JFCOM forecasts Internet-fueled 'Battle of Narratives'

Instant dispersion of open source material across the Internet will turbo charge a "Battle of Narratives" between parties who seek to influence public opinion during future conflicts, warns a U.S. Joint Forces Command assessment of geopolitical and technological trends over the next quarter century.

The Joint Operating Environment 2010 report, released March 15, acknowledges that commanders already wrestle with pervasive media presence, widespread blogging, almost instantaneous posting of videos from the battlefield, email and soldiers who can call home whenever they return to base.

"In the future [commanders] will be confronted with a profusion of new media linked to unimaginably fast transmission capabilities," the report says.

That abundance of primary source material will be used by all sides in a conflict to turn the tide of perception their way.

"Just as we have already begun to think of every Soldier and Marine as an intelligence collector, we will also have to start considering them as global communication producers," the report adds.

Better data analysis techniques--so-called Web 3.0 capabilities--will also allow adversaries to glean intelligence information from public information, the report warns.

The report's analysis of actual cyber conflict of the type waged through networks breaks little new ground, but it does serve as a reminder that with computers, there's no such thing as a protected rear, "because all are equally vulnerable."

Just as air power transformed warfighting during World War II, "cyberspace has fractured the physical barriers that shield a nation from attacks on its commerce and communication," the report says.

Indeed, adversaries have already taken advantage of computer networks and the power of information, it adds.

Overall changes to the report from a previous edition released in 2008 include a smoothing of language that identified North Korea and Israel as nuclear weapons states and that highlighted the threat posed by criminal gangs and drug cartels to the stability of Mexico, says Steve Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project of Government Secrecy. He also decries an over abundance of Sun Tzu maxims in the 2010 edition and notes that JFCOM misspelled Hitler's first name.

 For more:
- check out the report (.pdf) and its 2008 predecessor (.pdf)
- this JFCOM press release
- Steve Aftergood's blog post

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