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The Information Revolution and International Stability: A Multi-Article Exploration of Computing, Cyber, and Incentives for Conflict

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Over the last twenty years, the digital technologies of the information revolution have fundamentally impacted the nature of modern warfare and introduced significant uncertainty about capabilities, intentions, and the limits of conflict. How do these digital advances and the explosion of cyber technologies on and off the battlefield impact international stability? Has the information revolution fundamentally altered crisis dynamics such that states are more likely to inadvertently or intentionally escalate crises to war? This dissertation utilizes a multi-article, multi-method format with case studies and experimental analysis to examine these questions. The first piece looks at military revolutions and international stability and argues that a capability/vulnerability paradox of military revolutions suggests de-stabilizing effects of the information revolution. The second article examines offense-defense in U.S. doctrine since the information revolution and finds that the information revolution technologies invested in by offensively minded doctrinaires has created a path-dependency for further offense dominance in the information revolution. Finally, the last piece analyzes data from six years of crisis wargaming to generalize U.S. decision-maker perceptions of escalation and cyber operations. Together, these pieces seek to solve fundamental policy questions about how cyberspace operations and technology may impact current and future crises and their potential for conflict eruption.

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