The U.S. Needs Trolls: Strategic Concepts to Command the Gray Zone Struggle Technology and Doctrine to Revolutionize Influence Warfare

Abstract

This paper postulates that improvements in technology will transform influence operations in the medium-term future; however, the U.S. will need to take action sooner in order to prevent continued damage to U.S. interests. The U.S. must pursue a two-prong strategy, incorporating technological advances as they become available, while leveraging extant technology into improved doctrine to confront current threats. Critically, the U.S. must leverage the synergies between command of passive information gathering, active narrative shaping, and the transport-layer infrastructure over which information passes.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 23, 2018
Accession Number
AD1057675

Entities

People

  • Joshua S. Samet

Organizations

  • Naval War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Cyber

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Cognition
  • Foreign Relations
  • Governments
  • Gray Zone
  • Information Operations
  • Information Security
  • Information Warfare
  • Intelligence Community (United States)
  • International Relations
  • Military Science
  • National Politics
  • National Security
  • Personnel Management
  • Social Media
  • United States Government
  • War Colleges

Readers

  • Irregular Warfare and Special Operations Cyberspace Operations against Adversarial Threats.
  • Joint Military Operations and Doctrine.
  • Systems Analysis and Design