Customer Reviews

Information Operations: Warfare and the Hard Reality of Soft Power (Issues in Twenty-First Century Warfare)

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This is a first rate effort, but it is incomplete and overly U.S. centric. A new expanded edition is needed soonest.

For myself the best chapters were on "Intelligence Support: Foundations for Conducting IO" and "Information Projection: Shaping the Global Village." Other chapters on the language of IO, information protection, related and supporting activities, and implementing IO were good.

The most important point in this book from my point of view was its observation that modern war is only 15-25% military action, and the rest must be a unified national campaign that leverages all sources of national power **for which IO is the glue that provides the inter-agency coherence.** These authors understand and teach, very ably, how IO is at the heart of managing complex coalition contingency operations.

The book over-all shows a real appreciation for the role that must be played by non-military agencies, coalitions, and private sector organizations including religions, academics, and business as well as media personalities.

The discussion of the "information battlespace" is useful, as are the illustrations. There is an excellent "strategy to task" section helpful to anyone actually implementing IO.

The authors are to be commended for emphasizing that knowing the enemy is not enough--you must know yourself and be firmly grounded in reality rather than ideological fantasy, if the IO message is to have traction. The authors also address, diplomatically but directly, the limitations of the traditional insular military planning process (especially the secretive intelligence process), and clearly articulate the need for open processes that can embrace and leverage varied communities of interest, non-US as well as US.

The authors also raise an extremely important issue to which they cannot provide an answer, but which must be resolved sooner than later: the urgency of being able to educate Americans about global realities and threats, without being accused of propagandizing Americans. [This is one reason why Congressman Simmons, on both the House Armed Services Committee and the House Homeland Security Committee, is so important--he understands that the state intelligence centers and networks we are advocating can serve two functions: as bottom up dot collectors, and as disseminators of real world open source intelligence to the state and local publics.]

One minor nit: the authors assume that because most of the 9-11 hijackers had Saudi passports they were Saudi. My understanding is that they were a mixed bag with passports of convenience from Saudi Arabia for those who were not Saudi.

The book concludes with cursory attention to Russian, Chinese, and Australian IO doctrine and practices, and does not address Iranian, Indian, Pakistani, and Venezuelan-Cuban IO, which are of considerable importance.

The book, very understandably, does not spend a lot of time on Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) or the need to properly monitor all information in all languages all the time, but the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence has clearly articulated the need to do "universal coverage, 24/7, in all languages, at the neighbood level of granularity" (this is an abdiged paraphrase) and DoD appears well on its way to doing just that. I recommend that this book be read in conjunction with Max Manwaring and John Fishel's Uncomfortable Wars Revisited (International and Security Affairs Series) with Max Manwaring's edited work on The Search for Security: A U.S. Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century which emphasizes key moral messages; and my own IO book, Information Operations: All Information, All Languages, All the Time which focuses exclusively on information peacekeeping or the foreign language content side of IO, and has a comprehensive annotated bibliography. Specialty books that I recommend to IO practitioners include Larry Beinhart's Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin Robert Cialdini's Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Collins Business Essentials); Robert Parry's Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth' and John Hasling's The Audience, The Message, The Speaker with Public Speaking PowerWeb.

Finally, here's a book that cuts through the dense brush of information operations theory and reaches a clearing where the reader can truly discover the practical application of information operations. The list of contributors is impressive...and all have practical experience in information operations. A must read for practitioners of IO.

This is the most up-to-date book on Information Operations I've read. There are over a dozen contributors from the US, UK and Australia, all of whom have hands-on Information Operations experience. It is must reading for anyone serious about this important field of military operations.

Is it information security or information operations?
It is quite clear that we are looking at the two sides of the same coin. Increasing your own security is a defensive measure. Decreasing the security of your opponent is an offensive measure. You need both!
The book provides the expected introduction to the offensive side of information security. The discussed issues introduce the concept of how information is used as a force multiplier. The proliferation of information flow, outside the world governments, put these governments on the defensive rather on the offensive side. The long reaction time of a typical government aggravates this situation. The book cleverly furnishes the reasons and some of the means to develop the capabilities of information operations as a weapon and as a multiplier of force in the near and foreseen future.

The meaning of the tem `Information Operations' (IO) is still evolving, but it is generally recognized to be inextricably part of the concept of Network Centric Warfare which was made possible by what the U.S. Military refer to as the `Global Information Grid' (GID). Which is to say that the IO concept is essential to developing military strategy and force structure planning. So what is it? The simplest definition of IO that is currently in fashion would appear to be that it refers to techniques and actions that adversely affect an enemy's ability to collect, manage, and use information while defending ones own abilities in this regard.

All this is by way of introduction to this book, which although written by a committee of U.S. and Australian IO theorist and operators, is a pretty good over view of how IO works both in theory and, interestingly enough, in practice. The book makes perfectly valid claims that IO clearly must be based on effective intelligence production and good information systems. Ironically both defensive and offensive IO are dependant on access to accurate and timely information (knowledge) to be successful. In this context it was rather surprising that the book did not make more of an issue of the dangers of disinformation and corrupted information to IO success although it did discuss psychological warfare as an aspect of IO. Still the book is for now a good primer on IO and understanding the complexities of war in the 21st Century.

Yet this book is not the definitive statement on IO, rather it is another step on the road of the U.S. Military to transformation to force structures based on Network Centric Warfare. Incidentally for those interested in that concept I suggest they read "The Future of War" by Mark D. Mandeles (Amazon.com). A rather different but equally relevant view of IO can be found in "Information Operations' by Robert D. Steel (Amazon.com). Until the term `Information Operations' is finally established, it is a good idea to keep an open mind on what it means.

Info Ops: Warfare and Hard Reality of Soft Power is an awesome primer to information operations/information warfare (IO/IW). The book was originally written as a textbook for some high-level defense university classes, but has worked great as a layman's introduction to the field. In it you'll find many government agencies and the scope of their involvement in IO, great examples of IO/IW [save one example I'll mention later]

The book is the foundation to an IO/IW education, so it is a definite "must-purchase." Its low price may shy folks away, thinking its a "discount" overview - but that is a mistake in thinking, and maybe IO (deception) on the part of the publisher...

The one example of IO/IW I was disappointed in was mention of cyberspace exercises called Solar Sunrise and Elligible Receiver. The mainstream press have called them hoaxes or reporting blown out of proportion; the book does no better by using it as a "smoking gun" without the powder burns or shell casing. The mention of both exercises seem to be wrapped in the same mystery and hysteria as found on online conspiracy theory sites.

Other than that slight peeve, the book should be purchased to get the skinny on IO/IW.

I will admit that I have only read an excerpt from this book as part of my studies with the Naval War College. Based on the excerpt from Chapter 4, pp 137-162, I would not read the rest of this book. His discussion of what he terms "electronic combat" is poor at best, especially his complete lack of knowledge of suppression of enemy air defenses. As an EA-6B electronic countermeasures officer who was flying over Iraq during the timeframe this book is about, I can say this without a doubt. His only mention of SEAD weapons is the HARM missile. Despite mentioning the EA-6B Prowler, he completely fails to mention the RADAR jamming capabilities of that platform, which is a major part of SEAD. Also, it is odd that he includes the HARM as he mentions previously in the chapter that it is questionable whether delivery of kinetic weapons is an information operation. While he rightly discusses the borderless nature of the current conflicts, he then goes on to dismiss computer network attack with regard to Afghanistan because they did not have the infrastructure. How he reconciles the borderless discussion with the internet I have no idea since the computer infrastructure for the Taliban as well as Al-Qaeda does not have to be located within the borders of Afghanistan.

He does have some good points here and there, but overall, due to omissions and lack of knowledge on some topics, I would not read the rest of this book. There are other, better sources of information on this topic. A good bet would be something written by someone who was either in this business or actually contacted the military while doing his or her research.