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The 2022 U.S. National Defense Strategy (NDS) and National Security Strategy place integrated deterrence as the centerpiece of U.S. strategy. Integrated deterrence—which “entails working seamlessly across warfighting domains, theaters, the spectrum of conflict, all instruments of U.S. national power, and [America’s] network of Alliances and partnerships”—is to be tailored to specific circumstances and applies a coordinated, multifaceted approach to reducing competitors’ perceptions of the net benefits of aggression relative to restraint.¹ As this lengthy description suggests, integrated deterrence draws on multiple approaches to deterrence to create a holistic strategy in pursuit of American national interests.² It represents a far broader view than previous U.S. approaches to deterrence—one that can succeed if made actionable.

While the strategic vision laid out in the NDS is praiseworthy in its scope and direction, criticisms remain.³ First, operational concerns include the apparent tasking of the Department of Defense (DOD)—now the Department of War (DOW)—with the execution of integrated deterrence. This tasking is problematic given the stated intent to align all instruments of national power, not just the military. It also leads to doubt as to whether the interagency community is capable of coordinating a unity of effort.⁴ Second, critics challenge whether tailored deterrence is even possible, given both the complexity of dealing with two or more potential adversaries and the risk that tailoring messages to multiple audiences might weaken the clarity of deterrence signaling.⁵ Most condemning are assessments that integrated deterrence is a poor strategy. In this vein, criticisms include that deterrence is self-limiting as it aims only to prevent unwanted behavior; treats only the symptoms of aggression, not its causes; and is backed by a dubious historical record in which deterrence fails as often as it succeeds.⁶ Finally, whether integrated deterrence is even a strategy is contested with opponents claiming that, as laid out in the NDS, integrated deterrence lacks clear ends outside the absence of war and little detail into what means are to be employed.⁷

In the case of the NDS and its pursuit of integrated deterrence, the devil is in the details. Good strategy requires a clear theory of success, one that not only explains how the desired effects are achieved but also inspires others to support it.⁸ While many of the critiques of integrated deterrence are valid, pursuing integrated deterrence is possible with further strategic clarification. What follows is a strategic framework to achieve integrated deterrence, drawn from Manuel Castells’s theory of communication power, followed by discussion of its application to the U.S. strategy of integrated deterrence.⁹

Communication Power as Strategy Concept

Strategies are theories that explain how desired effects are achieved through causal linkages of ends, ways, and means.¹⁰ Like academic theories, strategies (both national and military) set forth to identify the primary variables that explain how a desired outcome is achieved. Unlike academic theories, however, war offers little opportunity for hypothesis testing.¹¹ Merging academic theory with strategy can help mitigate this challenge. Incorporating Castells’s theory of communication power as a framework for integrated deterrence offers a tangible, parsimonious strategy that encompasses dissuasion, coercion, and persuasion and can be applied to both the interagency community and U.S. allies, partners, and adversaries across the spectrum of competition.

From Concept to Theory

As it stands currently, integrated deterrence is more a concept than a theory. It calls for integrating U.S. national power, but there “remains no clear idea of how or why more seamless integration produces stronger deterrence, apart from an assumption that better synergies would make the United States and its partners more effective.”¹² It also leaves “significant uncertainty around the most critical aspect of deterrence . . . the effect of one’s actions on the perceptions of the potential aggressor.”¹³ Resolving these issues is possible, but the breadth of action within the idea of integrated deterrence requires an equally ranging strategic theory of how influence is exercised—one that encompasses all instruments of national power across the spectrum of competition. Integrated deterrence should anchor itself in a theory of power, not some subcategory of influence. Coercion and persuasion—hard and soft power—are ever at play in defining and upholding the global system, which is the stated purpose of the NDS move toward integrated deterrence.

Castells’s theory uniquely does this by describing how power relationships are created and contested in our globally interconnected environment through the logic of networks. As historian Neil Ferguson documents in The Square and the Tower, political actors have successfully exerted power through horizontal networks to challenge established hierarchies throughout history.¹⁴ For Castells, advances in digital communication technologies have ended the historical superiority of vertical/hierarchical organizations over horizontal networks. In this sense, Castells’s account follows other prominent sociologists describing the advent of the network society—a society whereby social and media networks become the prime mode of organization to shape the most important structures of social life at the individual, organizational, and societal level.¹⁵ His approach distinguishes itself, however, with its focus on how power operates within these networks and by whom at a global level.

The importance of networks has not been lost on DOD/DOW. Vice Admiral Arthur K. Cebrowski and John Garstka, among others, developed concepts of network-centric warfare in the 1990s and 2000s along similar assumptions as Castells.¹⁶ These concepts hold true today, as changes in the character of warfare center around networked operations that demand more comprehensive integration for credible combat effectiveness.¹⁷ Yet efforts to increase combat capabilities alone neglect the purpose of integrated deterrence—improving synergies across all instruments of national power with allies and partners. In this regard, the DOW pursuit of networked operations falls more on the military/technical effects of networks, rather than sociological, leaving a gap in approaching integrated deterrence. As Castells states, “coercion, and the capacity to exercise it . . . is an essential source of power. But coercion alone cannot stabilize domination. The ability to build consent, or at least to instill fear and resignation vis-à-vis the existing order, is essential to enforce the rules that govern the institutions and organizations of society.”¹⁸

From Theory to Strategy

According to Frank Hoffman, the essence of strategy formation is the creation of a strategic concept and logic that represents an untested hypothesis that promises to attain policy ends within their allotted means and situational constraints. This is especially important for national strategies like integrated deterrence in that “their purpose is rarely to defeat an adversary but instead . . . develop institutional muscle and apply statecraft to desire[d] strategic ends.”¹⁹ The establishment of an if/then hypothesis is therefore central to the development of strategy. Castells’s theory offers two such hypotheses—one regarding the fundamental importance of power in society and the other regarding how power operates in our current era of global interconnectivity.

Castells’s first hypothesis is that the most fundamental form of power lies in the ability to shape the human mind. He defines power as “the relational capacity that enables certain social actors to asymmetrically influence the decisions of other actors in ways that favor the empowered actors’ will, interests, and values.”²⁰ Power is exercised in two ways: through the means of coercion—including both the threat of violence and its actual application—and through the control over the construction of meaning through which social actors come to perceive possible action (discursive power). Power then is both a social construct and a material condition. The ability to not only create and enforce laws or international norms but also generate perceptions of legitimacy by which individuals accept them exemplifies how power operates, whether at the local, national, or international level. Notably, power is never absolute. Power remains dependent on a “certain degree of compliance and acceptance by those subjected to it.”²¹ Hence, resistance to power is always present, and when resistance becomes significantly stronger than compliance, power relationships change.

Castells’s second hypothesis is that in today’s globally interconnected world, the deployment of power no longer falls solely to the purview of nation-states but disperses itself into the hands of networks. Historically, nation-states wielded power by asserting their sovereignty within a territorial boundary through the monopoly of violence and institutional control over societal discourse. Today, however, territorial boundaries no longer hold the same priority, as global networks of all sizes increasingly extend across national borders. International supply chains, transnational corporations, and supranational governing bodies, among others, illustrate the distributed nature of power spanning across areas of economics, technology, legal regulations, social values, security, and politics.²² Consequently, global networks now hold the capability to reconfigure the societal rules that were once the prerogative of national governments, allowing for new avenues of competition. Nation-states, nonetheless, remain influential. Rather than withering away, states adapt and transform, turning into nodes—albeit powerful ones—within larger overlapping networks of political, institutional, and military relations. States then continue to maximize their national interests in this system but do so by either becoming imperial powers—stretching their territorial boundaries to exert control—or networked powers—extending their influence transnationally through increasingly intensified relations across various planes of activities (for example, mediated, societal, financial, and militarized).²³ 

Castells concludes that if power resides in networks, then networks become the site for global competition with power and counterpower reliant on network creation and disruption via network strategies of offense and defense. Networks are “complex structures of communication constructed around a set of goals that simultaneously ensure unity of purpose and flexibility of execution by their adaptability to the operating environment.”²⁴ They are composed of nodes that interact based on a set of communication protocols, including both technical and cultural codes of interaction. Inclusion within a network requires participants to conform to the network’s communication protocols, which, over time, enculturates them into the network’s values and purpose. Finally, networks are defined by their programs, which set forth the network’s goal and rules, including the performance criteria by which success and value is determined.²⁵ 

In the global system, multiple overlapping networks exist to coordinate and regulate human interaction. These networks may compete or cooperate with others to form larger integrated macro systems. Network cooperation depends on the interoperability of networks’ programs. This includes shared goals and communication protocols that enable coordination as well as access to connecting points linking strategic networks together (switches). Competition, on the other hand, occurs between networks and adjudicates itself based on the ability of networks to outperform others, either through superior efficiency in performance or through greater cooperative capacity (that is, more participation). Network competition takes two forms: constructive or destructive. Constructive competition involves internal improvement within a network that results in its superior performance (efficiency or cooperative capacity) vis-à-vis its competitors. In contrast, destructive competition is externally targeting and takes the form of either disrupting competitor networks’ access points and/or interfering with others’ communication protocols to reduce competitor networks’ performance^.26 

Castells argues that taken together, networks dictate the flow of social interaction and define the ends that individuals work toward, influencing their values, beliefs, and motivations for behavior. Those in the position to program networks shape the values by which people interact, which come to form deeply held assumptions regarding what is deemed to hold value in society (prosperity, security, freedom, privacy). In this sense, discursive power is achieved by setting the protocols or rules of interaction within a network, while coercive power is achieved through the ability to exclude others in networks and/or apply force to degrade or destroy competing networks. Consequently, when viewed through the lens of the global system, the hierarchy of networks provides those at the top with the ability to determine “the rule in the entire grid of networks organizing/dominating the planet.”²⁷ Yet in the context of integrated deterrence, nation-states remain best positioned as the primary agents with sufficient resources to exercise deterrence activities shaping the behaviors of state and nonstate actors. 

Operationalizing Network Power

Currently, the United States sits atop the hierarchy of global networks. Since the Reagan administration, the protocols of free trade and intellectual property rights, combined with the strength of the U.S. economy, have defined the overarching network of global interaction.²⁸ Backed by the strength of the U.S. military, the United States has so far been able to protect this network. While terrorist organizations have, at times, attacked specific nodes and switches within them, it is with the rise of China that the potential for resistance has substantially grown. Nevertheless, such resistance can be managed through cooperative and competitive means via the operationalization of six components of network power.

The first component of network power is the attractiveness of the network. Participants join networks to gain access to the aggregate benefits they provide (both quantitative and qualitative). In this sense, the larger the network, the more attractive it becomes as members have access to greater resources.²⁹ The World Trade Organization is one example, with political actors motivated to join the organization to gain access to the global economy. To secure participation, networks must be perceived as valuable or achieve relative attractiveness vis-à-vis competing networks. Failure to do so results in dwindling access to aggregate resources as potential participants choose alternative networks seen as more beneficial to their interests.

The second component is the ability to exclude others from a network. Networks exercise gatekeeping strategies to bar access to those who do not add value or jeopardize the interests of the network. In this case, adding more participants does not always increase the network’s power or influence.³⁰ North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) enlargement exemplifies this, as the addition of nations closer to Russia’s border may threaten the Alliance’s network goal of member security or entangle its members in regional conflicts ill-serving their national interest. Other more common usage of exclusion includes reducing adversarial nations’ access to strategic resources, technology, or expertise, like sanctions on Iran or North Korea and Chinese trade restrictions on high-end computer chips.

The third component is standard-setting. Networks require protocols (rules) for coordinating behavior. Once set, these rules become compelling for all nodes in the network and favor the interests of the actors who established them. Over time, these standards come to influence the participants’ values and expectations regarding appropriate, routine behavior.³¹ The European Union illustrates the power of standard-setting by requiring member states to adopt domestic reforms, including the existence of democratic institutions, the rule of law, and human rights. The intent of these standards is to socialize other political communities such that European values become embedded into their sociopolitical culture.

The fourth component is positional influence within a network. Not all nodes within a network are created equal. The hierarchical relationships within a network—whether based on prestige, density of contact with others, or resources—grant greater agenda-setting capabilities to some than to others. Such agenda-setting functions within a network’s protocols but plays important roles in mobilizing resources and defining specific problem sets.³² U.S. leadership in NATO and voting shares in the World Bank are examples of U.S. prominence in security and finance networks. China too recognizes the importance of positional influence, seeking not only greater voice in global institutions but also preferring bilateral engagements with other nations to bolster its relative bargaining power outside of organizations in which it has less influence.

The fifth component is the capability to constitute networks. Constituting networks requires an actor to have access to other influential power brokers and the persuasive ability to link these actors together toward some goal. Linking together different actors (or networks) reflects switching power—turning on access points that allow cooperative potential—while the capability to define the goal of a network reflects one’s programming power.³³ U.S. efforts to engage countries in the Asia-Pacific region and develop partnerships to reduce Chinese influence are examples of this. The formation of AUKUS (a trilateral security partnership among Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) demonstrates the ease by which a network can be created when actors share similar values and threat perceptions. In contrast, U.S. engagement with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) proves more difficult, partly due to differences in U.S. and ASEAN cultural protocols and network goals but also because of China’s prominence as a counternetwork in the region.

The final component is the ability to destroy and disrupt networks. Networks can be disconnected through physical attacks on key switches, like cutting communication cables or destroying logistical hubs. They can also be targeted through nonphysical attacks; a network’s communication protocols can be sufficiently disrupted such that its interoperability is denied or degraded. Gray zone operations and disinformation activities exemplify both, especially in the case of preventing coalitional efforts by the international community or allied nations to stop aggression from occurring.³⁴

From Networks to Integrated Deterrence: Connecting Ends, Ways, and Means

The “big idea” or “guiding policy” presented in the adaptation of Castells’s theory is the pursuit of U.S. influence through networks. In this regard, the means are networks, as this is where resources are aggregated and values and rules are formed. The ends are U.S. eminence in global networks, including the capability of creating and (re)programming them. The ways include: 

• applying network competition and cooperation by making U.S. networks attractive and adversarial networks unattractive
• practicing inclusion and exclusion to maintain U.S. networks’ performance capabilities while inhibiting deleterious capabilities from adversaries
• setting standards conducive to U.S. values in conjunction with augmenting interoperability of networks with allies and partners to facilitate coordinated efforts
• pursuing U.S. centrality within strategically important networks in support of American leadership
• continually creating and adapting networks to meet evolving threats and challenges through the linkage of relevant actors
• disrupting or destroying adversarial networks through the targeting of key nodes/switches and protocols of interaction.

As a strategy, Castells’s theory aligns with and adds further specification to the ends, ways, and means by which integrated deterrence in the NDS could be enacted. First, it supports the overarching NDS objective to maintain a stable and open international system that expands economic prosperity and opportunity while helping realize and defend the values at the heart of the American way of life.³⁵In this sense, the international system is best understood as a macro-network within which U.S. values are embedded, integrating others and shaping their beliefs and behaviors along the lines of economics, politics, information, and security. U.S. strategy should ensure that American values continue to define the rules of this network, protect the network’s physical and legal infrastructure, and maintain the network’s normative attractiveness such that other societies desire to be included within it.³⁶

Second, approaching integrated deterrence through the framework of network competition describes how all instruments of power and coordination with the interagency community and U.S. partners and allies is to occur. Because global networks stretch across diplomatic, informational, military, and economic domains, each U.S. Government department would pursue analysis of networks within its respective area of responsibility and mission set, share such information among them to create a more comprehensive picture of global networks, and combine the information for the purpose of collective action toward unified goals seeking to: 

• fend off strategically relevant adversarial network structures
• defend existing network structures serving U.S. strategic interests
• reprogram, or disconnect, foreign networks to align with U.S. goals
• create new networks bolstering capacity for coordinated action toward U.S. interests.

In this regard, approaching integrated deterrence through Castells’s theory of communication power can be understood as its own network-making project intended to join the interagency community together through common protocols of communication toward a common goal. This same process would apply to allies and partners with the intent to create interoperable network structures aligning economic, diplomatic, informational, and military capabilities at various levels of social interaction.

Third, the NDS objective of reducing competitors’ perceptions of the net benefits of aggression relative to restraint comes from elements of network competition and cooperation. Integrated deterrence requires the ability to reassure potential aggressors of the benefits of the status quo.³⁷ Strategically increasing integration between U.S. and adversarial nations widens the space for reassurances to be made while simultaneously raising the costs of exclusion from these networks. As networks differ in strategic importance, integration of adversarial nations into U.S. and ally networks would be tailored to specific conditions. Identification of adversaries’ networked vulnerabilities and strengths would enable a clearer understanding of the potential costs of exclusion from these networks, with the construction of networks integrating adversaries into their areas of vulnerability providing greater asymmetric advantage for the United States and its partners and thereby supporting efforts of general deterrence.

Additional efforts to create networks that integrate allies and partners along shared goals and norms (rules) would constrain U.S. adversaries to act according to shared regional norms and even induce U.S. adversaries to join or risk losing access to the network’s benefits. Even if such constraints fail, violation of these norms would signal hostility and set the information space in ways more conducive for U.S. influence, further facilitating ties between the United States and its regional partners.

Influencing adversaries’ perceptions of their security environment would further entail outcompeting their areas of network strength. Ensuring the superior efficiency of U.S. networks would, over time, shape adversaries’ perceptions that their own network programs (goals and values) are less effective in achieving prosperity and security while also demonstrating to neutral nations the relative benefits of participating in U.S. networks over others (that is, Chinese or Russian networks). Historical examples of this include the U.S. victory over the Soviet Union and the subsequent appeal of the Washington Consensus during the 1990s as well as the cautionary tale of the emergence of the Beijing Consensus following the 2008 global financial crisis.³⁸

Fourth, usage of networks provides a clearer means of competing across the spectrum of conflict. Peacetime initiatives include network cooperation and constructive forms of network competition, like those described above. Additional peacetime initiatives would include efforts to invest and create alternative networks capable of replacing those of strength for U.S. adversaries, like the creation of natural gas networks between the United States and Europe that reduced Moscow’s network power vis-à-vis its energy pipelines to Europe.³⁹

Within the diplomatic and information space, narrative competition highlighting the desirability of U.S.-supportive networks and the undesirability of adversarial networks should be pursued. U.S. adversaries already do this actively, like China’s use of the Israel-Hamas conflict to reduce U.S. support in the Middle East and the developing world and Russia’s strategic narrative campaign diminishing NATO cohesion leading up to the 2014 Russia-Ukraine conflict.⁴⁰ In both cases, the purported values and rules of the international system were challenged, which—following Castells’s theory—reflect attempts to disrupt the communication protocols that facilitate cooperative action to occur while undermining positional U.S. authority within the global system. Hence, protecting one’s network and diminishing the attractiveness of competing networks requires concerted diplomatic and informational efforts to engage with foreign publics. Stories describing the global system and its future prospects are not only at the heart of competition and perception management but also comprise a critical component of military strategy.⁴¹ As an example, a recent study on Chinese public opinion regarding Russia’s war in Ukraine found increased support for using military force against Taiwan, but information about Western countermeasures curbed the effect.⁴² In this regard, integrating military policy with communication efforts can reduce acceptance of and motivation for war, specifically in the Taiwan Strait.

Fifth, during periods of increasing hostilities, including those leading up to armed conflict, approaching integrated deterrence through network competition offers a wider range of options for linking behaviors and responses. Reactions to aggressive activities can be met either through expelling aggressors from networks of various importance—depending on the level of aggression and the domain in which the act occurred—or through disruption of the offender’s networks. In the latter case, the United States and its allies could target low-level switches within an aggressor’s network or create minor disruptions in the communication protocols that enable the aggressive action to occur. Such activities would demonstrate both resolve and some level of capability while ensuring that hostilities are kept to a minimum. This would further help address challenges posed by aggressors conducting “salami slicing” activities—actions intentionally designed as low-level acts of aggression to which deterring parties are unable to respond in every instance. Because networks cut across areas of diplomacy, security, economics, and information and operate at various levels of coordination, the number of potential targets for signaling increases, which allows for more tailored, measured responses across the escalation ladder.

The same logic can be applied when aggression edges toward conflict. Mobilization of forces and deployment of capabilities require coordination. Temporary nonkinetic attacks targeting the switch points from which this coordination occurs would demonstrate capabilities and resolve while reducing aggressor’s confidence in their capabilities, even raising doubts among their ranks or public if such coordination is shown to be chaotic. All of this would transpire without the escalatory nature of physical attacks or movement of one’s own forces, which could be used to inflame tensions. Furthermore, this approach to conflict management would align with Chinese understanding of deterrence, both its belief in deterrence as comprising offensive and defensive operations and China’s approach to modern warfare.⁴³ In the case of the latter, People’s Liberation Army writings describe warfare as a confrontation between operational systems with victory achieved through the targeting of critical linkages and nodes that hold an adversary’s operational system together.⁴⁴ Taking actions that signal and inhibit China’s operational system while also building resiliency in U.S., ally, and partner nations’ systems would support NDS goals of tailored, resilient deterrence.

Finally, the NDS description of integrated deterrence calls for the backing of credible combat forces. Through the lens of Castells’s theory, the credibility of one’s force falls not only to the lethality of its weaponry but also to the efficiency of its operational system in coordinating joint action in contested environments. Credible combat capabilities are therefore defined through one’s ability to target adversaries’ strategic switches—from which capabilities are integrated and projected—and disrupt their protocols for coordinating joint efforts. This includes the ability to defend one’s own switches and protocols as well as the capability of activating additional resources where needed. Conflict then becomes a test of competing network performance. In this light, establishing resilient, interoperable networks within and across theaters is crucial to one’s deterrent strength, including the opportunities to link in regional allies and partners.

Conclusion and Recommendations

Approaching integrated deterrence through the Castells’s theory of communication power addresses the challenges of interagency collaboration, concerns over signaling within tailored deterrence, limits of dissuasion through incorporation of both persuasion and coercion, and the direction in which interoperability among U.S., ally, and partner nations should occur. It further supports the NDS goal of deterrence by resilience and engagement with allies and partners across the spectrum of competition, in addition to tailored efforts of practicing deterrence aligned with Chinese perceptions of strategy. While lofty in its goals, integrated deterrence can succeed as a strategy if the joint force and interagency community are able to align themselves in common purpose and organizational will. Although the concept is associated with one set of national security strategies, its points of emphasis will remain.⁴⁵ Future challenges in the security environment will continue to evolve, with the garnering of global support and the development of shared perceptions and goals increasingly important. Approaching these challenges through the concept of network competition can accomplish both, contributing to and resulting in not only the maintenance but also the growth of the enduring advantages the United States holds vis-à-vis its competitors.

Adopting a network approach to integrated deterrence will take time and concerted effort. Turning Castells’s theory into a strategic concept is the first step. The next is building support, training, and understanding of it across the joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational (JIIM) environment. As William Davis, Jr., notes, too often do JIIM leaders fail because of their reliance on leadership techniques developed working in hierarchical, mission-oriented organizations. Leaders must be adaptable and flexible in their interfacing with other entities, as there is “no hierarchy within the JIIIM” and “no such thing as tasking or ordering another entity to do anything.”⁴⁶

Developing a network mindset is therefore necessary, including greater cross-organizational training and exposure to the interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational partners, as JIIM activities must be capable of quickly forming and dissolving combined joint task forces across a broad range of mission sets.⁴⁷ Changes in joint targeting practices can support such efforts by aligning themselves more along lethal and nonlethal activities based on desired endstates through various lines of efforts. Doing so engenders greater synchronization in planning and execution processes in ways realizing comprehensive effects.⁴⁸ However, such efforts will need to consider the nested strategic environments that U.S. allies and partners face and the resulting variation in threat perceptions.49 Hence, identifying strategically relevant stakeholders, aligning mission sets along shared lines of effort, and clarifying the roles they and U.S. Government assets are to play are all required for integrated deterrence to succeed. Fortunately, the characteristics of network organization—their speed, flexibility, and potential for self-configuration—support such processes. As shared protocols and commonly identified network goals emerge, the capacity for additional cooperative networking arises. JFQ

Notes

¹ 2022 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America, Including the 2022 Nuclear Posture Review and the 2022 Missile Defense Review (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, October 27, 2022), https://media.defense.gov/2022/oct/27/2003103845/-1/-1/1/2022-national-defense-strategy-npr-mdr.pdf; National Security Strategy (Washington, DC: The White House, October 2022), https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Biden-Harris-Administrations-National-Security-Strategy-10.2022.pdf.

² See Michael J. Mazarr, Understanding Deterrence (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2018), 5, https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE295.html; Erik Gartzke and Jon R. Lindsay, Elements of Deterrence: Strategy, Technology, and Complexity in Global Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2024).

³ For deeper discussion of the complexities and risks associated with integrated deterrence, see Gartzke and Lindsay, Elements of Deterrence.

⁴ Kathleen McInnis, “‘Integrated Deterrence’ Is Not So Bad,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, October 27, 2022, https://www.csis.org/analysis/integrated-deterrence-not-so-bad.

⁵ McInnis, “‘Integrated Deterrence.’”

⁶ Sean Monaghan, “Bad Idea: Integrated Deterrence as Strategy,” Defense360, February 27, 2023, https://defense360.csis.org/bad-idea-integrated-deterrence-as-strategy/.

⁷ Monaghan, “Bad Idea.”

⁸ Frank G. Hoffman, “The Missing Element in Crafting National Strategy: A Theory of Success,” Joint Force Quarterly 97 (2nd Quarter 2020), 55–64, https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Media/News/News-Article-View/Article/2106508/the-missing-element-in-crafting-national-strategy-a-theory-of-success/.

⁹ Manuel Castells, Communication Power (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2009). See also Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society, 2nd ed. (West Sussex, UK: Blackwell Publishing, Ltd., 2010); Manuel Castells, The Power of Identity, 2nd ed. (West Sussex, UK: Blackwell Publishing, Ltd., 2010); Manuel Castells, End of Millennium, 2nd ed. (West Sussex, UK: Blackwell Publishing, Ltd., 2010).

¹⁰ Colin S. Gray, Strategy and Defence Planning: Meeting the Challenge of Uncertainty (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2014), 30.

¹¹ Paul J. Maykish, “Upstream: How Theory Shapes the Selection of Ways in Strategy” (Ph.D. diss., School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, 2016), https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/AD1039254.pdf.

¹² Michael J. Mazarr and Ivana Ke, Integrated Deterrence as a Defense Planning Concept (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2024), 14, https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PEA2263-1.html.

¹³ Mazarr and Ke, Integrated Deterrence as a Defense Planning Concept, 23.

¹⁴ Niall Ferguson, The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power From the Freemasons to Facebook (New York: Penguin, 2019).

¹⁵ Jan van Dijk, The Network Society: Social Aspects of New Media (London: Sage, 2006); James Martin, The Wired Society (Hoboken, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1978).

¹⁶ Arthur K. Cebrowski and John J. Garstka, “Network-Centric Warfare: Its Origin and Future,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 124, no. 1 (1998), 28–35, https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1998/january/network-centric-warfare-its-origin-and-future; David S. Alberts et al., Network Centric Warfare: Developing and Leveraging Information Superiority, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: Command and Control Research Program, 1999), https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA406255.pdf; David S. Alberts et al., Understanding Information Age Warfare (Washington, DC: Command and Control Research Program, 2001), http://www.dodccrp.org/files/Alberts_UIAW.pdf; David S. Alberts and Richard Hayes, Power to the Edge: Command . . . Control . . . in the Information Age (Washington, DC: Command and Control Research Program, 2003), http://www.dodccrp.org/files/Alberts_Power.pdf.

¹⁷ Mazarr and Ke, Integrated Deterrence as a Defense Planning Concept, 18.

¹⁸ Castells, Communication Power, 3.

¹⁹ Hoffman, “The Missing Element in Crafting National Strategy,” 58.

²⁰ Manuel Castells, “A Sociology of Power: My Intellectual Journey,” Annual Review of Sociology 42 (2016), 2, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-081715-074158.

²¹ Castells, Communication Power, 10–1.

²² T.V. Paul, “The Specter of Deglobalization,”Current History 122, no. 840 (2023), 3–8,https://doi.org/10.1525/curh.2023.122.840.3.

²³ Castells, Communication Power, 28. See also Manuel Castells, “The Network Society Revisited,” American Behavioral Scientist 67, no. 7 (2023), 94–5, https://doi.org/10.1177/00027642221092803.

²⁴ Castells, Communication Power, 21. See also David S. Grewal, Network Power: The Social Dynamics of Globalization (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008).

²⁵ Castells, Communication Power, 20.

²⁶ Castells, Communication Power, 20.

²⁷ Castells, Communication Power, 27.

²⁸ Daya Kishan Thussu, International Communication: Continuity and Change, 3rd ed. (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018).

²⁹ Castells, Communication Power, 42–3.

³⁰ Castells, Communication Power, 42–3.

³¹ Castells, Communication Power, 43.

³² Castells, Communication Power, 44.

³³ Castells, Communication Power, 45–7.

³⁴ See Maria Snegovaya, Putin’s Information Warfare in Ukraine: Soviet Origins of Russia’s Hybrid Warfare, Russia Report I (Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of War, September 2015), https://www.understandingwar.org/report/putins-information-warfare-ukraine-soviet-origins-russias-hybrid-warfare.

³⁵ 2022 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America.

³⁶ See Joint Publication (JP) 3-04, Information in Joint Operations (Washington, DC: The Joint Staff, 2022), I-2; Strategy for Operations in the Information Environment (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, July 2023), https://media.defense.gov/2023/nov/17/2003342901/-1/-1/1/2023-department-of-defense-strategy-for-operations-in-the-information-environment.pdf.

³⁷ Mazarr, Understanding Deterrence, 5, 9; Patrick Morgan, Deterrence Now (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 162–3. For a discussion on the importance of assurances regarding U.S.-China relations, see Bonnie S. Glaser et al., “Taiwan and the True Sources of Deterrence: Why America Must Reassure, Not Just Threaten, China,” Foreign Affairs (January/February 2024).

³⁸ Narcís Serra and Joseph E. Stiglitz, eds., The Washington Consensus Reconsidered: Towards a New Global Governance (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2008), https://web.archive.org/web/20250412004959/https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/files/growthlab/files/serra8.pdf.

³⁹ Wojciech Ostrowski, “The Twenty Years’ Crisis of European Energy Security: Central and Eastern Europe and the U.S.,” Geopolitics 27, no. 3 (2022), 875–97, https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2020.1835863; Leslie Palti-Guzman et al., “U.S. LNG: Remapping Energy Security,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, January 17, 2023, https://features.csis.org/us-lng-remapping-energy-security/.

⁴⁰ Snegovaya, Putin’s Information Warfare; Mark Leonard, “China’s Game in Gaza: How Beijing Is Exploiting Israel’s War to Win Over the Global South,” Foreign Affairs, January 8, 2024; Patricia M. Kim et al., “Chinese Narratives on the Israel-Hamas War,” Brookings, January 22, 2024, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/chinese-narratives-on-the-israel-hamas-war/.

⁴¹ Nick Blas, “Beyond Storytelling: Strategic Narratives in Military Strategy,” Æther: A Journal of Strategic Airpower & Spacepower 2, no. 1 (2023), https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/AEtherJournal/Journals/Volume-2_Number-1/Blas-Beyond-Storytelling.pdf; Robert S. Hinck et al., The Future of Global Competition: Ontological Security and Narratives in Chinese, Iranian, Russian, and Venezuelan Media (New York: Routledge, 2021).

⁴² Deniz Aksoy et al., “Russian Invasion of Ukraine and Chinese Public Support for War,” International Organization 78, no. 2 (2024), 341–60, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818324000043.

⁴³ Dean Cheng, “An Overview of Chinese Thinking About Deterrence,” in Deterrence in the 21st Century—Insights From Theory and Practice, eds. Frans Osinga and Tim Sweijs (The Hague: Asser Press, 2021).

⁴⁴ Jeffrey Engstrom, Systems Confrontation and System Destruction Warfare: How the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Seeks to Wage Modern Warfare (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2018), 1–3, https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1708.html.

⁴⁵ Mazarr and Ke, Integrated Deterrence as a Defense Planning Concept, 2.

⁴⁶ William J. Davis, Jr., “Why We Keep Getting It Wrong: What Makes the JIIM So Different?” InterAgency Journal 8, no. 4 (2017), 53, https://thesimonscenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/IAJ-8-4-2017-pg48-56.pdf.

⁴⁷ John Fasching, “Strategic Mobility: The Essential Enabler of Military Operations in Great-Power Competition,” The Heritage Foundation, November 17, 2020, https://www.heritage.org/military-strength-topical-essays/2021-essays/strategic-mobility-the-essential-enabler-military.

⁴⁸ John Bilas et al., “Targeting the JIIM Way: A More Inclusive Approach,” Joint Force Quarterly 73 (2nd Quarter 2014), 60–7, https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Joint-Force-Quarterly/Joint-Force-Quarterly-73/Article/577505/targeting-the-jiim-way-a-more-inclusive-approach/.

⁴⁹ Mazarr and Ke, Integrated Deterrence as a Defense Planning Concept, 2.