“The idea of degrading the opponent's information flow and, conversely, to protect or improve our own, has gained reasonably widespread acceptance and has resulted in important applications.”
-- Thomas P. Rona, Weapons Systems and Information War, 1976[1]
The Cold War ended in 1991 with the Soviet Union extinct and the United States perhaps the most powerful country in history, at least in relative terms. President Bill Clinton suggested at his 1993 inauguration that conflict had become an isolated phenomenon of extremists fighting against world order, disrupting nations and peoples but holding no real hope of accomplishing anything positive.[2] The end of the Cold War seemed to have restored respect for sovereignty grounded in international law. History had “ended” and the world had turned toward liberalism—but not wholly.
Borders in Cyberspace Strategic Information Conflict since 9/11