Information operations (IO) can kill people and break things. A cyberattack damaged centrifuges in Iran, and electromagnet attacks can disable power grids, yet. U.S. naval officers designated to lead IO are a subset of the cryptologic warfare officer (CWO) restricted line community. For Navy IO to be effective, officers in charge of IO need to be a separate, unrestricted line community focused solely on IO.
The Navy’s officer corps is broadly divided into two groups—line officers responsible for warfighting and staff officers who handle non-warfighting duties such as supply, medical, and legal. Line officers are further divided into unrestricted and restricted communities. Unrestricted line officers are responsible for combat and include the aviation, surface, submarine, and special warfare designators while restricted line officers occupy a gray area of warfighting that is not directly involved in combat but also not staff officer functions. The restricted line communities include information warfare, public affairs, and others.
Defining IO
In the Navy, IO is misaligned as a CWO responsibility and an element of the larger information warfare (IW) community. In addition to CWO, IW also includes intelligence, meteorology, and information professional officers. Military doctrine defines IO in multiple ways, but it is commonly described as the integrated employment of information-related capabilities in concert with other lines of operation during military operations to influence, disrupt, corrupt, or usurp the decision making of adversaries and potential adversaries. In other words, IO is targeted at an enemy to have an effect. IO officers spends their days planning or executing operations against an adversary. In contrast, the other elements of information warfare support warfighting but do not target an enemy for effect. Intelligence and meteorology provide battlespace awareness to the commander, and information professionals operate the global naval information technology networks. IO does not belong with these other IW disciplines because it is fundamentally warfighting and not warfighting support.
Operators in the Navy are a part of the unrestricted community and IO officers should be included in this group. In joint doctrine, IO’s core capabilities are electronic warfare (EW), computer network operations (CNO), psychological operations (PsyOps), military deception (MilDec), and operations security (OpSec). The word operations is in CNO and PsyOps. The “J” code on joint staffs and the “N” code on Navy staffs for IO is nearly always “39.” Any officer knows that operations fall under the “3” designator. In addition, IO is a warfare area with real weapons that do real damage. An airstrike or an EW attack on a power plant can cause physical damage. Similarly, a cyberattack or a special forces infiltration can both destroy a centrifuge. It is hard to argue that IO is not operations. It is time to add information operators to aviators, surface warfare officers (SWOs), submariners, and special warfare personnel.
Designation as an unrestricted line officer is an important distinction because only unrestricted officers command warfighting units. Tenth Fleet, whose mission includes “Directing and delivering desired tactical and operational effects in and through cyberspace, space and the electromagnetic spectrum,” is currently led by an aviator. This is not to say that the officer in question is incapable, but it is an obvious mismatch for that position. Would a SWO or an intelligence officer lead an air wing? Would an aviator or information professional lead a destroyer squadron? The answer here is emphatically no, so why do IO officers not lead what is an IO command in Tenth Fleet? One could argue that numbered fleet commanders have always been led by different communities in the Navy. Submariners, SWOs, and aviators have long alternated in these positions. However, Tenth Fleet is unique—it is assigned a specific warfighting area instead of being responsible for all elements of naval warfare like a geographic numbered fleet. In this way, it is much more analogous to destroyer squadrons, submarine squadrons, or air wings. Thus, IO officers should be unrestricted line officers and lead units whose specific warfighting function is IO.
The State of IO
If one accepts the premise that IO is operations, then they should be aghast at where the officers who perform that function are placed. IO functions are currently one portion of the portfolio of a CWO, though the CW community has its roots in signals intelligence (SigInt). Young CW officers traditionally cut their teeth in the ship’s signals exploitation space (SSES) on surface combatants or by leading collections teams on aircraft and submarines. The most recent O-6 promotion board convening order states that “the best of fully qualified CW officers will have documented experience across all CW core mission areas (SIGINT, EW, cyber).” CW officers will often discuss the need to get some cyber “stink” on them or to be careful of too much “stink” for the fear of being pigeonholed into only cyber billets—the implication being that cyber is important, but that officers should not focus their whole careers on it.
This is a significant issue. Would a SWO ever worry about getting too much sea time? Officers that specialize in cyber, EW, or any IO core capability should focus on that as their primary warfighting function. As niche jobs in CW, IO will never be properly implemented in the Navy. The new Maritime Cyber Warfare Officer (MCWO) and Cyber Warfare Engineer (CWE) officer communities is an excellent step in breaking out cyber and shows the Navy is aware of this deficiency, but both communities remain restricted. MilDec, PsyOps and OpSec are missing from the CW community. In fact, there is no community in the Navy that would add these functions as a primary mission. Staffs requiring this function often assign them to a CWO or treat them as collateral duties. Officers placed in these positions may not get training, and if they do, it is unlikely to be more than a one or two-week course. A mishmash of mission priority, responsibility, and training for IO can only result in underperformance.
A New IO Community
The solution is a new unrestricted line officer community dedicated to IO. The aviation community is a perfect model for this. Multiple aircraft types have associated communities that specialize in their platform (helicopter, fighters, P-8s, etc.), but all united by the common component of flying. Similarly, an IO community would be united by information-related roots but separated into its core capabilities. A single designator will streamline community management and AQDs used to designate which core IO capability and officer is qualified in. All pilots start their training in primary before moving onto more specific pipelines that ultimately lead to a specific type/model/series aircraft. An IO officer would complete initial community training at a dedicated IO school before moving on to a specific school in EW, CNO, PsyOps, MilDec, or OpSec. An initial tour and major milestones would be performed in their core capability. Disassociated tours outside of the core capability—but still within the IO umbrella—would create a well-rounded officer. Regardless of pipeline, it would establish a resolute IO community with unrestricted line officers able to lead at the highest levels of the Navy.
Recognizing IO as an unrestricted line warfare area also lends itself to creating warfighting elements that easily integrate into current Navy models. Instead of a few officers performing IO at a numbered fleet, imagine an entire task force responsible for IO made up of five squadrons, one for each IO core capability, with a commander on par with a submarine task force or a carrier strike group commander. In other words, a seat at the table. If this were Thanksgiving dinner, IO is currently at the kids’ table. It is time for IO to step up and be treated like an adult. It is a warfare element that kills people and breaks things. The Navy should treat it that way and give it the proper level of authority and responsibility.
If IO is to be a warfighting area capable of contributing to victory in war, then the Navy must treat it as a priority. This should start by aligning IO under a single community manned with a new corps of unrestricted line officers.