Defining the Information Within Military Information Operations

The current operating environment requires the United States military to conduct military information operations throughout the conflict spectrum, during all phases, and across various military operations. A function of the U.S. military is to deter adversaries who oppose the will of the U.S., and if unsuccessful, render them incapable of physical resistance, thus ultimately altering their behavior. In essence, the U.S. military wishes to alter tangible and intangible variables in any system to gain an advantage. As the U.S. military increases its reliance on information and its supporting infrastructures, the threat will continue to become more sophisticated, clandestine, and complex. Therefore, military commanders and their staffs should develop sophisticated approaches to describe, classify, and then explain essential elements within the information environment, particularly when conducting counterinsurgency operations (COIN). The commanders' analysis of the information environment is critical and will be challenged by anonymous adversaries, and their remote geographic locations and access points coupled with inexpensive "off the shelf," simple technology. These factors require a significant demand for accurate and reliable information for mission planning and execution for combat operating forces. The research presented in this work examines the Indian government's response to counterinsurgency through the categories of information defined by the author. The author's definition of information focuses on how decision-makers, mainly military commanders, assign value to information within and extracted from the information environment. The definition is an attempt to add clarity to the broad meanings found in the FM and JP 3-13 doctrine for Information Operations.