Towards a Critical Strategy of Data

This paper analyses the possible impact new data technologies, such as Big data and machine learning, have on strategy. It covers how opportunities available with new ways of knowing relate to recent vulnerabilities. The paper also attempts to qualify this new rationale through the prism of digital data. Following a survey conducted on the expectations recently arising in military circles concerning such new tools, it questions the very notion of "data" in defining a strategy as it goes beyond a strictly technical framework. The aim is to highlight the nature of such issues and the human choices decision-makers are now facing.