“Information war in full battle array is the use of all the tools of national power to create a competitive advantage at the national strategic level. ” As adversaries continue to learn how to leverage new technology in order to gain an advantage in the Information environment, there has to be adjustments in strategic planning. The Secretary of Defense now characterizes Information Operations (IO) as “the integrated employment, during military operations, of IRCs in concert with other lines of operations to influence, disrupt, corrupt or usurp the decision making of adversaries and potential adversaries while protecting our own. ”
Joint Publication 3.13 defines IRC as tools, techniques, or activities that impact the physical, informational and cognitive dimensions of the information environment. This is done by affecting the
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Military Deception (MILDEC)
Military Deception (MILDEC) is documented thought out the annals of history as a crucial strategy in fighting wars. Even SunTzu, in his book the Art of War written 2500 years ago, emphasizes “successful war follows the path of deception….in carrying out your military operations, give the appearance of being sucked into the enemy’s plan whilst actually targeting their exposed flank. ”
MILDEC, by affecting the adversary’s decision making process, is a part of Information Operations and one of the IRCs that supports the commander’s objectives. MILDEC can be described “as actions executed to deliberately mislead adversary decision makers, creating conditions that will contribute to the accomplishment of the friendly mission. ” It is designed to cause the adversary to behave in a manner advantageous to the friendly mission, such as misallocation of resources, attacking at a time and place advantageous to friendly forces, or avoid taking action at
For many centuries, the art of deception has been a powerful tool for achieving goals, and it has spawned the ancient debate of the ends justifying the means. In the tragedy Philoctetes by Sophocles and in Hesiod's Theogony, there are many instances of deception, particularly on the part of men in the texts. For each of them, the deceit is justified as a means of building and maintaining a reputation or obtaining power. Ultimately, however, the use of deception results in putting the men in positions of further vulnerability.
Many people will argue that honesty will make a person go far in life; however, people who practice artifice succeed substantially. Artifice is a clever or artful skill especially used to trick or deceive others. In the excerpt Empire of Illusion, Chris Hedges states that,” The most essential skill in political theater and a consumer culture is artifice.” I profoundly agree with Hedges’ position on artifice.
In the books All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque and The Wars by Timothy Findley, there is clear evidence of the nature of war. With all the efforts of preparation, discipline, and anticipation, false hopes were created for the young individuals, who leave the battlefields with numerous emotional and physical scars. The propaganda and disciplinary training to convince naïve young men to go to battle to fight for their country, the death of their comrades, and the physical breakdown are all part of twentieth century warfare.
Falsehood could be a useful evil in politic, because, apparently, by means of falsehood, the risk of social turmoil could be efficiently minimized or even eliminated. Thus, the ultimate good of the whole,
...suade the reader to think or feel a certain way but this in itself is another lie. Telling a true war story is about convincing someone of the inconvincible, to make them believe the unbelievable. That's why a series of half-truths and exaggerations are each a small part of the truth. The truth is an enigmatic cloud, a mystery; at its very core is truth. This truth can never be obtained, only hinted upon. The ideas that make up this cloud are each different yet circle a similar theme, which is the real truth. Some of these concepts may be at opposite ends and completely dissimilar but are each a part of the truth. Therefore each may be independently untrue, but the coalescence of these fabrications is in essence the only real truth.
Tzu, Mo. Against Offensive Warfare. Ed. Michael Austin. Reading the World: Ideas that Matter. 2nd ed. New York: Norton, 2010. 254-255. Print.
In today’s operational environments, the U.S. Army is facing a range of problems and mission sets that are arguably more complex than previously encountered. Forces face an array of demands that encompass geo-political, social, cultural, and military factors that interact in unpredictable ways. The inherent complexity of today’s operations has underscored the need for the Army to expand beyond its traditional approach to operational planning. In March 2010 in FM 5-0: The Operations
In Hedges' first chapter of the book titled, "The Myth of War," he talks about how the press often shows and romanticizes certain aspects of war. In war there is a mythic reality and a sensory reality. In sensory reality, we see events for what they are. In mythic reality, we see defeats as "signposts on the road to ultimate victory" (21), Chris Hedges brings up an intriguing point that the war we are most used to seeing and hearing about (mythic war )is a war completely different than the war the soldiers and journalists experience ( sensory war), a war that hides nothing. He states, "The myth of war is essential to justify the horrible sacrifices required in war, the destruction and death of innocents. It can be formed only by denying the reality of war, by turning the lies, the manipulation, the inhumanness of war into the heroic ideal" (26). Chris Hedges tries to get the point across that in war nothing is as it seems. Through his own experiences we are a...
People face ethical dilemmas every day. But it is perhaps, most prevalent in the law enforcement profession. Law enforcement officers face ethical dilemmas constantly. Some of the ethical issues that police face each day are: racial profiling, officer discretion, police officer loyalty, police officer abuse, and interrogatory deception. This paper will discuss the purpose of interrogatory deception, ways in which it is used, some of the current debates over the practice, and a landmark ruling in the Miranda case of 1966 which attempted to cease the use of intimidation and coercion practices of the police.
The DIA started in 1958. The organizational structure of the DoD and U.S. foreign intelligence came to a new shape with the establishment of DIA. It was Robert McNamara, then Secretary of Defense, who came up with the concept of DIA in 1961. DIA gathers human source intelligence, analyzes technical intelligence, distributes intelligence/reports to the intelligence agencies, provides advice and support to the Joint Chiefs of Staff with foreign military intelligence, and provides military intelligence to combatant commands as its operational functions. A DIA director is supposed to be a three-star military general and DIA is believed to have employed at least 7,500 staff worldwide today. The DIA is a defense intelligence agency that prevents strategic surprises and delivers a decision advantage to warfighters, defense planners, and to policymakers. This paper will try to evaluate DIA’s role in US national security in present condition of massive budget deficits and increased congressional oversight, plus the intelligence capabilities of the Regional Combatant Commanders and the individual services like CIA and NSA.
In colonial and revolutionary literature, people were persuasive. To persuade someone is to cause someone to something through reasoning or argument. That's how people got what they wanted. Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson were all persuasive writers. They wrote with rhetorical questions, repetition, exaggeration, and emotional appeal.
“We all fight on two fronts, the one facing the enemy, the other facing what we do to the enemy” (Boyden 199).
Leaders today need to have an appreciation for the operation process, understand a situation, envision a desired future, and to lay out an approach that will achieve that future (Flynn & Schrankel, 2013). Plans need to be created that can be modified to changes in any factors considered. However, plans should not be dependent on specific information being precise or that require things to go exactly according to schedule. Instead, the staff NCO should be flexible where they can and always be prepared for the unexpected. Today’s military members are fighting an unconventional war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The enemy constantly changes their tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP’s) to counter the United States technological advances, making planning very difficult for leaders. There are multiple tools at a staff NCO’s disposal to try to anticipate an outcome of a current operation, but also assist with the development of concepts in follow-on missions. The Military Decision Making Process (MDMP) is just one tool a staff NCO can utilize. In order to stay ahead of the enemy, create effective plans and orders, it is critical for a staff NCO to assist the commander, and understand that the MDMP and planning are essential in defeating the enemy and conserving the fighting force.
“The trouble is that a praise worthy quest for precision can descend into a flattering of tidy minds at the cost of a realistic grasp of the complexity and interconnectedness that is the story of strategic history.” Colin Gray warns in the opening sentences of the chapter “Irregular Warfare and Terrorism” in his book Another Bloody Century of the dangers of oversimplifying the categories of warfare. To look at warfare as either regular or irregular without being absolutely clear on the definitions of each and the context in which the terms are used is fruitless. Regular forces have been known to use irregular type tactics just as irregular forces have used conventional warfare to reach their political goals. It is imperative then, that the U.S. military forces are trained to fight wars falling on a spectrum of warfare and educated to distinguish the type of war they face. In order to protect national security interests as outlined in the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review, the U.S. armed forces must rebalance and be capable of conducting operations across the spectrum of conflict in order to win against both a regular and irregular adversary, combating a wide scope of tactics and strategies ranging from terror tactics to full scale, multi-phased conflict against a peer or near peer by maximizing the capability of the force and nation.
Olender, Michael. “Keeping Pace with Cyber Power, Defense, and Warfare.” Journal of International and Global Studies 6.2 (2015): 55+. Academic OneFile. Web. 5 Oct. 2015.