Information Operations

[joelhar]

I agree that we need to work within the current definition as defined by JP 3-13. However, we also need to work out the long term implications of the definition and the naming.

We have a dilemma here; the guys on the ground are making stuff up, hoping the message fits with the overall ‘guidance’ from on high. Unfortunately that guidance does not come from the government. I can’t speak for the UK, but here is how I think the US needs to solve its ‘guidance’ problem.

The mere term, Information Operations, raises all kinds of concerns and causes much confusion. There is no US Government ‘doctrine’, outside of JP 3-13 for IO.

Information Warfare implies war, which implies only the Department of Defense is playing; State and all the other government players supposedly stated this was politically incorrect back in the 90s.

DoD begins to integrate Strategic Communications at the COCOM and OSD level, and the State Department claims it as their domain. DoS has released the doctrine for this; it is quite well done.

Public Diplomacy may be synonymous with Strategic Communications, but DoD has always been the stick to State’s carrot. I’m not sure that a Public Diplomacy doctrine exists.

“War of Ideas” is a neat term, it gets at the wetware. A good book on this, which is extremely thought provoking is a book called “Fighting the War of Ideas like a Real War”, by J. Michael Waller. Dr. Waller is involved, at the USG level, with many of these discussions. But the “war of ideas” term still doesn’t encompass the depth and breadth of what we are doing.

Boiling things down to their basic components is probably a wise way to approach this. This is all about information. I choose not to say data; in my opinion data is still incomplete; information pulls things together. I’m saying this very loosely, please bear with me.

The next thing is what we intend to do with this information, and that is to influence. We want to have someone else do something of our choosing, not do something, or not stand in our way.

Someone pointed out to me the other day that the USG does not “do” operations, that is what the military does. The USG has a strategy, normally.

Putting this all together, I would say a common sense phrase for what the USG needs is an “Information and Influence Strategy”.

The problem the USG, given that ‘someone’ can put this together, is that there is no office or agency that could coordinate this message throughout the Government. Please notice, I am not saying ‘control the message’, but coordinate.

State has postulated that they are in the perfect position to do this, as they must coordinate the message our emissaries promulgate throughout the world; they also have liaisons to coordinate this message within each of the other Departments and Agencies. The problem I see with this is that one Department would, de facto, have too much authority over the other Departments, there would be an imbalance. Second, if an office were created within State, there is too much separation between the guidance generated in the White House and this office, too many layers of bureaucracy would exist.

The guidance needs to come from the Executive Branch. The office coordinating this message throughout the government should be as close to the Executive Branch as possible. I haven’t decided if this office should have any authority over subordinates, it might create too many log jams… and mere coordination may prove ineffective. But the National Security Council has the charter to coordinate the USG response, so they should have the mission to coordinate the message coming from the President as well as coordinate his/her speeches to reflect the overall message. The idea is not to create a source for propaganda, but to help put together a deep and comprehensive information and influence strategy, aimed at promoting the US agenda overseas via a unified US message. The message can be shared with the general public: “The United States of America’s position on this issue is this”. In turn this message is passed throughout the Government and posted for all to see, allowing guidance for the embassies and deployed strategic forces to be posted. When this guidance is received a subordinate and supporting strategy can be created. The general public always has the right to disagree but will generally support the position of the President – but it must be presented. This will further create a unified message from the US. Dissension will be encouraged, discussions will be expected, this is how a democracy works, and we could be the living, breathing example.

Now, with the guidance coming from Washington, we can plan an information effect on the ground and decide which ‘tools’ to use to achieve this effect. If we choose to drop leaflets, if we choose to jam a signal, if we chose to attack a network, if we choose to drop a bomb, if we choose to commit conventional forces, if we choose to keep details of our operations security, if we choose to run a deception – these would be things we choose to do to achieve a specific and desired effect.

This needs to be fixed at the top before we can hope to get IO or IW fixed on the ground…