David your wet with the rest of us now, welcome.
The challenges remain immense, and in my opinion our doctrine doesn't provide the framework for addressing them when it comes to irregular warfare. We're not as good as we like to think we are when it comes to changing individual perceptions or changing cultures (maybe we shouldn't try). That is graduate level work, and the thesis is still being written.
What we are good at is targeting coventional enemy forces with propaganda, black psyop, deception operations, EW, etc. That was our primary focus, and we became good at. We also learned how to jam their radios, target their radars, probably attack their computer systems, and design appropriate OPSEC programs based on known enemy TTPs for collecting intelligence, not to mention our high tech intelligence capabilities that gave us an incredible information advantage over our conventional foes. In time we may have a military of killer drones that are networked to high tech sensors that can dominate any conventional foe, so in the realm of conventional warfare I think we have achieved information superiority, but I would argue we had that before the development of IO doctrine.
However, those TTPs/doctrine do not readily transfer to the realm of irregular warfare (IW). In IW we do not have information superiority. We are not very effective influencing the population or the insurgents, and our intelligence is generally very limited, but in contrast our enemy's low tech sensor system keeps pretty good tabs on us. The enemy is also pretty good at influencing the population using old school tactics, ones we can't counter unless we learn how to protect the populace from insurgent coercion. It took us a long time to relearn to stop drive by COIN, the years of raids never accomplished anything, but troops on the ground living with the populace did. Is it is IO? I would argue you can't influence or understand the populace without a presence, there is no satellite or UAV that will accomplish this task. Which one of the the five disciplines is it: OPSEC, PSYOP, EW, CNA, or deception operations? You could lump it under PSYOP, but it isn't. It is a supporting task by the new definition, but the reality is it is a decisive action in irregular warfare. In IW IO is mumbo jumbo, we just need to identify the right objectives and task organize to accomplish the objectives. It will be IO heavy, but it won't involve a lot of the five disciplines (except PSYOP) in their true form, but rather it will involve a lot of so called supporting tasks that will ultimately convince the enemy they can't win. Is this really IO or is it just operational art?
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