Information Warfare in a Multipolar World

The purpose of the paper is to highlight the development of information-psychological warfare, its history, concepts, technologies and methods, which are one of the most important areas of work in the field of international relations. The concept of ‘information warfare’ has concentrated a number of phenomena from the sphere of mass communications and during the 20th century was called various terms, such as ‘disinformation’, ‘propaganda’, ‘psychological warfare’, ‘psychological operations’. Within the scope of the study, the importance of psychological warfare in today’s context has been examined using the example of Azerbaijan and Armenia. It has been emphasized how Armenia effectively employed psychological warfare tactics and propaganda to gain an advantageous position in the late 20th century. In the early 21st century, the significance of Azerbaijan gaining a superior position in psychological warfare and using propaganda effectively has been discussed. Additionally, the article delves into the importance of using white propaganda during psychological warfare and the drawbacks of black propaganda within the context of the psychological warfare between Azerbaijan and Armenia. The novelty of the paper lies in a comprehensive analysis of information and psychological warfare and operations in the context of the Azerbaijan-Armenian conflict. Conclusions. In the 20th century information and psychological warfare and operations became part of the military policy of states. Now, due to the current situation on the world stage, the methods and means of conducting information warfare are changing and every year they are reaching a higher level. It can also be stated that in the 21st century, information wars have become more widespread. In summary, the historical context and evolution of information warfare demonstrate its enduring significance as a tool for states to achieve their strategic and political goals. As technology and global politics continue to evolve, information warfare is likely to remain a key component of statecraft and international relations.

The study is devoted to the analysis of the phenomenon of information warfare in the modern world. Authors concretized the concept of information warfare and its connection with hybrid warfare, which has replaced the mechanisms of direct “forceful” influence in a rapidly changing political architecture. The significance of the wars of the XXI century, which are conducted from the position of “soft power” and are characterized by a protracted nature, is revealed. Information warfare is considered as their most important component. The authors highlight the following features of information wars: they are conducted in the cultural field; their purpose is to transform the consciousness of a political opponent. These wars are aimed at value orientations, traditions, historical and cultural identity. The emergence of the concept of “information warfare” in the article is associated with the end of the Cold War at the end of the XX century and the definition of a new U.S. strategy. The main conditions and reasons for the transition to a new type of war are the collapse of the bipolar world, the growing threat of international terrorism, and the erosion of ethnic and cultural identity within the United States and allied countries themselves. Cybernetic troops are analyzed as a new specialized type of troops. The authors revealed two main spaces of the information war impact: the communicative environment and the field of probable social macro-conflict. Information warfare in research is considered as part of a military, economic, and geopolitical confrontation. The authors substantiate that an extremely intensive information war has been waged against the Russian Federation for more than 20 years. It involves depriving Russia not only of allies, but also replacing the “cultural and historical codes” in friendly countries, primarily by reformatting the consciousness of young people. The authors analyzed the documents aimed at solving the problem of information wars in Russia - the “Information Security Doctrine of the Russian Federation” and the “National Security Strategy of the Russian Federation”.

This study is devoted to the comparative analysis of the subject fields of the main modern concepts of information and psychological warfare.Aim. To identify the features of the subject fields of the main modern concepts of information and psychological warfare.Tasks. To analyze the main modern concepts of information and psychological warfare: information war, network war, network-centric war, mental warfare; determine their essential characteristics and identify the features of subject fields.Methods. During the research, both general scientific (analysis, synthesis, analogy) and special methods were by the authors in order to solve scientific problems: content analysis, comparative analysis, critical discourse analysis.Results. The study showed that the term “information warfare” has appeared in a report commissioned by the US Department of Defense. Further, this concept was actively operated by American military experts involved in the development and planning of various types of military operations. The attitude to this term in scientific circles is ambiguous. In the scientific literature, one can find a large number of definitions explaining this phenomenon, which indicates the ongoing discussions in the scientific world about the sense of the “information war” as the phenomena.Often this term is replaced by the term “information and psychological warfare”, which should be understood as such a relationship between states in which one of the opposing parties, in order to expand its zone of influence and eliminate potential competitors, resorts to active covert influence on the information sphere of its opponent, aimed at creating conditions for making favorable decisions for one or the other state in military, political, economic and other fields.Conclusions. The authors come to the conclusion that the theory of information warfare should be considered as an area of scientific research aimed at understanding the use of advanced technologies in interstate confrontation which causes fundamental changes in the forms, principles and means of conflicts in the information age. Currently, the theory of information warfare has been differentiated and developed in a number of original concepts that focus on various aspects of confrontation in the information environment and the use of ICT in military confrontation.

The modern world is constantly in a state of information warfare, which makes the study of the phenomenon of information warfare extremely relevant. The purpose of the article is to analyze the evolution of the concept of information warfare in the regulatory legal acts of Russia, United States and NATO. The work uses methods of analysis, synthesis, deduction, induction, comparison, as well as historical and political analysis, which are used to compare documents reflecting the gradual change in approaches to information warfare in various legal systems. The paper presents the evolution of normative legal acts and doctrinal documents on the subject of information warfare, identifies their substantive features, similarities and differences, and classifies them. Special attention is paid to the legal definitions of the concepts of “information warfare”, “information operations”, “psychological operations”, “cyber operations”, “cognitive warfare” in the context of national security strategies and military doctrines of these policy actors. It is concluded that there are conceptual differences in the legal definition of the phenomenon of information warfare: in the Western tradition, information operations have been widely reflected in legal documents for a long time, — since the middle of the 20th century, due to the advent of nuclear weapons and the increasing role of non-kinetic means of defeating the enemy, they were considered instrumentally and mainly in the form of psychological operations, but later, as a result of technological and social changes, they received an expanded interpretation, including aspects of cyber operations and cognitive warfare, and currently represent an integral element of hybrid warfares that take place not only in wartime, but also in peacetime, whereas in Russian legislation there is no term of information warfare,— it can only be derived indirectly, and the documents themselves emphasize the protective function and sovereign component of the information space based on traditional values. As part of the research, three tables have been created to visually present the key similarities, differences, and evolution of the concept of information warfare in the regulatory legal acts of United States, NATO, and Russia. The theoretical significance of the work lies in the fact that it contributes to understanding the dynamics of the evolution of the concept of information warfare in various legal systems and may be useful to specialists in the field of international law, researchers of information warfare and other interested parties.

Summary * On one level, (IW) and deterrence are well matched, but on other levels the two topics can be seen as orders of magnitude apart. IW covers a huge domain while deterrence is a narrow topic. Their relationship is spotty-highly relevant on some topics, marginally so on others, and not at all relevant in many areas. * The term typically focuses on the military or domains dominated by computers. This narrow definition is inconsistent with the broad policy questions relevant to IW, its impact from cooperation to competition and conflict, and the key role of information media. * is part of IW only when the attacker is known (or can be discovered), the defender has a credible capability to threaten important interests of the attacker, and the attacker cannot defend those interests. * Participants argued that a visible set of defenses is the beginning point for deterring on important computer systems. Attacks are essentially instrumental acts that will not occur if the attacking party perceives little opportunity for success. * Media warfare (i.e., countering an adversary's propaganda) can put enormous time pressure on decisionmakers, particularly when an authoritarian state adversary, with little or no necessity for consultation, targets unsuspecting, easily manipulated publics. * warfare on the United States are presently deterred by the same policy that deters other types of attack. Acting under its rights as a sovereign state, the United States stands ready to respond to any attack on its interests with all appropriate means, including law enforcement as well as military capacity. Background At a recent (IW) and workshop, participants focused on three principal issues: * What do the terms Information Warfare and Deterrence mean and how are they related? * How might IW on the United States be deterred, if at all? For practical analysis, this issue was broken into cyber-war attacks on computers and infrastructure, and attacks. * Can the United States use IW to deter on itself, its allies, or its interests? Can U.S. actions be deterred by IW? Key Concepts and Implications On one level, information warfare (IW) and deterrence are well matched. Both belong to the world of robust ideas and have broad implications. Both are highly relevant to the post-Cold War era, in which conflict has been transformed from bipolar global competition to multi-sided, local and regional contests in which the military element is a crucial part of, but not the driving force for, competition and conflict. On other levels, the two topics can be seen as orders of magnitude apart. IW is a huge domain, ranging from media wars to electronic combat and from economic competition to strategic conflict waged against civilian populations. actually is a narrow topic that only applies when a set of quite restrictive assumptions are met. (Deterrence was defined as prevention or discouragement, by fear or doubt, from acting.) The relationship between the two concepts is spotty-highly relevant on some topics, marginally so on others, and not at all relevant in many areas. The Domain of and The term is used to mean many things, but is often focused on the military or domains dominated by computers and communications infrastructure. This narrow definition is inconsistent with the broad policy questions relevant to competition and conflict using information media. * Because information warfare is really a broad and diverse arena, its analysis must be focused on selected elements, which must be clearly defined in each application. The field is so broad that virtually no meaningful generalizations can be drawn about it. …

Information warfare is a challenge of modern society, concealing a huge destructive potential, which is no longer possible to ignore. The purpose of this research is to show the need, relevance and prospects for the study of the pedagogical aspects of the multifaceted, multi-level interdisciplinary problem of information warfare, which remains insufficiently developed and requires close attention of educational researchers. Among the spectrum of pedagogical aspects, we consider educational ones related to the formation of the readiness of military universities’ cadets for information warfare; use axiological, personality-active and hermeneutic methodological approaches and the principles corresponding to them. The presented results have scientific novelty, since they reveal the possibilities of improving the professional training of future officers of the Russian Army through the formation of their readiness for information warfare, these especially relevant and significant possibilities are not reflected in Russian psychological and pedagogical literature. We specify the key concepts necessary to study the role of education in the formation of the readiness of military universities’ cadets for informational warfare, shows methodological approaches and principles of the research, present a brief description of the technology of cadets' education, the implementation of which makes it possible to increase the efficiency of formation of such readiness. The practical significance of the research of the mentioned problem’s aspects and its results is determined by the opportunities that open up by the implementation of the educational technology for forming cadets' readiness for modern information warfare. Prospects for further research of the problem are associated, among other things, with the development of the pedagogical aspects related to the formation of an integral personality of a future officer in the educational process of military universities, and with the study of the readiness of military personnel for informational warfare as an interdisciplinary problem.

: This hypertext book provides a summary of Information Warfare (IW) concepts, and establishes planning guidance for employing these concepts in combat. Specifically, this book defines what IW is and why its important, summarizes current IW employment methods, discusses how to build an IW campaign plan, identifies key IW support agencies, and discusses IWts future potential. In defining IW, it takes an innovative look at IW's relation to the principles of war and the USAF Tenets of Aerospace Power, using historical examples for amplification. Further, it merges time tested campaign planning principles with IW concepts to assist commanders and planners in employing IW on the battlefield. It was designed to familiarize Air Education and Training Command (AETC) students, and potential field commanders, on this fast growing warfare discipline. This book can also serve as a ready reference for planning IW operations during a contingency- it attempts to summarize key concepts found in 115-plus DOD regulations, pamphlets, and instructions on IW, and related areas.

In the wake of a few critical intersecting global issues, such as the Russia-Ukraine crisis, the Israel-Hamas conflict, and the rise of China along with middle powers and power diffusion into many actors, the argument revolves around the emerging world order–the multipolar world already on its way. However, the epistemological underpinning of the central question that finds a broader scholarly debate lacks clarity. Is the world unipolar, bipolar, or transitioning? to a multipolar? While methodically reviewing various published literary documents and scholarly papers accessed through open sources and data triangulation, this article attempts to qualitatively examine key global strategic issues and scenarios to draw an analogy of the world's various polarity conditions. Furthermore, it intends to drive a critical discourse on the contemplated world order, especially the multipolar world. It also dwells on other crucial aspects, such as strategic partners, alliances, and minilateralism. It argues that, on the one hand, there remains a continuing friction in defining the world order in bipolarity and multipolarity discourses; on the other hand, these conditions will be challenging to resonate in reality. While offering policy contours, the article concludes by advancing a strong assertion that the world order will continue to remain unipolar, constructed on the very core of established conditions such as the knowledge economy, democratic power, and values of human freedom and open dialogue for peace and stability, as well as prearranged rules that are widely inherited in a democratic culture. Moreover, the debate on defining the world order will continue to hinge on the actor who significantly possesses these qualities, values, and characteristics. However, the world order will experience the complexities of middle and small powers, finding dilemmas in their alignment and realignment between established unipolar and emerging powers. Meanwhile, Nepal, wedged between two emerging powers, China and India, and the increasing interest of world powers in the region can no longer ignore global events and ongoing power competitions. While maturing its democratic practices, skillfully designed and carefully balanced diplomacy, and a closer look at ‘strategic hedging’ in its foreign policy, Nepal should support a rules-based international order that contributes to preserving its territorial integrity and national unity In the wake of a few critical intersecting global issues, such as the Russia-Ukraine crisis, the Israel-Hamas conflict, and the rise of China along with middle powers and power diffusion into many actors, the argument revolves around the emerging world order—the multipolar world already on its way. However, the epistemological underpinning of the central question that Finds a broader scholarly debate lacks clarity. Is the world unipolar or bipolar, or transitioning to a multipolar? While methodically reviewing various published literary documents and scholarly papers accessed through open sources and data triangulation, this article attempts to qualitatively examine key global strategic issues and scenarios to draw an analogy of the world's various polarity conditions. Furthermore, it intends to drive a critical discourse on the contemplated world order, especially the multipolar world. It also dwells on other crucial aspects, such as strategic partners, alliances, and minilateralism. It argues that, on the one hand, there remains a continuing friction in defining the world order in bipolarity and multipolarity discourses; on the other hand, these conditions will be challenging to resonate in reality. While offering policy contours, the article concludes by advancing a strong assertion that the world order will continue to remain unipolar, constructed on the very core of established conditions such as the knowledge economy, democratic power, and values of human freedom and open dialogue for peace and stability, as well as prearranged rules that are widely inherited in a democratic culture. Moreover, the debate on defining the world order will continue to hinge on the actor who significantly possesses these qualities, values, and characteristics. However, the world order will experience the complexities of middle and small powers, finding dilemmas in their alignment and realignment between established unipolar and emerging powers. Meanwhile, Nepal, wedged between two emerging powers, China and India, and the increasing interest of world powers in the region, can no longer ignore global events and ongoing power competitions. While maturing its democratic practices, skillfully designed and carefully balanced diplomacy, and a closer look at ‘strategic hedging’ in its foreign policy, Nepal should support a rules-based international order that contributes to preserving its territorial integrity and national unity.

Introduction Terrorism is the most pressing national security issue facing the United States and its allies around the world. This became shockingly clear on September 11, 2001 and promises to be a long-lasting threat requiring a total commitment by the United States to eliminate terrorist organizations wherever they are found. Terrorism is an old problem, and the word dates to France's Reign of Terror in 1793-94 (Garrison, 2003). The United States State Department has defined as violence against noncombatants for the purpose of influencing public opinion (Council on Foreign Relations [CFR], n.d.). The former deputy chief of the CIA Counterterrorist Center has identified four elements that are common to all acts of (Vatis, 2001). Acts of are: (1) premeditated and not simply acts born of rage, (2) political and designed to impact political structure, (3) targeted at civilians and civilian installations, and (4) conducted by ad hoc groups as opposed to national armies. The war on is sure to result in attacks against US assets launched by terrorist groups, nation-states that provide support for terrorists, and hackers who sympathize with the terrorists (Vatis, 2001). The term cyber terrorism was coined to characterize computer-based attacks against an adversary's assets. It takes place were cyberspace and converge (Denning, 1999). Though these attacks occur in cyberspace, they still exhibit the four elements common to all acts of terrorism: (1) premeditated and not simply acts born of rage Cyber terrorist attacks are premediatated and must be planned since they involve the development or acquistition of software to carry out an attack. (2) political and designed to impact political structure Computer is an act that is intended to corrupt or completely destroy a computer system (Galley, 1996). Cyber terrorists are hackers with a political motivation, their attacks can impact political structure through this corruption and destruction. (3) targeted at civilians and civilian installations Cyber terrorist attacks often target civilian interests. Denning (2000a) qualifies as an attack that results in violence against persons or property, or at least causes enough harm to generate fear. (4) conducted by ad hoc groups as opposed to national armies Cyber is sometimes distinguished from warfare or information warfare, which are computer-based attacks orchestrated by agents of a nation-state. Cyber warfare is another term that is often used to describe various aspects of defending and attacking information and computer networks in cyberspace, as well as denying an adversary's ability to do the same (Hildrith, 2001). Cyber warfare and information warfare employ information technology as an instrument of war to attack an adversary's critical computer systems (Hirsch, Kett, & Trefil, 2002). Winn Schwartau (1994) has proposed three categories for classifying information warfare: (1) Personal Information Warfare, (2) Corporate Information Warfare, and (3) Global Information Warfare. Personal Information Warfare involves computer-based attacks on data about individuals. It may involve such things as disclosing or corrupting confidential personal information, such as those in medical or credit files. Corporate Information Warfare may involve industrial espionage or disseminating misinformation about competitors over the internet. Global Information Warfare is aimed at a country's critical computer systems. The goal is to disrupt the country by disabling systems, such as energy, communication or transportation. Another level of politically motivated computer attacks is often referred to as hacktivism--a combination of political activism and hacking. The intent in hacktivism is to disrupt normal operations but not cause serious damage (Denning, 2000b). …

The rapid development of informatization worldwide, specifically in the USA, China and Russia, and its penetration into all spheres of the vital interests of an individual, society and the state, have caused, besides doubtless advantages, the emergence of a number of significant problems. The urgent necessity to protect the information along with being protected from it has become one of them. The geopolitical confrontation and information warfare between the United States and China will be a major factor in world politics in the twenty-first century. This increasing tendency is pushing Russia towards further increasing the development of information warfare along with ensuring national security; the formation of an open dialogue between civilizations; and resistance to the threat of conflict in the field of information. Exhaustion of natural resources of the planet, their consumption and growth of the population do not contribute to the reduction of information warfare. Therefore, the positions of Russia, the United States and China will be strengthened due to deeper integration into the world information space. This paper has highlighted the quintessence of what causes the great thirst towards reaching information comfort and leadership, along with information warfare terrifying serious threats and modern global geopolitical tendencies.

: When we examine the relationship between information warfare (IW) and the law, particularly international law and the law of war, it becomes apparent that fundamental questions need to be explored. How is defined as it relates to IW and what activities will we define as IW? Who are considered combatants in IW? How do the terms force, attack, or aggression equate or relate to IW? Does require physical violence and human casualties? How will established legal principles related to national sovereignty be affected by IW? These questions and issues merely hint at the tremendous uncertainties surrounding the evolving discipline of IW. This paper examines IW from a layman's legal perspective and explores issues such as the law of war and standing international agreements to which the United States is a signatory. The concept for the employment of IW is evolving and as recently demonstrated in Yugoslavia, legal constraints, limitations, and issues appear to be the norm. There is currently no authoritative legal or international agreement as to whether an IW attack is comparable to an attack or use of force in the traditional sense. With this as a context, the study identifies several legal approaches our armed forces could employ offensively, defensively, or in retaliation to an information attack.

The transformation of the world order has led to a rather serious change in the issues of war and peace in the XXI century. The development of competition between states leads to the search for new tools for implementing policies and their goals on the world stage. Information wars are the use of information and related technologies to gain an advantage over the enemy and are becoming more widespread in the world every year, which undoubtedly indicates the relevance of the topic. In this regard, the author of the study set a goal to identify the main features of waging information wars in the XXI century. New threats and challenges, such as cyber warfare, global terrorism, hybrid conflicts, proxy wars, environmental conflicts and insurgent movements are closely interconnected with information wars. Questions of warfare have long gone beyond simple technological innovations and are rather a rethinking of the ways in which the actors involved interact. The leap in information technology leads to a modification of the means that information wars have. All this undoubtedly speaks to the importance of critically understanding the consequences of these new ways of conducting information wars, especially with regard to their ability to distort the global and political dynamics of the development of international relations.

The purpose of the article is to analyse the forms, methods, and means of library work for resistance in the information war. The research methodology is based on the application of general scientific and special methods of cognition, in particular, selection, analysis, synthesis, and systematisation of materials. The novelty of this study lies in the comprehensive study of professional strategies and methods of successful confrontation in the information war in libraries. Unreliable information is currently used as a weapon in political confrontation – information wars at the level of states and among political parties, as well as unfair rivalry – in the economy. Having received false and distorted information, one can make incorrect conclusions, which in the future lead to wrong actions or expose them to danger. That is why information security is so important for every person, and media literacy skills will help to filter information and use it rationally. Conclusions. The article analyses the concept of "information war"; technologies for preventing the spread of false information are described; information on improving media literacy of the population, in particular, and library workers is provided. The issue of restoring Ukrainian culture, ensuring information security on the territory of the state should be taken into account by the management of libraries, and the institution should provide maximum guarantees to preserve the basic network of libraries and their maximum activity in every part of the country. It should be emphasised that in the modern information-active environment, libraries are indeed one of the key elements of the information infrastructure of social activity, as a rule, based on the most effective use of modern electronic technologies. Therefore, their work consists in supporting the effective dissemination of information in the most popular mass media. Key words: information war, media literacy, technology, fake, disinformation, credibility.

The topic of media analysis of information wars in the context of the Chinese issue is of academic interest, both for understanding current events and for improving information analysis methods and media strategies. The article assesses the influence of media on China's behavior in the information war, characterizes the challenges associated with media analysis in China's information war, describes methods and metrics for analyzing media content about the information war in China. Information technologies at the current level of development create broad opportunities for managing political conflicts both on the scale of one state and at the regional level. These technologies, which are actively used in information wars, have a number of advantages over traditional means of struggle due to their massive impact on the moral and psychological state of the population of the enemy country or individual parties, movements and political associations. The article uses a discourse analysis of the media text, identifies expressive linguistic means, the semantic meaning of words and expressions, and the communicative orientation of the text. The empirical basis of the research is the article "Celestial Truth: who and why is waging an information war with the PRC". The main conclusion of the study is that modern technologies and social media have become a powerful tool for influencing public opinion and shaping the perspective of events. The information war in China has a global impact, attracting the attention of the international community. Global media and international platforms actively monitor and cover events in the region, which can influence the perception of the conflict beyond its borders. The impact of the information war has a significant impact on public opinion. There is the use of various methods, including fake news, disinformation, to influence public sentiment and views. The Chinese concept of network warfare opens up further prospects and opportunities for the Chinese leadership and military specialists to work on the creation and implementation of the latest technology samples.

: Information Warfare is a hot topic throughout the Department of Defense today, and a debate rages about what it really is, who the warfighters are, and what its impact will be on warfare in the future. This study defines key concepts of information warfare, examines its offensive and defensive components, and compares information warfare to a previous technological revolution, air warfare. The paper draws on a broad spectrum of resources from military, philosophy, business, and computer-oriented perspectives. It examines opportunities and potential pitfalls in the conduct of offensive and defensive information warfare, the desirability and feasibility of using information warfare weapons and techniques, and concludes with precautionary caveats about vulnerabilities, expectations, and applicability.