Exposing the Information Domain Myth

Air & Space Power Journal, Summer, 2008 by Keith Anthony, Mark Peters

I plunged into Maj Geoffrey F. Weiss's article "exposing the Information Domain Myth: A New Concept for Air Force and Information Operations Doctrine" (Spring 2008) with a certain skepticism, but soon it became apparent that the author "gets it." I say this as a veteran of the late-1990s debate in the intelligence community over such concepts as "information dominance" and "information superiority," which had mercifully short lives. The primary objective of information warfare (a term we can't use due to political reasons) as well as other military operations is the human mind. After all, the mind comes up with its picture of reality and evaluates perceived risks and rewards for any action or nonaction. The mind is the true battleground. It is also the most difficult battleground to understand and predict. Therefore, researchers are now exploring (some more effectively than others) concepts such as behavioral influence analysis in an effort to understand, predict, and utilize what can or cannot influence someone to take actions advantageous to us. And that is the operative essence of information operations. I believe that Air Force thinking about information operations is finally getting to where it should have been in the early 1990s.

Lt Col Keith Anthony, USAFR

Xenia, Ohio

Even though the author of "exposing the Information Domain Myth: A New Concept for Air Force and Information Operations Doctrine" wants to shift intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) operations Doctrine under information operations (IO) because proper ISR operations are "an essential aspect of IO" (p. 57), I feel that this is an incorrect assumption.

Major Weiss's argument does not address how or why ISR falls under IO. Using his proposed definition of IO as "the integrated employment of Air Force capabilities to influence, disrupt, corrupt, or usurp adversary information, information systems, perceptions, and/or decision making while protecting our own" (p. 57) does not equate to or cover the definition of ISR from Air Force Doctrine Document 2-9, intelligence, Surveillance, and reconnaissance Operations, dated 17 July 2007. That manual defines ISR as "an activity that synchronizes and integrates the planning and operation of sensors, assets, processing, exploitation, and dissemination systems in direct support of current and future operations" (p. 1).

The tasking, processing, exploitation, and dissemination (TPED) phase of ISR operations is critical not only to IO but also to every phase of Air Force influence operations from counterair to targeting. Good TPED has nothing to do with the influence, dISRuption, or corruption of an enemy system, but with monitoring and reporting in a manner that allows decision makers to launch operations against the enemy decision-making process. Even as the author concludes that all aspects of Air Force operations--flying or otherwise--belong to IO, ISR still falls outside this field because it is a force enabler.

Although I focus on ISR in my response, ultimately I think that the author has made the opposite jump, moving from what he saw as too narrow a definition of IO to one that is too broad. I think that all Doctrine is best served by a narrower interpretation. Narrow Doctrine allows all users to focus on their own operational challenges within their areas before moving on to integrate those operations. In our current operational scheme, doctrinal advocates represent their operational requirements at the air and space operations center through a liaison officer to provide a unified whole. Expanding everything from a single IO voice in the crowd to only an IO voice to strategic leadership does nothing to improve that unified whole.

Maj Mark Peters, USAF

Seymour Johnson AFB, north Carolina