Information Operations in Effects Based Operations: Some Observations

Information Operations (IO) has become a primary war fighting capability and is now considered a military core competency. The military Services are establishing IO as a military career field equivalent to other war fighting fields and they are developing supporting education and training programs to create a pipeline of trained and experienced information operations warriors. Transforming doctrine into an operational reality has, however, proven to be a challenge and the training programs and operational planning and assessment tools have been slow to materialize. Operations in the Balkan’s and Afghanistan have afforded the military the opportunity to conduct IO and to document experiences and lessons from these real world operations. A number of experiments and exercises also have explored new military concepts that included the use of non-kinetic IO means of national power to influence adversary behavior and actions. This paper explores some of the challenges of executing and assessing IO courses of action including some observations regarding integration of IO into EBO. The insights and observations offered are based on the authors multiple experiences. Operationalizing IO is work in progress and much remains to be done to bridge policy, doctrine, applications and tools.