Today, anyone armed with a digital camera and access to the Internet can become an information warrior, potentially reaching global audiences. Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and blogs have become as important to the strategic outcome of military operations as bullets, troops and air power. Appreciating the game-changing properties of new media are as important for today's warfighters as are the skills, training and tradecraft required to maneuver conventional forces. In the contemporary operational environment, new adversaries ...
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Today, anyone armed with a digital camera and access to the Internet can become an information warrior, potentially reaching global audiences. Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and blogs have become as important to the strategic outcome of military operations as bullets, troops and air power. Appreciating the game-changing properties of new media are as important for today's warfighters as are the skills, training and tradecraft required to maneuver conventional forces. In the contemporary operational environment, new adversaries have leveraged new media to achieve strategic outcomes. New media are their tactical tools for effective strategies that privilege the informational battlespace as the main effort. In this respect, the Israeli- Hezbollah war of 2006 is instructive. Hezbollah was out-matched by the IDF at all levels, with little hope of prevailing in the conventional military battlespace. And yet, by employing an information-led warfighting strategy that exploited tactical lethal encounters to generate strategic effects, Hezbollah was able to claim a strategic win by denying the IDF the achievement of its principal war aims. This clever use of the information environment, which Hezbollah used to create multiplier effects of its limited conventional military capabilities, essentially outflanked Israel's campaign strategy. By shifting the center of gravity into the information space, Hezbollah was able to generate and sustain the initiative. Hezbollah's warfighting strategy masterfully synchronized conventional and information "fires," creating strategic "information effects" that eventually forced Israel to cease its operations without achieving its stated war aims. The 2006 War provides important insights on the dynamics of the contemporary operational environment and the role of new media, which is why it was selected as the case study to drive workshop discussions. For the U.S. warfighter one lesson should be clear: the enemy will never fight the war that you prepare for, but rather the one that it thinks it can win. That war will include new media as a warfighting enabler. The 2006 Department of Defense Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) posited that future conflict fall into one of four quadrants: traditional challenges; irregular challenges; catastrophic challenges; or, disruptive challenges. It observed that today's military capabilities continue to be focused on traditional warfare even as trends point toward the importance of multiple (or hybrid) threats. The Review confronts today's commanders and senior leaders with several important questions: Are we learning the lessons borne of hard-won experience and adapting our strategic thinking to ensure that we are ready for the next campaign? Is the shift in training and capabilities toward multiple and hybrid threats occurring fast enough? Have we sufficiently acknowledged and prepared for future scenarios in which new media and cyberspace will frame the strategies that our opponents are likely to use? New media challenges warfighters and senior leaders across several levels. It requires recognition of the complexity of cyberspace as a warfighting domain. It is not just about defending networks or winning the information fight. Rather, it is the degree to which cyberspace exists as a domain in which warfighters will deploy, and the extent to which new media penetrates the warfighting effort in ways that are beyond the commander's ability to control or limit. This report is being released at an important historical juncture -- just prior to the release of a major Pentagon report on the use of new media and following the assessment of the war effort in Afghanistan. The latter report dedicated significant space to the role of strategic communication and new media. We expect that this report will add critical and constructive voices to the policy process as senior leaders shape policy that enables warfighters to fully engage new media as an element of national power.
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