Welcome

Information is an element of national power along with diplomatic, military and economic power.  The current information environment challenges the United States as never before.  It has leveled the playing field for not only nation states, but non-state actors, multinational corporations and even individuals to affect strategic outcomes with minimal information infrastructure and little capital expenditure. The Information as Power web site is an online resource that provides an electronic library of current and historical articles and documents. Its purpose is to facilitate an understanding of the information element of power in this new and difficult environment in order to better address the national security issues we currently face.  Unlike sites focused on one aspect of the information element this site attempts to broadly consider all the dimensions of the information environment: physical, informational and cognitive.

     
The U.S. Army War College is pleased to present this anthology of selected student work from Academic Year 2011 representing examples of well-written and in-depth analyses on the vital subject of Information as Power. This is the sixth volume of an effort that began in 2006. The anthology is an important component of an effort to coordinate and recommend the design, development and integration of content and courses related to the information element of power into the curriculum to prepare our students for senior leadership positions. Broken into sections emphasizing information effects in the cyberspace domain and the cognitive dimension as well as information sharing, the anthology provides a holistic overview of important national security issues in that regard..

We hope that "Information as Power" will serve not only to showcase the efforts of the College but to inform the broader body of knowledge as the Nation considers how best to operate effectively and proactively within this environment while countering our adversaries..