To compete and thrive in the 21st century, democracies, and the United States in particular, must develop new national security and economic strategies that address the geopolitics of information. In the 20th century, market capitalist democracies geared infrastructure, energy, trade, and even social policy to protect and advance that era’s key source of power—manufacturing. In this century, democracies must better account for information geopolitics across all dimensions of domestic policy and national strategy.
Enduring principles of deterrence co-exist with persistent policy debates that have long remained unresolved. Nevertheless, the same changed world conditions and the advance and spread of new technologies that are complicating applied deterrence today may also open the door to a new synthesis in deterrence thinking. The key may be the use of improved analytical concepts and tools to better understand the multiple dimensions of strategy including different domains and the impact of culture and psychology.
The Honorable Ronald F. Lehman II is the Counselor to the Director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Lehman is also the Chair of the U.S. Department of Defense Threat Reduction Advisory Committee (TRAC) and recently co-chaired the National Academy of Sciences' study on the future of Cooperative Threat Reduction. Since 1996, Lehman has been the Chairman of the Governing Board of the International Science and Technology Center, a 39-nation intergovernmental organization.