Information Operations?What Is IO?

Introduction

During the Gulf War, coalition forces applied information technology (IT) to military operations to gain a decisive advantage over a numerically superior and well-defended enemy. [1] Information-based operations in the Gulf War have been considered to be “a baseline for C2W operations, emphasizing the integration of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance”. [2]. Arguably, the use of information in this manner was narrow in terms of methods, tools and objectives. Nevertheless, the Gulf conflict showed the potential of information as a “weapon” and did much to raise the profile of an emerging concept known as Information Operations (IO). [3]

IO has gained in popularity since the Gulf War, but it has also become a somewhat contentious topic. For example, there is the question of the role of IT. IO is now generally understood to encompass all information activities, with IT as a subset only, but some still regard the concept as being an IT-centric one. In addition, because IO can be potentially all-encompassing, some criticise it as a merely a new name for old activities. However, as becomes apparent when reading the IO literature, understanding IO involves a fundamental shift in ones thinking, whether one is concerned with a military or a civilian context.

IO theory usually takes a strategic, or “macro”, perspective, although the “micro” implications of IO are sometimes discussed. These changes in perspective can be confusing when trying to pull together the different threads of thought, and one must continually change perspective when reading the literature. There is some discussion in the literature of the application of IO to military operations, although much of this discussion concerns IO within the context of the nature of future warfare only. Nevertheless, IO theorists have laid the groundwork for the development of current military IO doctrine. Therefore, consideration of IO literature on a theoretical level is a necessary starting point for anyone trying to come to terms with the concept from a military perspective.

This paper reviews the main strands of theory in the IO literature in order to arrive at an understanding of the concept per se and to consider some implications of IO for the military. Development of the IO concept in the form of military doctrine, notably within the United States military, and application of that doctrine in numerous military operations since the Gulf War will be addressed in a subsequent paper.

The theories

One of the first theorists to attempt to come to grips with IO was Martin Libicki of the Washington Institute for National Strategic Studies. In his seminal work, What is Information Warfare? [4], Libicki suggested that there is no such thing as IW and that what people are actually referring to when they speak of IW is one of the following seven discrete forms of warfare: C2W; intelligence-based warfare; electronic warfare (EW); psychological warfare; hacker warfare; economic information warfare; and cyberwarfare. Although much of his discussion of individual IW forms is still relevant, Libicki’s early model of IW has been somewhat overtaken by the times. Few would argue now that there is no such thing as IO/IW per se. In fact, the general opinion now is that IO, for military operations at least, is the coherent integration and coordination of just such separate areas of information-based activity as identified by Libicki.

In his book, Information Warfare. Chaos on the Electronic Superhighway [5], Winn Schwartau focuses on IT-centric strategic IW. He views IW as a national security issue lacking, but desperately needing, a focused and coordinated national solution. For Schwartau, IW is all about vulnerabilities of the Global Information Infrastructure (GII) [6] and of the National Information Infrastructure (NII) to attack, with potentially devastating consequences for democratic, IT-dependent Western economies. “Information warfare is waged against industries, political spheres of influence, global economic forces, or even against entire countries. It is the use of technology against technology; it is about secrets and theft of secrets; it is about turning information against its owners; it is about denying an enemy the ability to use both his technology and information.” [7] According to Schwartau, because IT-centric IW tools are available to almost anyone, are low cost, and constitute a low risk means of attack, intent will proceed from capability and not the other way round. He writes: “The capabilities of kids, the capabilities of technological mercenaries and the capabilities of nation states are all threats we must face. Their intentions are secondary. If a group or an individual chooses to wreak havoc, today they have the weapons to do exactly as they please.” [8] According to Schwartau, IW will be waged by whomever has a motive, such as disgruntled employees, commercial rivals, terrorists [9], states, or, perhaps most insidiously, by groups acting as proxies for states.

John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt are RAND analysts who have published many works in the IO area. [10] They believe that in the future “conflicts will increasingly depend on, and revolve around, information and communications—“cyber” matters – broadly defined to include the related technological, organisational, and ideological structures of a society.” [11] They write that “two new modes of conflict in particular are going to define the information-age conflict spectrum: what we term “cyberwar” and “netwar”. Both terms refer to comprehensive approaches to conflict based on the centrality of information.” [12] Netwar is understood as societal-level conflicts waged in part through internetted modes of communications (conventional equivalents are low intensity conflict and operations other than war), and cyberwar as a post-industrial Blitzkrieg (conventional equivalents are high intensity and major regional conflicts). [13]

Despite their use of terms such as “cyberwar”, the IO theories of Arquilla and Ronfeldt are not IT-centric, but rather include technology as one of the tools used to gain information dominance. A central element of their thinking is that “IW is not so much about tactical measures to disrupt an opponent’s hardware, as it is about the use of information to impose one’s will upon an adversary—often via cyberspace, but more often by traditional means (for example, public diplomacy, propaganda, psychological operations, and perception management).” [14] John Rothrock also emphasises the fact the IO is not an IT-centric concept when he writes that it is “first and foremost an intellectual rather than a technological or physical undertaking. […] The best of technology and tactics cannot protect against these risks [of winning battles but losing wars] in the face of poor policy, strategy, and operational concepts and the unprecedented degree of conceptual, doctrinal, structural, procedural, and technology integration […] that effective Information Warfare is certain to demand.” [15]

Various theorists discuss the concept of strategic deterrence through strategic, usually IT-centric, IO. For example, Martin Libicki considers that information may ultimately prove to be a universal deterrent to war because of the global transparency it will foster: “A global information infrastructure will link users of this information, ensuring a sort of universal awareness of military and other activity. […] Were the aggressor to persist, the international community would only have to dam up the aggressor’s bitstreams and the information flows essential to his war effort, economy, and national infrastructures. Such procedures would (ideally) curb his ambitions without firing a shot.” [16] By contrast, Bruce Berkowitz doubts how much of a deterrent IO attack would be. Identifying the source of an IO attack is potentially very difficult, and even if it is accomplished, legal issues may preclude retaliation [17], but without threat of retaliation, deterrence usually fails. [18] In addition, even if an attacker could be identified, retaliation may not be desirable. In fact, IO deterrence may be as unworkable and empty a threat as strategic nuclear attack became in the era of Mutually Assured Destruction. Gerfied Stocker notes that “It will even be increasingly important to prevent the complete annihilation of one’s adversary who is, after all, one’s business and trading partner.” [19] Arquilla and Ronfeldt comment that protagonists may be “more interested in keeping the [inter-]Net up than taking it down, so they can use it to mobilise their forces, disseminate their views, and try to affect the beliefs and opinions of other people.” [20] Gregory Witol points out that a full-scale strategic IO attack may lead to such a break down of control and services that “longer and bloodier battles than might otherwise have been” could well be the consequence. [21] On a strategic level at least, IO may be a genie that states would rather keep in its lamp.

Military application of IO: theory and implications

Most civilian writers do not focus on the specifics of military conduct of IO, but rather discuss the topic on a conceptual level only. Some writers consider merely the vulnerability of military forces to IO attack on a strategic and IT-centric plane. For example, Winn Schwartau, Bruce Berkowitz and Douglas Dearth discuss vulnerability as being derived from the military’s connection into the NII and its reliance on services provided by the commercial sector. [22] Communications or financial transactions could be affected, or, in the case of the U.S. military, “just-in-time” mobilisation could come to a standstill through computer failure. [23] It is also questioned whether the military is equipped or mandated to respond to strategic, IT-centric IO attack on the NII. [24]

One of the few civilian theorists who does consider IO in the context of military operations is Edward Waltz. In his book Information Operations: Principles and Operations, Waltz focuses on two of the IW forms formulated by Arquilla and Ronfeldt, namely netwar and C2W, where netwar involves management of the perceptions of the target population and C2W involves the achievement of military objectives by conducting operations against military targets. [25] Within Waltz’s analysis, netwar and C2W are “events”; IO is the “means” used to achieve those events; and information superiority (a combination of dominant battlespace awareness and knowledge) is the “end” achieved, which is then exploited to gain military victory. [26] IO occurs on three levels, according to Waltz, namely the physical realm, the information infrastructure realm, and the perceptual realm. [27] Although Waltz tends to concentrate on IT-centric means of conducting IO, he does note that each of the three realms in which IO is waged is important for the role it plays in influencing the military observe, orient, decide and act (OODA) process of command and control.

Other writers discuss ways in which warfare will change in the Information Age. In doing so they view IO as an implicit component of future warfare. Heidi and Alvin Toffler have published a number of works in which they have discussed conflict in the Information Age. Their central thesis is that the way we make wealth determines the way we make war. In War and Anti-War: Survival at the Dawn of the 21st Century [28], they attempt to show that warfare has mirrored social values throughout history, and in particular through three waves of development. The First Wave corresponds to agrarian society and the Second to industrialised society. Warfare in the Information Age is Third Wave warfare, which, like Third Wave economics, is characterised by technology and information dominance. [29] Edward Waltz agrees that information will become the “very essence and manifestation of competition, conflict, and warfare”. [30] He believes there will exist “a spectrum of war forms, [which] may require appropriate mixes of lethal physical force and nonlethal information force to achieve the objectives established” [31]. Furthermore, the “role and effectiveness of information operations is determined by the context of the conflict” within that spectrum. [32]

Arquilla and Ronfeldt believe future warfare will be characterised by dispersed, non-linear, diffuse and multidimensional threats; by the blending of offence and defence; by compressed or elongated temporal and spatial dimensions; by both distant standoff and close-in swarming attacks using vast sensor arrays for real-time intelligence, surveillance, and target-acquisition; and of disruption rather than destruction as a strategic aim. [33] Colonel Stephen Garrett writes of linear definitions of the battlefield—deep, close and rear—being replaced by non-linear functions based on time—current and future—or function—engagement and sustainment. [34] Douglas Dearth is of the opinion that “the battle-space is expanding, both physically and conceptually. We might approach the time when the distinctions between “area of operations”, “area of interest”, and “area of influence” are almost completely blurred for the operational commander. [35] Martin Libicki is somewhat extreme in his vision of future warfare as the era of the “small and the many”, as opposed to the large, the complex and the few. The small and the many refers to systems “composed of millions of sensors, emitters, microbots, and minprojectiles [which] will, in concert, be able to detect, track, target, and land a weapon on any military object large enough to carry a human.” [36]

By contrast, other writers see future warfare as a transition from conventional war to bloodless battles fought in cyberspace. Gerfried Stocker, for example, writes: “Information warfare will be waged without visible and definable fronts, and without geographically localisable hostilities, which will be replaced by duels fought everywhere simultaneously to decide the supremacy over information. War will not take on a martial form, because it will be invisible and intangible (unable to be grasped!) due to its fragmentation into numerous tiny entities and its widespread dispersal throughout all spheres of society. The dividing line between attack and defence will likewise become even fuzzier than has previously been the case during the nuclear era of the Cold War.” [37] Gregory Witol suggests the following possibility: “Warfare will be waged either by states, corporations, or other organisations, intending to shut down or destroy the communications infrastructures of others. It is war waged in the netherworld of cyberspace, filled with worms, viruses and logic bombs. And the reasons that these organisations will do battle in the Infosphere may very well be for reasons we have trouble imagining today.” [38] The Tofflers also consider non-lethal future war: “In the past, when diplomats fell silent, guns very often began to boom. Tomorrow, according to the U.S. Global Strategy Council, if diplomatic talks fail, governments may be able to apply non-lethal measures before engaging in traditional, bloody war. […] Non-lethality thus emerges not as a simple replacement for war or as an extension of peace but as something different – something radically new in global affairs: an intermediate phenomenon, a pausing place, an arena for contest in which more outcomes could be decided bloodlessly.” [39]

One may not agree with the specifics of these visions of the future. For example, the idea that warfare could ever become bloodless may seem unlikely, especially if one considers the human consequences of a collapse in function in any modern metropolitan area after a strategic IO attack, or the possibility of antagonists resorting to “old-fashioned” methods of warfare in the event of the failure of advanced IT-centric weapons systems. One may also be skeptical as to just how armies will make the transition from present to future warfare. Nevertheless, it is difficult to refute the validity of the one precept all these pictures of future warfare agree on—namely, that as the importance of information and information technology increases, information dominance will become more important and “information (or knowledge) itself [will become] both the center of gravity and the principal weapon”. [40] Thus, future wars could be categorised as information wars in the widest sense.

Furthermore, it seems unavoidable that IT development, coupled with the increased speed of information transfer in the Information Age, will indeed blur traditional distinctions of time, space and level of war, with enormous impacts on organisation and structure of military forces:

“The information revolution, in both its technological and non-technological aspects, sets in motion forces that challenge the design of many institutions. It disrupts and erodes the hierarchies around which institutions are normally designed. It diffuses and redistributes power, often to the benefit of what may be considered weaker, smaller actors. It crosses borders, and redraws the boundaries of offices and responsibilities. It expands the spatial and temporal horizons that actors should take into account. And thus, it generally compels closed systems to open up. But while this may make life difficult, especially for large, bureaucratic, aging institutions, the institutional form per se is not becoming obsolete. Institutions of all types remain essential to the organisation of society. The responsive, capable institutions will adapt their structures and processes to the information age. Many will evolve from traditional hierarchical forms to new, flexible, network-like models of organisation. Success will depend on learning to interlace hierarchical and network principals.” [41]

Michael Vlahos approaches this issue by applying business organisational paradigms to the military in an effort to show how movement from hierarchical to networked structures would help avoid the potential loss of control that would occur during IW attack if the military remains hierarchical in structure. He writes of “de-layering hierarchies, leveling authority, distilling and thinning of decision elements”. [42]

One difficulty posed by future organisational change will be increased decentralisation, but Arquilla and Ronfeldt, for example, offset this against the benefits of what they call greater “topsight” (in military terms, common operating picture) inherent in network organisational forms: “Many treatments of organizational redesign laud decentralization; yet decentralization alone is not the key issue. The pairing of decentralization with topsight brings the real gains.” [43] Increasingly networked command and control systems also have implications for subordinate commanders, requiring what could be described as an extreme refinement of the directive control model of command: “Operational and tactical command in cyberwar may be exceptionally demanding. There may be little of the traditional chain of command to evaluate every move and issue each new order. Commanders, from corps to company levels, may be required to operate with great latitude. But if they are allowed to act more autonomously than ever, they may also have to act more as part of integrated joint operations. Topsight may have to be distributed to facilitate this.” [44] Such a requirement will, of course, be met as the battlefield becomes increasingly digitised, but changes in procedures and non-technical structures, such as staff structures, would also play a part. The Division Advanced Warfighting Experiment (DAWE) held November 1997 in Fort Hood, Texas, focused on information dominance and enhanced battle command capabilities. It was found that reorganisation of battle staffs would be required in order to translate availability of information into information dominance and enhanced battle command capabilities, and to facilitate the more agile and dynamic decision-making required on the future battlefield. Specifically, it was concluded that the current continental staff system organisation should be replaced by battle staffs organised around three info-age core functions: situational awareness, synchronisation, and systems administration, built on a battlefield operating system foundation. [45]

Conclusion

IO is a concept that has been developed as a result of the advent of the Information Age. IO is the term that has been coined to describe activities that involve the use of powerful new tools the Information Age has provided to states, military forces, and even to individuals, to achieve strategic, operational or tactical advantages and objectives. In trying to define IO there is a danger of defining the concept either too narrowly or too broadly and in so doing rendering it meaningless. Furthermore, the exact nature of IO depends on the level at which it is applied. Nevertheless, if a definition is to be attempted, then IO could probably best be defined as activities that seek to use information and information infrastructure to influence others to gain specific ends.

Two things lie at the core of IO: first, the use of information to shape perceptions and attitudes; and secondly, modern information technology (IT), which has increased information mass and reduced time and space to milliseconds instead of hours and days. However, the very pace of technological change and lack of understanding of how IT fits into the IO picture are sources of confusion. Often the value of IO is misunderstood because focus is placed on means rather than ends. As Douglas H. Dearth puts it: “what is not always sufficiently obvious in discussions on IO/IW is that technology is not the point of the exercise. What we do with the technology is the essential point.” [46] More than that, even in the absence of IT, IO could still be conducted to some degree because, as the Tofflers point out, the common thread in IO, or in Third Wave Warfare, is knowledge. [47] There are many good reasons why one should never succumb to regarding IO as an IT-centric concept. For one, if IO were all about IT, then the conduct of IO against a technologically inferior foe would be of questionable value, but, as was discovered in Somalia, that is not the case. [48] Perhaps more importantly, however, if we allow IT to shape our thinking on IO, then theories on the future of IO could well be flawed by being too grounded in the technology we have today. [49]

We witnessed limited offensive use of IO in the Gulf War, but IO is not only an offensive strategy. Defensively, IO forces a greater awareness of the centrality of information all facets of modern life, and therefore of the vulnerabilities of states, as well as organisations such as the military, to adverse manipulation of information. Henry and Peartree note that “It is interesting that such a strategy [IO] would appeal to an American theorist because it is our highly democratic, media-saturated, and technologically sophisticated society that is most vulnerable to a counterattack.” [50] Moreover, on the strategic level, the stakes are very high: “What is being attacked in a strategic level netwar are not only the emotions, or motives, or beliefs of the target population, but the very power of objective reasoning: this threatens the very possibility of state control”. [51] On the other hand, global interconnectedness and economic interdependence may serve to limit vulnerability to IO attack, at least at the strategic level.

Because of the pervasive nature of information and reliance on it, because of the speed of transmission of information, and because of the ease of access to information in many spheres, IO raises a variety of legal and organisational problems. The legal problems range from identifying adversaries and international jurisdiction to such things as whether IO attacks are legal in terms of the law of armed conflict. Organisational problems will occur, especially in conjunction with the IT aspects of IO, where decentralised control and network structures are more appropriate than the hierarchical structures in place in so many organisations, including armed forces. IO may also change the very nature of future warfare, as traditional distinctions in time, space and the levels of war are blurred.

The potential of IO and the risks run in ignoring it have generally been accepted in military circles. The challenge, however, has been the process if distilling the theories of IO, such as those described above, into workable military doctrine, both current and future. Among Western armies, the United States military has led the way in this process and has developed doctrine and capabilities to implement IO in a variety of operations since the Gulf War. The content and implementation of IO military doctrine will be the subject of a subsequent paper.

References

Author

Captain Amanda Jane Brosnan M.A. (Hons) is an officer in the New Zealand Army. She has a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in German and Economics, and a Master of Arts (Honours) in Defence and Strategic Studies. Latterly Captain Brosnan was employed as an intelligence analyst with the New Zealand Defence Force and she is currently employed as a project officer with the NZ Army.