Speaker: Dr. Scott Fisher (New Jersey City University)
Date: 6 March 2025
Speaker Session Summary
SMA hosted a speaker session with Dr. Scott Fisher (New Jersey City University) as part of its SMA General Speaker Series.
Information serves as a valuable yet often underutilized tool for deterring China, Russia, and other US adversaries. Dr. Fisher applied the diplomacy, information, military, and economic (DIME) tool framework to demonstrate how information influences China’s behavior. His research analyzed which DIME tools provoked the strongest negative responses from Chinese state media and foreign ministries. This research was partially motivated by the National Intelligence Strategy (NIS) and the National Defense Strategy (NDS), which critique the Department of Defense (DoD) for failing to extract policy-relevant information from data collection efforts. His work contributes to the broader strategy of integrated deterrence, particularly in scenarios short of conventional or nuclear war. The study categorized China’s responses as negative, neutral, or positive, depending on the message.
Many assume that military or economic actions elicit the strongest responses from authoritarian states. However, information-related actions provoked the most reaction. The most negative reactions stemmed from US condemnations of China’s human rights violations, particularly its treatment of the Uyghur population. Similar trends emerged when analyzing Russia’s responses to human rights abuse allegations. Dr. Fisher emphasized that this pattern applies broadly to authoritarian states, as their leaders rely on information control to maintain power.
Dr. Fisher also highlighted information operations as a cost-effective deterrence tool compared to military actions (e.g., joint exercises) or economic actions, which may produce mutually negative effects. His findings identified economic sanctions as the least effective of the DIME tools. Authoritarian leaders react strongly to critiques of their information control because such control is essential to their regime survival.
To read more of Dr. Fisher’s research on the potential implications of information operations against authoritarian regimes, please visit the Focus Data Project website.
Speaker Session Briefing
Briefing Materials
Biography: Scott Fisher, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Security Studies Department at New Jersey City University (NJCU). Prior to his PhD studies at Rutgers University, he received an MA in Security Studies from Georgetown University and an MA in Korean and International Studies from Seoul National University in South Korea. His research interests include information warfare, US security challenges in Asia, open-source intelligence, and data analysis in public policy. His research has been published by organizations including Foreign Policy Analysis, RAND, Demokratizatsiya, the Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs, the Journal of Information Warfare, and West Point’s Modern War Institute. He has presented at conferences for organizations including the International Studies Association, the American Political Science Association, the Midwest Political Science Association, NATO, and other professional and academic organizations worldwide. Prior to academia, Dr. Fisher worked in crisis management for the US Department of Defense at the Pentagon, as well as in Afghanistan, East Africa, and Germany as a US Army officer.
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