I delivered this presentation at the EW Asia 2014 conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The presentation was directed primarily at an EW audience, in order to demonstrate the significance of Information Operations (as an integrative warfighting concept) to EW/spectrum operations professionals (as a core information-related capability within the Information Operations construct). The presentation concludes with an alert for the upcoming (August 2014) Association of Old Crows Australian Chapter Conference, to be held in Adelaide.

1. Information Operations:
What It Is and Why It MattersWhat It Is and Why It Matters
Presentation to AOC EW Asia 2014 Conference
Mr Jeff Malone
Defence Science and Technology Organisation
(Australia)

2. Scope
• The Origins and Evolution of Information
Operations
• The US Joint Approach to Information
OperationsOperations
• The Role of Electronic Warfare within
Information Operations
• Emerging Issues

3. The Origins and Evolution of
Information OperationsInformation Operations

4. Command Control Communications
Countermeasures (C3CM)
• Emerged in the late
1970s
• Based on identified
vulnerabilities in Soviet
C3I systems
• Integrative operational
concept
• Entailed both defensive
and offensive actions

5. Operation DESERT STORM: The First
Information War (?)
• First major employment
of C3CM
• Also entailed major
Psychological
Operations activities
• Presented a range of
synchronisation and
deconfliction issues

6. Information Warfare (IW) and
Command and Control Warfare (C2W)
• IW emerges in 1992 – initial definition TOP
SECRET
– Entailed strategic employment of Computer
Network Attack (CNA)
C2W emerges in 1993 – “the operational• C2W emerges in 1993 – “the operational
employment of IW on the battlefield”
– Adds Psychological Operations to the C3CM suite
of activities
– Like C3CM encompasses both offensive and
defensive actions

7. The Limitations of IW/C2W and the
Emergence of Information Operations (IO)
• Scope of IW/C2W problematic:
– Only applicable in warfighting?
– Only applicable against the Command and Control
target set?
– Only entails specified capabilities?– Only entails specified capabilities?
• By mid 1990s, IO emerges as a more
encompassing term (initially in US Army)
• Instantiated in joint doctrine in 1998
– Joint Publication 3-13, Information Operations
• IO remains the core term (in joint doctrine)

8. Trends in the Evolution of Information
Operations
• From warfighting only to applicability across
the spectrum of operations
• Expansion from C3I target set to human
decision making more generally (including thedecision making more generally (including the
systems which enable and support decision
making)
• Expansion in the range of information-based
capabilities to be integrated and deconflicted

9. The US Joint Approach to Information
OperationsOperations

10. IO: US Joint Doctrinal Definition
• “The integrated employment, during military
operations, of information-related capabilities
in concert with other lines of operation to
influence, disrupt, corrupt, or usurp theinfluence, disrupt, corrupt, or usurp the
decision-making of adversaries and potential
adversaries while protecting our own.”
Source: Joint Publication 3-13, Information Operations, 27 November 2012

11. Information-Related Capability (IRC)
• “A tool, technique, or activity employed within
a dimension of the information environment
that can be used to create effects and
operationally desirable conditions.”operationally desirable conditions.”
Source: Joint Publication 3-13, Information Operations, 27 November 2012

12. The Information Environment
Source: Joint Publication 3-13, Information Operations, 27 November 2012

13. Examples of IRCs
• Electronic Warfare (Electromagnetic Spectrum
Operations)
• Cyberspace Operations
• Operations Security• Operations Security
• Military Deception
• Psychological Operations
• Kinetic Targeting
• (and many others)
Source: Joint Publication 3-13, Information Operations, 27 November 2012

14. The Role of Electronic Warfare within
Information OperationsInformation Operations

15. Electronic Warfare
• “Military action involving the use of
electromagnetic and directed energy to
control the electromagnetic spectrum or to
attack the enemy.”attack the enemy.”
Source: Joint Publication 3-13.1, Electronic Warfare, 8 February 2012

16. Overview of Electronic Warfare
Source: Joint Publication 3-13.1, Electronic Warfare, 8 February 2012

17. Electronic Warfare and Other IRCs
• Cyberspace Operations
– Can provide a pathway for attacks on wireless networks (or deny them)
• Operations Security
– Electronic Protection contributes to overall defensive posture, from
platform to force level
• Military Deception• Military Deception
– Both a channel for conveying deception message and countering adversary
deception activities
• Psychological Operations
– Provides a channel for dissemination and blocking adversary dissemination
• Kinetic Targeting
– Provides actionable targets for attack
• Intelligence Support (common to all the above)
– Contributes to overall intelligence effort which supports planning,
operations and battle damage assessment/re-tasking

18. Emerging IssuesEmerging Issues

19. Access to Spectrum

20. Mobile Devices and Social Media

21. Precision Location and Timing

22. The Evolving Counter-IED Battle

23. Unmanned and Autonomous Systems

24. Directed Energy Weapons

25. ConclusionConclusion

26. EW-IO-Cyber-EMS Operations
Convergence and SynergiesConvergence and Synergies
Hotel Grand Chancellor Adelaide,
South Australia, 18-19 August 2014