Armchair Dragoons Forums
The Reference Desk => Organizations, Vehicles, Equipment => Topic started by: bayonetbrant on January 16, 2020, 12:49:54 PM
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This is a pretty good read, with some real-world examples
https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/January-February-2020/Kelly-Info-warfighting/ (https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/January-February-2020/Kelly-Info-warfighting/)
Combat power is comprised of eight elements: the six warfighting functions (command and control, movement and maneuver, intelligence, fires, sustainment, and protection) with the addition of information and leadership (see figure).
The warfighting functions provide structure for commanders and staffs to plan and execute operations. Army Doctrine Publication (ADP) 5-0, The Operations Process, states, “The staff … integrates forces and warfighting functions to accomplish the mission.”
In the current model, commanders achieve battlefield effects using the warfighting functions, while information and leadership simply aid in the optimal application of these functions. Field Manual 3-13, Information Operations, defines information operations (IO) as “the integrated employment … of information-related capabilities (IRCs) in concert with other lines of operation to influence, disrupt, corrupt, or usurp the decision-making of adversaries and potential adversaries while protecting our own.”
Examples of some of these IRCs are military deception, civil affairs operations, and cyberspace operations.8 Information operations are currently listed as staff tasks under the intelligence and fires warfighting functions.
However, IO is rapidly exceeding the bounds of tasks already required of these two functions. The rapid developments in information technology have induced newfound importance and relevance of information on the twenty-first-century battlefield. This article demonstrates the increasingly important role of information in warfare and the subsequent necessity of elevating information to a warfighting function.