Maxwell AFB, AL --
SAASS Professor and Class XXII graduate Col Nate Huston, along with fellow cyber officers Capt Keegan Newton and Capt John Runge, published a new article in the Winter 2020 issue of the Air & Space Power Journal. In "Information Warfare: Tuning Our Instruments to Overcome Barriers to Battlefield Harmony", Huston and his colleagues ask how the US Air Force might adjust its approach to Irregular Warfare to more seamlessly and effectively integrate with the broader force.
This article argues there are three primary barriers that prevent the effective integration, synchronization, and convergence of IW capabilities with each other and, perhaps more importantly, with the broader spectrum of multidomain capabilities. First, IW integration is hampered by the lack of a common lexicon, both within and between IW functions and between IW and other war-fighting elements. This not only prevents efficient internal and external synchronization but also obscures how IW complements full-spectrum operations. Second, IW suffers from a tendency to over-classify information that prevents operational decisionmakers from understanding, integrating, and leveraging IW capabilities. Finally, although progress has been made, authorities to employ IW capabilities are still widely held at high levels that inhibit war fighting agility and diminish the potential impact of these capabilities.