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SHAPING THE BATTLESPACE: INFORMATION OPERATIONS STRATEGY

Hat tip Rough Type:

Here is an interesting declassified DoD document from 2003 outlining ” Information Operations” a rubric under which the Pentagon has placed PSYOPS, Strategic Influence, Disinformation, Electromagnetic weapons of mass disruption, IT network defense, Cultural Intelligence, Public Diplomacy and some netwar analysis capability. Parts of the PDF are redacted but it doesn’t take too much imagination to fill in some of the blanks.

On the positive side, if you read between the lines you can see a growing familiarity with Boyd’s OODA loop on an institutional level as the Pentagon attempts to craft a coherently strategy to influence a battlespace composed of multiple audiences – elite, mass, Arab, American and European – all of whom filter media delivered information through different cognitive frames. Another positive is that obvious deficits in terms of cultural intelligence and the subsequent impact on PSYOPS are frankly admitted.

On the negative side, the document reads too much like the Pentagon is still trying to get a handle on the nature of IO itself and isn’t quite certain of the parameters here. IT network defense and cyberwarfare in general, or at least its technical and operational aspects would probably have been better served as the focus of a separate document.

Wonder what the classified follow up looks like. Particular after Titan Rain.

PROMETHEAN CONFLICTS

A good NSA wiretapping debate sparked by the Bobbitt article can be found at Prometheus6.

THE IRANIAN QUESTION

In a tactical diplomatic coup, the Bush administration has secured the consent of Russia and China to refer Iran’s suspected violations of the NPT to the UN Security Council. Previously, many experts expected that Russia – Iran’s major trading partner – and China would balk at such a move or threaten the use of their veto power.

Iran has done much of the heavy lifting in terms of isolating itself by using belligerent rhetoric, wanton obstructionism and the gratuitously offensive behavior of their fanatical president, but the Bush administration merits praise today.

Let’s see which of Bush’s habitual critics are big enough to admit it.

Prediction: Zero.

UPDATE:

Critic # 1

ADDENDUM:

Bill Petti weighs in at Duck of Minerva

Falling out as Dr. Barnett wargamed it ( or NewMapgamed it).

REWIRING THE LAW FOR THE MARKET-STATE

Dr. Philip Bobbitt, author of The Shield of Achilles, on NSA eavesdropping and terrorism in his NYT op-ed (hat tip Memeorandum):

“In the debate over whether the National Security Agency’s eavesdropping violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, we must not lose sight of the fact that the world we entered on 9/11 will require rewriting that statute and other laws. The tiresome pas de deux between rigid civil libertarians in denial of reality and an overaggressive executive branch seemingly heedless of the law, while comforting to partisans of both groups, is not in the national interest.

…Furthermore, not only are there presumably conspirators within the United States, but conversations between two foreign persons could be routed, via the Internet, through American switches to give the appearance of a domestic-to-international connection. It is difficult to imagine getting warrants now in such situations, because the standard of probable cause to conclude that the target is a terrorist cannot be met.”

Read the whole thing.

Members of paramilitary networks are not merely a random collection of individuals but are connected to an evolving, organizational entity with an institutional life that, while different in many ways, are not unlike states and corporations which have long had special status in both domestic and international law. Even members of organized crime, a less dangerous grouping than al Qaida, are subject to RICO prosecution.

Policies, laws and attitudes must change to reflect this reality.

ADDENDUM:

The esteemed Colonel Austin Bay has weighed in as well.

SUNDAY EVENING RECOMMENDED READING

Some well crafted pieces of blogging today. Some controversial, some commonsensical.

Marc Schulman at American Future – ” Surveillance and the eyes of al Qaeda “

Dan of tdaxp for his series on Liberal Education ( open up several Coronas) and read Part I, Part II, Part III and Part IV.

Ralph Peters in The Weekly Standard – ” The Counterrevolution in Military Affairs “

William Lind at DNI continues his series critiquing 4GW’s critics with ” The Ugly “

Curzon at Coming Anarchy – ” Scary China Part 1. Chirol and the Sino-Japanese War and ‘Saving Face'” ” and ” Scary China II. and ” Sacry China Part 2: Rationality Will Not Save You.

Blogfriend Stuart Berman has started a new IT security blog, aptly named – Security

From SEED – the Bush administration’s “New Federalism” in Big science and From New Scientist – a Robot to pour you a beer.

That’s it.