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Whose Story Wins Perspective EXPERT INSIGHTS ON A TIMELY POLICY ISSUE C O R P O R A T I O N July 2020 DAVID RONFELDT, JOHN ARQUILLA Whose Story Wins Rise of the Noosphere, Noopolitik, and Information-Age Statecraft For more information on this publication, visit www.rand.org/t/PEA237-1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available for this publication. ISBN: 978-1-9774-0530-2 Published by the RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, Calif. © Copyright 2020 RAND Corporation R® is a registered trademark. Cover image: Siarhei / Adobe Stock. Limited Print and Electronic Distribution Rights This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited. Permission is given to duplicate this document for personal use only, as long as it is unaltered and complete. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial use. For information on reprint and linking permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions. The RAND Corporation is a research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous. RAND is nonprofit, nonpartisan, and committed to the public interest. RAND’s publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors. Support RAND Make a tax-deductible charitable contribution at www.rand.org/giving/contribute www.rand.org Preface In this Perspective, the authors urge strategists to consider a new concept for adapting U.S. grand strategy to the information age—noopolitik, which favors the use of “soft power”—as a successor to realpolitik, with its emphasis on “hard power.” The authors illuminate how U.S. adversaries are already deploying dark forms of noopolitik (e.g., weaponized narratives, strategic deception, epistemic attacks); propose ways to fight back; and discuss how the future of noopolitik might depend on what happens to the global commons—i.e., the parts of Earth that fall outside national jurisdictions and to which all nations are supposed to have access. The authors expand on many of the ideas they first proposed in a 1999 RAND Corporation report titled The Emergence of Noopolitik: Toward an American Informa- tion Strategy, in which they described the emergence of a new globe-circling realm: the noosphere. First, Earth developed a geosphere, or a geological mantle; second, a bio- sphere, consisting of plant and animal life. Third to develop will be Earth’s noosphere, a global “thinking circuit” and “realm of the mind” upheld by the digital information revolution. As the noosphere expands, it will profoundly affect statecraft—the condi- tions for traditional realpolitik strategies will erode, and the prospects for noopolitik strategies will grow. Thus, the decisive factor in today’s and tomorrow’s wars of ideas is bound to be “whose story wins”—the essence of noopolitik. To improve prospects for the noosphere and noopolitik, U.S. policy and strategy should, among other initia- tives, treat the global commons as a pivotal issue area, uphold “guarded openness” as a guiding principle, and institute a new requirement for periodic reviews of the U.S. “information posture.” The RAND Corporation is a research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous. RAND is nonprofit, nonpartisan, and committed to the public interest. This research was funded by income earned on client-funded research and through the support of RAND donors. Philanthropic contributions support our abil- ity to take the long view, tackle tough and often-controversial topics, and share our findings in innovative and compelling ways. RAND’s research findings and recom- iii iv Whose Story Wins mendations are based on data and evidence and therefore do not necessarily reflect the policy preferences or interests of its clients, donors, or supporters. This research was conducted within the International Security and Defense Policy Center of the RAND National Security Research Division (NSRD). NSRD conducts research and analysis for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the defense agencies, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Intelligence Community, allied foreign govern- ments, and foundations. For more information on the RAND International Security and Defense Policy Center, see www.rand.org/nsrd/isdp or contact the director (contact information is provided on the webpage). Contents Preface ................................................................................................. iii Table ....................................................................................................vii Summary .............................................................................................. ix Acknowledgments ...................................................................................xv Abbreviations ........................................................................................ xvi CHAPTER ONE Looking Back, Looking Ahead: America’s Conceptual Arsenal ............................. 1 CHAPTER TWO Origins and Attributes of the Noosphere Concept ............................................. 7 Teilhard’s Thinking About the Noosphere ......................................................... 7 Vernadsky’s Thinking About the Noosphere ....................................................... 8 Teilhard and Vernadsky Compared .................................................................10 Le Roy’s Depiction of the Transition ...............................................................11 CHAPTER THREE Propagation of the Noosphere Concept in Recent Decades .................................13 An Expanding Presence—From Individuals to Platforms .......................................14 Meanwhile, in Russia .................................................................................18 Ruminations on Collective Consciousness .........................................................19 Coda: Long-Range Future Viability of the Noosphere Concept ................................21 CHAPTER FOUR From Rethinking the Noosphere to Rethinking Noopolitik ............................... 23 Strategic Vectors That Span the Noosphere and Noopolitik ................................... 23 Recent Alternatives and Complements to Noopolitik ........................................... 26 Coda ....................................................................................................29 v vi Whose Story Wins CHAPTER FIVE Contrasting Paradigms: Evolving from Realpolitik to Noopolitik ........................31 Global Civil-Society Actors as Harbingers of Noopolitik ........................................33 Early Glimmers of Noopolitik During the Cold War Years .....................................35 Displacement of Realpolitik as the Noosphere Grows ............................................37 CHAPTER SIX A Pessimistic Appraisal of Today’s Turmoil for the Noosphere and Noopolitik .........39 Washington Failing at Noopolitik ................................................................. 40 Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, and WikiLeaks: Noopolitik’s Darker Champions ................ 42 The Noosphere in Fragmented Disarray ...........................................................47 Admonitions from the Edges ....................................................................... 48 CHAPTER SEVEN Hope for the Noosphere and Noopolitik: The Global Commons ..........................51 Environmental-Science and Civil-Society Views on the Global Commons ...................52 Military Perspectives on the Global Commons ...................................................59 Intersecting Implications—A New Combination of Forces for the Future? ..................67 CHAPTER EIGHT Getting Back on Track Through Noopolitik ...................................................69 The Way Ahead as We Previously Saw It ..........................................................70 Scattered Signs of Slow Progress in the Interim ...................................................72 New Information Strategy Measures for the Way Ahead ........................................74 Coda . for Now .....................................................................................76 Bibliography ..........................................................................................79 Table 5.1 Contrast Between Realpolitik and Noopolitik .......................................32 vii Summary U.S. grand strategy is not adapting well to the information age; a rethinking is needed. For decades, countless writings have pointed this out—ours among them—and some marginal improvements have occurred. But it is time to urge a deeper rethinking in light of new threats facing American society and its institutions. The United States is neither countering these threats effectively nor looking ahead in the best ways possible. The problem is not so much technological in nature—the United States has excellent information, communications, and sensing technologies. Rather, it is mainly a cognitive challenge. Adversaries—both nations and nonstate networks—are using dark new modes of political, social, cultural, and psychological warfare against
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