Logotyp: till Försvarshögskolans hemsida

John A. Warden III is one of the leading contemporary air force theorists in the modern era. Warden´s five ring model has proved the ability to explain other dimensions of warfare, as Warden himself claims. A topic that had been receiving much attention is the relatively new arena of warfare, the so-called 'cyberspace'. This dimension has enabled the dissemination of information at a significantly higher rate than before which results that the efficiency of information warfare have increased. Previous research in this complex area, where a combination of Warden's theories and information warfare have been used to analyze a case, is currently inadequate. Therefore, this case study intends to examine to which extent Warden's five ring model can be applied on information operations, in the context of the war in Ukraine. The result in this thesis will show that Warden's theory had a certain degree of explanatory power on the information operations, that were conducted in Ukraine during 2013-2014. The result will also indicate that the most significant direct impact from information operations was shown on the fourth ring, population. When the fourth ring was affected, the effect would spread and affect other rings indirectly. Attempts to affect multiple rings directly and simultaneously could not be identified except for the fourth and fifth rings, population and fielded military. However, no traceability of a direct impact on the fifth ring, fielded military, was identified.