Content area
Full Text
Assessing the effectiveness of an information operation is one of the greatest challenges facing a staff. Despite the evolution of information operations (IO) doctrine and the refinement of supporting tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), the Army has not solved the problem of IO assessment methodology. The question remains: lacking physical evidence, how can we quantify the intangible attributes of the information environment to assess the effectiveness of IO?
This article addresses the matter of quantifying the effectiveness of IO. Then it presents a methodology for developing measures of effectiveness (MOEs) to ascertain IO effects on friendly and enemy forces.
Statement of the Problem
Why is assessing the impact of IO so difficult? First, the information environment is an abstract construct, and IO operates within that construct. According to Joint Publication 1-02, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, the "information environment" is the aggregate of individuals, organizations, or systems that collect, process, or disseminate information. Also included in the information environment is information itself. Thus, the information environment is a combination of physical assets (e.g., information systems) and nonphysical concepts (e.g., information, information-based processes, and human decisionmaking processes). IO attacks and protects the physical assets of information systems to affect the nonphysical aspects of the information environment. Transitioning from visible effects resulting from destruction of tangible assets such as command posts (CPs) and radar systems to abstract effects such as disrupted information flow and degraded decisionmaking is a challenging task.
Second, not all of IO's capabilities reside in the physical world. While physical destruction is tangible enough, many capabilities include nonphysical aspects-operations security (OPSEC), electronic warfare (EW), military deception, psychological operations (PSYOPs), etc. For IO purposes, the effects ultimately produced by these elements should occur in the intangible domain of ideas, perceptions, and attitudes. Capturing data or information to measure such nonphysical effects is difficult and often time-consuming, requiring a depth of analysis that seems impossible during high-tempo operations.
Third, an integrated IO campaign achieves a complex, tiered hierarchy of effects (see Figure 1). The attack on or protection of physical assets (information systems) yields what one can call "first-order effects," such as the destruction, degradation, and disruption of enemy signal nodes and CPs, or perhaps the presentation of false observables for collection...