Global Security and Intelligence Studies Volume 5, Number 1, Spring / Summer 2020 | Page 19

The Case for the Sixth Domain of War: Psychological Warfare in the Age of Advanced Technology
3) It is a sphere that may include the
presence of an opponent
4) It is a sphere in which control can
be exercised over that opponent.
All of the war domains are nested
within the larger information environment.
The use of information during
wartime or in peacetime operations is
not unique to any of the domains. The
objective when conducting information
operations in any of the domains is to
deny, corrupt, or destroy an adversary’s
information and systems, to defend
our own, and to exploit available information
to enhance the decision cycle
and achieve information superiority
(Kovacich and Jones 2006). The Joint
Chiefs of Staff (2019) define “information
environment” as:
The aggregate of individuals,
organizations, and systems that
collect, process, disseminate, or
act on information.
Furthermore, it defines “information
operations” as:
The integrated employment,
during military operations, of
information-related capabilities
in concert with other lines of operation
to influence, disrupt, corrupt,
or usurp the decision-making
of adversaries and potential
adversaries while protecting our
own.
More broadly, “information warfare”
generally comprises three functional
areas:
• electronic warfare (e.g., jamming
communications links, eavesdropping
of signals)
• network warfare (where computer
networks are the weapons and
targets)
• psychological operations (which
aims at altering the perceptions of
the target audience to be favorable
to one’s objective) (Brazzoli 2007)
Where the Cyber Domain
Begins and Ends
Mapping out cyberspace can
assist in visualizing the fifth
domain (see Appendix 1).
Cyberspace is generally viewed as
three layers: physical, logical, and social.
Within these three layers are five
components: geographic, the physical
network, the logical network, cyber
persona, and persona. The geographic
component refers to the physical location
of network elements. The physical
network components include all of the
hardware and infrastructure required
for network operability. The logical layer
is technical in nature and consists of
the logical connections that exist between
devices. The social layer consists
of cyber personas, referring to identification
on a network, such as email addresses
or computer IP addresses, and
personas, meaning the actual person
behind the network. This top social
layer is obviously required, as the fifth
domain cannot be navigated without
end-to-end users. However, operations
conducted with targets in the cyber domain
allow only for the effects of the
two functional areas of electronic and
network warfare, excluding the effects
of psychological operations.
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