Thesis - Information Operations in Strategic, Operational, and Tactical Levels of War

IO seeks to integrate and synchronize information related capabilities with maneuver to target the enemy’s decision-making cycle

The Battle of Big Hole in 1877 demonstrated well the dynamics of communication, strategy, and risk assessment in every stage of the battle, from the gathering of information to the aftermath of the slaughter. The materials of gathering intelligence, for example, can literally make or break the matter of mission completion. In this case, communication between commanders aided in U.S. Army in cutting off the path to Canada for the fleeing Nez Perce Native Americans.

The Battle of Big Hole in 1877 demonstrated well the dynamics of communication, strategy, and risk assessment in every stage of the battle, from the initial gathering of information to the aftermath of the slaughter. The materials of gathering intelligence, for example, can literally make or break the matter of mission completion. In this case, communication between commanders aided in U.S. Army in cutting off the path to Canada for the fleeing Nez Perce Native Americans.

The Battle at Midway was a critical turning point of the war in the Pacific during World War II. Attribution to American success is in direct relation to their ability to conduct signal collection and crypto-analysis leading to the battle. The elimination of this capability from consideration during the preparation for this battle will drastically influence the outcome. Through critical reasoning and battle analysis, this paper will determine the level of effect of the capability. The analysis will also seek to understand the change in outcome as a result of this change to history. The product of this analysis will be a thorough understanding of the importance of intelligence capability to United States success during World War II.

Intelligence gathering and collection in the United States has significantly increased over time. This paper examines how intelligence reporting and pre-mission planning was crucial to the success of the United Nations involvement at The Battle of Inchon during the Korean War. By examining how intelligence played a role in this battle, you will be able to understand why it is important to gather and collect intelligence prior to every mission executed. Intelligence collection should be the baseline for all military operations. Inchon Landing has an ample amount of actionable intelligence; collected and disseminated appropriately we will discuss how it played a role in a low probability mission accomplishment to the last great amphibious assault in history. This paper provides detailed explanations on why The Battle of Inchon was a success and what could have been the outcome had it gone the other way.

In the future, technology and digital systems will continue to play an important role in how the United States Army fights and wins our nation’s wars. As technology improves and becomes an increasingly integral part of every Army system, it is important that leaders maintain the ability to fight and win without these benefits. Over reliance on digital systems and unfettered information is a weakness that our enemies will exploit on future battlefields. Ukraine learned this lesson very devastatingly in the recent annexation of Crimea. In order to safeguard the trust emplaced on leaders by the American people, it is a lesson not repeated by the US

Our nation’s military continuously evolves to ensure success in future operations. This change is only be possible if our top leaders work in concert towards a common goal. The purpose of this document is to highlight how General Stanley McChrystal changed the manner in which the U.S. Military operates and communicates in an ever-changing environment.

While a commander’s staff conducts planning at any level, whether it is strategic, operational, or tactical, the importance of identifying both theirs and the adversary’s center of gravity (COG) is a critical part of the planning process. Three factors should be carefully analyzed in order to gain a full understanding of the COG; they are critical capabilities, critical requirements and critical vulnerabilities (U.S. Office of the CJCS 11 August 2011, III-24). Although a COG can be attacked directly, the indirect approach which seeks to destroy or neutralize the COG by attacking an adversary’s critical vulnerabilities can be a more efficient use of available resources. The United States Marine Corps’ Warfighting publication MCDP 1 draws a direct correlation between a COG and its critical vulnerability by stating, “we should focus our efforts against a critical vulnerability, a vulnerability that, if exploited, will do the most significant damage to the enemy 's ability to resist us” (United States Marine Corps 1997, 47). The Marine Corps favors the indirect approach to defeating an adversary’s COG because the functions assigned to them by the Department of Defense (DoD) require expeditionary operations and expeditionary forces typically are limited in size, assets, and resources driving them to target an adversary’s critical vulnerabilities.

Freeman Teague Jr. effectively expresses the importance and complexity of communication. At one time the U.S. Army defined communication as the exchange and flow of information and ideas from one person to another; it involves a sender transmitting an idea, information, or feeling to a receiver (Clark, 2015). Throughout this paper we will expound on key communication failures that were exposed during Operation Anaconda. The overall verdict is that Anaconda’s outcome was a success, but its original plan was a resounding failure. Many things contributed to the failure, but this paper will focus on the communication aspect.

The Battle of Midway was a critical turning point of the war in the Pacific during World War II. Attribution to American success is in direct relation to their ability to conduct signal collection and crypto-analysis leading to the battle. The elimination of this capability from consideration during the preparation for this battle will drastically influence the outcome. Through critical reasoning and battle analysis, this paper will determine the level of effect of the capability. The analysis will also seek to understand the change in outcome as a result of this change in history. The product of this analysis will be a thorough understanding of the importance of intelligence capability to United States success during World War II.

A guided response paper presented to the faculty of the U.S. Army War College, in partial satisfaction of the requirements of the Theory of War and Strategy (TWS) course.

This paper provides an evaluation of the command and control and integration of joint functions associated with the invasion of Sicily, known as Operation HUSKY. The Allies achieved a positive outcome despite the fact that key leaders demonstrated ineffective command and control capabilities and poor integration. The paper will first evaluate the joint function of command and control, using the three attributes of mission command from joint doctrine: commander’s intent, mutual trust, and understanding. An evaluation of the integration of intelligence and fires joint functions at the Operational level will follow.

According to Milan Vego in, Joint Operational Warfare: Theory and Practice, he defined Operational Art as, “a component of military art concerned with the theory and practice of planning, preparing, conducting, and sustaining campaigns and major operations aimed at accomplishing strategic or operational objectives in a given theater.” (p. I-4) Even though I am not in the business of defining the term Operational Art, I would still suggest amongst all of the various definitions that I have read this one definition by Vego appears to be practicable and serves its purpose well. For any military action, there must be planning, sustaining, executing of a mission such that theater objectives are met. In other words, a belligerents Center of Gravity must be identified through means of military and policy actions to obtain success.

Irregular warfare has become the centre of much military and academic study in recent years, due mostly to the ongoing NATO operations in Afghanistan. However irregular warfare is by no means a recent revelation in the evolution of warfare and strategy, numerous examples exist throughout history in which irregular warfare tactics and strategy have been adopted and later analysed by academics and military professionals. This author will focus on the key issues that governments face in creating effective strategies for irregular warfare with a particular emphasis on counter-insurgency (COIN) and terrorism. Resources such as time, space, legitimacy and support present themselves as key issues in dealing with insurgency and terrorism and are

As the future of warfare becomes more sophisticated, what will be the military technology of tomorrow? The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, believes that there are three possible answers to that question: nuclear warfare, biological/chemical warfare, or cyber warfare. While nuclear and biological warfare is conducted on a battlefield, cyber warfare operates via the Internet and computers. All of these weapons have the same destructive potential, but the circumstances surrounding