Integrate to Win From Competition Through Conflict: Create a Joint Force Information Warfare Component Commander

Tam N. Pham, & Walter A. Berbrick

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Throughout the history of warfare, militaries have sought advantages by conducting information warfare (IW) to affect the perception and behavior of adversaries.1 Advances in IW capabilities are increasing the reach, speed, and effectiveness by which individuals, organizations, and systems can collect, process, disseminate, or act on information—and deny adversaries the same.2 The United States is not the only power to recognize the importance of IW in achieving national objectives. Russia and China have made great strides in improving and employing their IW capabilities to offset U.S. joint (and allied combined) forces in competition and conflict.3 Russia’s and China’s ability to employ synchronized IW capabilities rapidly and coherently to gain information advantages across the operational environment has allowed them, in some cases, to seize the initiative or exploit the information environment to counter U.S. military superiority.4

More recently, the Ukrainian leadership has used IW effectively to discredit Russia’s “special military operation” and its false claims that Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration is a Nazi regime that must be “de-Nazified.” Along the same lines, some of Ukraine’s strongest supporters, such as the United States, were effective in rallying the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and European Union to Ukraine’s military aid and bringing wide condemnation of Russia’s unprovoked war on Ukraine.5 The information warfare lessons from the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war highlight the value of information superiority in modern warfare and have helped Ukraine tremendously in getting timely support from the West and others while thwarting Russia’s ability to gain the initiative or control the information environment in this conflict.6