AI Bibliography

Ongoing revelations about Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election leave policymakers and the defense community with a set of challenging questions. How should the United States best counter and deter these types of activities going forward? How much of a threat do these types of tactics pose to democracy? What interventions are consistent with our national values and the proper role of the military?

Approaches that myopically focus on the latest headlines will miss the bigger picture. The Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) believes that these develop- ments demonstrate that the continued growth and evolution of the cyber domain has reshaped the fun- damental nature of information warfare. We must develop a broader strategic concept that organizes defense efforts into a cohesive, effective whole. On this count, Maneuver and Manipulation―authored by researcher Tim Hwang―is a key contribution to the discussion as the defense community develops its approach to the information warfare of the present day and beyond. Grounding his analysis in a careful look at how the Internet has transformed persuasion, he builds a framework that provides important insight into the nature, goals, conduct, and defense strategies of modern information warfare.

Maneuver and Manipulation is also a valuable resource for examining existing thought on online per- suasive conflict and its limitations. Mr. Hwang pro- vides a useful analysis that examines and compares strategic concepts for information warfare among nation states, focusing on the United States, China, and Russia. He also reviews the strategic approaches taken by some of the nonstate actors which have proven to be some of the most prolific practitioners of this new breed of informational conflict―the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and WikiLeaks.

This monograph is particularly unique because of the pioneering work of Mr. Hwang in this domain. As early as 2010, Mr. Hwang was one of the first to demonstrate that swarms of bots could shape online discourse and relationships between users on social media. His subsequent research has tracked the use of these techniques among state and nonstate actors and experimented with potential countermeasures in the space. In this respect, Mr. Hwang writes not just as a theorist, but with the hard-won experience of a practitioner of modern information warfare.

SSI believes that this monograph will be a useful resource as the broader U.S. strategic community con- tinues to develop, debate, and decide the shape of informational conflict in the 21st century.