# The Value of Misinformation and Disinformation

## TL;DR

This paper models the strategic value of misinformation and disinformation in military contexts, revealing conditions under which such information manipulation benefits a leader and emphasizing the importance of holistic analysis.

## Contribution

It introduces a stochastic game model to evaluate misinformation's value in military operations, highlighting when and why it benefits a leader and proposing targeted investment strategies.

## Key findings

- Misinformation can benefit a leader under specific conditions.
- The intuition about communication accuracy and advantage may not always hold.
- A holistic approach considering rewards and policies is essential for analysis.

## Abstract

Information is a critical dimension in warfare. Inaccurate information such as misinformation or disinformation further complicates military operations. In this paper, we examine the value of misinformation and disinformation to a military leader who through investment in people, programs and technology is able to affect the accuracy of information communicated between other actors. We model the problem as a partially observable stochastic game with three agents, a leader and two followers. We determine the value to the leader of misinformation or disinformation being communicated between two (i) adversarial followers and (ii) allied followers. We demonstrate that only under certain conditions, the prevalent intuition that the leader would benefit from less (more) accurate communication between adversarial (allied) followers is valid. We analyzed why the intuition may fail and show a holistic paradigm taking into account both the reward structures and policies of agents is necessary in order to correctly determine the value of misinformation and disinformation. Our research identifies efficient targeted investments to affect the accuracy of information communicated between followers to the leader's advantage.