Whose Story Wins: The Noösphere, Noöpolitik, and the Future of Statecraft

Abstract

Two decades ago, we proposed noopolitik as a new concept for adapting American strategy to the information age. We urged strategists to rethink the concept of “information” and recognize that a new realm is emerging that will profoundly affect statecraft: the noosphere, a globe-circling “realm of the mind.” As it expands, conditions will lessen for realpolitik strategies based on material “hard power,” and increase for strategies based on noopolitik and its preference for ideational “soft power.” Thus, the decisive factor in today’s and tomorrow’s wars of ideas is bound to be “whose story wins” — the essence of noopolitik. This latest discussion of our ideas clarifies the origin, nature, and spread of the noosphere concept, and illuminates how America’s adversaries are deploying dark forms of noopolitik against us, quite effectively. In addition to proposing better ways for America to fight back, we also find that the future of the noosphere and noopolitik may depend on what happens to the “global commons” — a construct that has long had strong support in environmental-science and social-activist circles, as well as in military-strategy circles. To improve the prospects for the noosphere and noopolitik, U.S. policy and strategy should, among other initiatives, treat the global commons as a pivotal issue area, uphold “guarded openness” as a guiding principle, and institute a new requirement for periodic reviews of our nation’s “information posture.”