Defense Primer: Operations in the Information Environment (CRS Report for Congress)
| Release Date |
Revised Dec. 14, 2023 |
| Report Number |
IF10771 |
| Report Type |
In Focus |
| Authors |
Catherine A. Theohary |
| Source Agency |
Congressional Research Service |
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Summary:
While there is currently no official U.S. government
definition of information warfare (IW), practitioners
typically conceptualize it as a strategy for the use and
management of information to pursue a competitive
advantage, including both offensive and defensive
operations. For some, the term “warfare” implies armed
conflict or other military activity; this narrow definition can
confuse the issue. Political warfare has been described as
the use of political means to compel an opponent to do
one’s will. In this sense, IW could be considered a form of
political warfare, in which targets include a nation state’s
government, military, or general population. Taking place
beneath the threshold of armed conflict, IW is the range of
military and government operations to exploit and protect
the information environment. It consists of the security and
assurance of one’s own information as well as its use. From
the information assurance standpoint, IW may include the
private sector and is ongoing in peacetime as well as in
crisis, conflict, or conventional war. Actions taken to
influence public opinion or to compel decisionmakers to
take certain actions can be part of IW, as can actions taken
to confuse or disrupt a target so that decisionmaking is
impaired. The ultimate target of IW is human cognition. For
this reason, IW is sometimes referred to as persuasion or
influence operations.
