Book Review: Information Technology and Military Power

Taylor Grossman

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A cynical attitude toward technology is certainly nothing new in military analysis. Naysaying is a perennial accompaniment to technical change in warfighting, from early reactions to the machine gun to some of the current rhetoric around unmanned aerial vehicles.1 You can find echoes of this strain of thought in almost any contemporary analysis of conflict: examinations of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, overviews of the Russian military threat, explorations of U.S.-Chinese competition, and so on.

In the first chapter of Information Technology and Military Power, Jon Lindsay offers a concise but rich outline of the underlying scholarship on military innovation and effectiveness, including the classical Clausewitzian “fog of war” school of thought, and the related view of the impermeable chaos of the battlefield.2 Lindsay’s new book describes the persistent and cyclical challenges that seem to plague the American warfighting community, despite — or perhaps even because of — supposedly revolutionary achievements in technology.3 Lindsay asserts that “information technology becomes more complex and increasingly essential for military performance without, however, providing any lasting decisive advantage on the battlefield.”4 The advent of modern computing has proved no different. “[W]ar,” he writes, “has neither changed its nature nor become any more decisive in the information age.”5

Yet, Lindsay’s work is much more than a simple rebuke of the technology theory of victory. Lindsay’s deeper contribution, something the reviewers in this roundtable agree about, lies in offering an expansive framework for charting how organizations adapt and reform their information systems as new technologies emerge. He does this by focusing on the iterative, relational nature of information collection and analysis — the points of interaction between humans and technology. In Lindsay’s analysis, information itself is best understood “not simply in terms of bits and bytes but rather a system of pragmatic relationships (between representations and referents, format and meaning, text and context, humans and computers, users and designers, allies and enemies, etc.).”6

The Argument

Lindsay’s main argument lays out four types of information practice based on the interaction between two key independent variables: (1) the nature of the external operating environment, which he denotes as “constrained” or “unconstrained”; and (2) the internal solution set advanced in response, which he classifies as “organic” or “institutionalized.” Lindsay’s dependent variable is the resulting “information practice,” what he defines as “the sociotechnical pattern of organizational behavior that coordinates the relationships between internal representations and the external world.”7 From his typology, Lindsay argues that the best situations arise from a well-defined problem and a well-structured solution, which he terms “managed practice.”8 Lindsay uses the example of the British Royal Air Force in early World War II to explore this type of practice, explaining that military leaders faced a fairly straightforward external problem set: defending the island from invasion. The air force developed a centralized internal structure to process “systematically constrained” intelligence about German Luftwaffe bombers, leading to a relatively effective Fighter Command that was able to triumph in the Battle of Britain by not losing.9

The second-best information practices result from unconstrained problems that are addressed with organic solutions, resulting in “adaptive practice.”10 Such scenarios are often tricky to balance, as they rely on a degree of decentralization that makes replication difficult. However, his case studies are replete with examples of organic user innovations that prove useful, at least on a small scale. Lindsay’s chapter on drone campaigns demonstrates how practitioner-instigated changes led to tactical improvements, such as increased targeting accuracy and reduced casualty numbers.11

Suboptimal information practice results from poor calibration between the task at hand and the organizational infrastructure built to surround it. “Mismatches,” Lindsay writes, “become more likely when the environment is dynamic or ambiguous yet the organizational culture is rigid.”12 Similarly, information practice devolves when organizations adopt independently designed solutions that become mired in specific quirks of personality or bureaucracy, rather than efficient, shared solution sets.

This seemingly simple framework, however, belies a much more nuanced picture of organizational evolution and adaptation. As Lindsay himself concedes, there is a degree of endogeneity inherent in his framework, as iterative feedback between the operating environment, the internal solution set, and the maneuverings of the adversary mean that the causal arrow can run the opposite direction — in other words, one adversary may cause the external environment to shift based on the solutions adopted by his or her opponent. As such, his key insights stand out more clearly in the four case studies that comprise the bulk of the book. While all three reviewers in this roundtable find Lindsay’s analytic structure compelling, they draw different conclusions about the utility and generalizability of his theory, based on his case selection.

The Reviews: Case Studies and Policy Lessons

After giving a brief overview of Lindsay’s theoretical framing, Susan Landau focuses on Lindsay’s four case studies. The cases differ quite broadly in structure. While the first case on the Battle of Britain focuses on a discrete time period and conflict, each of the other three cases span years, and even decades, of technical and organizational evolution, often across multiple conflicts. The first case also offers a fairly straightforward comparison of two organizations, the Royal Air Force and the German Luftwaffe, whereas the latter three cases focus almost entirely on the American military establishment.13

For Landau, Lindsay’s level of detail is both a strength and a weakness, as it refines the overarching analytic model while also muddying some of the book’s conceptual clarity (and perhaps its appeal to a non-expert audience). All four cases offer valuable insights and perspectives, often informed by Lindsay’s own tenure in the military. However, to Landau, Lindsay’s second case study on FalconView, a mapping and planning program that grew to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s, is his strongest. She notes that this chapter “stands out for the clarity with which Lindsay describes two critical issues: how user needs drove the design of FalconView … and the conflicts between user-designed systems and military bureaucracy.” The last two cases, in her view, are mixed successes. Lindsay’s study of special operations in Iraq, Landau writes, is overly detailed, and thus ultimately “less compelling,” while the final case on drone operations has some “distracting” tangents on legality and executive oversight that cause it to “wander.”

Yet, although she has some quibbles, Landau ultimately finds the book impressive. She is especially supportive of its reminders that “no matter how powerful IT may be, understanding how it is used requires a human-centric approach.” This central thesis, Landau notes, is usefully drawn out through Lindsay’s collection of historical cases.

Derek Reveron takes a broader view of Lindsay’s work. Like the other two reviewers, he finds the book’s focus on the human elements of information practice a refreshing and important contribution to the literature. Reveron praises the work’s scope, noting that the book is “truly an interdisciplinary work, covering topics in security studies, political economy, cognition, science and technology studies, and organizational theory.” The cases, he adds, are particularly strong, as is Lindsay’s dual-hatted lens as both a practitioner and as a scholar.

Reveron does offer several critiques of the structure and case selection. He notes that several of the recent cases could have been strengthened through more comparative work. The case on special operations in Iraq, for example, could have been paired with a chapter focused on conventional forces during the same time and in the same place. Such a case, Reveron believes, would have been useful in demonstrating “how the information practices of other militaries perform when operating within the same environment.” Similarly, Reveron notes that comparative work across militaries operating in the same external environment — coalition partners, for example — could also help to draw out distinctions in the internal solution sets that lead to effective information practices. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, Reveron challenges Lindsay to look beyond the tactical and operational levels of warfare and to integrate his examination of information practice into a strategic understanding of organizations. While such questions were beyond the scope of the text, Reveron concludes that Lindsay is up to the task.

Jacquelyn Schneider focuses her review on the broader policy implications of Lindsay’s work. Like Reveron and Landau, Schneider also values the analytic framework Lindsay constructs, which she notes is a “deceptively simple two-by-two theory.” For Schneider, the level of nuance in the text is a positive: “While the theory is certainly elegant, it is Lindsay’s ability to trace the complex interdependence of these variables that is the real contribution of the book.”

Schneider finds Lindsay’s takeaways “particularly timely for debates about information practice in contemporary U.S. defense policy.” Where Landau hedges on the question of practical relevance, Schneider identifies direct applications from Lindsay’s work to contemporary questions plaguing the American military. Although the United States has had a string of “tech-friendly secretaries of defense,” promising research and development investments have rarely translated into battlefield successes. Lindsay’s work demonstrates the shortcomings of both top-down and bottom-up drives for innovation in information practice. The FalconView case study is particularly salient in demonstrating the limits of user-based experimentation and the need to “link innovation and institutionalization.” While this lesson may not be new, Lindsay provides a useful framework for demonstrating the persistence of such challenges across the Department of Defense.

Schneider is especially interested in the role of organizational identities in Lindsay’s work. Despite flashy new acquisition programs targeting the start-up landscape, ingrained bureaucratic prerogatives often stymie effective information practice. Schneider points out that the case study on special operations in Iraq notably highlights the “important role that the masks of identity play by filtering information practice.” Landau found this case less satisfying than the others. Schneider, however, singled it out as particularly useful in emphasizing the key pitfalls of the technology theory of war, especially when divorced from a deeper understanding of the role of culture and identity within military institutions.

Conclusion

Together, these three reviews highlight the many strengths of Lindsay’s work: his rich analytic framework, detailed case studies, and robust insights into the shortcomings of innovation as an end unto itself. Like Schneider, I found myself most drawn to Lindsay’s examination of organizational cultures. Lindsay is at his best when he is complicating traditional narratives of innovation and effectiveness. His cases serve as strong examples of the way cultural identities can distort and shape new technologies. Organizational structures often limit innovation potential, fitting new inventions into old processes. Lindsay’s chapter on Iraq, for example, details the Navy SEAL culture of hyper-aggression and its effects on degrading the type and quality of information the organization mobilizes.

His four case studies are too distinct in both structure and subject to fully cohere as comparative applications of the analytic framework. Like Reveron, I found myself wishing for more directly comparative work. The first case on the Battle of Britain does an excellent job of examining how the British military tailored an institutionalized solution to address a constrained problem in a relatively finite period of time. Lindsay’s subsequent cases address years and even decades of information practice evolution and often involve periods of both success and failure. The policy implications are simultaneously richer and opaquer: Lindsay’s emphasis on cyclical evolution highlights how a well-honed solution can devolve as internal and external environments shift, but the factors that lead to improvement and deterioration are complex and often hard to pin down.

However, the breadth of the case studies helps illuminate a broad spectrum of information practice and organizational evolution. Throughout, Lindsay pays particular attention to the nature and structure of symbolic representation across information technologies, from the role of human operators in early radar systems to the nature of signature strikes in contemporary drone operations. Both measurement systems require simplification and shorthand, and both are shaped by tacit assumptions that people, not machines, made first. Organizational identities structure not only the way information is processed, but also the nature of information gathered in the first place. Technology is not neutral. Rather, it reflects the prerogatives of the people who make it.

Lindsay’s final chapter delves into several of the big questions that foreign policymakers face today — competition and conflict with China, the future of nuclear warfare, and the role of cyber security and cyber operations. While this section encourages debate, it also serves to reinforce an important set of challenges to the evergreen technology theory of victory. As Lindsay puts it, “reliance on information systems is a Faustian bargain: the technologies designed to reduce uncertainty become new sources of it.”14 We would do well to remember this.