Lines of efforts can be defined as the joint operational planning that uses the cause and effects of something to come up and foster the efforts towards the achievement of both the operational and strategic conditions by the link of multiple tasks and missions. With the rampant and gradual break out of wars in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia, the US government found the need to establish line of efforts to ease in their operation in their ally states. The safety of the average American will depend widely on the ability of the US decision makers in the understanding and the solving of these instability threats faster than other states or groups. The most vital step in the achievement of this goal is the ability to vibrantly employ the ISR in all the possible spheres and collecting of all possible leads that would benefit those who participate in wars and the masterminds in the attacking decisions- Skagzz, January 10, 2011.
The Department of Defence (DOD) is currently at a stagnant point and the need to exploit the capabilities of the line of efforts is now. The ISR should be assessed in all levels; the tactical, the operational and the strategic level. For the success of the DOD in the combating in the establishment of stability, the three lines of effort must be analysed. These lines are the combat operations, informative operations and the building partner capacity operation. This move will help in the understanding of their roles in the maintenance of stability as components of the defence department. The understanding of these elements in depth will consequently help understand the challenges facing them. Understanding these challenges will help in the establishing of solutions best for the prevailing problems. At long last, these steps will help in the improvement that would foster the needed quality results (Flynn, Juergens, & Cantrell, 2008).
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Greatest Lines of Effort Challenge
The three lines of effort in the US defence department are the combat operations, information operation and the building partner capacity operation. In the combat operation, there is involvement of a combat field. In this field, there is the planning and the execution of acquired and self taught military tactics in the combat field. This field includes infantry, artillery and Special Forces. The three work together in the execution of special mission during combat situations. These comprise the crew that attack enemy position using guns, artillery and missile as a result destroy enemies’ positions. In the building partner capacity operation, there is the building of partnership with the directly and indirect states in the achievement of stability. With the evidence of disunity, weakness in the governance, vulnerability of the population and the vast operational areas for the attacking groups, the best that the US defence department can do is to handle the problem from its roots. Working with, by and for the affected nations by building strong partnership capacity is believe to be one of the lines of effort that can bring forth positive result. Security, as it is, is both a nationwide and individual concern. Finally, the informative operation unit of the lines of culture (Haley, 2012).
This operation system involves operations that are done through information assurance, counterintelligence, physical security, and electronic warfare, security in operations, counter-deception, special information operations and counter-psychological operations. These can be integrated to form to form five units; Electronic Warfare (EW), Operations Security(OS), Psychological Operations (PSYOP), Network Operations (CNO) and Military Deception (MILDEC). The electronic warfare is the use of electromagnetic spectrum to attack or assault an enemy via the spectrum. This kind of attack can happen anywhere such as the land, air or sea by either man or unmanned systems and is able to target humans, radar, communications or any other intended asset. The computer network operations is the use of computer based programmes or assets in order to access the enemies’ information thus have an advantage over them. Psychological operations on the other hand are used in war to defeat the enemy by lowering the troop’s operational morale. It can be used to induce confessions or reinforce attitudes and behaviour relevant to the war. Military deception can be termed as the attempts to mislead enemy forces during war. Finally, the operations security refers to the process that identifies critical information that helps determine if a friendly action can be observed by enemy intelligence, then determine if the information obtained could be used to their advantage and if it can, it will then be used to reduce or eliminate adversary exploitation of friendly critical information according to RAND Air Force Intelligence.
Challenges Affecting the Information Operations and Solutions
One of the major challenges facing the information system is the identification of information centres of gravity. Since information operations are all about figuring out what an opponent thinks and evaluating ways of manipulating it to a win, the biggest challenge is identify the related group or individual and the establishment of related and interrelated variables. This step is vital as it in cooperate a series of actions that would lead to operational success. It is generally hard to plan, synchronize, execute and define measurements that will have positive impacts on the operation. Due to the difference in political, social, economic, traditional military maps and also symbology, it is a lot difficult to portray the exact situation. Since the traditional centre of gravity is based on physical relationship while the information centres of gravity are usually based on some overly complicated malicious relationships, being able to quantify an information operation damage evaluation or dimensions of effectiveness is quite different. This is because it doesn’t necessarily involve a physical challenge. As a solution, new techniques for harvesting and organizing large amounts of open source and classified data should be established. These include techniques that would foster video and audio transmission, the sharing of applications and whiteboard, the fast sharing of data and a quick public distribution and message orientated middleware. There should also be distribution model-view controller infrastructure for the development of tightly fixed applications.
Human factors and organizational systems are other challenges facing the information system. This challenge can be explained as; the information system is operated by a team of people under the organization. The working conditions of this crew must be improved and the conditions made favourable. Changing this operation system can lead to altered tactics, techniques and procedures needed. There can also be a change in DOTML-PF. Replacement of defence employees is hard due to the information acquired and its safety. Factors such as belief (morale and unit cohesion), cognitive processes (naturalistic and decision making) and performers modulators (fear, fatigue and sleep deprivation) should be one of the most important challenges to address (Kempel, 1997).
The increase in cyber crime is another challenge facing the US information operation. According to president Obama, the American economic prosperity, its national security and its citizens’ individual liberties highly depend on a personal commitment to secure cyberspace and maintaining of an open, interoperable, secure and reliable internet. The challenge of the cyber crime can be faced by the government, private sectors and even individuals. The American defence department is faced with the need to integrate information at a secure mid line and also introduce integrated system to handle coded and uncoded information in both secure and unsecure servers. Internet security is on the rise with tactics like hacking of systems, the infringement of copyrights, mass surveillance that is unwarranted and child crimes like pornography. The US defence system must come up with critical safe ways where data can be stored and only accessed by authorized personnel (Moore, 2005).
There is increase in internet problems severe scans since early 2001. These are loops set to enable the access of high end information an act that can be described as cyber terrorism. As parker (1983) defined it, cyber terrorism is the use of cyberspace or computer resources to commit terrorism. Other crimes like cyber-extortion, which is when a website, e-mail server or a computer system is threatened with denial of service or some other form of attacks by hackers with malicious motives. According to US department of defence, the attack of Russia in the city of Georgia using cyber attacks instils fear. This is because cyber attacks might become the norms in future warfare and adopted by military commanders. Other internet based crimes, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation may include internet fraud, phishing, spamming and carding which is primarily another form of fraud.
Information warfare is another challenge facing the American information operation. This is where there is the use and management of information technology as a competitive advantage over an enemy. This may include the compilation of applicable information, spreading of false information or disinformation to demoralize or manipulate. It is closely linked to psychological warfare where you evoke emotions that will enable a win against the enemy. This kind of crime committed under the information operation can take many forms that may include the disabling of logistic networks, spoofing of communication networks, sabotaging of stock exchange either electronically or by leaking sensitive information and the use of drones and other surveillance robots or webcam. The attack of strategic US information targets and the disabling the targets using software and other alternatives puts the information operation system at risk. This issue can be solved by the establishment of counter information warfare systems that can be used to fight any such move by the enemy.
After the Dutch war, it is rumoured that the Dutch hackers stole information about the U.S troops from their defence department computers and tried to sell it to the Iraq. There was also a coordinated attack on the U.S Air Intelligence by the Russians. This simply means that information operations are not only for the U.S defence department but also for the people in military and civil society. The advanced innovation and the invention of autonomous ICTs has put at risk the new revolution in military affairs. The only solution to this problem is divided into two; network centric warfare and C4ISR. This takes us to the current major solution for the problems encountered by the information technology, the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.
In conclusion, information retrieval based attacks by a nation to the other is simply a move to access information and gain information superiority. A more relatable example of an endangering version of such attacks is a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS). This prevents the network or website from performing their primary functions. This means that, the safety of the U.S government is not a government thing. It narrows down to the civilians and neighbouring countries to some extent. Communication factor within the information operation system should be enhanced. New and advanced methods of relying information should be adapted and placed to use. The faster the information about existing crimes is transmitted, the quicker and betters the solution.
Citation
William G Kempel et.al., “Experimental Evaluation of Alternative and Adaptive Architectures in Command and Control.” Third International Symposium on Command and Control Research and Technology,National Defense University, Fort McNair, Washington, DC,June 17-20,1997, pp. 313-321
Michael T. Flynn, Rich Juergens, and Thomas L. Cantrell, “Employing ISR SOF [special operations
Forces] Best Practices,” Joint Force Quarterly 50, 3rd Quarter 2008, 56–61,
Capt Jaylan Michael Haley, “An Evolution in Intelligence Doctrine: The Intelligence,
Surveillance and Reconnaissance Mission Type Order,” Air & Space Power Journal 26, no. 5 (September–
October 2012), 33–48,
RAND Project Air Force, Methodology for Improving the Planning, Execution, and Assessment of Intelligence,
Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Operations , 2008, 14.
Capt Ryan Skaggs, 561st Joint Tactics Squadron Flash Bulletin 11-02, “ISR Mission Type Order
Planning and Execution,” 10 January 2011
Moore, R. (2005). “Cyber crime: Investigating High-Technology Computer Crime” Cleveland, Mississippi: Anderson Publishing.
Warren G. Kruse, Jay G. Heiser (2002). Computer forensics: Incident response essential. Addison- Wesley. P. 392
Baker, Ralph (2006). The Decisive Weapon: A Brigade Combat Team Commander’s Perspective on Information Operations. Military Review. Pp. 34-35
