Number 132, November 1997

**Information Dominance**

**by Martin C. Libicki**

**Conclusions**- Information dominance may be defined as superiority in the generation, manipulation, and    use of information sufficient to afford its possessors  military  dominance.
- It has three sources:

- Command and control that permits everyone to know *where* they (and their  cohorts) are in the battlespace, and enables them to execute operations *when*and as  quickly as necessary.

- Intelligence that ranges from knowing the enemy’s dispositions to knowing the  location of enemy assets in real-time with sufficient precision for a one-shot kill.

- Information warfare that confounds enemy information systems at various points  (sensors, communications, processing, and command), while protecting one’s own.

Technical means, nevertheless, are no substitute for information dominance at thestrategic level: knowing oneself and one’s enemy; and, at best, inducing them to seethings as one does.

**The Role of Information** 

It is now widely accepted within the U.S. Department of Defense that its militarycapabilities will be decisive to the extent that the United States can enjoy informationdominance over its foes extant and potential. Behind this simple formulation, however, isa set of complex interrelationships between knowledge and action. Information has alwaysbeen part of conflict, but in times past it has been almost entirely at the human level:who is my enemy, what are his intentions, what can I see and hear of him, and how can Ibest confound him. Today, human-level analog information is being supplemented by a wealth(perhaps a flood) of machine generated information that can be further processed anddistributed through electronic means. Although the United States sees itself as second tonone in the quality and training of its manpower, its status as a leader in the productionand use of digital information is what undergirds its claim to information dominance.

Information dominance may be defined as superiority in the generation, manipulation,and use of information sufficient to afford its possessors *military*dominance. Butinformation dominance *per se* is not particularly meaningful, for three reasons.First, unlike air combat, where one air force can keep another one grounded (e.g.,Coalition forces in the Gulf War), information power on one side does not prevent its useon the other (with some specialized exceptions such as radio-electronic combat). 

Second, every side to a conflict has its own requirement for information depending onits strategy, operations, and tactics. A modern (information age) force needs moreinformation just to function than does a pre-modern force. In Somalia, the United Statesenjoyed information superiority at the tactical level—its forces could see objectsfrom great distances. But, its insight at the operational level and the political levelwas inferior to what its adversaries enjoyed. 

Third, as Sun Tzu observed 2500 years ago, the most important knowledge one can bringto the battlefield is knowledge of self (what one wants, why, and how badly), and second,a corresponding insight of the other side. Human knowledge forges strategy; machineknowledge produces tactics. Poor strategy can rarely be saved by tactical informationsuperiority.

Information superiority can be analyzed in terms of three elements: command andcontrol, intelligence, and information warfare.

**Command and Control**

In *Command in War,*(1987, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA) ProfessorMartin Van Creveld identified the primary problem of command and control as knowing whereone’s forces were (and secondarily, in what shape). John Boyd, a U.S. fighter pilot,posited that conflict was a matter of observing the battlespace, orienting yourself in it,deciding what to do, and doing it (his Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act (OODA) loop);those who could run the cycle better and faster would win. *Where* and *when*are the two key attributes of command and control.

Today, a large share of DOD’s investments in information technologies (bothcomputers and communications) is dedicated to improving its knowledge of where and when.The U.S. Army’s Force XXI project, for instance, is designed to outfit every fightingvehicle with digital equipment that would report its location, and keep every soldier inelectronic contact with his cohorts and commanders. When this concept was taken to theNational Training Center in March 1997, observers reported that operations could beplanned and carried out in half the time.

The U.S. Navy’s emerging network-centric concept holds that the conjunction ofcommunications, sensors, and weapons systems is more important than the individualaircraft, ships, or submarines on which they are deployed. Carrier operations in March1996 off Taiwan were executed with only three written orders; everything else wascommunicated in real time. The U.S. Navy’s Cooperative Engagement Capability permitsmany ships (notably their radars and fire control systems) to act as one.

The U.S. Air Force’s new expeditionary warfare concept seeks the ability toconduct distributed collaborative planning literally across the world even up to the pointthat the missions of entire air wings could be reprogrammed even as aircraft are warmingup for takeoff. Other initiatives, such as sensor-to-shooter, permit imagery from spaceand airborne assets to be conveyed to pilots in real time. Scud-hunting techniques underdevelopment seek to coordinate multiple aircraft so as to acquire, illuminate, and engageenemy targets literally within minutes. If successful, these efforts could couple thefirepower of concentrated forces with the agility of small teams.

**Intelligence****

Traditionally the role of intelligence in warfare was to inform commanders of the size,location, and intentions of opposing forces—e.g., that a tank battalion was situatedon the far side of a mountain ridge. The ability of Coalition forces to organize the"left hook" unnoticed by Iraq was an example of broad intelligence superiority.Technology may soon permit individual platforms to be located in real time within a fewmeters so that such information can be fed directly to warfighters and, ultimately, totheir munitions. The ability of JSTARS (Joint Surveillance, Targeting, and ReconnaissanceSystem aircraft) to identify tank platoons on the road to Khafji (and thereby destroy thempiecemeal) was a nascent example of precise intelligence superiority.

The ability to see and strike enemy assets from increasing distances (e.g., from space,and over-the-horizon) is an important aspect of what is called the Revolution in MilitaryAffairs (RMA). This RMA has two phases. The first phase, which started 20 years ago, andis likely to culminate a decade or two hence, has been the development and refinement ofprecision guided munitions (PGMs) which can strike targets precisely on the basis ofmanned guidance (e.g., a laser targetter), signature (e.g., a heat-seeking missile), orexternally provided coordinates (e.g., JDAM; the joint direct attack munition). True, evenvisible targets can defend themselves if sufficiently armored, buried, fast, or agile;and, some may fire back. But over time the advantages of PGM are likely to prevail.

Success at the first phase introduces the second. If one can destroy every enemy onecan see, then the key to prevailing in conventional conflict is the ability to see things:that is, to detect opposing forces and equipment, identify them, get accurate data ontheir location and bearing, and strike them—while they are still visible andvulnerable. A man with a gun can do this well (if close enough). The trick is to do thiswithout being a target oneself.

The United States will increasingly rely on sensors to collect information on thebattlefield and thereby find targets. Future architectures include a mixture of imagery,radar, infrared, and electronic intelligence sensors in space, on aircraft (e.g., AWACS,JSTARS, Rivet Joint, Cobra Ball), on unmanned aerial vehicles, on ships (e.g., Aegisradars), and in ground facilities (e.g., counter-battery radar) supplemented by a widerarray scattered on the terrain (e.g., microphones), in the terrain (e.g., seismic sensors)or in the water (e.g., sonobuoys). Over the next 20 years the various data streamsproduced by these sensors will be networked, merged, and intelligently fused so as to beable to see more things, faster, and in greater detail. The combination of sensors,networks, and weapons has been referred to as a "System of Systems." Whenintegrated it would reify the RMA as much as any other single innovation. Meanwhile, U.S.forces would keep themselves from becoming casualties by using a combination of stealthand stand-off range. Under the best circumstances, an enemy attempting to move obviousweapons of war over clear boundary lines could be subject to withering attack as U.S.forces, *scan*the battlespace, *sift*for targets, *sort*them intopriority order, and *strike*them using long-range fires. In this way, informationsuperiority can, in the right circumstances, be converted into military dominance. 

This example also illustrates some limits of seeking information superiority fromelectronic devices. A tank in combat may be easy to distinguish from anything else; thosenot specifically identified friendly can be classified as targets. But a pick-up truckwith a 25mm machine gun mounted on the back (known as a "technical" in Somalia)is hard to distinguish from a pick-up truck carrying innocent machinery. A peasant tendingher fields may or may not be an intelligence agent of a guerrilla force. In suchcircumstances human intelligence can be helped only modestly by sensor-fedintelligence—and the U.S. military cannot necessarily count on superior humanintelligence in every possible scenario it faces.

**Information Warfare**

The more information is central to military proficiency, the greater the ostensiblelogic of attacking another side’s information systems. Even if these informationsystems remain intact, simply slowing them down or reducing their fidelity can help. Aninformation system, however, is not a simple mechanism but the combination of sensors,networks, processors, command centers, and operators. Correspondingly, information warfarehas five elements: - intelligence-based warfare  in which sensors are attacked or otherwise spoofed or    confused, 
- electronic warfare  in which communications, radar returns, and signals are either    degraded, corrupted, or collected, 
- hacker warfare  in which processors and other automated nodes in the system are    degraded, corrupted, or spied on by gaining unauthorized access to computers and then    using a system’s own features to attack itself, 
- command and control warfare  in which shot and shell are used to disable command    centers and their linkages to the field, and 
- psychological operations  in which information is used to discourage, pacify, or    confuse opposing forces.

Many argue that information warfare *is*the RMA—that****struggles overthe information domain may determine the outcomes of conflicts by themselves, or, at leastmake the results of warfare in other media foregone conclusions (much as air power decidedthe Gulf War but ground power ended it). This view is probably exaggerated; attacks uponinformation systems will be useful and necessary adjuncts to other forms of conflict butsuch attacks, and the defenses against attack, are unlikely to determine the outcome ofconflicts themselves. Even a quick perusal of the five categories suggests that many hadlong antecedents. Picking off opposing commanders, shooting at cavalry pickets, tearing uptelegraph lines, deceiving opposing commanders, and manipulating the media were allfeatures of the U.S. Civil War (1861-65). Today’s electronic warfare techniques arerefinements of what the British and Germans did in World War II. Only hacker warfare isnew, for obvious reasons.

Information warfare is an extremely difficult enterprise for several reasons. First,most information systems are complex and opaque: where are the key links, how isinformation communicated, how are decisions made—and under what influence—areall matters that require considerable intelligence, largely human intelligence, to unearthand comprehend. Second, defense is increasingly favored by technological trends: plungingcosts and sophisticated software favor finely distributed information networks that canroute around obstruction; cryptology helps people keep secrets and authenticate messages.Third, as a result, success at information warfare tends to be highly opportunistic inthat it must take advantage of mistakes, oversights, chance, and circumstance. Fourth,accurate battle damage assessment is elusive because there is little direct physicalevidence and indirect evidence can often be masked or faked. Fifth, the uncertainties ofinformation warfare (and its frequent reliance on deception) suggest it is hard to use itas a form of deterrence (information about information warfare is itself informationwarfare). Sixth, removing the other side’s ability to command its forces sometimesmakes it difficult for them to come to cease-fire or surrender terms. 

**Make Them See Things Your Way**

As Sun Tzu noted, the acme of military skill is the ability to win without fighting.Information dominance, as such, may obtain, for instance, if one state could convinceanother that its interests were just and should be acceded to. History shows few caseswhere zero-sum claims (I want what you have) are happily conceded. But the interests ofthe United States (or the West, in general) are regarded as universal and positive: anacceptance of the status quo, abjuring the use of force and coercion in internationalrelations, adhering to the rule of law, the fair and free flow of commerce, the bolsteringof human rights, etc. If all other nations were to accept these principles (the Nazis andCommunists did not), then the resolution of further disputes would lie in implementationdetails. Ideological dominance, the "End of History" as it were, is, in manyways the highest form of information dominance.

Such dominance may have a counterpart in cyberspace. In a digitized age, informationsystems are the lenses through which warfighters look at their world: these lenses magnifythe important at the expense of the trivial. Might there be a way to construct aninformation system for international security that reflects the orientation of its chiefarchitects? Can others be induced to adopt it; if so, will they let their own systemsatrophy? That being so, might then a renegade nation be unable to develop an opposingconcept of international security without a determined act of will, global scrutiny,decades of work, and considerable national treasure? No one knows the answer to thesequestions, but if they are "yes" the concept of information dominance may someday assume a far greater importance than mere support to warfighting as known andpracticed throughout human history.

Dr. Martin C. Libicki is a senior fellow of INSS. For more information call (202)685-2259, fax at (202) 685-3866, e-mail at [email protected], or visit his website athttp://www.ndu.edu/ndu/inss/libicki.html. 

The Strategic Forum provides summaries of work by members and guests of the Institutefor National Strategic Studies and the National Defense University faculty. These includereports of original research, synopses of seminars and conferences,the results ofunclassified war games, and digests of remarks by distinguished speakers.

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