies.

Flexibility of ResponseFlexibility of Response

• Information war requires meticulous planning for flexibility of response, in contrast to the much more elaborate and cumbersome plans of the industrial warfare period. Enormous volumes of information, along with the intelligence from sophisticated software incorporated into weapons themselves, feed into complex planning for war.

Perception Management IPerception Management I

• In an industrial war, mass population mobilized to participate the war directly involve it. In an information war, the fighting unites are at the margins of society, while media coverage is massive.

• However, globalization makes the perception management more complicated in an information war than in an industrial war.

GlobalizationGlobalization

• A tendency points towards the increased integration, interpenetration, and interdependence of affairs on a global scale.

• Examples: migrations, tourism, real-time engagement.

Globalization of CultureGlobalization of Culture

• Two directions:–Media, mainly carries the Western

culture from “center” to “periphery”;–Migrates, mainly carry cultures from

developing areas, from “periphery” to “center.”

Media, Globalization and War Media, Globalization and War ReportingReporting

• The obvious appeal of newsmakers towards the drama of conflict. Conflict situations are likely to achieve a good deal of attention from the media, and war is the most likely to get extensive coverage .

• Examples: Chechnya, Balkan, Iraq.

Perception Management IIPerception Management II

• Those who wage an information war devote great attention to perception management for the population at home and round the world. This is especially pressing in democratic nations where public opinion can be a vital factor in support for war.

ConclusionConclusion

• Information wars differ significantly from industrial wars. Although continuities through time, more global connections and flows, and the pervasive character and immediate access of media rank high amongst these differences.

Thank you!Question?