Information Operations to become a Military Competency

Last Updated on Friday, 16 May 2008 09:12 Written by admin Friday, 16 May 2008 09:12

Thanks to a Freedom of Information request by Steven Aftergood of FAS, we can now read the latest Information Operations Directive issued by the Department of Defense in August of 2006.

A couple of items jumped out at me: (1) the DoD runs IO operations during peacetime to influence adversary perceptions and decision-making, and (2) IO is to become a core military competency, with designated IO Capability Specialists and IO Planners.

I created the image at the top of this post to represent the 5 Core Capabilities as well as Supporting Capabilities, Related Capabilities, and Intelligence Support as described in the directive.

It’s a short but interesting read. IO covers a lot of ground and some of the implications deserve further discussion and debate.

Acronyms used: EW (Electronic Warfare); CNO (Computer Network Operations), PSYOP (Psychological Operations), MILDEC (Military Deception), OPSEC (Operations Security).