2006 Joint Chiefs of Staff / Information Operations

Introduction

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On February 13, 2006 the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a new edition of their doctrine for information operations, revising Joint Publication 3-13 dated October 9, 1998. The principal changes from our point of view are the removal of the term 'information warfare' from joint information operations doctrine, the discontinuance of the terms 'offensive IO' and 'defensive IO' to emphasize the fact that information operations should be seen as a seamless activity, and the addition of a separate chapter on "Intelligence Support to Information Operations".

It would not be an exaggeration to say that we are entering a new era of continuous warfare against friend and enemy alike, that 'information warfare' has been merged into the 'cognitive warfare' imagined by Admiral Hogg's Strategic Studies Group, and that the collection of information to fuel the 'influence technology' developed and demonstrated in the ECCS will be the full time job of military commanders in the future.

It is no longer to be a question of putting bad information into the enemy's computer network operations but making certain the enemy acts on it by controlling the decision makers' minds.

Here is a link to Joint Publication 3-13, with many thanks to Steve Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists for posting it on their website:

www.fas.org/irp/doddir/dod/jp3_13.pdf

We direct your attention especially to the definition of 'information operations' on page ix: "Information operations are described as the integrated employment of ... to influence, disrupt, corrupt, or usurp adversarial human and automated decision making while protecting our own." The words 'influence' and 'disrupt' and 'corrupt' are easy enough to understand. It is the word 'usurp' to which we call your attention. It means "to take the place of someone in power illegally or by force". The person in power in this context is your adversary, and you take his place by studying his cognitive properties beforehand and beaming plans into his brain that will result in his defeat during periods of conflict. How else can you conduct 'cognitive warfare'?

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© ICOMW 2006