(Instruments of Power: 2 of 4)
Welcome to my 22nd of 72 Posts.
Today’s post is the second of a four-post series on the Instruments of Power and is focused on the topic of Information.
My intention with this post is to cover the following:
What is Information in the context of National Power?
How does America execute it?
Why should any of us care?
Introduction
If you somehow arrived here without reading any prior posts, I decided to write this four-post series on the Instruments of Power for a few reasons.
For one, I needed topics to write about for my monthly writing exercise project, 72 Airman’s Writings – this blog.
Second, I attended Squadron Officer School Class 22A. Among the many topics we discussed over the course of those five weeks was the National Instruments of Power.
Third, I figured that this would be a valuable opportunity to slightly increase my knowledge as a military officer. Read slightly differently, diving into this particular topic helps me understand my role in facilitating one instrument of power better through learning a bit more about the roles of other people facilitating different instruments of power.
Finally, I’m sharing the I of the DIME acronym with you in this post because we sometimes do things in order, and we already finished D for Diplomacy.
What is Information as a National Instrument of Power?
According to the “Strategy” Joint Doctrine Note[1], the Information instrument of power is about “creating, exploiting, and disrupting knowledge.”
There’s a lot of world, and there’s a lot of stuff in this world.
If you happen to know more about the stuff out there than others know, chances are good that you have a better chance at using or working with that stuff than others.
Creating knowledge may come in different forms.
Observations support some knowledge development.
Take for example an imagined set of stepping stones for the design of early weapon technology:
Direct application of a rapidly mobilized limb (e.g. a punch or kick) can cause debilitating damage when applied to a human body.
But…
A falling tree branch can cause significant damage to a human body.
A tree branch of sufficient length can provide range and – especially when swung – amplified damage to a human body with reduced risk of incoming harm.
A hard rock lashed to a branch might achieve even “better” results – as much as damaging a human body can be considered good, anyway.
A sharpened branch has a higher chance of striking at human vitals.
Arrows fashioned from wood and stone might deal even more vital damage.
Gunpowder-empowered projectiles might deal even more critical damage at vastly greater ranges.
Or perhaps you favor naval capabilities?
What perhaps began as a means to traverse rivers eventually transformed into a capability to traverse seas. That became the ability to traverse around Africa for spices. Going around Africa inspired travels all over the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
These invasive travels for resources in support of economies led to American settlement and revolution…
Speaking of The Revolution, I think it’s fair to say that a lot of informational distribution must have happened to inspire American sentiment against the British. If Mr. Hugh Harrington, author of this referenced article[2] is to be believed, Benjamin Franklin fabricated knowledge to influence American sentiment to fight, British sentiment to relent, and French sentiment to support the American cause.
Okay – so with the mildest examples, we get an idea of how Big I Information can be a means to national ends.
But, How does the US translate the concept into action?
Again looking at the Strategy Note, Chapter II Section 4 states that “Communication synchronization and information activities are two primary effects created to achieve the state’s strategic informational objectives.”
Communication synchronization can be summarized as working with other national instruments of power to influence others via informational displays. It is further expounded upon in Joint Doctrine Note 2-13, “Commander’s Communication Synchronization”[3].
Only reading the Executive Summary thereof, my interpretation of the importance of communication synchronization is that it facilitates telling a unified story that influences the decisions of various, relevant parties. It promotes a target audience’s trust in the actor’s behaviors.
A key takeaway from this content lies in reference to a “say-do gap” – the gap between what an actor says and what an actor does. From a less overarching, national perspective and from a more personal, “I can maybe use this idea in my daily life” perspective, if you say one thing but what you do suggests otherwise, you are failing to create communication synchronization and will likely promote distrust in your relationships.
Rather than specifically identify official methods of American execution of communication synchronization, I’ll just provide these two examples of the idea.
First:
Casey invites Jamie out on a date. Jamie can reasonably be expected to interpret this invitation as an expression of interest by Casey.
Jamie accepts. Casey can interpret this acceptance as a bid of interest.
Casey ghosts Jamie when the agreed-upon date time arrives.
Casey had communicated interest with the date invitation, but ghosting communicated disinterest.
This asynchronization is confusing and creates conflict.
Similar example:
Jordan and Blake are friends.
Jordan and Blake regularly initiate conversations in approximately equal measure – sometimes Jordan will message or call Blake, and sometimes Blake will message or call Jordan. They also invite each other to do different activities.
After several weeks, Jordan realizes that Blake has not been initiating any conversations, making invitations, or sometimes even showing up to accepted invitations.
This asynchronization is an indication of potential change that Jordan may now need to navigate.
Bolstered by their existing relationship’s previous status and given an opportunity to discuss this topic, Jordan discovers a particular conflict that Blake is experiencing and helps resolve it.
After the conflict is resolved, Blake’s behavior reverts to more equitable engaging behavior.
Asynchronization led to action that recovered previous synchronization.
I suppose an additional point I’m making here is that communication synchronization isn’t only a factor for trust. It is information all on its own.
Another good takeaway here is that in your relationships or in your professional spaces, it can be vital to call out (in appreciation and in warning) the synchronized and asynchronized communication you observe to appropriate stakeholders.
As for Information Activities… there are many[4], but they can be summarized as ways to ensure we get all the reliable information we can; to limit adversarial access to information that, if exposed, might harm or degrade our capabilities; to effectively utilize (synthesize, interpret, obfuscate, etc.) what information we have; and to deliberately share information in ways that produce desired effects.
…the fact that there is an information community rather than a singular, responsible United States department responsible for executing the Information instrument of power is making this a greater research burden than I expected when I started writing this!
I think this is an excellent point to remind you that these instruments of power regularly work together. If I acquire information about your military technology, your economic circumstances, or your diplomatic machinations, I can create many different possible solutions to different problems I might share with or perceive from you.
To keep things simpler, however, I’ll use more relatable examples again:
Let’s say you are preparing for a baking contest.
You know for a fact that your grandparent has participated in and won a baking contest before, and you have access to the family’s special, secret recipe book.
Your knowledge of ancestral culinary victory gives you assurance that you have good information to work with.
You ask around the family to see if anyone has any electronic copies of this recipe book or if any such documentation has been shared online. Whether you confirm or deny this does not guarantee that others do or do not have the same information as you, but it may influence your next decisions.
You’ve executed the specific choice recipe before, so you know how to utilize the provided information even if you do not perfectly remember using the skill or recipe before.
And, you could post a doctored version of the recipe somewhere in the hopes of someone trying to steal a sabotaged product.
And why not – you know the judges and know exactly what they’ll like anyway…
The explanation of Information as a national instrument of power seems to vastly betray the complexity involved. Even acknowledgement of the influence of information at a very personal level does not truly make education on the matter of Information any easier to consume. That said, I hope something in this post inspires more curiosity on the topic or related topics.
References
[1] Joint Doctrine Note 1-18, “Strategy” (25 Apr 2018)
[2] “PROPAGANDA WARFARE: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN FAKES A NEWSPAPER”
Journal of the American Revolution. (10 Nov 2014)
[3] Joint Doctrine Note 2-13, “Commander’s Communication Synchronization” (16 Dec 2013)
[4] Joint Concept for Operating in the Information Environment (25 Jul 2018)
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