The Emergence of Noopolitik: Toward an American Information Strategy

This report has argued for the development of an American information strategy based on noopolitik. The information revolution has already deepened and diffused to such a degree that other actors— both state and nonstate—have begun to incorporate informational elements into their own strategies. The spread of the information revolution beyond the United States foreshadows an era in which many actors will be competing over who has an “information edge” (Nye and Owens, 1996), as well as over who is “bound to lead” the international system (Nye, 1990). There is no assurance that the United States will necessarily assume or sustain such a role. Despite all of America's advances in the technological realm, only strategies applied wisely will enable their potential to be realized. Thus, whether the United States wants to or not, it must think strategically about the role of information in statecraft.

The key to making information strategy a workable, distinct tool of statecraft lies in learning to benefit from the emergence of a global noosphere. Without an unbounded, global “realm of the mind,” it will be difficult to project “information power” to the distant locales and into the many situations where it is likely to prove useful. Just what building a global noosphere means is not yet clear. But, in our view, it consists less of expanding cyberspace and the infosphere, and much more of building new institutional and organizational links. These might take the form of increasing juridical recognition of NGOs (perhaps even to the point of giving them seats in the

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