Non-Kinetic Power - Psychological Warfare Concepts
Information operations (IO) is a "soft power" strategy, using integrated and coordinated information or information systems, to disrupt or influence the decision making of adversaries to gain strategic advantage while promoting your own interests. To gain an understanding of what IO means, I looked for commonalities among various research materials. The fact that IO is "soft power" ( as opposed to hard power) can be found in both Nye( Nye, 1990), and Army Primer (Murphy,2011). This means that this strategy is "non kinetic" and does not include physical coercion, or the use of violence.
The goal, or the "what" of IO is to disrupt or influence another adversaries decision making. This can be found several places, including Paul, Army Primer, and Nye. Both Paul and Army Primer use the term " influence, disrupt, corrupt of usurpt", adversaries decision making. Each article explains that the goal is to gain strategic advantage or promote our own interests without using physical options. This element can be found in Nye, Army Primer, and Paul. Essentially, IO is the movement and direct use of information to gain advantage which gives you influence over another party.
Before describing functionalities, there are two concepts that should be defined before moving forward. These are propaganda, and strategic communication. I would briefly like to touch upon the negative connotation of propaganda. No matter how the idea of the "influencing" of information sounds to the individual, it would be beneficial to leave the difference between information and propaganda undefined (Paul, 2008). Strategic communication can be defined as the desired "way" information is wielded in accordance with that strategy( Murphy, 2011).
There are several functions of IO. First, one quality of IO is integration. This means involvement of both information systems and military organization (DoD,DHS, etc.). There must be connectivity of information and dissemination throughout organizations, along with method of uniform "strategic communication". IO can function several ways, for instance, it can be broken up into PSYOP, MILDEC, OPSEC, EW, and CNO (Nye, 1990). Army Primer breaks up these functionalities as well, but adds MISO ( Military information support Operations, which is planned operations to convey selected information) (Murphy, 2011). PSYOP refers to psychological operations that are used dating back to the 1960's (Paul, 2008). An example includes using fake propaganda, planned radio broadcast and information leaflet drops. MILDEC is Military Deception, which includes, very literally deception in wartime. An example is the Trojan horse of Operation Fortitude.
MILDEC deliberately misleads adversaries (Murphy, 2011). OPSEC is operations security, and that is "the process of identifying critical information and subsequently analyzing friendly action attendant to military operations" (Murphy, 2011). According to Army Primer, electronic warfare (EW) is " any military action involving the use of electromagnetic and directed energy to dominate the electromagnetic spectrum or to attack the enemy. A current example is the development of the Army's new Cyber branch. Lastly, CNO is computer network operations, which defends against computer, and computer networking attack.
Historical records clearly indicate the advantage of Non-Kinetic or soft power use of influence coupled with technology. Although applications are more indicative of war, peacetime application is also readily apparent and most likely more common in our contemporary and complicit insouciant society.
References:
Cialdini, Robert (2009). Influence: Science and Practice. Boston: Pearson. p. 117.
Paul, Christopher. 2008. Information Operations: Doctrine and Practice. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Murphy, Dennis (2011). Information Operations Primer: Fundamentals of Information Operations. U.S. Army War College, Carlisle PA.
Nye, Joeph (1990). Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power. New York: Basic Books, Kindle edition