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This article uses the controversy within the United States (US) military over the use of social media by individual military professionals as a window into larger debates about the nature of information-age conflict. Information and associated technologies are now central to the US military imaginary. But the controversy over social media is one indicator that the dominant discourse of information-age conflict is neither stable nor total. The introduction of a new technology can serve as an antagonism that turns latent, potential contradictions into substantive differences for policymaking. Thus, though the US military generally has embraced information and communication technologies (ICTs), the introduction of a particular ICT can still be a source of controversy. Military imaginaries, technologies and the relationships between them remain dynamic, contingent and sometimes contentious. Adapted from the source document.

This article provides a discursive grounding for understanding the construction of military imaginaries by adding the concepts of 'antagonism' and 'intercalation' to articulation theory. By examining the cases of industrial-mechanized warfare theory and network-centric warfare theory through the lens of this expanded articulation theory, it is argued that military imaginaries often serve to define and link conceptions of science, technology, society, economy, war, and military organization, thought, and practice into a unified image of the larger security environment – that is, the military imaginary. Military imaginaries often share a common narrative structure that privileges co-periodized change among the elements of the articulation, resulting in the phenomenon of 'antagonism' serving as a generic threat used to justify military modernization and even the use of force.

This paper examines the role of Cold War military systems science in the emergence of a nonlinear view of war within the US military. It argues that US military ambivalence towards systems science and seeds of a nonlinear worldview within the systems sciences help to explain the enlistment of nonlinear sciences like chaos and complexity theories. The turn to nonlinear science represents not a radical break with, but rather the evolution of a worldview whose roots can be traced to US military responses to Cold War exigencies. Adapted from the source document.

"This book examines the United States military's use of concepts from non-linear science, such as chaos and complexity theory, in its efforts to theorize information-age warfare. Over the past three decades, the U.S. defense community has shown an increasing interest in learning lessons from the non-linear sciences. Theories, strategies, and doctrines of warfare that have guided the conduct of U.S. forces in recent conflicts have been substantially influenced by ideas borrowed from non-linear science, including maneuvre warfare, network-centric warfare, and counterinsurgency."--Half-title

Manipulative communication—from early twentieth-century propaganda to today's online con artistry—examined through the lens of social engineering. The United States is awash in manipulated information about everything from election results to the effectiveness of medical treatments. Corporate social media is an especially good channel for manipulative communication, with Facebook a particularly willing vehicle for it. In Social Engineering, Robert Gehl and Sean Lawson show that online misinformation has its roots in earlier techniques: mass social engineering of the early twentieth century and interpersonal hacker social engineering of the 1970s, converging today into what they call "masspersonal social engineering." As Gehl and Lawson trace contemporary manipulative communication back to earlier forms of social engineering, possibilities for amelioration become clearer. The authors show how specific manipulative communication practices are a mixture of information gathering, deception, and truth-indifferent statements, all with the instrumental goal of getting people to take actions the social engineer wants them to. Yet the term "fake news," they claim, reduces everything to a true/false binary that fails to encompass the complexity of manipulative communication or to map onto many of its practices. They pay special attention to concepts and terms used by hacker social engineers, including the hacker concept of "bullshitting," which the authors describe as a truth-indifferent mix of deception, accuracy, and sociability. They conclude with recommendations for how society can undermine masspersonal social engineering and move toward healthier democratic deliberation.

The rhetorical origins of America's national security state -- Military "science" and the legitimation of preventive war, mass surveillance, and kill/capture counterterrorism -- The department of defense, the CIA, and the legitimation of America's "enhanced interrogation techniques" -- Remembering the rise of America's special forces and the rhetorical force behind the Navy Seal's raid on Bin Laden's Abbottabad -- Cyber war, threat inflation, and the securitization of everyday life -- The "stress" of remotely pilot aircraft crews and the biopolitical normalization of America's "precise" drone attacks overseas -- Edward Snowden, agent provocateur, and overreactions of the NSA -- Anticipating the future rhetorical trajectories of America's national security state

The Rhetorical Invention of America's National Security State uses a broad range of materials, including technical, journalistic, entertainment, academic, and legal sources to explore the role of rhetoric in the expansion and maintenance of America's national security state. It helps audiences understand the complex discourses produced by and constitutive of the national security state. Its interdisciplinary approach will resonate with scholars working in a number of different fields, including rhetoric, critical security studies, and science and technology studies