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If this is the key assumption of the roadmap, and IO theory in general,
then we have been wasting lots of time and money. Information has always
been the key ingredient of our operating environment, as essential as the air we
breathe. Highlighting the importance of information in this manner underscores
a problem with US military culture—it is composed of a lot of elements, and
one of these is unintended soundbites. Often, however, we fail to look beyond
the tip of the last letter in the bite and question its utility or authenticity. We
accept terms at face value when we should be questioning or reevaluating them
often. We simply can’t become prisoners to the theory of unquestioning
acceptance. Appendix Two of this work, an article on the US soundbite
“asymmetric warfare,” demonstrates this fact more explicitly and shows that
other nations do not understand the term asymmetric warfare as the US does. In
fact, there are almost as many definitions of asymmetric warfare as there are
teachers and writers describing it.
Due to our terminology and paradigm faults, our military analysts may
have missed several of the cyber-associated issues of this decade such as
cybermobilization, cyberrecruiting, and cybermanipulation. Instead our analysts
are focused on the more traditional terms of operational security, PSYOP,
deception, and electronic warfare as core capabilities and the baggage inherent
in them. Only computer network operations (CNO), the fifth core capability, is
relevant and able to describe the complexity of the current operating
environment. Unfortunately, the US military examines CNO primarily from an
attack and defend paradigm. Of more relevance would be new terms such as
CYOP (the mix of psychological operations and cyber capabilities),
CYFORMATION (the union of computers and information), CYTRONIC (the
integration of computers and electronics), and other related terms. The “cy”
prefix indicates the Cyber Age (the ability of computer chips to allow us to
access and share information) and distinguishes it from just the use of
information. Such a designation would help us extricate ourselves from the
information paradigm. The complexity and richness of cybernetics disappears
in the term IO which is far too simplistic to represent all that is happening.
The ability of insurgents to cybermobilize their compatriots is key to
understanding some of their success. Mobilization is the foundation for an
insurgency as laid out in US insurgency doctrine, yet we very seldom, if ever,
discuss this idea. Focus is on the offensive aspect of an insurgency. Are we
overlooking these areas and concepts due to our reliance on the wrong
paradigm? One would think so. Our troops in Iraq, facing an environment much
more complex than this simple explanation, are certainly affected by it.
It is not, of course, that the other four IO capabilities do not involve
digital processes. On the contrary, the author recognizes, and is amazed by, the
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