Improving Influence Operations by Defining Influence and Influence Operations

摘要

For the foreseeable future, the U.S. military will continue to protect U.S. interests and project power within areas rife with internal conflicts and faltering states. Conditions within such operating environments require land forces to influence populations, adversaries, and other regional or global audiences. However, land forces struggle to operationalize influence, and U.S. influence operations face increasing scrutiny and criticism. This is unsurprising given that U.S. military doctrine lacks a single, official definition for either influence or influence operations. This doctrinal gap causes confusion among both influence practitioners and non-practitioners, and leads to increasingly ineffective influence operations. By asking how influence operations can become more effective, this monograph determines a definition for influence in a military context, an operationally useful definition of influence operations, and the knowledge, skills, abilities, and education of an influence operations planner. Incorporation of these definitions within doctrine will enable more effective landpower projection into unstable areas.