Information Operations

[Bill Moore]

The scary thing to many conventional thinkers is that this threatens the old style of thinking, it would present a Revolution in Military Affairs, of sorts.

Joelhar, I think you made a couple of good points, but I'm not so sure this is a Revolution in Military Affairs. I do agree every action can influence behavior. Once upon a time we just called this operational art, and if the various specialists (deception, intelligence, Operations Security, Electronic Warfare, etc.) understood their commander's intent and the strategic through tactical objectives, they were able to effectively apply their trade. PSYOP and influence operations have always been and will remain paramount, the advent of IO doctrine didn't change that, if anything it created unneeded confusion.

I'm not hard set against IO doctrine, but I agree that defining it with a few components is very misleading and not helpful.

The simple premise is that everything can influence, everything should be considered for its effect on the targeted decision-maker, group of people or a general population. Dropping a kinetic bomb on a target might take out a telephone switch, a fiber-optic hub or a bad-guy, ALL of these will have meaning to selected person(s).

Thus if this statement is true, do we need a separate speciality area that requires its own doctrine or is it just part of operational art?