How 'ambient warfare' changes the game……

But what do they do about suitably qualified professionals who take a contrarian position? Their voices are rarely heard and their published work usually attracts little attention. This is partly because they don't have vast marketing budgets but it is also because the industry at various times employs, supports, influences or otherwise promotes an army of internet activists who set about defending the industry and compromising the credibility of anyone who threatens profits. A vast range of authoritative sounding websites and blogs often with "science" or "sceptic" in their names launch scathing attacks on the scientific credentials of critics. The work of critics becomes "pseudo-science" simply because they repeat it often enough, and it is repeated as many times as possible in all available information platforms. The idea of "cognitive ease" allows us to understand this approach – neuro science shows us that if something is repeated often enough it actually becomes easier for the mind to accept, and by passes critical thinking. Allies in the media reinforce the message and it becomes the accepted paradigm.

The key point however is that control of the first page of a Google search means almost complete control of the information landscape. The corporate world has been quick to understand this and has proven adept in using this power to influence policy and wider societal attitudes. Despite their poor corporate record in some instances these companies have never enjoyed so much support and such good returns. They have proven to be masters of "ambient practice".

So what can the military learn from this?

Firstly the game has changed. Historically the military has often struggled to incorporate new developments in technology into tactics and strategy. During the Napoleonic wars it seems incredible that armies would literally line up in front of each other in tight formation and shoot until whoever survived could claim victory. World War One was all too often defined by large number of troops charging machine guns. In World War Two the 'Blitzkrieg' took European armies by storm by employing new tactics with existing technologies. Now in the age of "Network Centric Warfare" we are sharing information across different platforms and assets in ways that would have been unimaginable even a few years ago. But a hierarchical organisation with defined locations for its assets is inherently many steps behind those employing "ambient practice" to its fullest extent. Whilst the last century was largely defined by the "third generation" of warfare which saw mainly conventional forces battling over resources and ideology, the "fourth" ushered in "irregular" tactics which were motivated by ideology and saw numerically and technologically inferior forces challenge the overwhelming conventional superiority of Western powers. We are now however seeing the emergence of the "fifth" which is a step beyond this. It is chaotic and fuelled by sometimes unclear motivations. The aim may no longer be a definable victory. Stalemate and anything that degrades the Western narrative and capability will suffice. The age of "ambient warfare" is upon us and it is fluid, chaotic, counter intuitive and ill defined.

The military is still highly compartmentalised but today's ambient warriors blur boundaries and merge seamlessly with the ubiquitous environment in much the same way as guerrilla fighters blend into the jungle and move between skillsets that we still organise quite separately. Whilst the Western military might distinguish between information operations, public affairs, cyber warfare, influence activities, recruiting and intelligence gathering they do not. Whilst a military centre for excellence in one of these areas might be at a certain location, theirs is not located at any one identifiable place. And whilst the military have hierarchies that define organisational structures and place limitations upon what operatives can do, they often do not. For a group like Islamic State the mission brief is fairly vague – undermine the Western narrative and spread chaos and fear – and this is well suited to ambient approaches. Likewise the Alt Right is contrarian so they 'win' when the dominant paradigm is in some way eroded. Superficially it would seem hard to use these tactics for the purpose of defending and strengthening a particular paradigm, but the corporate world has given us examples of how this can be done to brilliant effect no matter what damage has been done to the brand. The key is a holistic approach that takes account of all information platforms, and uses "ambient warfare" to its fullest extent. Inserting desired narratives into conventional communication outlets will always be an important element as will all the extant "traditional" methods. However corporate success now also draws upon an "army" of largely self-reliant entities who have an open brief to valorise the brand, and engage in ongoing activities that undermine any contrarian narrative. Often they do this without any explicit link to a particular organisation.

The military which has traditionally valued congruence in its approaches finds this confronting. These free agents are multi-disciplined and although they align with a general paradigm, they exercise autonomy and sometimes they get it "wrong". When this happens there is no explicit link with an organisation, so any harm is minimal and deniable. Just as there is argument among Jihadist groups and elements of the Alt Right about what approaches may be effective and what may be going too far, "ambient warfare" is imprecise. With the right operatives it is however fluid and quickly self-correcting.

So what will the ambient war fighters of the future be like and what will they do?

To answer the first part they will be multi skilled and move between different skillsets seamlessly. No individual operator will have the exact same skills as another, and some may have areas of specialisation. What they will be able to do is look at situations from multiple standpoints, and know where to source the skills needed to achieve an objective. The military organisation they might work for needs to be able to quickly network them as required. Their taskings could be many and varied from defending the organisation's "brand" to undermining the narrative of its adversaries and building a picture of their intentions. It would be a non-compartmentalised approach that straddled what we now enshrine as separate disciplines. More than this an "ambient warfare" capability would pose challenges to the current notion of the military being distinct from the political decisions that inform our social constructs. Would they do as their opponents do and engage in wider "wars" of ideas and culture? Would part of their mission be creating chaos and havoc among opponents without a defined end state? Difficult questions need to be addressed in the face of opponents who have no such reservations.

Ambient warfighters would also make it their business to remain on the cutting edge of emerging trends in social organisation and communication, feeding this back into the organisation and informing their own approaches. Such a capability would be rapidly evolving and responsive to new challenges in real time. Their learning would be constant and they would build on the best and most innovative thinking in the corporate and private sector as well as keeping abreast and if possible ahead of emerging trends being employed by special interest groups and enemies. At least part of their mission brief would be to act as a rapidly evolving think tank.

Islamic State is very good at "ambient" approaches. The corporate sector has refined some of these techniques to boost profits to previously inconceivable levels. Our military is well placed for modern war fighting, but in terms of "ambient practice" Western militaries are often still grappling with a previous generation of warfare.

"Ambient practice" eschews compartmentalisation and draws upon fluidity to challenge any and all legacy societal, communication and informational paradigms. It is remorseless in its assimilation and mutation of existing approaches. In the "ambient future" there will be no respite as information and values are constantly challenged and appropriated. The news and information cycle is now registered in Planck time. Information and responses evolve more quickly than can be measured. For some it is a land of endless opportunity. For others a confusing collapse of the familiar. One thing is for certain – it is not going away.