Author: Ambershay Cooper

by Capt. John J. Parry, USMC

U.S. strategic competitors and adversaries currently control global narratives – often detrimental to U.S. interests.  While the U.S. military’s leadership has acknowledged it must adapt current methods to defeat opposition narratives, it continues to lose this battle of information.[1]  In the case of Operation Valhalla in Iraq in 2006, insurgent manipulation of the narrative rendered a special forces battalion combat ineffective, convincing military leaders to pull the unit from the battlefield for a 30 day investigation into alleged misconduct.[2]  Coalition forces lost the First Battle of Fallujah in 2004 after effectively ceding the narrative to insurgents.[3]  A confusing and contradictory U.S. narrative during Vietnam led to the loss of political support and strategic failure.[4]  Current military concepts recognizes planners must integrate narratives within operational design because the current doctrinal process for narratives has significant flaws.[5]  The U.S. military must implement an improved doctrinal process to understand and use narratives to improve battlespace awareness, earn support, defeat competing narratives, and accomplish the mission.

Current military doctrine provides an incomplete process for integrating narratives in operations.  Current doctrine:  (1) Defines narratives as short stories that provide operational context and understanding; (2) Directs the use of higher headquarters guidance, policy, and directives to understand narratives in a given battlespace; and (3) Identifies that the current process fails to account for conflicting narratives widely accepted by neutral and adversarial stakeholders.[6]  Stakeholders include friendly and adversarial forces as well as the local populace, non-government organizations, international audiences, the American public, and other relevant stakeholders who may affect or are affected by U.S. military actions in the battlespace.[7]  The current process has three flaws.  First, using only higher headquarters direction may synchronize the force but lacks a holistic approach for use of narratives.  A relevant operational narrative accounts for all relevant stakeholders’ narratives.  Second, a higher-level command’s macro-level view of an operation may not account for a subordinate command’s regional, tribal, and cultural issues.  Third, the process does not align to any of the overarching formal military planning processes.  While a higher headquarters’ narrative provides overarching guidance, subordinate commanders must know how to frame this within their battlespace.  The proposed improvements to the process below: (1) Link narrative development with the overarching military planning processes such as Joint Planning, the Marine Corps Planning Process, or Military Decision Making Process; (2) Integrate all stakeholder perspectives and battlespace narratives in planning; and (3) Synthesize best practices from planning toward understanding a battlespace’s narratives and using them to develop an operational approach.[8]

An improved process for integrating narratives should begin with the initiation of mission analysis or problem framing, integrate with or parallel Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield/Battlespace (IPB), and end upon conflict termination by an appropriate authority.[9]  During IPB’s first step, an operational planning team (OPT) comprised of expertise across the warfighting functions should examine a command’s battlespace framework to identify relevant stakeholders.[10]  Initial places to identify stakeholders include higher orders and intent as well as analysis of the political, military, economic, social, information, and intelligence (PMESII) operational variables in the battlespace.[11]  Analyzing the operational variables of PMESII through the lens of six civil considerations characteristics of areas, structures, capabilities, organizations, people, and organizations can also assist with drawing out relevant stakeholders.[12] An OPT should then assess whether the command has the ability to affect stakeholders in its area of interest with its organic capabilities, which includes relevant stakeholders both inside and outside its assigned area of operations, to identify potential shortfalls required for the command to accomplish its mission.[13]  A command should also establish a red cell and green cell during this time to analyze the battlespace through the lens of its various stakeholders to tighten up understanding of narratives in the battlespace.[14]  These cells should parallel the OPT’s planning through the end of course of action development and wargaming to assist with understanding neutral and adversarial narratives in a battlespace.[15]  Ultimately, this step should identify all relevant human and organizational terrain a command will need to communicate with and, potentially, what capabilities the command will require to ensure it can communicate during operations. 

During the second step of IPB, the process should orient an OPT on the impact of stakeholder narratives in the battlespace.[16]  The Department of State’s Interagency Conflict Assessment Framework (ICAF) can assist with drawing out relevant stakeholder narratives.[17]  This process includes: (1) “Evaluate context of the conflict,” (2) “Understand core grievances and social/institutional resilience,” (3) “Identify drivers of conflict and mitigating factors,” and (4) “Describe opportunities for increasing or decreasing conflict.”[18]  This process should identify potential objectives in the battlespace and focus on relevant stakeholders for the operation.  Using a co-orientation technique known as the four ways of seeing, the OPT should analyze each stakeholder’s views and narratives of other stakeholders in a battlespace by asking: (1) “How does X view itself?” (2) “How does X view Y?” (3) “How does Y view itself?” (4) “How does Y view X?”[19]  Understanding stakeholders’ narratives or viewpoints should identify exploitable opportunities and threats in the battlespace.  Completion of this step should lead to an understanding of stakeholder narratives within the battlespace that contribute to the shape of U.S. military operations. 

During IPB’s third and fourth steps, the OPT should identify how the adversary doctrinally uses narratives to achieve its objectives.  The OPT should then determine how the adversary intends to doctrinally employ its narratives in the battlespace to meet its objectives (i.e. Facebook, pamphlets, “whisper” campaign, host-nation social media, etc.).[20]  An OPT should generate from this a high value target list (HVTL) based on a prioritization of the stakeholders the adversary must influence to achieve its objectives.[21]  Finally, the OPT should conduct a center of gravity / critical vulnerability analysis of adversary narratives in the battlespace.[22]  This analysis should assist the OPT in identifying surfaces and gaps in an adversary’s use of narratives.  The integration of these tools into narrative development should begin to shape a command’s operational approach in both the informational and physical domains of the information environment.[23]

During the final part of mission analysis or problem framing, a command should define its friendly narrative, which must begin with higher guidance, policy, and directives, and integrates relevant analysis from IPB.[24]  This takes the form of a holistic written narrative that provides an understanding of how U.S. actions affect stakeholders in the battlespace.[25]  A written operational narrative should account for applicable tasks from the Joint Concept for Integrated Campaigning, which identifies U.S. intentions in a given area, and the commander’s intent for the operation, which ensures the narrative supports the purpose of the operation.[26]  A command should also conduct a center of gravity / critical vulnerability analysis to identify surfaces and gaps in friendly narratives in the battlespace.[27]  An operational narrative should aid the ability of a command to assess whether physical actions align with the narrative to ensure proportionality, legitimacy, and purpose in operational design.[28]  

Narratives also change based on the actions of all stakeholders and time.  Then Major General James Mattis’s letters to the 1st Marine Division during Operation Iraqi Freedom provide an excellent example of complete operational narratives.  Mattis adapted his narratives to the character of the battlespace to orient his troops on their current situation in 2003 and 2004 during two separate deployments in Iraq – the first narrative aimed at shaping a mindset for conventional warfare, and the second aimed at shaping a mindset for stability operations.[29]  Like Mattis, a command should continuously assess narratives to ensure it adapts with the changing nature of the battlespace.[30]

Many military professionals acknowledge information as a warfighting function because senior leaders have directed it, but may not understand the value of narratives in a command’s operational design.  Examples exist throughout history where successful battlefield leaders used narratives to shape operations.  General Ulysses S. Grant used narratives to shape operations during the American Civil War.  For example, Grant’s army entered Kentucky in late 1861 following reports of Confederate infiltration into the state.  Because Kentucky declared state neutrality at the war’s onset, Grant declared to its citizens his intention to defend their interests against confederate invaders, a declaration accepted by state and Union leadership.[31]  In shaping the narrative in Kentucky, Grant achieved his objectives by maintaining U.S. government policy, improving local civilian populace support, advancing U.S. government interests with Kentucky’s leadership, and defeating Confederate aims.[32]  Following Grant’s example, a successful narrative aligns policy, perspectives, and physical actions, which must take priority; otherwise, a command risks failure. 

Failure to align the reality of the U.S. campaign in South Vietnam with a cohesive narrative led to strategic defeat in the period of 1964-1973.[33]  The U.S. military’s failure to align physical actions with the narrative and articulate the reality of the conflict in South Vietnam to the American public led to distrust, dissent, and loss of support.[34]  The American public largely took issue with an overoptimistic narrative supporting the U.S. search and destroy attrition strategy, which the military designed to pacify the insurgency and deter North Vietnamese aggression – physical actions that arguably do not mix well with the idea of spreading democratic values.[35]  Understanding and using narratives in operations, especially aligning physical actions, significantly contributes to success in the battlespace.               

Some military professionals might argue against using a more complex process, if any, for integrating narratives into planning because of limited resources such as time or personnel during already constrained military planning processes.  The recommended process improvements identify where, when, and how a planner should integrate narratives into the overarching military planning processes, which adds clarity to doctrine and reduces confusion during planning that would otherwise lead to mistakes and diversion of time, attention, and resources.   The current process also fails to account for all relevant narratives or perspectives in the battlespace.  Sun Tzu said it best: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.  If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.”[36]  Adversary, civilian, U.S. government agency, and non-government agency stakeholder actions can lead to success or failure in a military mission.  An improved, albeit more complex, process also aligns narrative development with physical actions in planning, contributes to the conservation of time, and ensures successful operational design for operations.    

Some believe using narratives does not have an immediate impact on tactical-level operations.  In the First Battle of Fallujah in 2004, insurgent forces controlled the narrative.[37]  During this operation, coalition forces attempted to seize the city without a coherent communication strategy to engage allies, the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), reporters, and the populace.[38]  The insurgents leveraged legitimate grievances to generate support among the local and international community, leading to insurgent victory and a coalition operational halt.[39]  The coalition learned.  In the Second Battle of Fallujah in 2004, the coalition used narratives to deny the insurgent its base of support and legitimize the operation among coalition stakeholders, which significantly contributed to success.[40]  The military must integrate the use of narratives into operations at every level of war.  

            Above all, the U.S. military must adopt an improved process for using narratives in the battlespace.  The proposed process improvements link narrative development with the overarching military planning processes, integrate all stakeholder perspectives and narratives into military operations, and integrate best practices into operational design.  These improvements also improve operational design by providing a roadmap for aligning all relevant narratives at all levels of war and synthesizing all stakeholder narratives into a cohesive whole, which will support mission accomplishment and defeat adversary attempts to do the same.  Military professionals should use, assess, and update this proposed improved process to ensure future doctrine places U.S. forces in a position to apply a cohesive narrative, align physical actions, and achieve victory.   

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End Notes:

[1] Headquarters U.S. Marine Corps, MCBUL 5400, “Establishment of Information as the Seventh Marine Corps Warfighting Function” (Washington, DC:  Commandant of the Marine Corps, 2019), https://www.marines.mil/portals/1/Publications/MCBUL%205400.pdf?ver=2019-02-06-082807-103, accessed November 17, 2019; James Mattis, Information as a Joint Function (Washington, DC:  Office of the Secretary of Defense), https://www.rmda.army.mil/records-management/docs/SECDEF-Endorsement_Information_Joint%20Function_Clean.pdf, accessed January 2, 2019.

[2] Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Concept for Operations in the Information Environment (Washington, DC: Joint Staff, 2018), 18, https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/concepts/joint_concepts_jcoie.pdf?ver=2018-08-01-142119-830, accessed January 14, 2018.

[3] Dr. William Knarr, et al., Seizing the Peninsula:  A Vignette from the Battle for Fallujah (Alexandria, Virginia:  Institute for Defense Analysis, 2011), 23.

[4] William M. Hammond, “The Tet Offensive and the News Media,” Army History, Winter 2017, 7-14.

[5] Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Concept for Operations in the Information Environment,viii-ix.

[6] Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication 3-61 Public Affairs (Washington, DC: Joint Staff, 2016), I-12, https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/pubs/jp3_61.pdf,  accessed December 19, 2019.

[7] Ibid, I-10 to I-12, I-19.

[8] Center for Army Lessons Learned, MDMP Handbook (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Center for Army Lessons Learned, 2015), https://usacac.army.mil/sites/default/files/publications/15-06_0.pdf, accessed January 14, 2020;Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication 5-0 Joint Planning (Washington, DC: Joint Staff, 2017), V-4 to V-49, https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/pubs/jp5_0_20171606.pdf, accessed January 14, 2020; Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 5-10 Marine Corps Planning Process (Quantico, Virginia: Deputy Commandant for Combat Development & Integration, 2018), 2-4 to 2-5,  https://www.marines.mil/Portals/1/Publications/MCWP%205-10.pdf?ver=2019-07-18-151736-227, accessed December 19, 2019.

[9] Headquarters U.S. Marine Corps, Marine Corps Reference Publication 2-10B.1 Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield/Battlespace (Quantico, Virginia: Deputy Commandant for Combat Development & Integration, 2015), 1, 1-1, https://www.marines.mil/portals/1/MCRP%202-10B.1.pdf?ver=2018-10-04-131000-610, accessed December 19, 2019.

[10] Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication 3-61, I-10; Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 2-10 Intelligence Operations (Quantico, Virginia: Combat Development Command, 2016), 1-9, https://www.marines.mil/portals/1/Publications/MCWP%202-10%20(Formerly%20MCWP%202-1).pdf?ver=2016-06-06-120836-787, accessed January 11, 2020; Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication 3-61, I-10.

[11] Joint Chiefs of Staff, JP 3-61, I-12; Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Marine Corps Reference Publication 2-10B.1 Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield/Battlespace, 1-8, 4-29.

[12] Headquarters U.S. Marine Corps, Marine Corps Reference Publication 2-10B.1 Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield/Battlespace, 4-29.

[13] Ibid, 3-3 to 3-4.

[14] Headquarters U.S. Marine Corps, Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 5-10 Marine Corps Planning Process, 2-6.

[15] Ibid, 2-6.

[16] Headquarters U.S. Marine Corps, Marine Corps Reference Publication 2-10B.1, 4-1 to 4-39.

[17] Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization, Interagency Conflict Assessment Framework (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State, 2009). 

https://2009-2017.state.gov/documents/organization/187786.pdf, accessed December 8, 2019.

[18] Ibid, 2, 6.

[19] Command and Staff College Distance Education Program, 8903 Operational Art AY19 Coursebook (Quantico, Virginia: Marine Corps University, 2018), 98-99.

[20] Headquarters U.S. Marine Corps, Marine Corps Reference Publication 2-10B.1 Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield/Battlespace, 1-4.

[21] Ibid, 5-29 to 5-30.

[22] Ibid, 5-29 to 5-30.

[23] Ibid, 5-9 to 5-20, 5-22,5-29.

[24] Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication 3-61 Public Affairs, I-12.

[25] Command and Staff College Distance Education Program, 8903 Operational Art AY19 Coursebook, 509-520. 

[26] Headquarters U.S. Marine Corps, Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 5-10 Marine Corps Planning Process, 2-4 to 2-5.

[27] Headquarters U.S. Marine Corps, Marine Corps Reference Publication 2-10B.1 Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield/Battlespace, 5-29 to 5-30.

[28] Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication 3-61 Public Affairs, I-12.

[29] James Mattis, et al., Call Sign Chaos (New York:  Random House, 2019), 93, 119.

[30] Headquarters U.S. Marine Corps, MCWP 5-10, 1-4.

[31] Ron Chernow, Grant (New York: Penguin Press, 2017), 155.

[32] Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Concept for Integrated Campaigning (Washington, DC:  Department of Defense, 2018), 8-9,  https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/concepts/joint_concept_integrated_campaign.pdf?ver=2018-03-28-102833-257, accessed December 19, 2019.

[33] Hammond, “The Tet Offensive and the News Media,”7-14.

[34] Ibid,8-10.

[35] Ibid, 7-14; Victor Krulak, First to Fight: An Inside View of the U.S. Marine Corps (Anapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1984), 194-195, 201-202.

[36] Sun Tzu, The Art of War (Ann Arbor, Michigan:  J.W. Edwards Inc., 2007), 9-10.

[37] Knarr, Seizing the Penninsula:  A Vignette from the Battle for Fallujah, 23.

[38] Ibid, 23.

[39] Ibid, 23.

[40] Chief Warrant Officer 4 Timothy S. McWilliams, et al., U.S. Marines in Battle:  Fallujah November-December 2004 (Quantico, Virginia:  U.S. Marine Corps History Division, 2014), 6; Knarr, Seizing the Penninsula, 21-22.

Bibliography:

Chernow, Ron.  Grant.  New York: Penguin Press, 2017.

Center for Army Lessons Learned.  MDMP Handbook.  Fort Leavenworth, KS: Center for Army Lessons Learned, 2015.

Command and Staff College Distance Education Program.  8903 Operational Art AY19 Coursebook.  Quantico, Virginia: Marine Corps University, 2018.

Hammond, William M.  “The Tet Offensive and the News Media.”  Army History, Winter 2017.

Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps.  “Establishment of Information as the Seventh Marine Corps Warfighting Function.”  MCBUL 5400.  Washington, DC:  Commandant of the Marine Corps, 2019.   https://www.marines.mil/portals/1/Publications/MCBUL%205400.pdf?ver=2019-02-06-082807-103. 

Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps.  Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 2-10 Intelligence Operations.  Quantico, Virginia: Combat Development Command, 2016.

Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps.  Marine Corps Reference Publication 2-10B.1:  Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace.  Quantico, Virginia: Deputy Commandant for Combat Development & Integration, 2015.  https://www.marines.mil/portals/1/MCRP%202-10B.1.pdf?ver=2018-10-04-131000-610.

Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps.  Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 5-10:  Marine Corps Planning Process.  Quantico, Virginia: Deputy Commandant for Combat Development & Integration, 2018.  https://www.marines.mil/Portals/1/Publications/MCWP%205-10.pdf?ver=2019-07-18-151736-227. 

Joint Chiefs of Staff.  Joint Concept for Integrated Campaigning.  Washington, DC: Joint Staff, 2018.  https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/concepts/joint_concept_integrated_campaign.pdf?ver=2018-03-28-102833-257. 

Joint Chiefs of Staff.  Joint Concept for Operations in the Information Environment.  Washington, DC: Joint Staff, 2018. https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/concepts/joint_concepts_jcoie.pdf?ver=2018-08-01-142119-830.

Joint Chiefs of Staff.  Joint Publication 5-0 Joint Planning.  Washington, DC: Joint Staff, 2017. https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/pubs/jp5_0_20171606.pdf.

Joint Chiefs of Staff.  Joint Publication 3-61 Public Affairs.  Washington, DC: Joint Staff, 2016.  https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/pubs/jp3_61.pdf.

Knarr, Dr. William, Major Robert Castro, John Frost, Colonel TracyKing, Mark Nutsch, Dianne Fuller, Carolyn Leonard, Mary Hawkins, Major General Thomas Jones, UMSC retired, and Colonel George Mauldin.  Seizing the Peninsula:  A Vignette from the Battle for Fallujah.  Alexandria, Virginia: Institute for Defense Analysis, 2011.

Krulak, Victor H.  First to Fight: An Inside View of the U.S. Marine Corps.  Anapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1984.

Mattis, James and Bing West.  Call Sign Chaos.  New York:  Random House, 2019.

Mattis, James.  Information as a Warfighting Function.  Washington DC:  Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2017.  https://www.rmda.army.mil/records-management/docs/SECDEF-Endorsement_Information_Joint%20Function_Clean.pdf. 

McWilliams, Chief Warrant Officer 4 Timothy S. and Nicholas J. Schlosser.  U.S. Marines in Battle:  Fallujah November-December 2004.  Quantico, Virginia: U.S. Marine Corps History Division, 2014.

Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization.  Interagency Conflict Assessment Framework.  Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State, 2017.  https://2009-2017.state.gov/documents/organization/187786.pdf.

Tzu, Sun.  The Art of War.  Ann Arbor, Michigan:  J.W. Edwards, Inc., 2007.

Reviewed by 1stLts Steven Arango & Zach Smith

The title of this book might scare off people who would deeply enjoy it. Though its title is prone to the misinterpretation that the book serves as an embrace of the dismissive attitude some people have towards so-called “snowflakes,” The Coddling of the American Mind should be a mandatory read for everyone—especially millennials who are exhausted by the lazy and spoiled narrative surrounding their existence. Everyone can profit from the perspective offered in this book.

The authors identify themselves as a liberal and a centrist, respectively; neither have ever voted for a Republican for Congress or the Presidency. They engage with some of the most important, “hot button” issues of the day not with partisan zeal, but rather with a nuanced understanding gained from thoughtful study and academic expertise. The Coddling of the American mind has only one agenda in mind: the pursuit of truth.

Its approach to issues is something any leader should take to heart. Each topic raised is treated by way of a similar pattern: the authors first discuss the root cause of the  issue; they then move to address solutions aimed at alleviating the issue, while considering the consequences each solution may have; and then, finally, they provide a concrete plan for moving forward.

The book is split into four parts, each with a distinct focus, but all connected to the book’s common theme: “education and wisdom”.

Part I discusses three untruths adopted by younger generations that are hurting their growth into successful leaders of tomorrow. These untruths are:

1. What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker;
2. Always trust your feelings; and
3. Life is a battle between good people and evil people.

 Part II shows these untruths in action; the three great untruths are being celebrated in the official policies of universities across the country, and the book gives many examples of how the untruths are warping students’ thinking. Part III explains why these untruths are permeating our society (plot twist: there are several reasons). And, lastly, Part IV offers concrete advice on how to improve “childrearing, K-12 education, and universities.” 

But the book is much more than a review of society’s education system and the youth of America. The Coddling of the American Mind challenges how people articulate, analyze, and address serious issues. In fact, we would argue that it provides an underlying theme: usually, societal issues and professional issues are not simple—they are extremely nuanced. One cannot address complicated issues without considering the consequences of proposed solutions, both the intended and—especially—unintended ones. The book forces the reader to think critically about any issue she is facing with this perspective.

As the above hopefully makes abundantly clear, leaders from all backgrounds should read this book. The authors provide a straightforward discussion of a number of important facets of human nature, which can be applied in any professional setting. Understanding how and why humans operate will always help leaders approach volatile issues. The Coddling of the American Mind provides the path forward in any adverse situation: rather than pointing fingers or simply falling back on what has always been done, the book advocates productive disagreement and challenging the status quo. As leaders we should embrace the idea that “having people around us who are willing to disagree with us is a gift,” not an obstacle.  

Societies, companies, and organizations improve through the “challenging and testing [of] ideas.” When leaders forget this principle or decline to apply it—at some point—failure is inevitable. Even if reform occurs under these conditions, it is unlikely to succeed because of the narrow, sheltered approach used. And every decision is followed by a domino effect, creating lasting secondary benefits or negative consequences. When individuals prevent criticism, uncomfortable ideas, truth and facts disaster will follow. The Emperor, indeed, wears no clothes.

Choosing the best advice from the book is like trying to pick your favorite dish from your grandma—it’s almost impossible. But one line that struck us, tucked away at the end of the book, was “argue as if you’re right, but listen as if you’re wrong.” Simple advice, but difficult to follow. Any leader able to add this one piece of the authors’ advice to their toolkit will forever be better for it.

First Lieutenant Steven Arango is currently clerking for U.S. District Judge ­Fernando Rodriguez, Jr. After completion of his clerkship, he will return to active duty in the Marine Corps as a judge advocate. 

First Lieutenant Zach Smith is a recent graduate of the University of Alabama School of Law and currently serves as Judge Advocate in the United States Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps.

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Army, Department of the Navy, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.

by LtCol James McNeive (Ret)

The Commandant asks, “How do we win in the information battle?”  It starts by having a superior decision-making process.  Discussions on Operations in the Information Environment (OIE) need to spend more time addressing the cognitive process of decision-making.  How to better support it for Marine commanders, and how to influence it for friendly, neutral, adversary, and enemy actors, those commanders will deal with.  Victory will go to those who can make quick, accurate, and timely decisions that influence the way others think and act.  Meaning the one with the superior decision-making process wins.

 It can be argued that the topic of decision-making is in fact one, IF NOT THE, most important topic for OIE.  That almost everything done in the information environment (IE) is done to affect decision-making, a point of view that sometimes gets lost in the greater OIE discussion.  Being able to influence decisions of those target audiences who can either support or hinder a commander achieving the end state, while at the same time preserving his or her own process, is an extraordinary important element of the IE fight.  This fight centers on the ability to out think and out maneuver (both virtually and physically) the adversary.  It requires having an uncorrupted decision-making process while at the same executing efforts to corrupt the adversary’s process.  Ultimately, success is measured by actions in the physical environment that provide support to the commander’s end state.

When it comes to the role of decision-making in the IE, it is always good to start with some history.

• In August 1979 DoD established Command, Control, Communications Countermeasures (C3CM) and defined it as “the integrated use of operations security, military deception, jamming, and physical destruction, supported by intelligence to deny information, to influence, degrade, or destroy adversary C3 capabilities and to protect friendly C3 against such actions.”  Of interest, this was DoD introducing an American version of a similar Soviet concept.
• In March 1993, the Joint Chief of Staff instituted a change going from C3CM to Command and Control Warfare (C2W).  The new definition kept OPSEC, MILDEC, and physical destruction.  It morphed jamming into electronic warfare and added psychological operations as one of the five principle “military activities” supporting C2W.  Supporting doctrine in 1996 (JP 3-13.1) kept these activities and said they were integrated to deny information to, influence, degrade, or destroy adversary command and control capabilities, while protecting friendly command and control capabilities against such actions. 
• The actual first approved doctrine on information operations (IO) was put out by the U.S. Army in 1996 when they published FM 100-6 Information Operations.  That publication defined IO as “continuous military operations within the military information environment that enable, enhance, and protect the friendly force’s ability to collect, process, and act on information to achieve an advantage across the full range of military operations; information operations include interacting with the global information environment and exploiting or denying an adversary’s information and decision capabilities.”
• In 1998, the first joint doctrine on IO (JP 3-13) stated that C2W was a subset of IO.  It also divided IO into Offensive and Defensive IO, and provided a definition for each.  The one for offensive stated “the integrated use of assigned and supporting capabilities and activities, mutually supported by intelligence, to affect adversary decision makers to achieve or promote specific objectives.” 
• February 2006, new joint doctrine on IO (JP 3-13) eliminated the term C2W, dropped the idea of offensive and defensive IO, and announced IO had five core capabilities (EW, PSYOP, MILDE, OPSEC, and CNO).  It stated IO was the integrated employment of these core capabilities “to influence, disrupt, corrupt or usurp adversarial human and automated decision making while protecting our own.”
• In May 2013, a DoD directive, later followed by doctrine, noted there was too much attention being applied to only a few capabilities and that DoD needed to expand its aperture.  The term information related capabilities (IRC) was introduced as something that could include, but was not “limited to, a variety of technical and non-technical activities that intersect the traditional areas” of EW, cyberspace operations, MISO, MILDEC, influence activities, OPSEC, and intelligence.  The current doctrine on IO includes the use of IRCs to “disrupt, corrupt, or usurp the decision-making of adversaries and potential adversaries while protecting our own.”
• The joint definitions for IO have often referenced adversary and potential adversaries.  To the Marine Corps that was too restrictive so in 2013 when the Marine Corps Warfighting Publication on MAGTF IO was republished (first version was in 2003) the Marine Corps presented its own definition for IO.  That definition was seen as amplifying the joint one.  In that definition the Marine Corps purposely went with the term target audience verses adversary.  The belief was that this opened up the aperture to influence audiences throughout the range of military operations, looking at more than just an adversary.  The Marine Corps stated IO was “the integration, coordination, and synchronization of all actions taken in the information environment to affect a target audience’s behavior in order to create an operational advantage for the commander.”

As you can see from this history, it starts out with a need to affect an adversary’s command and control, and over time went on to focus more on behaviors and decision-making.  For the purpose of the discussion, a decision can be seen as a short term/short duration action while a behavior is a long term/long duration action.  The ability to build a plan, then execute it using multiple capabilities to get the desired effect, in a coordinated and synchronized way, is inherent to the discussion.   Thought on this topic has evolved over the years, and should continue to evolve as IO is phased out and OIE becomes the focus. 

Consider this.  A commander, whether in a competition or conflict situation must play a game of mental chess with other actors in the environment.  Seen or unseen, there will be a combination of friendly, neutral, adversary, or enemy actors to deal with, each seeking to influence the decisions of the Marine commander and others in the environment for their own end state.  A key ingredient to any game of mental chess is for one side to have a greater decision-making process than the other side.  A process that allows one side to influence how the other thinks, then acts or reacts.

This process requires the ability to generate effects, in either the IE or physical environment, with the purpose of having a cognitive impact on the target audience.  The results of this impact is the target audience is motivated to act.  Just thinking about it, but not acting does nothing for the commander.  The goal is the target audiences make a decision, which causes an action in time and space that is favorable to the other side. 

 Discussions on decision-making are not new, for example Boyd’s cycle of observe-orient-decide-act (OODA loop) is well known.  From an IE point of view, each side / each opponent needs to be able to have the following to assist in the decision-making:    

• An expert understanding of the battlespace to include the IE, which is an inherent part of it.
• At a minimum, a great appreciation of the opponent, as well as neutral and friendly actors within the battlespace.
• Ability to receive precise, actionable information.
• Based on a combination of the first three, ability to make quick, accurate, and timely decisions.
• Ability to securely transmit those decisions to those who can execute them.
• Ability to assess and make decisions to either exploit or adjust.

All this is done while concurrently trying to prevent the opponent from doing the same.

As mentioned, success is measured by actions in the physical environment, but what does that look like?  For Marine commanders it could take on many forms based on the end state.  For example, it could lead to those foreign actors Marines deal with deciding to allow access or continual access to host nation areas or infrastructures, or deciding to support to an operation, or deciding not to support the opponent.  For those adversaries Marines may face, it could be the adversary commander deciding to position forces where maximum Marine firepower can be brought to bear against them, or deciding to remain static giving the Marine commander time to prepare, or deciding not to continue a fight (or resist) and to become less belligerent (will).

Bottom line, failure to understand how OIE and decision-making interrelated, or allowing other discussions on the OIE to overshadow the importance of decision-making, is a mistake.  Having the ability to make decisions is one of the most important aspects of the IE.  If a Marine commander does not have a superior decision-making ability, then that commander risks being the victim of the opponent, and recorded in the history books as the loser. 

James McNeive is a government civilian, currently serving as the Deputy Operations Officer for the Marine Corps Information Operations Center.

by Capt Michael D. Scotto
Company Commander
B Co, 1st Bn, 3 Mar
@MikeScotto10

As the Marine Corps begins to focus more on operations in the infantry environment, the infantry may be left wondering where it fits in. To an infantry unit, operations in the information environment (OIE) seem like someone else’s job. The existing Joint Concept for OIE (JCOIE) is explicitly focused on, “enduring strategic outcomes,” and driving relevant actors accordingly, which seems beyond infantry action at the tactical level of war.[i] But just because there is a strategic and operational level of war in the information environment doesn’t mean there isn’t a tactical level. In the April issue of the Marine Corps Gazette, Eric Schaner proposes a definition of “military information power,” that allows an infantry unit to understand where they fit in; “military information power is the ability to exert one’s will or influence over an opponent through the generation, preservation, denial, or projection of information.”[ii] In this context, information is another lever it can use to win the fight, and the information domain another place where the infantry can maneuver. In fact, tactical-level infantry action can have a cognitive effect of the enemy that can help a Marine Corps force win the information fight and the larger battle. By deliberately focusing actions on a cognitive or information effect, the infantry can stress the enemy decision making system and thereby assist with overwhelming the enemy’s ability to operate in the information environment.

Whenever any unit acts on the battlefield, it produces information which competing forces try to collect and use to validate initial situation estimates and guide actions. MCDP 6, our command and control doctrine, states that, “command and control is essentially about information: getting it, judging its value, processing it into useful form, acting on it, sharing it with others.”[iii] When Marine Corps infantry takes action, adversaries can gather and process that information, whether they use an observation post, a drone, or signals intelligence. Adversary intelligence systems and commanders then use this raw data to create a picture of the situation and try to figure out what we are doing. If the data-points don’t make sense to the system or to a commander, they need to re-assess what’s going on and act or be overcome by a changing situation. While this seems fairly obvious and like a re-statement of Boyd’s observe-orient-decide-act loop, an understanding of the tactical information environment is critical because it allows an infantry unit to understand how to use information itself as a weapon. Conflicting or new information, which an infantry unit might deliberately introduce, can overwhelm a system working to process it, and this can lead to the tactical and operational collapse of an enemy.

The best historical example of information overload and resulting tactical and operational collapse abound is the May 1940 invasion of France. The French were unable to gain solid information on the German main-effort advance through the Ardennes and even when they should have grasped the scale of the attack, they persisted in under-estimating the threat of breakthrough at Sedan for almost two days after the penetration of their defensive line.[iv] On the tactical level, as the defenders realized the size of the German attack, false information spontaneously generated among panicked troops and resulted in the tactical-level disruption of Sedan’s defenses.[v] The French high command, dealing with facts that didn’t match their expected picture of the unfolding situation, wasn’t able to respond. They failed because they didn’t understand the situation quickly enough.[vi] Examined through the lens of the information environment, a failure in processing and reacting to information led to tactical, then operational, and ultimately strategic failure and defeat for France. But if the potential for tactical-level information disruption in 1940 remains unconvincing in an age of drones and networked sensors, there is a more recent example that helps prove the point.

During Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, unexpected tactical information rendered the U.S. intelligence picture inaccurate for the entire campaign. On 22 March 2003, two-days after the ground attack began, Special Operations Forces in the Karbala Gap unexpectedly observed Fedayeen moving south. Nonetheless, when “their reports were received by CFSOCC and CFLCC headquarters, they were met with incredulity. No one in the coalition command understood what the irregular Iraqi forces were doing there, let alone their composition and capability.”[vii] As Marines will recognize, these unexpected forces later offered stiff resistance to Task Force Tarawa in Nasiriyah, complicating the original mission. At a higher level, however, the authors of the Army’s history of the invasion of Iraq, The U.S. Army in the Iraq War, conclude that, “[the] drastic change in the enemy situation confounded the coalition’s operational-level analysis and collection systems, which struggled to fit the incoming information into preexisting tem­plates of a conventional enemy and tried vainly to maintain the sophisticated digital battle maps with company-sized and larger enemy formations.”[viii] While the coalition ultimately was successful in spite of the inaccurate intelligence picture, “[this] pattern of bottom-driven reporting from tactical units and an inaccurate and outdated enemy picture at the operational headquarters persisted for the remainder of the invasion.”[ix] This sounds much like the French experience in 1940, with the exception that the Fedayeen were not an armored corps. It does not require much imagination to think about how an inaccurate picture of a more capable peer adversary might effect a major military operation. For the infantry seeking tactical action in the information environment however, this suggests that information is a weapon to use against an enemy focused on information gathering to drive operations.

Deliberately producing data points to generate surprising or contradictory information can allow the infantry to take control of the information fight. In short, we can try to make the enemy see what we want him to see. US Army Special Operations Command proposed in 2017 at a senior leader forum that, “schemes of maneuver should include cognitive objectives resulting in relevant actor behavior.”[x] The infantry should adopt this mindset at least as low as the company level, by explicitly identifying the cognitive or informational objectives or results of actions. Keeping in mind the example of Operation Iraqi Freedom, consider what J. Michael Dahm proposed in a recent War on the Rocks article: Chinese militarization of features in the SCS is about, “information power.”[xi] He contends that rather than acting as a striking asset, on an operational level, “[the] Chinese bases’ main contribution is to facilitate substantial command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities in the South China Sea.”[xii] While this appears to be an intimidating move to dominate information, such a robust system is a play into the hands of a force than can disrupt thought processes, since it provides avenues for achieving a cognitive effect on the enemy. US infantry is well suited to do that.

Tactical-level infantry combat is an excellent point of entry into the information environment and the enemy decision making system. Direct combat involves subjective estimates of a situation based on information available to the enemy in contact. Infantry, already positioned at this level, can introduce or shape available information in an attempt to produce a report we want and gain an information advantage. Consider what hasty conclusions an infantry unit leader makes upon encountering dismounted heavy machineguns. He assumes there is a rifle unit providing security. He assumes he is encountering something important because a company or battalion has allocated those assets there. If the machineguns are in an unexpected place however, his mind, trained to think in patterns, will immediately begin reeling with attempting to understand a new or shifted pattern. And then he has to report this, in which case he will probably over-estimate the situation out of a sense of caution or due to the intense personal pressure of being under fire. Consider then the power of purposefully placing assets and people in places to cause that kind of cognitive dissonance and confusion. Imagine an infantry squad or platoon infiltrated far behind enemy lines. Suddenly the enemy is faced with the question of whether there are more units in his rear area. His subordinate units must now begin their own attempts to gather information through reconnaissance or re-tasking of assets. We have thus not only gained a maneuver advantage in a traditional sense and perhaps surprised the enemy, but we have generated a potentially larger information effect. By forcing the adversary to focus on new data points, we degrade the ability of the adversary to process already known information or even newer data. Suddenly he must choose where to place his information gathering assets or his information processing power, and where to defend.

As for the grunt-level view of how this should be done, the action is simple: do what infantry does best. Move quietly through difficult terrain where it is difficult to be detected. Move through types of terrain and along avenues of approach that the enemy sees as impassible or will not be monitoring. Do exactly what maneuver warfare enjoins us to do and bypass centers of resistance to sow confusion in the rear. In the littoral environment, the use of swimmers and small boats magnifies the opportunities for this kind of operation. Headquarters must be ready to task companies with, “demonstrate,” or “feint,” using the method of a raid, or the method of seizing a key piece of terrain, all to convince the enemy commander of something. But as an infantry unit does this, it must clearly identify the desired informational or cognitive effect on the enemy or any effect in the information environment will be unfocused and incidental. In spite of the fact that the infantry is primarily a physical, tactical actor, infantry units can significantly affect the information environment. The historical record is clear on this fact. The record also shows that sophisticated information gathering systems are no proof against confusion caused by the unexpected. The future fight will be fast-paced, and we will be fighting for information and attempting to target each-others large expensive platforms. An infantry can play a key role in this fight, not only by holding ground-based assets at risk but by purposefully creating thousands of tiny plots on a graph that the enemy must struggle to comprehend and react to.  Infantry can’t win the information fight, but it can help the enemy lose.

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[i] Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Concept for Operating in the Information Environment (Washington, DC: The Pentagon, 25 July 2018),11.

[ii] Eric X. Schaner, “What is military information power?” Marine Corps Gazette 104, no.4 (April 2020): 17-19.

[iii] Headquarters US Marine Corps, MCDP 6: Command and Control (Washington, DC: Headquarters US Marine Corps, 4 April 2018), 1-16.

[iv] Karl-Heniz Frieser, The Blitzkrieg Legend: The 1940 Campaign in the West (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2005), 198; Robert A. Doughty, The Breaking Point: Sedan and the Fall of France 1940 (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1990), 343.

[v] Frieser, Blitzkrieg Legend, 175-178. The specific incident is known as “The panic of Bulson,” in which French artillery and command posts begun retreating and shifting positions after sighting German Panzers west of the Meuse at 1900 on 13 May- four hours before the first Panzer crossed the river at 2300.

[vi] Doughty, The Breaking Point, 343.

[vii] Joel D. Rayburn and Frank K. Sobchak, eds., The U.S. Army in the Iraq War: Volume 1. Invasion. Insurgency. Civil War. 2003-2006 (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. Army War College Press, 2019), 86

[viii] The U.S. Army in the Iraq War: Volume 1, 87.

[ix] The U.S. Army in the Iraq War: Volume 1, 87.

[x] Scott K. Thomson and Christopher E. Paul, “Paradigm Change: Operational Art and the Information Joint Function,” Joint Forces Quarterly 89, (April 2019): https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Media/News/News-Article-View/Article/1490645/paradigm-change-operational-art-and-the-information-joint-function/

[xi] J. Michael Dahm, “Beyond “Conventional Wisdom”: Evaluating the PLA’s South China Sea Bases in Operational Context,” War on the Rocks, March 2020, https://warontherocks.com/2020/03/beyond-conventional-wisdom-evaluating-the-plas-south-china-sea-bases-in-operational-context/

[xii] J. Michael Dahm, “Beyond “Conventional Wisdom”: Evaluating the PLA’s South China Sea Bases in Operational Context,” War on the Rocks, March 2020, https://warontherocks.com/2020/03/beyond-conventional-wisdom-evaluating-the-plas-south-china-sea-bases-in-operational-context/

by LtCol James McNeive (Ret)

Information Operations (IO) was intended to be an organized and coordinated effort to shape the decisions and behaviors of the adversary.  As the Marine Corps develops its concept of Operations in the Information Environment (OIE) it is moving away from IO, which more and more is being viewed as a legacy term.  In addition, the staff for the Deputy Commandant for Information have briefed that OIE and IO are not the same, and that Marine Corps OIE involves more than affecting behaviors.  So a question to asked, what becomes of efforts to shape decisions and behaviors? 

In the April edition of the Marine Corps Gazette, Mr. Eric Schaner’s article on “What are OIE?” states that the fifth OIE function, Influence Foreign Target Audiences, is the one “most closely associated with classical “information operations.”” The Marine Corps Information Operations Center (MCIOC) is focusing on this function of OIE and pushing for a for a more refine understanding of what influence foreign target audiences means to the Marine Corps. 

What follows are initial thoughts on what the Marine Corps influence function could consist of.  MCIOC understands additional discussions and staffing is required.  A primary end state of would be “with an understanding of the environment, shape the decisions or change/ preserve behaviors of selected target audiences so that they will act in a way that is advantageous to the commander.”  This is accomplished through both offensive and defensive actions.  For the purpose of the discussion, especially when it comes to planning end states, a decision is a short term/short duration action while a behavior is a long term/long duration action.

A starting point is to leverage existing joint and USMC IO doctrine, which are still in effect.  The current doctrine on IO has some inherent flaws embedded that will need to be overcome.  Those flaws have lead to several fatal perceptions that include IO planners own various information related capabilities, only deals with adversaries and potential adversaries, and only focuses on integration, ignoring the planning required to build and execute an IO concept.

There are three core elements which need to be incorporated.  They are:

(1) Understand the information environment in order to identify key relevant actors to target, and understand how to maneuver in and through the information environment.

(2) Offensive actions that are designed to influence target audiences so they act in a way, at a time, place, duration, that is advantageous to a commander or MAGTF.

(3) Defensive actions that will influence the perceptions of target audiences have of Marine Corps forces.

Actions include planning, execution, and assessing.  Interwoven are the coordination and synchronization actions required.  Critical for success include efforts to be completely embedded into the Marine Corps planning process, the ability to demonstrate that desired effects on the target audience support the mission/scheme of maneuver, and a commander’s buy-in on the need to influence a selected person, persons, or group.  Execution can include lethal actions depending on situation.

Unlike IO, which many believed tended to focus only on integration, the focus will the on influencing a foreign target audience.  A target audience is the cornerstone and includes those enemy, adversaries, neutral, and friendly foreign actors who have the potential to support or hinder actions a Marine commander needs to accomplish in order to achieve an end state.  A target audience will be those relevant actors within the battlespace that the commander has the authorities to engage, has access to, and decides to devote resources towards, in order to influence or deceive the actor(s) to think, then act, in a way advantageous for the Marine force.

As a way ahead, details will need to be developed.  As mentioned, it will build off the foundations already established by IO.  Pulling from proven existing IO tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP) and from years of lessons learned a stronger foundation can be built that supports the planning and execution of Marine operations.

The further refinement of the influence function should lead a better understanding of what influence operations consist of.  Influence operations being one of the six capability areas listed in the Marine Corps OIE concept.  The others being EMS operations, cyberspace operations, space operations, deception operations, and inform operations.

By Colonel Brian Russell (@OIECol)

Part 4

“The enemy knows the system”

Shannon’s Maxim

Throughout my blog series on Information as Order I have been working toward a simple, useful, and common understanding of information to make us better warfighters. After describing the nature of information as order, I spent some time describing how information actually creates order as part of an essential element of leadership competence. In this fourth and final post in the series I am going to describe how we use information to disorder the enemy system. Whether competition or conflict, engagement with our adversaries is a struggle to keep ourselves ordered and the enemy disordered (MCDP 1 – shattered cohesion) by maximizing the incredible informational capabilities at our disposal today and well into the future. But it isn’t all about information. Operations in the Information Environment (OIE) becomes the tie that binds the informational and physical aspects of military power together in a version of combined arms for the current and future operating environment.  I know you all are curious as to how something I’ve characterized as order itself can be used to disorder the enemy system.  Let’s take a look at a couple examples before concluding with a new framing of OIE as the struggle between order and disorder.

I want to start with a nod to Major Ian Brown’s exceptional piece on Boyd and OIE. Based on my last post, I believe we agree on the importance of leadership in owning the master narrative or targeting strategy for the command – this is in fact commander’s business.  But as noted, the import of the master narrative goes beyond building resiliency in our own forces and providing something to “attract the uncommitted” or “drain away” adversary resolve. Effective narratives force adversaries, particularly repressive regimes, to compete with them by expending resources. This is a form of cost imposition in the threshold below armed conflict side of the competition continuum and I am glad the Marine Corps brought Communications Strategy into the OIE capability set. Our service has a solid reputation for projecting our image and story but synchronizing it with other capabilities to sow disorder in an adversary system is the right move forward.

Speaking of COMSTRAT, have you seen United States Cyberspace Command’s VirusTotal alerts on Twitter? The program, described in this piece by the Council on Foreign Relations, is an outcome of the 2018 DoD Cyber Strategy defend forward concept. Beyond releasing malware notices to the general public to increase cybersecurity posture, the program’s added benefit is the disorder it causes in the adversary system. Releasing a malicious cyber actor’s malware into public awareness is the cyberspace analog of deep strikes into enemy territory to destroy ammunition depots. Once malware is exposed, responsible computer network owners upgrade their information technology (IT) infrastructure so that weapon system becomes ineffective. Better than that, the adversary now has to determine how that malware was discovered to mitigate additional compromise as well as spend resources on creating new weapons. Cost imposing measures that induce friction (there’s MCDP 1 again) into the adversary system by employing two informational capabilities: COMSTRAT and cyberspace operations.

And I couldn’t agree more with Major Brown’s identification of the ultimate goal of our efforts: to induce as much friction into the adversary system as we can…break its cohesion.  We might even be able to do that with purely informational capabilities in this current example. Wouldn’t it be great to implicate a member of the adversary’s cyber operations team as the one who released the secrets to the United States? There are certainly an ever increasing level of information capabilities to be applied in today’s environment but I want to caution here that OIE is not just about information. A quick rewind to the Story of Information I introduced in my second post reminds us that “Information can never be divorced from the physical world.” And that linkage between informational and physical gives us enormous combined arms potential in today’s ever increasingly networked world.

This is why I take some exception to Major Brown’s assertion that “missiles and bullets aren’t the right weapons for creating mistrust and discord.” On a broad scale, the much cited Desert Storm leaflet drop psychological operations in concert with airstrikes on Iraqi formations were a signal to Iraqi troops that their leadership could not protect them and any claims of victory over the infidels looked less and less likely with each bombing run. In today’s “information age,” the ability to precisely engage an individual with information and a portion of the enemy system with kinetic weapons that would implicate complicity within the organization (re: insider threat, spy) for that strike is absolutely achievable.  This ability to traverse across physical and informational space to induce maximum internal friction inside the adversary’s system is a capability our combined arms force should be postured to employ effectively.

Certainly, in an era of great power competition we won’t be shooting missiles and bullets often as a means to compete with peer adversaries, but that shouldn’t limit our aperture on how to induce disorder in their systems below the threshold of conflict. Select partnering across the interagency and with our closest allies opens the combined arms arsenal to their informational and physical capabilities to compete and sow disorder through legal, financial, and diplomatic means. A fuller description of that approach needs to be saved for another forum but let me tease out two reinforcing points before moving on to summarize the information as order warfighting model. The synchronized application of informational as well as physical military power is necessary for both competition and conflict and we will only be successful in conflict if we have this figured out in competition – or to borrow from Boyd “you know when we should be doing it? Right now…you want to get on top of it.” Second, a globally dispersed, forward deployed, yet interconnected (through information no less) naval force provides an incredible platform for placement and access to compete with peer adversaries using both physical and informational aspects of military power.

This idea, in some sense, is an answer to the Commandant’s question about how to win the information battle. It’s not purely an “information” battle.  And the struggle to maintain order in our own system and sow disorder in the adversary must begin now. Military information power, as described by Eric Schaner in April’s Gazette, is a great capability in the competition arena and transitions well into conflict. In terms of how to best think about applying military information power, I’ll offer this frame: a struggle between order and disorder.  The four elements of military information power align to this construct: generate and preserve information (order) and deny and project information (disorder).  How does information relate to the other warfighting functions?  Information helps the other functions preserve order or induce disorder.  Intelligence as an example, helps reduce the commander’s uncertainty about the enemy and environment but the counter-intelligence and counter reconnaissance fights are waged to increase the enemy’s uncertainty about the situation. What is signature management?  An ordered representation of the force to the adversary that enables operational security (order) and military deception (disorder), the latter two being traditional information related capabilities that have always had informational and physical aspects. If the latest terminology on OIE, its seven functions and six capability areas leave you questioning how it’s all supposed to work in meeting our warfighting objectives, I’d offer they can all be binned into an order or disorder purpose.

I want to close with another nod, this time to the recognized father of information theory, Claude Shannon. His quote at the beginning of this post describes his maxim about the sole requirement for an effective cryptologic system: as long as the key is protected, an enemy can know everything else about your system and it will still be secure. Perhaps I am influenced a fair bit by my time here at Fort Meade but it was really an afternoon spent in the National Cryptologic Museum that gave me an initial hint about the struggle of order and disorder framework I’ve settled on. The long standing cat and mouse struggle amongst nation states to steal each other’s secrets is a fair representation of OIE for our service. Knowing an adversary well enough to influence him through informational and physical approaches to prompt him to reveal the key while protecting our own. As we consider the implementation of distributed, “stand in” forces to complicate our pacing threat’s targeting and decision cycle, we’d do well to apply every tool in our collective arsenal to best know our enemy and know thyself in the information environment and be postured to achieve operational advantage at the time and place of our choosing.

Well, this last post went a little longer than I initially intended but I found it helpful to tease out my thoughts on the relative importance of, and maybe newfound interest in, information.  Information is important because it represents order as its very nature and is responsible for the ordering of our world and how we live within it. Information has the power to create order and is an indispensable tool in a leader’s kit bag for propelling their Marines and organizations through periods of chaos. Information should interest all of us since it’s effective use is critical to our warfighting effectiveness as we struggle to protect our own order and sow disorder into our adversaries.  But information should never be divorced from the physical manifestations of military power and never left to just the information professionals. Operations in the Information Environment (OIE) is the preservation of our order and the imposition of disorder on our enemy through the balanced application of both informational and physical capabilities. What an exciting time to be a Marine.  The modern information environment and the evolution of our service will bring incredible opportunities to redesign ourselves into the 21st century combined arms force our nation needs us to be in both competition and conflict. I look forward to your discussion on this post and others in the OIE call to action.