Paper # 56. Hierarchy of Effort: Reforming Tactics, Operations, and Strategy for Advantage
- March 13, 2023
- ICSL admin
- Asia-Pacific, Eurasia, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
A hierarchy of effort is essential to achieving meaningful advantage in the information environment (IE). The IE’s diverse contexts are multi-domain and all-effects. Three reforms can improve tactics, operations, and strategy against human and AI competitors: Align the ends of desired cause-and-effect relationships Note: the basic strategy process consists of interactive ends (the why—goals), ways…
Paper #50. All-Effects Warfare and Narrative Strategy in Ukraine 2014 & 2022
- April 26, 2022
- ICSL admin
- Eurasia, Strategy
- No Comments
Authoritarians wage all-effects warfare that democracies don’t regard as “real war.” The problem is that many so-called peacetime operations are information warfare and narrative strategies designed to shape conditions for “real warfare.” Such as inducing local support of a follow-on invasion force (Ukraine, 2014). Note: “warfare” refers to methods of war, whereas “war” is a…
Note #23. Net Assessment and JADC2: A Step Toward All-Effects Warfare?
- October 7, 2021
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Asia-Pacific, Cyber, Eurasia, Strategy
- No Comments
Net Assessment The purpose of net assessment is to gain an asymmetric advantage over competitors. US goals generally seek technological superiority. The US Office of Net Assessment, in a rare run of leadership continuity (Andy Marshall, 1973-2015), analyzed strategic competitions and recommended offsets against adversary strengths. Some offsets threatened the mutual vulnerability of Mutual Assured…
Note #19. Afghanistan: The Need for Strategic Agility, Not Missteps.
- January 30, 2021
- ICSL admin
- Eurasia, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
Agile strategies are able to change in all three definitional dimensions—ends, ways and means. Missteps are changes without strategic advantage. What’s the Biden administration’s strategy for Afghanistan?
Paper #29. Disinformation Trackers & Destroyers
- August 1, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Commercial, Cyber, Eurasia, Strategy
- No Comments
This sortie is a follow-on to ICSL Paper #28 which showed how critical thinking errors lead to exploitation. Our focus here is on freely available platforms and programs that can track and destroy disinformation.
Paper #28. To Defeat Disinformation, First Arm the Mind
- July 27, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Asia-Pacific, Cyber, Eurasia, Middle East & North Africa, Strategy
- No Comments
Disinformation is a global threat. Pervasive digitized technology and social media provide rich opportunities to distort public perceptions at scale. Authoritarians assail democracies incessantly. Comparitech recently discovered a Facebook bot farm that controls nearly 14,000 fake accounts and produces 200,000 posts per month.
Paper #26. Supply Chain Competition & Warfare II: Strategic Decisions and Integrative Options
- July 7, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Asia-Pacific, Commercial, Cyber, Eurasia, Strategy
- No Comments
Authoritarian states are weaponizing supply chains into all-effects warfare while democratic states compete with inferior strategies. We can be more competitive and wage superior complex warfare in kind.
Stick & Rudder #4. A Basic US Strategy Toward Russia: more than Deter & Defend
- June 4, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Americas, Eurasia, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
If strategy means anything, it should have definition and purpose. US strategy toward the current Russia regime, and just about any competitor, continues to be described simplistically as deter and defend.
Paper #25. Supply Chain Competition & Warfare I: Fundamentals of Advantage
- May 20, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Asia-Pacific, Commercial, Cyber, Eurasia, Strategy
- No Comments
Supply chains are vital to socio-economic well-being and military success. They have become arenas where authoritarians wage complex warfare while democracies compete with inferior strategies.
Paper #24. Distorting the Loop: How Russia’s Narratives Reorient OODA Decisions & What to Do About It
- April 23, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Cyber, Eurasia, Strategy
- No Comments
As a follow-on to China’s strategy, we show how Russia’s use of narrative reorients decisions in an Observe-Orient-Decide-Act (OODA) Loop. The distortion of information is not just divisive. It envelops the “when-deterrence-fails” US approach to warfare.
Note #15. Tracking Chinese and Russian DisInformation: Hamilton 2.0 Reloaded
- March 31, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Asia-Pacific, Commercial, Cyber, Eurasia
- No Comments
This Note paraphrases today’s webinar from the Alliance for Security Democracy on Hamilton 2.0, a dashboard on Russian, and now Chinese, disinformation.
Paper #15. Countering Cyber Attacks on Infrastructure
- November 24, 2019
- Will Miller, Major, US Army
- Americas, Asia-Pacific, Commercial, Cyber, Eurasia, Leadership, Middle East & North Africa, Strategy
- No Comments
State-sponsored cyber attacks against critical infrastructure are increasingly pervasive. Their global presence and effective methods are asymmetric, coercive, and debilitating.
Paper #10. Countering Russian Cyber and InfoWar
- September 28, 2019
- Will Miller, Major, US Army
- Commercial, Cyber, Eurasia, Strategy
- No Comments
We must also seek solutions that limit the effects of disinformation. This effort starts with leaders recognizing and publishing Russian exploits as they are discovered. Overt exposure of Russian methodology goes a long way in limiting the effectiveness of false narratives. Investigations should identify who is targeted in hacks, why they were chosen as targets, what information has been stolen, and the extent of related penetration.
Paper #3. Defeating Authoritarian Warfare: The Case of Russia
- May 29, 2019
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Eurasia, Leadership, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
While teaching sense-making in the information environment, I began to apply previous work on complex warfare strategy in East Asia to other regions. Russia is a critical case — a declining nuclear power using combinations of effects to regain a perceived loss of prestige.