Influence in an Age of Rising Connectedness

October 2017 No Comments

Influence in an Age of Rising Connectedness.

Author | Editor: W. Aviles & S. Canna (NSI, Inc.).

Executive Summary

A strong argument can be made that we are moving toward a pluralized, multipolar world, in which military and economic sources of power are widely distributed. Technologies (e.g., the Internet and rapid means of mass migration) are making nation states increasingly more porous, and a resurgence of nationalism and other forms of ethnic or religious identity politics has solidified some states and weakened others. Given these properties of human development, the question remains as to how nations and societies position themselves to ride these revolutionary changes with some degree of confidence. The continuance of these factors may change the way that the US, its partners, and its adversaries consider and prioritize influence, both within the state and across interstate borders. The DOD is evolving in ways that demand a more synergistic approach than we have traditionally taken across the human and technical dimensions. To date, military operations have characteristically focused on compelling adversaries through the threat or application of force to achieve victory (i.e. “control”). Changing environmental factors, increased activism by non-state actors, technology, and recent lessons learned suggest that the DOD will be challenged to adopt revised, if not entirely new approaches, to affect and direct the outcomes of military operations. Toward such ends, the DOD will need to focus upon the factors and forces that exert the necessary influence to produce desired behavioral outcomes across complex and intermeshed human and technical systems.

This white paper examines these trends and explores and presents possible implications for how such factors may necessitate an explicit focus upon “influence” rather than “control,” and how influence could exert effects on national, regional, and global levels over the next several decades. It assesses these revolutionary changes from political, sociological, biological, and technical perspectives.

In her opening chapter, Ms. Regina Joseph (NYU) examines the coming tests of preserving national security through influence. She reviews the domestic information environment, where corporate interests generate a confluence of content and access barriers, and observes the global influence efforts that will continue to buffet society. While difficult, resilience may be cultivated through an offset that harnesses Western attitudes towards information, education, and cultivation of super-synthesizers. She goes on to say that to envision the future, a forecaster may first look to the past in an effort to find signals and detect patterns.

In the following chapter entitled “From Concepts to Capabilities: Implications for the OPS Community,” Lt General (Ret) Robert J. Elder (George Mason University) examines the implications of the changes in our security environment, considers the ways that different international actors are capitalizing on these changes, and reflects on their implications for the United States and our partners. He notes that today’s national and military leaders have grown up in an environment where the strategic military objective has been to defeat the adversary, but in today’s environment, restoring or preserving stability has often become the primary strategic objective. Competitors understand the U.S. desire to win, and leverage that against us by employing a “don’t lose” strategy. They consider a draw to be a win because they have prevented the U.S. from winning, and like Tic-Tac-Toe, they just wait for the U.S. to make a mistake. This suggests that employing whole of government and partner capabilities to advance overall U.S. national interests, even if it does not lead to a military “win,” may be a preferable strategy, and one that national security leaders should promote. Draws are not in our nature–winning is the American Way– but if a competitor is playing for a military draw, then defeating the competitor’s strategy by employing a comprehensive approach to promote stability may be in our national interest.

In the following article entitled “Net Assessment: Implications for Homeland Security,” Dr. Gina Ligon (University of Nebraska Omaha), Ms. Gia Harrigan (Department of Homeland Security, Science and Technology Directorate, Office of University Programs), Dr. Erik Dahl (Naval Postgraduate School), Mr. Timothy N. Moughon (National Counterterrorism Center), Colonel Bill Edwards (Special Operations Northern Command), and Nawar Shora (Transportation Security Administration) examine implications from a homeland security perspective. They address the issue of how net assessment—the practice of considering how strategic interactions between the United States, adversaries, and the environment may play out in the future—may be adopted to advance homeland security (especially as related to threats that emerge outside the homeland). In this chapter with contributors from government and academia, implications of using a net assessment approach to understand influence is discussed. They detail the overarching framework for net assessments. They then review the approach from NCTC on measuring power and the criticality of assessing “Green Actors.” They conclude by highlighting some of the challenges faced by Blue Network, as well as how net assessments can provide greater shared understanding of emerging threats to homeland security by incorporating planning for threats, capabilities, and legitimacy.

Next in a chapter entitled “From Failure to Success: Information Power and Paradigmatic Shifts in Strategy and Operational Art,” LTC Scott Thomson (Office of the Secretary of Defense (Policy), Information Operations Directorate) takes the argument to the next step and examines the underlying assumptions about war, warfare, and other military operations within the DOD, which traditionally focuses on lethal dominance. He makes the argument that strategy is inherently about changing the behavior of relevant actors in support of national interests. This means information must be a primary planning consideration for the joint force rather than an enabling capability. To better link tactics to strategy, the joint force must change both its operational art and its cultural mindset to focus on behavioral outcomes. He concludes by stating that to shift our dominant paradigm will take a concerted effort and direction by senior leaders within the department. The department must realize that while it looks to improve informational capabilities, it is more important to first modify the operating system of the joint force so that it can realize the full power of information to achieve strategy.

Next in their chapter entitled “Rethinking Control and Influence in the Age of Complex Geopolitical Systems,” Dr. Val Sitterle (GTRI), COL (ret) Chuck Eassa (Strategic Capability Office), Dr. Robert Toguchi (USASOC), and Dr. Nick Wright (Univ. of Birmingham) in line with LTC Scott Thompson’s chapter make the case that the future of conflict facing the DOD is evolving in ways that demand a more synergistic approach than we have traditionally taken across the human and technical dimensions. To date, military operations have characteristically focused on compelling adversaries through the threat or application of force to achieve victory (i.e., “control”). Changing environmental factors, increased activism by nonstate actors, technology, and recent lessons learned suggest that the DOD will be challenged to adopt revised, if not entirely new approaches to affect and direct the outcomes of military operations. Toward such ends, the DOD will need to focus upon the factors and forces that exert the necessary influence to produce desired behavioral outcomes across complex and intermeshed human and technical systems.

In the following chapter entitled “Metaphor for a New Age: Emergence, Co-evolution, Complexity, or Something Else?” Dr. Val Sitterle (GTRI), Dr. Allison Astorino-Courtois (NSI), Dr. Corey Lofdahl (System of Systems Analytics), and CAPT (ret) Todd Veazie locate these challenges in the context of complex adaptive systems paradigm. They ask, as globalization and sociotechnical convergence collide with the continuing evolution of the post-Cold War security environment, do we know the appropriate metaphors to describe our world? Our environment is now characterized by non-uniformity and starts, stops, and leaps across orders of magnitude and across geographical areas and socio-economic- political sectors. They ask how the lenses through which we view and draw conclusions about various aspects of the world and the behaviors within it change and what can we perceive and, hence, act upon? Understanding the nature of paradigms and how we use them to provide insight in the US Defense community is critical to how well we may face future security challenges.

In his chapter entitled “Don’t Shortchange Defense Efforts to Inform, Influence, and Persuade,” Dr. Christopher Paul (RAND) argues that capabilities to inform, influence, and persuade are necessary both for national security success and as a cost-effective toolset relative to physical military power. He discusses shortfalls and deficiencies in this area and concludes with recommendations to increase resources for manning and tools for informing, influencing, and persuading, as well as efforts to inculcate communication mindedness in commanders and senior leaders.

In his chapter entitled “Operationalizing the Social Battlefield,” Dr. Spencer Meredith III (National Defense University) argues the diffusion of influence from traditional elites to broader and more diverse sources has raised challenges for the United States, but not inherent risks by itself. The tools used to mobilize individuals and groups within society have for some time existed across a spectrum of industries, academic disciplines, and ultimately, government actions. As such, while the ubiquity of influence has ratcheted up in recent years, it has not fundamentally altered who can be influenced or the means of doing so. Evaluating how these phenomena affect the Joint Force Commander’s range of options and, more importantly, strategic paradigms on ways, means, and ends, must include several elements. These include governance, mobilization potential, and narrative landscapes.

In the subsequent several chapters, the reader is exposed to the neuro-cognitive aspects of control and influence. In the first two Chapters, Dr. Nick Wright (University of Birmingham) encourages the reader to rethink control and influence. He states at the outset that influence and control are two ways to exert power over others’ decisions, where control removes an audience’s ability to choose. Influence is critical in conflicts such as those in the Gray Zone, whose limited nature leaves adversaries and allies able to choose. He concludes by stating many aspects of influence and control do not need rethinking. He goes on to encourage the reader to focus on three key aspects of influence: (1) using more realistic accounts of human motivation, (2) focusing on areas of particular human cognitive bias as a source of low- hanging fruit for performance improvement, and finally (3) using tried and tested tools and techniques from other fields (e.g., medicine) to make evidence available in usable forms for operators.

In the following chapter entitled “Evidence Based Principles of Influence,” Dr. Wright stresses the need for scientific approaches (i.e., what do we know, and how can we know it?). He advances three key considerations: First, the reader should be aware of the replication crisis in the scientific literature in this area. Second, in order to accumulate robust scientific knowledge about the factors that influence people, the reader needs to focus on empirical findings. Finally, there is a level-of-analysis problem. To consider influence and persuasion, you have to think about multiple levels simultaneously.

In the following chapter, Dr. James Giordano (Georgetown) in an article titled “Neuroscience and Technology as Weapons on the Twenty-First Century World Stage” makes the case that neuroscience and neurotechnologies (neuroS/T) can be used as (1) “soft” weapons to foster power, which can be leveraged through exertion of effects upon global markets to impact nation states and people as well as to provide information and tools to more capably affect human psychology in engagements of and between agents and actors; and (2) “hard” (e.g., chemical, biological, and/or technological) weapons: including pharmacological and microbiological agents, organic toxins, devices that alter functions of the nervous system to affect thought, emotion and behaviors, and use of small scale neurotechnologies to remotely control movements of insects and small mammals to create “cyborg drones” for surveillance or infiltration operations. He goes on to say that brain sciences can also be employed to mitigate or prevent aggression, violence, and warfare by supplementing HUMINT, SIGINT, and COMINT (in an approach termed “neuro-cognitive intel”: NEURINT). Such possible applications generate two core questions: (1) to what extent can these technologies be developed and used to exert power? And, (2) how should research and use of the neurosciences be best engaged, guided, and governed? He goes on to address following issues: (1) the current capabilities of neuroS/T for operational use in intelligence, military, and warfighting operations; (2) potential benefits, burdens, and risks incurred; (3) key ethical issues and questions, and (4) possible paths toward resolution of these questions to enable technically right and ethically sound use toward maintaining international security.

Dr. Christophe Morin (Fielding Graduate University) in his chapter argues it is crucial that we recognize the urgency of using better persuasion models to create and evaluate both propaganda and counter- propaganda campaigns. Also, the dynamic and implicit nature of the effect of media content on adolescent minds highlights the necessity of conducting experiments that reveal the neurophysiological effect of messages on young brains. Subjects cannot competently and objectively report how messages work on their minds. However, new research tools used by neuromarkers can reveal critical insights by safely and ethically monitoring different subsystems in the nervous systems while participants view persuasive messages.

Drs. David A. Broniatowski (The George Washington University) and Valerie F. Reyna Cornell University) in their article entitled “A Scientific Approach to Combating Misinformation and Disinformation Online,” argue for a scientific approach to combating online misinformation and disinformation. Such an approach must be grounded in empirically validated theory, and is necessarily interdisciplinary, requiring insights from decision science, computer science, the social sciences, and systems integration. Relevant research has been conducted on the psychology of online narratives, providing a foundation for understanding why some messages are compelling and spread through social media networks, but this research must be integrated with research from other disciplines.

In his article entilted “Neural Influence and Behavior Change,” Dr. Ian McCulloh (Johns Hopkins University), argues that military commanders and senior leaders must have a basic understanding of cognitive influence in order to make decisions affecting the Gray Zone and human populations in areas of ongoing military operations. Influence is counter-intuitive. This has led to poor decisions that may have adversely affected the success of US operations. He provides a primer of cognitive influence, set in tactical military terms. The intent is to inform commanders and senior leaders to enable them to make better decisions regarding inform-influence operations in support of US objectives. Success during Gray Zone operations requires commanders to understand influence and employ models of behavior change in the same manner that they understand the elements of patrolling and employ kinetic power.

In his article entitled “The Role of Integrative Complexity in Forecasting and Influence,” Dr. Peter Suedfeld and Mr. Bradford H. Morrison (The University of British Columbia) argue that If control is dependent on actual or at least perceived power—political, economic, military, demographic, and other—influence is the product of an even more varied and changing set of variables. The criteria that define the probability of success in exerting or countering influence must include two factors: accuracy in assessing the possible steps of an adversary and shaping persuasive communications so as to advance one’s own position and reduce the power of the opponent’s. The former aspect, anticipatory intelligence, has been a major research focus to date. They briefly look at what may be a fruitful approach to the latter. In short, besides being a tool for anticipatory intelligence analysis, Integrative Complexity may also be used to help shape persuasive communications as well as responses to adversarial attempts at persuasion.

In his article entilted “Neural Influence and Behavior Change,” Dr. Ian McCulloh (Johns Hopkins University) argues that military commanders and senior leaders must have a basic understanding of cognitive influence in order to make decisions affecting the Gray Zone and human populations in areas of ongoing military operations. Influence is counter-intuitive. This has led to poor decisions that may have adversely affected the success of US operations. He provides a primer of cognitive influence, set in tactical military terms. The intent is to inform commanders and senior leaders to enable them to make better decisions regarding inform-influence operations in support of US objectives. Success during Gray Zone operations requires commanders to understand influence and employ models of behavior change in the same manner that they understand the elements of patrolling and employ kinetic power.