Exposing the information domain myth: a new concept for air force and information operations doctrine

Air & Space Power Journal, Spring, 2008 by Geoffrey F. Weiss

The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds.

--John Maynard Keynes

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ON 11 SEPTEMBER 2001 (9/11), a small group of terrorists brought the most powerful nation on the earth to its knees and paralyzed much of the world. The US economy plunged into recession, the airline industry collapsed, and "soccer moms" rushed out to buy gas masks. The essence of this quintessential, asymmetric assault was not the use of aircraft as weapons or the horrific but nonetheless militarily insignificant results. Indeed, this was information warfare of the highest order. Years of planning, analysis of enemy psychology, assessment of physical vulnerabilities, training, operational security, and brutally efficient execution characterized this psychological operation. The terrorists did not seek to seize territory or defeat the US military; rather, they intended that 9/11 send messages to multiple audiences: to sympathizers ("We are powerful, join us"); to the United States ("We can hurt you; remove your troops from our soil and change your policies"); and to the world ("Interfere with our agenda at your own peril, for you will be next"). As in ages past, information operations (IO) use messages as weapons, and the enemy currently has the advantage. (1)

Using weapons is fundamental to the military. even before 9/11, the US military had begun the process of understanding and harnessing the products of the information revolution taking place throughout the world--a revolution fueled primarily by the advent of the microcomputer and improvements in data-transmission technologies. Whereas in the past, military forces sought to control lines of communication on the physical battlefield--highways, sea-lanes, airfields, and railroads--at present, information itself is the lifeblood of technologically based forces, and its lines of communication often flow through a domain known as cyberspace. (2) But not all aspects of IO are technically based; neither are they new to warfare. The martial use of psychological influence has existed since the first caveman frightened his enemy with a howl or distracted him with a tossed rock. Millennia ago, Sun Tzu famously proclaimed that all warfare is based upon deception. (3) However, the recent explosion of information technology has piqued our interest in IO. Information has become a valuable resource, a commodity, and a military necessity. Defense and exploitation of this resource has compelled military and civilian leaders alike to act quickly to establish an IO doctrinal framework.

The US Air Force (USAF), as perhaps the most technologically centered branch of the armed services--having itself arisen from the achievement of controlled, powered flight--has relied upon the continuous advancement of scientific and technological innovation to remain the overwhelmingly effective fighting force it is today. Even so, rapid advances in information technology and its implications for warfare have obligated the USAF, like the rest of the military, to speed efforts to define and refine its own IO doctrine--to "weaponize" information. This has presented a challenge to doctrine writers as the USAF attempts to establish an effects-based approach to IO that is in concert with air and space power. Clearly the service must have doctrine that is well defined, expansive enough to accommodate the swiftness of change, and sufficiently flexible to assimilate future concepts and capabilities while still adequately treating timeless, nontechnical principles such as psychological operations (PSYOP) and military deception (MILDEC). Current USAF doctrine, for IO in particular, has not met this challenge, partly due to the fact that a necessary and proper delay occurs between analysis of theory/lessons learned and the codification of doctrine--but also because we have not adequately adapted the current structure of the doctrine. Furthermore, shortcomings exist in the definition of IO--arising from a mischaracterization of information itself--that have led to difficulty in understanding and employing IO at all levels of war.

An examination of the vast body of writings on the subject of IO reveals near-universal agreement on two points. First, IO is an extremely significant aspect of national security and, by extension, military operations: we must use it to our advantage. Second, the United States cannot seem to get IO right, whether in doctrine, training, definition, employment, leadership, or some combination of these. The IO cognoscenti have prescribed a formidable array of procedural remedies or exhortations to "just do it," but these have treated only symptoms--not the root problem. None have recommended a fundamental shift in definitions, characterization, and doctrinal architecture. Often the solution to an intractable problem requires a return to first principles, an examination and reformulation of basic beliefs, a system "reboot." To make IO the weapon it needs to be, the USAF must lead the way and establish IO doctrine built correctly from the ground up.