Global Security and Intelligence Studies Volume 5, Number 1, Spring / Summer 2020 | Page 29

The Case for the Sixth Domain of War: Psychological Warfare in the Age of Advanced Technology
gaging with the broader community to
find ways of combating this new and
unique threat.
Second, the establishment of
the psychological domain is critical
because democratic governance relies
on reliable and trustworthy information
for people to make rational and
calculated decisions. Yet, cyber-enabled
war in the psychological domain
allows for the spread of falsehoods and
the sowing of chaos that distorts reality
and degrades trust. As it stands, foreign
influence and interference pose a significant
threat to democracy. Whether
it be through pure cyber-attacks on a
state’s infrastructure or disinformation
campaigns, adversaries are seeking to
divide our societies and degrade confidence
not only in elections, but also
in the overall credibility of our institutions.
Adversaries will continue to
adopt and look for ways to weaken the
United States and its allies, strengthening
their own strategic position on the
world stage. This will be an ongoing intrusion
that knows no borders, infringing
on the functioning of democracies
worldwide.
Third, the establishment of the
psychological domain will send a signal
to our adversaries, initiating digital
deterrence. As we argued in our
previous article, the weaponization of
information changes the application
of deterrence, both within the cyber
domain and the psychological domain
(Ajir and Vailliant 2018). Elements of
deterrence will be applied to each domain
differently, hence changing its
applicability. In an era of great power
competition, US strategic deterrence
will need to evolve to encompass warfare
in all domains, including the psychological
domain. However, we must
take a few steps back and understand
that we cannot meaningfully deter our
adversaries unless they are aware of our
capabilities; these capabilities will not
be fully developed unless the sixth domain
is established.
Conclusion
In her 1979 book The Printing Press
as an Agent of Change, Elizabeth
Eisenstein acknowledges the profit
motive that drove many early printers
and the fact that disinformation and
propaganda was still rife. However,
she argues that despite the downsides,
such as heightened ethnic tensions,
the spread of medical disinformation,
and about a century’s worth of European
religious wars, the long game was
more important. In other words, “even
when early printing technology ought
to be described as a weapon, Eisenstein
treats it more like a light bulb” (Marantz
2019). But what happens when modern
technology completely changes information
dissemination? Will the light
bulb continue to illuminate, or will it
be dropped and burn everything to the
ground? Or perhaps, if not guided, it
will shine a glaring light on the ugliness
beneath the social cohesion of contemporary
society. This is why establishing
a sixth domain is necessary—it will lead
to a more comprehensive understanding
of the effects of cyber-enabled psychological
attacks on the human psyche,
subsequently leading to policies in de-
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