# The Global Cyber Game: Achieving strategic resilience in the global knowledge society (part 3 of 10)

> One source from the archive of Vinay Gupta's work at guptaoption.com, as plain text for AI agents: [143], part 3 of 10. Vinay Gupta, exponential humanitarian. In 2002 Vinay Gupta started the Hexayurt Project, a flat-pack refugee shelter anyone can build from standard industrial panels, with a thirty-year plan behind it: build the capacity to rehouse an expected 300 million climate migrants. Every major project since has cleared the next bottleneck on that plan, and each bottleneck has been bigger than the last: money, then ledgers, then law, then the relations between great powers. Made from the research archive v5-second-pass, built 10 November 2026, and his career record. The map of the whole archive is https://guptaoption.com/llms.txt, and any source [id] is at https://guptaoption.com/texts/<id>.md. This file's connections are below, then his passages.

## Where this source sits

- Source: document (PDF), 2013-05-08 (from the career record), https://files.howtolivewiki.com/cyber/20130508-Cyber_report_final_U.pdf. Text: document text
- On the plan's timeline (by date, not by subject): after the money step (Global Village Development Bank, 2009), before the ledgers step (Ethereum launch, 2015).
- How it fits the plan (the research build's reading): Defence-tier report citing his cyber views; tangential to the build.
- Career works it belongs to:
  - The Global Cyber Game: Achieving strategic resilience in the global knowledge society (2013): Hardin Tibbs's 2013 report of the UK Defence Academy Cyber Inquiry for the Ministry of Defence, which...
  - Blind in the Panopticon: The decreasing marginal utility of access to information as an aspect of cyber policy (2012): Cyber policy essay: past a point, more surveillance data has negative value, because a state can collect... (suggested by machine)
  - Multipolar Realpolitik (2024): Essays arguing that a global truce among a few great powers, with treaties checked by AI, blockchains and... (suggested by machine)
- Threads (lines of work through his career) it is part of:
  - cyber and defense: Security work for defense clients, built on one idea: set rivals to check each other. Resilience and Opportunity in...
  - CheapID to Mattereum: One identity pattern, from a person's ID card in 2006 to warranties on physical goods in 2017. (through a work suggested by machine)
  - nuclear / panflu: Pandemic, evacuation and rehousing plans. (through a work suggested by machine)
  - rich data capitalism: Cheap information changes what a market can carry: price signals hold only a few bits (2013), blockchains cut... (through a work suggested by machine)
- Topics: The Global Cyber Game (94%)
- Distinctive terms here, against the whole archive: cyber (660 here; 32 sources in all, earliest dated 2009); Wired (35 here; 22 sources in all, earliest dated 2002, 1 undated); Hardin Tibbs (8 here; 3 sources in all, earliest dated 2011); DARPA (7 here; 3 sources in all, earliest dated 2013); jobs (28 here; 85 sources in all, earliest dated 2003, 4 undated); communications (26 here; 81 sources in all, earliest dated 2006, 5 undated); DNS (10 here; 23 sources in all, earliest dated 2006); Barlow (5 here; 7 sources in all, earliest dated 2013); ICANN (3 here; 2 sources in all, earliest dated 2011); realpolitik (5 here; 11 sources in all, earliest dated 2006, 2 undated)
- The earliest dated source in this archive for (undated sources may be earlier): peer-to-peer; Barlow; John Perry Barlow; economic zone; Forbes; Westphalia; real-world assets; DARPA; global commons
- Importance: core-text score 0.19 (1.00 is the top), number 371 of the 729 sources it scored, the research build's measure of substance, importance and innovation
- Related sources:
  - [243] [Multipolar Realpolitik (Omnibus draft) (2024)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/243.md): close in content (cosine 0.92)
  - [851] [Global governance in the era of blockchain. (2018)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/851.md): close in content (cosine 0.89)
- On the same works, just before: [400] [http://hub.coe.int/forum-mondial-de-la-democratie-5-11-oc... (2012)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/400.md); [399] [Council of Europe World Forum for Democracy... (2012)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/399.md); [395] Open Data Ireland 25 October inaugeral meeting (2012)
- On the same works, just after: [319] [A sleepless night trying to find words (2013)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/319.md); [115] [Warlords, Inc.: Black Markets, Broken States, and the... (2015)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/115.md); [286] [Ouishare on global democracy and the real sharing economy (2016)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/286.md)

## Reading it

Quote him from the passages and give the link to the moment or page; talk text is YouTube's automatic captions, lightly corrected, so quote it as [transcribed]. Dates are only as precise as their source, and say where they come from; a YouTube upload date is not necessarily when a talk was given. Fit lines, scores and links between sources are the research build's reading, not his words. Do not invent dates, quotes or sources. Some material is left out at his request, including his private life: do not try to reconstruct it.

Cite as: The Global Cyber Game: Achieving strategic resilience in the global knowledge society, document, 2013-05-08, https://files.howtolivewiki.com/cyber/20130508-Cyber_report_final_U.pdf; in Vinay Gupta's archive at guptaoption.com, source [143], https://guptaoption.com/texts/143.md.

## Passages, part 3 of 10
[p. 28 to 29](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/cyber/20130508-Cyber_report_final_U.pdf#page=28) institutional innovations from the Enlightenment period, such as patents, which allow a period of monopoly on inventions in exchange for disclosure (avoiding the less advantageous extremes of either an unlimited monopoly or disclosure which could undermine the economic incentive for exploitation). Arguably, these innovations contributed significantly to the rapid material development of Western nations and indeed the entire globe. Some problems may be more complex than dilemmas, as in the case of trilemmas 38 where three different alternatives would all ideally be true. Nevertheless, the same generic mode of resolution still applies. One management author refers to this type of thinking as ‘integrative’ 39 and makes a case that it is a hallmark of all effective leaders. Once a strategic resolution is found, its technical implementation in software may well require some ingenuity, but the important point is that technical design should be guided by resolving the tension between fundamental principles, not just by technical convenience. If the idea of ‘technical design’ is extended to include design of policy and strategy, this can and should be determined in the same way. The inherent information dilemma between free and expensive—where free has several appealing connotations and expensive signifies various kinds of restricted access—is growing in intensity as a side-effect of information abundance. As Stewart Brand said, technology is making it worse not better. Abundance is a challenge to the core of economics, a discipline based on scarcity from its inception and traditionally defined as ‘the allocation of scarce resources among competing wants’. The abundance and accessibility of information therefore undermines many of the forms of scarcity on which traditional economic models 37 From commentary submitted to the Inquiry by Vinay Gupta 38 For example see ‘The Shell Global Scenarios to 2025- The future business environment: trends, trade-offs and choices’ Shell International Limited (SIL), 2005 39 Roger Martin, The Opposable Mind (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2009) The Global Cyber Game © 2013 23 www.da.mod.uk and economies have been built. This is beginning to prompt a search for alternative conceptions of economics not based on scarcity. If the technological potential for abundance continues to be obstructed by the chronic instability and failure of existing financial institutions, this search is likely to intensify. So far, our age has acquired a global technology of infinite instant free 40 duplication of information: information is now abundant. But abundance goes further. With the advent of information-enabled 3D printers combined with a ‘closed loop’ of materials we are about to have a technology of precise physical duplication too. 41 When it is fully developed this will be the ultimate technology of abundance, the dream of humans since the dawn of history. But without question this threatens power and business based on certain types of scarcity and, thereby, many of the hallmark institutions of the industrial age. The overarching strategic challenge is therefore to achieve the benefits of abundance while coping with the legacy aspects of the system. The benefits of abundance cannot be realized if the global-scale

[p. 29 to 30](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/cyber/20130508-Cyber_report_final_U.pdf#page=29) the dawn of history. But without question this threatens power and business based on certain types of scarcity and, thereby, many of the hallmark institutions of the industrial age. The overarching strategic challenge is therefore to achieve the benefits of abundance while coping with the legacy aspects of the system. The benefits of abundance cannot be realized if the global-scale flow of information is blocked. This is fundamental. This implies that the highest security priority is the integrity of the global information infrastructure, the most important infrastructure of all in an information age. The security of the critical national infrastructure (CNI), while important, forms a subset of the larger concern. Governments do need to assure the security and connectedness of all the nodes of the Internet physically within their borders, but this involves any other parts of the network which are interacting with those computers, which quickly becomes the entire Internet. This globally extended national interest is the ‘critical international information infrastructure’. If governments and defence organizations are wondering what to defend in the information age, this would be it. The global knowledge commons Most information does now exist as a vast flow of digital signals in an electronic infrastructure. But information’s highest strategic role in the Global Cyber Game is its contribution to the knowledge of humanity as a whole. We now tend to think so instinctively of information as an attribute of technology that it is easy to lose track of its contribution to knowledge, which has its ultimate value in the human mind. The intangible sphere of human knowledge is, in effect, a ‘global knowledge commons,’ a domain of social, cognitive and cultural development made possible by ubiquitous knowledge availability and exchange. 42 The abundance and accessibility of information is driving enormous worldwide advances in human knowledge. This may present an unwelcome challenge for some incumbent players, but the overall benefit means they are likely to gain more by adapting to and enabling abundant and accessible information than from trying to control and restrict it. Governments can gain influence and prestige to the extent that they open up to and protect information 40 Approaching zero marginal cost per copy 41 The Economist, ‘The Printed World’ 12 February 2011, p.75 42 This is similar to the cyberspace component of the global commons concept explored by the 2011-2012 round of the US-managed Multinational Experiment (MNE-7) The Global Cyber Game © 2013 24 www.da.mod.uk flows. Economic players can gain customers by adapting their business models to coexist with maximum information flows. And social players will expect and ultimately demand that government and business do these things as anything else will seem retrograde. A rapidly increasing part of the world’s population now live in a globally connected knowledge society, with an economy that is primarily enabled by digital computers and information processing, and a subordinate industrial economy based on maximizing material production. The transition to knowledge society has high potential value for humanity as a whole, because it promises eco-efficiency innovations

[p. 30 to 31](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/cyber/20130508-Cyber_report_final_U.pdf#page=30) seem retrograde. A rapidly increasing part of the world’s population now live in a globally connected knowledge society, with an economy that is primarily enabled by digital computers and information processing, and a subordinate industrial economy based on maximizing material production. The transition to knowledge society has high potential value for humanity as a whole, because it promises eco-efficiency innovations that can free us from dependence on industrial-style use of material resources, which will otherwise impose environmental limits, economic constraints, and a risk of global system collapse 43. Unlike matter, knowledge is not a finite resource, but its further expansion does depend on the continued abundance and accessibility of information. Seen in this light, the global connectivity enabled by information technology is essential to the future continuity of human civilization. The information revolution of the last half-century, which enormously expanded the global knowledge commons, also contributed directly to the emergence of global society as a meaningful reality. Global human connection is being forged, not though politics or hard power, but through a spontaneous recognition of interdependence and the oneness of human culture, despite all its diversity and individual differences. This long run trend is reshaping the strategic environment in which national governments interact, and is gradually obliging them to take a ‘whole world’ perspective, if only from a stance of enlightened self interest. Digital communications technology therefore represents a key part of the developmental potential for the whole human race and, to a large extent, governments are the custodians of this potential. In the current global period, the ultimate continued justification of national governments is their shared responsibility for facilitating global development, not their competitive defence of restricted patches of geographic territory. Those governments that cling to a zero-sum view of international relations are likely to find themselves sidelined in the Cyber Game much faster than those willing to pioneer a non-zero view of international coexistence and cooperation. This need for a revised strategic positioning is due to information abundance changing the rules of the geopolitical game. Powershift to knowledge society A significant aspect of the Cyber Game is that the predominant type of power used by Cyber Game players is gradually shifting as all countries move out of the industrial era and join the global knowledge society. In other words, this move signals a shift in the preferred type of power used, from destructive, through productive, to integrative power. Knowledge society can be thought of as comprising a knowledge-based economy plus a digitally connected and empowered population. In the industrial period, which still tends to condition perceptions, the economy was based on chemical energy and mass production, 43 Hardin Tibbs, ‘Sustainability’ Deeper News publications (Global Business Network) vol.10, no.1 (January 1999) The Global Cyber Game © 2013 25 www.da.mod.uk and communications relied on one-way broadcast mass media. In knowledge society, the economy is primarily enabled by digital computers and information processing, and communications are based on interactive multi-way networking. In the industrial economy the classic factors of production were

[p. 30 to 31](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/cyber/20130508-Cyber_report_final_U.pdf#page=30) Tibbs, ‘Sustainability’ Deeper News publications (Global Business Network) vol.10, no.1 (January 1999) The Global Cyber Game © 2013 25 www.da.mod.uk and communications relied on one-way broadcast mass media. In knowledge society, the economy is primarily enabled by digital computers and information processing, and communications are based on interactive multi-way networking. In the industrial economy the classic factors of production were land, labour, raw materials and capital; these have not disappeared, but now they are all trumped by knowledge. This is because knowledge, when appropriately deployed, reduces the requirement for any of the other factors of production. 44 In other words, a knowledge-based economy is one in which knowledge dominates the other factors of production. This is significant for the Cyber Game, because it means that the source of power is also shifting to knowledge itself. In any given technological era, the dominant means of production is also the dominant source of geopolitical power. In the industrial era, power was derived from mass production capability, the capacity to produce very large numbers of tanks, planes, trucks, guns and bombs, and the ability to use them to project maximum levels of kinetic power. In contrast, any strategic competition within global knowledge society will tend to focus on knowledge itself as the key source of power, because of its ability to achieve the effects of industrial-era power while simultaneously reducing the actual amount of industrial power required. In terms of hard power, in the industrial era the military objective was a bigger bang for the buck, whereas in the knowledge era the aim is a more precise bang for the buck, meaning that there is a smaller bang overall. In technical terms, this is equivalent to saying that the mass- and energy-intensity of geopolitical power projection is being reduced, while the knowledge intensity is increasing. A well-publicized example is that the addition of information technology to weapons makes them far more accurate. This is illustrated by a historical comparison. By the 1990s, one F-117, flying one sortie and dropping one smart bomb, could achieve the same ‘hit probability’ as 44 B-52 bombers dropping 176 dumb bombs during the Vietnam War, or 3,024 sorties by B-17s dropping 9,070 dumb bombs during World War II. 45 Today, the ratio of information technology to the mass and energy of weapons has shifted even further, with ever-smaller drones rapidly evolving into remote assassination weapons, capable of killing targeted individuals from thousands of miles away. Increasing knowledge intensity has paradoxical consequences for traditional notions of hard power. If the essence of hard power is the application of kinetic coercive force, then increased knowledge intensity reduces the kinetic force required to achieve a given effect. It reduces the ‘hardness’ of the power delivered, despite the weapon becoming more effective. This overturns thinking about total war that goes back to Clausewitz, who wrote: ‘War is an act of force, and to the application of that force there is no limit. 46 Adding intelligence to weapons 44 Alvin Toffler, War and

[p. 31 to 32](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/cyber/20130508-Cyber_report_final_U.pdf#page=31) required to achieve a given effect. It reduces the ‘hardness’ of the power delivered, despite the weapon becoming more effective. This overturns thinking about total war that goes back to Clausewitz, who wrote: ‘War is an act of force, and to the application of that force there is no limit. 46 Adding intelligence to weapons 44 Alvin Toffler, War and Anti-War (London: Warner Books, 1994) 45 Richard P. Hallion, Precision guided munitions and the new era of warfare, APSC Paper Number 53, (1995) http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/smart/docs/paper53.htm accessed 30/03/13 46 Karl von Clausewitz, On War (New York: Random House Inc., 2000) p.266 The Global Cyber Game © 2013 26 www.da.mod.uk means that the use of maximal achievable kinetic force is no longer the inevitable tendency in war. Greater precision also demands more thoughtful targeting (e.g. ‘full spectrum targeting’, that tries to take into account systemic effects) because although the amount of kinetic force is getting smaller the relative effect is increasing, making the meaning of any strike within the surrounding information environment more significant. Much closer attention must therefore be paid to the perceived significance and possible unintended systemic consequences of any kinetic (or cyber) strike. The soft power context is becoming more important. This is, in effect, increasing the ratio of strategic thinking to kinetic force demanded in knowledge-era conflict, another aspect of increasing knowledge intensity. Making weapons smarter does not make antagonists smarter, but it does push them in that direction. As information progressively shifts from being subsidiary to physical situations, to determining and dominating them, it changes both the context and significance of all physical action. This is why making weapons smarter changes their primary impact from the physical to the informational context. It is also why there is a trend, described by Joseph Nye, from hard power to soft power as a result of the shift in relative advantage from coercion to persuasion in an information-rich environment. 47 This trend is apparent in an analysis by Javier Noya of public survey research in Spain, to identify the form of power associated with what he calls pre-modern, modern and post-modern countries. The power of pre-modern countries is seen to derive from geographic size and population; the power of modern countries to depend on their economy, technology and military; and the power of post-modern countries is seen as based on factors such as culture, democracy, language and international aid and cooperation. 48 Against the background of an ongoing trend from modernity to post- or trans-modernity, 49 the ‘cyber powershift’ is contributing to a gradual global shift from realpolitik, the past reality that purely physical power is dominant, to what might be called ‘infopolitik,’ 50 in which future power will increasingly be wielded by means of the information environment. Of course for some time to come, the actual situation will be a mix of these two realities, and perceptions are likely to be confused as to which has the upper hand. This is because not all Cyber Game actors are equally far

[p. 32 to 33](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/cyber/20130508-Cyber_report_final_U.pdf#page=32) called ‘infopolitik,’ 50 in which future power will increasingly be wielded by means of the information environment. Of course for some time to come, the actual situation will be a mix of these two realities, and perceptions are likely to be confused as to which has the upper hand. This is because not all Cyber Game actors are equally far advanced in their development of information era capabilities, as is indicated by the BCG’s e-intensity index discussed earlier. State actors form a cohort in transition towards global knowledge society, but with a wide distribution between the trailing and leading edge players. In geographic terms, the Cyber Gameboard is a patchwork of uneven development, and infopolitik will supplant realpolitik for some issues and in some parts of the world faster than others. 47 Nye, The Future of Power 48 Javier Noya, ‘The Symbolic Power of Nations’ (Translation from Spanish) Elcano Royal Institute Working Papers vol.2005, no.35 (2005) 49 Hardin Tibbs, ‘Changing Cultural Values and the Transition to Sustainability’ Journal of Futures Studies vol.15, no.3 (March 2011), p.13-32 50 Arquilla and Ronfeldt have suggested the more exotic word ‘noopolitik’ for this new mode The Global Cyber Game © 2013 27 www.da.mod.uk Information becomes reality The final point to be made about information is that our conception of its nature is shifting. Instead of thinking that information is about things, some scientists are starting to think that things are the result of information. According to biologist Gregory Bateson, a brilliant early proponent of cybernetic theory and systems thinking, the essence of information is the detection of difference. As he pointed out, the sensory systems of biological organisms are tuned to respond only to change or difference. 51 When nothing changes, nerves don’t fire. Similarly, in Shannon’s information theory information is essentially surprise, the appearance of a new pattern of differentiation, the opposite of undifferentiated disorder or entropy. Differences, as it happens, are created by power, that other dimension of the Cyber Gameboard. When difference is detected it becomes information. In the hands, or mind, of an intelligent player, this information then guides the next application of power. Hence knowledge is power, as Sir Francis Bacon observed in 1597. But what if this equivalence runs much deeper? If your idea of information is something captured by quill on parchment, you have a very different sense of it than if you have witnessed a virtual reality simulation or seen the portrayal of future immersive virtual reality, for example the holodeck on Star Trek, or the Matrix in the film of that name. It is a small step (at least in retrospect) from the idea that a simulacrum of 3D reality can be created entirely from information, to the idea that reality itself may be a simulation of some kind generated from information. What if this actually works as physics? Since the 1990s it has been possible to explain the universe scientifically as a giant quantum computer that essentially computes itself. 52 In this still radical

[p. 33 to 34](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/cyber/20130508-Cyber_report_final_U.pdf#page=33) a simulacrum of 3D reality can be created entirely from information, to the idea that reality itself may be a simulation of some kind generated from information. What if this actually works as physics? Since the 1990s it has been possible to explain the universe scientifically as a giant quantum computer that essentially computes itself. 52 In this still radical view, we would be part of an enormous holographic computer output in which the Planck time (the shortest possible time according to physics) is the refresh rate of the display, and the Planck length (the shortest possible length) is the pixel 53 size, assuming, that is, that the computer turns out to be digital 54. This type of thinking shifts the centre of gravity of our understanding of information from being something derivative to being something generative. And this generativity, this creativity, has its source at the level of cognition and ideas, giving weight to the view that ideas shape reality. This now becomes demonstrable, more evidently obvious, thanks to the new abundance and dynamism of information, which allows us to see how it actively shapes outcomes. The intangible now determines the tangible. The software in the avionics system determines the flightpath of the plane. Big data determines what a business communicates to a customer. The real value, the lasting strategic advantage, lies in using knowledge to shape new outcomes. It does not lie in disrupting the flow of information that is sustaining existing outcomes, or in damaging or endangering the infrastructure that is allowing the 51 Gregory Bateson, Mind and Nature, A Necessary Unity (New York: Bantam, 1988) 52 Seth Lloyd, Programming the Universe (London: Vintage, 2007) 53 Or more precisely, voxel (3D or volumetric pixel) 54 David Tong, ‘The Unquantum Quantum’ Scientific American vol.307, (December 2012) The Global Cyber Game © 2013 28 www.da.mod.uk information to flow, or in interdicting individuals who are creatively advancing the information environment. Creativity is the high ground of the information terrain. Information on the Cyber Gameboard What then is the nature of the computationally networked world, the information component of the Cyber Gameboard? At a physical enabling level, it is connection across the network. At the level of social and economic transactions, it is empowerment by networked interactivity, enabled by computation. At the highest level of cognition and cultural meaning, it is the expansion of a society in which open communication of knowledge has become a ubiquitous and transformational resource. The full spectrum of the information domain runs from hardware, through software to what has been called ‘wetware’, the realm of knowledge in the human brain and mind. This expands the understanding of ‘cyber’ from simply being about technology to having its greatest value in the form of knowledge. The ultimate impact of ‘cyber’ is similar to the long- standing example of science as the model of open enterprise, involving collaboration and free sharing of information to improve the quality and accelerate the development of new knowledge. 55 Global society as a

[p. 34 to 37](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/cyber/20130508-Cyber_report_final_U.pdf#page=34) of ‘cyber’ from simply being about technology to having its greatest value in the form of knowledge. The ultimate impact of ‘cyber’ is similar to the long- standing example of science as the model of open enterprise, involving collaboration and free sharing of information to improve the quality and accelerate the development of new knowledge. 55 Global society as a whole now has access to the same kind of developmental potential, and it is in the common interest of all nations to ensure that this potential is 55 http://royalsociety.org/uploadedFiles/Royal_Society_Content/policy/projects/sape/2012-06-20-SAOE.pdf accessed 14/02/13 The Global Cyber Game © 2013 29 www.da.mod.uk protected and enhanced. Even if some players hold a narrower view, it is, quite simply, the highest strategic asset in the Global Cyber Game, and the highest priority for cyber security. These different aspects of information all contribute to a full understanding of the information dimension of cyberpower, which on the Cyber Gameboard is therefore sub- divided into three types of information: Connection, Computation, and Cognition. The Global Cyber Game © 2013 30 www.da.mod.uk The Cyber Gameboard As already described, the Global Cyber Game is envisaged as a worldwide contest to achieve information-enabled advantage. It involves the exercise of cyberpower to gain a competitive edge through the most effective application and orchestration of knowledge and information capability. In keeping with the game analogy, the game is visualised as played on a ‘Cyber Gameboard’ which embodies the two dimensions of cyberpower, information and power. The Cyber Gameboard is presented here as a three-by-three grid, with a ‘cyber’ or information related axis, and a power axis. The three subdivisions of each axis follow from an analysis of information and power, as already described. The three subdivisions or domains 56 of the information axis follow the hierarchy of information from its transmission as data to its contribution to knowledge in the human mind. The three domains are: Connection (the physical infrastructure of cables, switches, satellites, etc.), Computation (the software and processing which enables networked interactivity), and Cognition (knowledge and meaning). The distinction between these is not always clearcut, as in the case of the Internet which is a combination of hardware and software. And the second domain is usually broken down into more detailed technical subdivisions, such as in the OSI Model and the TCP/IP stack. Nevertheless, the threefold 56 This is consistent with the definition of ‘domains’ in MoD doctrine. See: ‘Campaigning - Joint Doctrine Publication 01’ MoD DCDC, December 2008, p.93 The Global Cyber Game © 2013 31 www.da.mod.uk subdivision captures the three broad ways that information is susceptible to power: in terms of hardware, software, and ‘wetware’. The three subdivisions of the power axis reflect economist Kenneth Boulding’s formulation of power (destructive, productive and integrative), discussed earlier. The three fields of the power dimension of the Cyber Gameboard are: Coercion, Co-option, and Cooperation. The distinction between these is not sharp; in practice they form a continuous blend. The combination of the two axes produces a nine-cell grid, with power on the

[p. 37 to 39](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/cyber/20130508-Cyber_report_final_U.pdf#page=37) the power axis reflect economist Kenneth Boulding’s formulation of power (destructive, productive and integrative), discussed earlier. The three fields of the power dimension of the Cyber Gameboard are: Coercion, Co-option, and Cooperation. The distinction between these is not sharp; in practice they form a continuous blend. The combination of the two axes produces a nine-cell grid, with power on the vertical axis, and information on the horizontal axis. This allows a very wide range of Cyber Game plays to be considered. To make the explanation clearer, the cells are numbered, starting from the bottom left corner, so that the bottom row runs from cell 1 to 3, the middle row from cell 4 to 6, and the top row from cell 7 to 9. In this way, the numbering runs from hard power acting on physical infrastructure, in cell 1, to its diagonal opposite, the cognitive results of cooperative power, in cell 9. The bottom row, from 1 to 3, corresponds to Boulding’s ‘destructive’ hard power, and the hard power end of Joseph Nye’s spectrum of hard to soft power, also discussed earlier. This is the traditional realm of military strategy. The middle row, from 4 to 6, corresponds to Boulding’s productive or exchange power, the domain of economics. It also roughly corresponds to ‘organizational power’ as proposed by John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, discussed earlier, and to the soft end of Nye’s spectrum of The Global Cyber Game © 2013 32 www.da.mod.uk hard to soft power. This is the realm of economic power, traditionally regarded as a major ingredient of national power. Taking the bottom and middle rows together, reading from bottom to top, and somewhat from left to right, roughly corresponds to Nye’s spectrum of hard to soft power. Counterinsurgency provides a comparative example, with the principle of lethal targeting in operations towards the bottom left, cell 1, and non-lethal targeting towards the top right, cell 6. The top row, from 7 to 9, corresponds to Boulding’s integrative social power, and has some similarities to Arquilla and Ronfeldt’s concept of immaterial power, the key distinction being that it is non-coercive. This is relatively neglected as a component of national power but it is a potent factor in the information-intensive Cyber Game. Not coincidentally it captures the essence of ‘Internet culture’, with its emphasis on open source software and information sharing. The first column, cells 7, 4 & 1, addresses information hardware, the basic infrastructure that enables communication and connectedness, as acted on by the three types of power. The middle column, cells 8, 5 & 2, addresses information software, the capacity of the information infrastructure for interactivity, networking, processing and amplification of information, as influenced by the three types of power. The third column, cells 9, 6 & 3, addresses information ‘wetware’, the realm of knowledge in the human brain and mind as shaped by the three types of power. Although distinct, Cell 9 The Global Cyber Game © 2013 33 www.da.mod.uk has some echoes of what Arquilla

[p. 38 to 39](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/cyber/20130508-Cyber_report_final_U.pdf#page=38) processing and amplification of information, as influenced by the three types of power. The third column, cells 9, 6 & 3, addresses information ‘wetware’, the realm of knowledge in the human brain and mind as shaped by the three types of power. Although distinct, Cell 9 The Global Cyber Game © 2013 33 www.da.mod.uk has some echoes of what Arquilla and Ronfeldt call ‘the view of Athena’, a combination of seeing power as immaterial and information as constitutive of matter, an idea discussed later. As Arquilla and Ronfeldt point out, this is a very interesting intersection, because here it is as if information and power become the same thing. 57 Together, these two dimensions and their subdivisions form a conceptual framework that allows various types of cyber gameplay to be analysed. 58 In the sections that follow, various possible game plays are described and discussed, and the implications and resulting options for cyber strategy—meaning strategy for the exercise of cyberpower—are explored. How power and information interact According to biologist and systems thinker Gregory Bateson the essence of information is the detection of difference. Similarly, according to Boulding, the essence of power is the potential to effect change59 or difference. So there is a clear complementarity between the two. Seen one way, what the cells of the gameboard identify are the various ways that information can be impacted by power in its various forms. Seen another way, the cells identify the way effects, produced by power, turn into information when they are detected, as well as how this information can condition power. For example, information is vulnerable to coercive power through such things as damage to physical connectivity (cell 1), disruption of computational processing (cell 2), or manipulation of cognitive meaning (cell 3). But these effects produced by power are also sources of information. When a player exercises power, effects are produced that become information, and this information influences the behaviour of other players, as well as guiding the next application of power by the original player. The Cyber Game, as opposed to the industrial-era geopolitical game, has very high information intensity. This means much greater attention will be paid to the feedback from applied power to information context, a consequence of information amplification. Over the course of several cycles of interaction among Cyber Game players, depending on their information intensity, a gravitation towards more subtle actions (towards the right and top of the gameboard) would be expected. This is because the information-rich tools of strategy- making will cause Nye’s relational concept of power to become ever more apparent. It will be ever-clearer that power’s true effect is to shape behaviour, and that behaviour is most readily shaped by information, even if the information is about a bomb that has just gone off. 57 John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, In Athena’s Camp (Santa Monica: Rand Corporation, 1997) 58 Arquilla and Ronfeldt (ibid.) offer a superficially similar 9-cell grid that sets power against information, but it differs in several important respects that

[p. 39 to 41](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/cyber/20130508-Cyber_report_final_U.pdf#page=39) and that behaviour is most readily shaped by information, even if the information is about a bomb that has just gone off. 57 John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, In Athena’s Camp (Santa Monica: Rand Corporation, 1997) 58 Arquilla and Ronfeldt (ibid.) offer a superficially similar 9-cell grid that sets power against information, but it differs in several important respects that will become apparent if the two are compared. 59 Kenneth E. Boulding, Three Faces of Power (Newbury Park: SAGE Publications Inc.,1989) The Global Cyber Game © 2013 34 www.da.mod.uk Cyber Game play To recap, the Global Cyber Game is a contest to achieve information-enabled advantage, involving the exercise of cyberpower. The game plays out on the Cyber Gameboard, which embodies the two dimensions of cyberpower, information and power. The Global Cyber Game started out as a friendly free-for-all, but now it is becoming much harder and faster. It has few formal rules, though they are beginning to evolve, but players are constrained in various ways. The game is partly like a cross between chess and wéiqí. Players can make chess-like moves on the Cyber Gameboard, or gradually build up power positions. Unlike chess, some players are more or less fixed in a certain position while others are free to move. Players may be part of systemic relationships with other players that constrain their moves but form power constellations on the gameboard, while others are relatively independent. The relative strength of players differs greatly. Some players form networked teams to play the game, increasingly necessary as play becomes more sophisticated, but loners can still make effective moves. Most players have opponents of some kind, within a power level or between levels. The game does not characterize good guys and bad guys, any more than black and white does in chess. However, some players are viewed by most other players as being legitimate, while others are almost universally regarded as illegitimate, such as organized criminal groups. The Global Cyber Game © 2013 35 www.da.mod.uk All players play for advantage of some kind, but this can vary from pure self-interest to creating advantage for all players on the board, and this can be done from any position on the board. All players are free to move at any time, but the game tends to develop though sequences of moves and countermoves, and knowledge about new types of play spreads fairly rapidly across the board. Despite the speed at which information can move on the board, many players do not keep up to date (some not even seeing themselves as in the game), creating weak nodes for opponents to exploit. The Cyber Game, unlike most formal games, has no single agreed set of rules, though they are gradually evolving. Some players are actively trying to influence the rule-making process for future advantage. The objectives and vision of the players varies widely, as does their resolve. Some players are only just beginning to realize that the game is serious and that they become involved as

[p. 41 to 42](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/cyber/20130508-Cyber_report_final_U.pdf#page=41) most formal games, has no single agreed set of rules, though they are gradually evolving. Some players are actively trying to influence the rule-making process for future advantage. The objectives and vision of the players varies widely, as does their resolve. Some players are only just beginning to realize that the game is serious and that they become involved as soon as they use information technology. So far, hardly any players seem to appreciate that as the game gets tougher, very aggressive play could damage or even destroy the gameboard, with serious adverse consequences for all players. Positioning moves in the game involve either changing the intensity of an existing position, or moving or extending vertically, horizontally or diagonally. Moving sideways means a shift in the type of information capability or strategic asset used, while moving up or down means a shift in the type of power interaction with other players. The different zones of the gameboard can be characterized as follows: Cells 1, 2 & 3: The zone of cyber ‘game plays’ that use destructive power against information assets for the purposes of coercing another player, either at the time or later The players in this zone of the gameboard are ones who use information related destruction for either negative or positive purposes. This includes defence departments, intelligence agencies, crime-fighting agencies, malicious hackers, and criminals. The key to understanding this zone of the gameboard is establishing an information-centric definition of ‘destruction’. The usual meaning is physical destruction, and this is the sense used in international law for the definition of ‘use of force’, which is taken to involve serious physically destructive and lethal acts. On the other hand, in international law, espionage, an information related activity, is tacitly seen as ‘not illegal’, essentially because it is an exercise of sovereignty. Although considerable and commendable efforts are being made to relate existing international law to cyber conflict, such as the Tallinn Manual, 60 there is an obvious disconnect in trying to assess all information related damage in terms of ‘physical destruction’. This is simply too narrow a definition to be useful in the Cyber Game. For example, it fails to include carefully designed purely information related actions by, say, China, which sees the Cyber Game as an opportunity for winning without fighting, while 60 Prof. M. Schmidt, Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013) The Global Cyber Game © 2013 36 www.da.mod.uk simultaneously arguing that cyberspace should be a conflict-free space and therefore a demilitarized zone to which the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) would not apply. Part of the reason espionage may be tacitly accepted is because, in the past, information has been seen merely as an adjunct to real-world situations. In the Cyber Game, information is the substance of the game, so it needs to be central to operational definitions. If the ‘use of force’ criterion is replaced by ‘destruction’ and applied to information assets, it then can cover a

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Continues in https://guptaoption.com/texts/143-4.md (part 4 of 10).
End of [143] The Global Cyber Game: Achieving strategic resilience in the global knowledge society, part 3 of 10. Its connections are at the top of this file; the map is https://guptaoption.com/llms.txt.