Information Operations Planning - Comprehensive Guide for Military Strategy & Cyber Warfare | Artech House Information Warfare Library | Essential for Defense Professionals & Cybersecurity Experts

Every new and rapidly exploding field needs an integrating book to guide practitioners as well as strategists in understanding and acting on the emerging knowledge. Patrick D. Allen's book, Information Operations Planning, is just such a valuable addition. This work is an antidote to the hundreds of deskchair information war philosophers proposing policies they themselves have never tried. It serves a guide to conducting sensibly researched, adaptively implemented, and properly monitored information operations (IO) missions. The material in this book informs and instructs, offering both the research insights of the social scientist and the knowledge base of the technical fields.In particular, for major operational considerations, Dr. Allen provides guiding checklists excellently devised as tools for strategists and implementers to ensure their thinking and actions are systematic as well as responsive to complex situations. The lists are not meant as a plug-and-chug alternative to thinking; rather, they are useful ways to integrate the lessons here with the actual circumstances faced by the strategist or operational planner. For example, the book's breadth ranges from a section on legal issues of IO to the best practices for training computer network operations (CNO) to how to design messages for particular effects irrespective of the technical means at hand. Furthermore, while acronyms can get dense at times, Dr Allen carefully defines them and minimizes confusion. Furthermore, the writing is clear and systematic even as the discussion ranges widely across the relevant literatures of both information and behavioral sciences.Defense or security practitioners of all flavors, academics, technology professionals, government leaders, or managers of learning organizations will find this book eye-opening to read, and exceptionally useful to keep handy in considering employing information whether offensively and defensively. The final chapter on the future of information conflict in the 'idea battlespace' is less a conclusion than a set of operational axioms to guide the thinking of current and future IO warriors. From noting everyone has a message and a preferred audience, to the absence of permanent enemies to the observation that there is no rear area or sanctuary in the information battlespace, Dr Allen blends the social with systems analysis with computer networking to offer a valuable contribution across the board.