This week, Mark Drapeau and Linton Wells, both of National Defense University, published a definitive study of the implications of social software on national security. Working in both arenas, I'm often frustrated by the security community's tendency to think about social software only as a "target": how can we exploit the enemy's use of the Web, how will they use it to exploit our weaknesses, etc.

This paper is refreshing, because it provides a "blue-red" balance, as they put it (in military-speak, allied forces are "blue," the enemy "red"): they investigate "how social software is being used (or could be used) by not only the United States and its allies, but also by adversaries and other counterparties." As for the former, they consider all the challenges:

We have considered how incorporation of social software into U.S. Government (USG) missions is likely to be affected by different agencies, layers of bureaucracy within agencies, and various laws, policies, rules, and regulations. Finally, we take a preliminary look at questions like: How should the Department of Defense (DOD) use social software in all aspects of day-to-day operations? How will the evolution of using social software by nations and other entities within the global political, social, cultural, and ideological ecosystem influence the use of it by DOD? How might DOD be affected if it does not adopt social software into operations?

The entire report is available as a PDF (528 KB, 42 pages).