Cognitive Transformation Through Cyberspace: A Twenty-First Century Postmodern Power Strategy
Abstract
Military victory appears to be growing more elusive in the twenty-first century owing to an increasingly contested information environment. Military operations in the contemporary operating environment are subject to a battle of narratives and metanarratives used by adversaries. This friction is best described as tremors on the fault line between modern, the inherently scientific and empirical, and postmodern battlefields where perception, information, and influence gain primacy. Cyberspace offers a medium for bridging this divide. The ubiquity and instantaneity of information and connectedness through the Internet has evolved into a social common through which individuals and groups form identities and exert influence. Postmodern power strategies seek to subvert traditional power structures and have the ability to thrive in a domain that offers equal access to all and, potentially, influence over all. Underpinning this connectedness is a relationship that has formed between the humans and cyberspace which affects self-perception, relationships, and reality construction that must be examined and accounted for in military planning.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 24, 2018
- Accession Number
- AD1071088
Entities
People
- Ryan S. Hand