The Role of Army Special Operations Forces in Information Warfare in the 21st Century

Abstract

Relevancy on tomorrow's battlefield begins today. The United States military is facing an amorphic future. There is a lack of a clearly definable enemy. The nation's leadership has employed the military on more contingency operations during the last ten years than the prior fifty. General Schoomaker, Commander in Chief, U.S. Special Operations Command, has been emphasizing self-examination as it pertains to emerging missions and force structure since 1997. Maintaining a relevancy into the future is critical if ARSOF is to remain an effective weapon to help maintain America's freedom. This paper reviews the seven forms of information warfare and suggests four potential information warfare mission capabilities that could be added to the ARSOF mission matrix. These potential mission profiles are compatible with existing mission matrixes under the capabilities of Psychological Operations, Direct Action, Special Reconnaissance and Foreign Internal Defense. The decision to develop and incorporate the new skill sets rests with the Leadership of SOF in conjunction with current information warfare policy and NCA guidance.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 10, 2000
Accession Number
ADA378280

Entities

People

  • John H. Bone Jr

Organizations

  • United States Army War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • C4I
  • Counter WMD
  • Cyber
  • Human Systems
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Command And Control
  • Computer Networks
  • Computers
  • Contingency Operations (Military)
  • Directed Energy Weapons
  • Electronic Warfare
  • Humanitarian Assistance
  • Information Operations
  • Information Systems
  • Information Warfare
  • Military Science
  • National Security
  • Psychological Operations
  • Special Operations Forces
  • United States
  • War Colleges
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Irregular Warfare and Special Operations Cyberspace Operations against Adversarial Threats.
  • Maritime Combat Support and Expeditionary Logistics.
  • Strategic Security Studies