Enabling Operations through the Assessment of the COIN Information Environment.

摘要

Commanders at all levels are increasingly asking the question 'Are we winning the information war.' While many information professionals dread this question, it should be viewed as an opportunity rather than a threat. Faced with such a challenge, Regional Command South RC(S) in Afghanistan developed a solution. The solution not only provides plausible indicators to address the question, but yields viable courses of action which drive the non- lethal targeting process and resulting operations. Before an organization can make a serious attempt to shape the information environment to support tactical, operational, or strategic objectives, it must first measure the information environment by establishing a baseline by which to gauge progress. It is an old CEO's axiom that 'one cannot manage what one cannot measure.' Measuring kinetic environmental effects is a fairly straight-forward, well-understood process. The cognitive realm, however, is largely invisible, ephemeral, and constantly shifting. This presents a number of immediate challenges which confound traditional effects-based models. This article will describe the methods and models employed by the Combined Joint Task Force 10 (CJTF-10) in Afghanistan to measure the information environment at the series, program, and division levels. These methods and models are not to be utilized in lieu of valid scientific surveys, but should complement existing information sources to paint a more complete picture of the information environment.