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Information operations as a core competency
Joint Force Quarterly, Dec, 2004 by Christopher J. Lamb
Thus the first and most necessary prerequisite for making IO a core military competency was a focused and uniform understanding of what it is and how it contributes to joint operations. The roadmap offers a conceptual framework that includes three specific functions, five core capabilities that must be integrated and routinely used by the joint warfighting commander, and a supporting definition that flows from these functions and capabilities.
The three related and mutually supporting IO functions are of overriding importance due to their impact on adversary decisionmaking, both human (individual and collective) and automated:
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* Deter, discourage, dissuade, and direct an enemy, disrupting its unity of command and purpose while preserving our own. IO should provide the joint force commander the capability to affect the decisionmaking calculus of an individual enemy by introducing considerations that affect its perceptions, and by extension its behavior, in a manner that best suits U.S. objectives.
* Protect our plans and misdirect the enemy's, allowing our forces to mass their effects to maximum advantage while the enemy expends its forces to little effect. The growing transparency of the battlefield, fueled by the explosion in global information sources, will increase the importance of understanding an enemy's intentions and shielding our own. The joint force commander must control all sources of information that can signal his intentions and divine the intentions of the enemy early and often.
* Control adversarial communications and networks and protect our own, crippling an enemy's ability to direct an organized defense while preserving our own command and control. As enemies become more dependent on networked systems, the ability to disrupt those systems will allow friendly forces to maintain decision superiority, enabling joint force commanders to operate insides an adversary's decision cycle.
All three IO functions, properly integrated, are mutually supporting and directly impact enemy ability to conduct coherent operations. As in all military endeavors, many supporting activities must be integrated and executed to permit effective information operations, but only a few actually bring U.S. forces into contact with the enemy to directly produce the effects described in these three functions. Those that do are considered core IO capabilities.
The roadmap narrows the scope from the 1996 list of thirteen primary information capabilities to five: electronic warfare (EW), psychological operations (PSYOP), operations security (OPSEC), military deception, and computer network operations (CNO). IO was narrowed to these five core capabilities for three reasons:
* They are operational in a direct and immediate sense; they either achieve critical operational effects or directly prevent the enemy from doing so.
* They are interdependent and increasingly must be integrated to achieve desired effects.
* They more clearly define the capabilities the services and U.S. Special Operations Command are expected to organize, train, equip, and provide to combatant commanders.
