READY FOR TODAY – EVOLVING FOR TOMORROW
SURVIVE TO
COMMENT: MILITARY
UNDERSTANDING OF
THE INFORMATION
ENVIRONMENT
Major Chris Bell, British Army
“It is all around us. Even now in this very room. You can see it when you look out of your
window, or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work…when
you go to church…when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over
your eyes to blind you from the truth.” The Matrix 1
As individuals we all engage in bespoke
information ecosystems. This engenders
a familiarity with the information
environment which, in turn, mimics
understanding. 2 Objectivity is then
difficult and individuals fail to understand
the environment which understands
them.
This is surely the most dangerous of all
worlds and one that can be extrapolated
to the wider defence community. Just as
individuals become familiar with a tailored
understanding, military institutions are in
danger of doing the same. It is imperative
therefore to define the environment
we seek to operate in, and the one we
must operate in. Only then can a holistic
understanding be formed.
NATO command structure. Identification
of the best methodologies and tools
employed in these headquarters will both
inform future planning and enable refined
outputs. This will subsequently contribute
to the NATO IEA capability, as directed
by the 2019 Communications Strategy
and the IEA Capability Development
Tasking. 3 4
The Environment
The information environment is constantly
and rapidly evolving. Accelerating beyond
our understanding (Figure 1) it is both an
egalitarian and immersive experience. 5
State actors, ideological extremists,
individuals and terrorists now all have
the enabling infrastructure to promote
their reality. These actions often appear
This is the first step of the ARRC
Information
Environment
Analysis
(IEA) programme: To understand the
information
environment
pertinent
to our operation. Comprehensive
understanding of its characteristics
will enable sophisticated information
manoeuvre. This in turn will support
refined outputs.
To facilitate this process, the ARRC IEA
team will seek collaboration across the
Figure 1
1 Lana Wachowski and Laurence Wachowski, The Matrix, (Burbank, CA: Warner Brothers, 1999).
2 Plato, Republic, ed. Benjamin Jowett (New York: The Modern Library, 1941).
3 Jens Stoltenberg, 2019 NATO Communications Strategy, (Document PO (2018)0516, 4 Dec 2018.) Para 39.
4 Mark Laity, Information Environment Assessment Capability Development, (SH/COM DIV/NC/18-000377, 31 May 2018)
5 Thomas Friedman, Thank you for being late: An optimist’s guide to thriving in the age of accelerations (New York: Macmillan, 2016), 32.
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