This monograph examines the integration of Information Operations (IO) during Operations Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Iraqi Freedom (OIF). As a rule, most commanders considered IO ineffective because IO was unable to respond to the complex environments of Afghanistan and Iraq. This monograph examines how the Army prepared commanders to integrate IO into operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Both theaters offer good examples of how commanders integrated IO effectively and how commanders failed to integrate IO effectively.

There are essentially three issues commanders must confront to integrate IO: doctrine, intelligence support to IO and resourcing the IO efforts.

First, Army doctrine does not provide commanders adequate guidance for integrating IO into their operations. Doctrine presents IO in a disjointed manner and as a function that is essentially separate from the commander’s other requirements and missions, not as something that must be integrated into all his requirements and missions.

Second, IO requires proper intelligence support to be effective, but intelligence doctrine and resourcing do not allow intelligence support to IO to be effective. Intelligence doctrine provides little practical guidance on support to IO and intelligence processors and analysts are currently unprepared to provide the in depth analysis of the information environment IO requires.

Third, the Army has not resourced itself to conduct IO in an effective manner. There are currently only sixty percent of the required IO officers in the Army. None of the Army Battle Command Systems (ABCS) can adequately portray the information environment, nor can they process the reporting that would allow them to analyze and portray the information environment. Professional Military Education and unit training programs do not stress IO as an integrated function and do not present commanders with realistic situations in which they must achieve success in the information environment. As a result of these three issues with the Army’s concept of IO, commanders just do not understand how to integrate IO.

After examining why and how commanders were unable to integrate IO effectively, this monograph will provide a series of recommendations that if implemented will help prepare commanders for the task of integrating IO. Those recommendations include doctrinal changes and modifications, organizational changes, training requirements, material resourcing requirements, leadership and education requirements, and personnel resourcing requirements. Some of these recommendations are already in the process of being implemented, others could be implemented relatively quickly, while the remaining recommendations will need more detailed study to fully implement so as to make long-term changes in the Army and how the Army prepares commanders to integrate IO.

The appendices provide the reader with more detailed information on IO that could not realistically be included in the length requirements of this monograph. While reading them is not essential to understanding the issues presented in the monograph, the appendices do help inproviding more depth or understanding of the subjects presented in the main body of the monograph. These appendices discuss the relationship of Public Affairs to IO, provides an overview of IO organizational and equipment capabilities of the units identified in the main body of the monograph and provides a more detailed breakdown of the various units which served in OEF and OIF.

The full monograph is available from Secrecy News.