War in the Digital Age: Informational Power, Geopolitics, and the Fifth Dimension
Abstract
In the last decade, a growing literature has suggested the need for a new set of classes of ``new'' forms of war as the result of a shift to a postmodernist worldwide environment. This paper argues that the shifts in the forms and patterns of warfare and strategy are, however, consistent with earlier changes as a result of shifts in socio-technological paradigms. Rather than aiming to identify ``new classes'' of war, we argue here for the need to focus on the growing strategic importance of the fifth dimension of strategic power - the ``digital infosphere'' (together with sea, land air, and space) - as the result of the rise of a new commercial and organizational setting in the form of a digitally based informational network economy. Arguing from a geopolitical viewpoint, the paper identifies consistent with existing frameworks this informational environment, its impact on strategy, and the meaning of power. It then provides an empirical measure of informational capability that allows us to get a fuller picture of the power-share of actors in the international system and a comparison with existing measures of capability and power-share.
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