The analysis contained herein is a companion report to a previous study, Government Responses to Asymmetric Threats: The State of the Literature on Counterinsurgency from 2002 to 2022, examining a large sample of counterinsurgency (COIN) literature published in academic journals, reports, and policy and practitioner focused outlets. The methodologies used to collect, classify, and extract the relevant COIN literature are detailed in that report. This report focuses on a subset of the full COIN literature sample from the first, full report: publications that contain analyses of the information lever of power. Joint Doctrine Note 1-18 defines the information lever of power as rooted in efforts to create, exploit, or disrupt knowledge to obtain an advantage over another party. This entails: 1) “communication synchronization” to “understand and engage key audiences” in the pursuit of national interests; and 2) technical information activities aimed at denying adversaries access to crucial information systems and data, enhancing the state’s capacity to gather and analyze its own data, and using that information to guide activities.
Publication Information
Doody, Sean. 2023. “Government Responses to Asymmetric Threats: The State of the Literature on Counterinsurgency from 2002 to 2022—The Information Lever of Power.” Global Responses to Asymmetric Threats. College Park, MD: START (July).