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The Information Operations Roadmap is a document commissioned by the Pentagon in 2003 and declassified in January 2006. The document was personally approved by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, [1] and describes the United States Military's approach to Information operations, with an emphasis on the Internet.[ citation needed ]
Donald Henry Rumsfeld was an American politician, government official and businessman who served as Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under president Gerald Ford, and again from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. He was both the youngest and the oldest secretary of defense. Additionally, Rumsfeld was a three-term U.S. Congressman from Illinois (1963–1969), director of the Office of Economic Opportunity (1969–1970), counselor to the president (1969–1973), the U.S. Representative to NATO (1973–1974), and the White House Chief of Staff (1974–1975). Between his terms as secretary of defense, he served as the CEO and chairman of several companies.
The Office of Strategic Influence, or OSI, was a department created by the United States Department of Defense on October 30, 2001, to support the War on Terrorism through psychological operations in targeted countries, which did not include the United States because the Pentagon is barred from PSYOPs in the U.S. However, BBC noted that "there is nothing to stop an American newspaper picking up a story carried abroad" in cases of news stories that were "black propaganda" with deliberately "misleading" information planted by the Pentagon under OSI.
Information warfare (IW) is a concept involving the battlespace use and management of information and communication technology (ICT) in pursuit of a competitive advantage over an opponent. Information warfare is the manipulation of information trusted by a target without the target's awareness so that the target will make decisions against their interest but in the interest of the one conducting information warfare. As a result, it is not clear when information warfare begins, ends, and how strong or destructive it is. Information warfare may involve the collection of tactical information, assurance(s) that one's information is valid, spreading of propaganda or disinformation to demoralize or manipulate the enemy and the public, undermining the quality of the opposing force's information and denial of information-collection opportunities to opposing forces. Information warfare is closely linked to psychological warfare.
Psychological warfare (PSYWAR), or the basic aspects of modern psychological operations (PsyOp), have been known by many other names or terms, including Military Information Support Operations (MISO), Psy Ops, political warfare, "Hearts and Minds", and propaganda. The term is used "to denote any action which is practiced mainly by psychological methods with the aim of evoking a planned psychological reaction in other people".
Black propaganda is a form of propaganda intended to create the impression that it was created by those it is supposed to discredit. Black propaganda contrasts with gray propaganda, which does not identify its source, as well as white propaganda, which does not disguise its origins at all. It is typically used to vilify or embarrass the enemy through misrepresentation.
The defense readiness condition (DEFCON) is an alert state used by the United States Armed Forces.
Unconventional warfare (UW) is broadly defined as "military and quasi-military operations other than conventional warfare" and may use covert forces, subversion, or guerrilla warfare. This is typically done to avoid escalation into conventional warfare as well as international conventions.
The United States Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command (Airborne), USACAPOC(A), or CAPOC was founded in 1985 and is headquartered at Fort Liberty, North Carolina. USACAPOC(A) is composed mostly of U.S. Army Reserve Soldiers in units throughout the United States. The size of the Command is nearly 13,500 Soldiers, which is 76% of the Department of Defense's Civil Affairs forces and 63% of Psychological Operations forces. The current Commanding General is Major General Isaac Johnson Jr., who assumed command in August 2022.
The Directorate of Operations (DO), less formally called the Clandestine Service, is a component of the US Central Intelligence Agency. It was known as the Directorate of Plans from 1951 to 1973; as the Directorate of Operations from 1973 to 2005; and as the National Clandestine Service (NCS) from 2005 to 2015.
In the United States, propaganda is spread by both government and media entities. Propaganda is carefully curated information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread. It is used in advertising, radio, newspaper, posters, books, television, films and other media. Propagandists may provide either factual or non-factual information to their audiences, often emphasizing positive features and downplaying negative ones, or vice versa, in order to shape wide scale public opinion or influence behavioral changes.
Psychological operations (PSYOP) are operations to convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influence their motives, and objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and large foreign powers.
The Pentagon rapid response operation was a public relations initiative by the United States Department of Defense to "quickly respond to news media stories critical of ... the Iraq War, as well as other stories the Defense Department leadership doesn't like."
The United States Africa Command, is one of the eleven unified combatant commands of the United States Department of Defense, headquartered at Kelley Barracks, Stuttgart, Germany. It is responsible for U.S. military operations, including fighting regional conflicts and maintaining military relations with 53 African nations. Its area of responsibility covers all of Africa except Egypt, which is within the area of responsibility of the United States Central Command. U.S. AFRICOM headquarters operating budget was $276 million in fiscal year 2012.
National governments deal in both intelligence and military special operations functions that either should be completely secret, or simply cannot be linked to the sponsor. It is a continuing and unsolved question for governments whether clandestine intelligence collection and covert action should be under the same agency. The arguments for doing so include having centralized functions for monitoring covert action and clandestine HUMINT and making sure they do not conflict, as well as avoiding duplication in common services such as cover identity support, counterespionage, and secret communications. The arguments against doing so suggest that the management of the two activities takes a quite different mindset and skills, in part because clandestine collection almost always is on a slower timeline than covert action.
Informatized warfare of China is the implementation of information warfare (IW) within the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and other organizations affiliated or controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Laid out in the Chinese Defence White Paper of 2008, informatized warfare includes the utilization of information-based weapons and forces, including battlefield management systems, precision-strike capabilities, and technology-assisted command and control (C4ISR). However, some media and analyst report also uses the term to describe the political and espionage effort from the Chinese state.
National Security Decision Directive 77, was a U.S. National Security Directive signed on January 14, 1983, by President Ronald Reagan. The directive established a Special Planning Group (SPG) under the National Security Council (NSC) whose purpose was to strengthen, organize, plan, and coordinate public diplomacy of the United States relative to national security. This NSDD positioned the White House and the National Security Staff at the helm of public diplomacy coordination across government agencies. NSDD-77 lay the groundwork for the Reagan administration's aggressive public diplomacy strategy and included guidance for inter-agency working groups to execute wide-ranging tactics for information dissemination both domestically and internationally.
Information Operations is a category of direct and indirect support operations for the United States Military. By definition in Joint Publication 3-13, "IO are described as the integrated employment of electronic warfare (EW), computer network operations (CNO), psychological operations (PSYOP), military deception (MILDEC), and operations security (OPSEC), in concert with specified supporting and related capabilities, to influence, disrupt, corrupt or usurp adversarial human and automated decision making while protecting our own." Information Operations (IO) are actions taken to affect adversary information and information systems while defending one's own information and information systems. In the U.S. Navy, information operations are often supervised by a Navy Information Operations Command (NIOC), for example in the United States Tenth Fleet which has several NIOCs.
Political warfare is the use of political means to compel an opponent to do one's will, based on hostile intent. The term political describes the calculated interaction between a government and a target audience, including another state's government, military, and/or general population. Governments use a variety of techniques to coerce certain actions, thereby gaining relative advantage over an opponent. The techniques include propaganda and psychological operations ("PsyOps"), which service national and military objectives respectively. Propaganda has many aspects and a hostile and coercive political purpose. Psychological operations are for strategic and tactical military objectives and may be intended for hostile military and civilian populations.
The 151st Theater Information Operations Group, or 151st TIOG, is an Information Operations formation of the United States Army Reserve, headquartered at Fort Totten, New York. Founded in 2009, the 151st TIOG is the only Theater Information Operations Group in the U.S. Army Reserve. It is composed mostly of Army Reserve Soldiers in two battalions based out of Parks Reserve Forces Training Area, Fort George G. Meade, and Fort Totten. The current commander is Colonel Marlene Markotan, who assumed command in July 2019.
"Three warfares" is an official political and information non-kinetic warfare strategy of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) employing media or public opinion warfare, psychological warfare, and legal warfare. Promulgated as work regulations, the "three warfares" was set forth in the amended Political Work Regulations of the PLA in 2003.