Confusion and disagreement: The information operations doctrine of the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and NATO

Information Operations doctrine has had a troubled history and continues to be, for many, a confusing concept. The doctrine first originated in the United States in the mid-1990s but, being founded solely on poorly grounded theories of Information Warfare, it was never truly based on empirical research and developed without distinct boundaries or coherent universal terminology. This thesis argues that this has led to a wide gulf between the US doctrine, on one hand, and Australia, the UK, Canada, and NATO, on the other with regard to the philosophy underpinning the doctrine and the principles that guide the execution of the doctrine. About the only fact agreed upon by all of these allies is that Information Operations is meant to be a coordinating function helping to synchronise a number of disparate activities. What activities are to be coordinated is disagreed upon, but, depending on which doctrine is being reviewed, include Psychological Operations, Electronic Warfare. Computer Network Operations, Civil-Military Cooperation, Public Affairs, and Deception.; The intent of this thesis is to inform the debate over Information Operations doctrine by comparing and contrasting the Army and/or Joint level Information Operations doctrine of the US, Australia, UK, Canada, and NATO. Through this process, the historical origins of the doctrine are examined, similarities and divergences between these various national and alliance doctrines are identified and their importance considered. As will be demonstrated, there is little common ground between the US doctrine and that of the other states considered here and there remains divergence even in official alliance doctrine. Furthermore, although under continuous improvement all the various national and alliance doctrine manuals display only a rudimentary understanding of how to influence the perceptions of a target audience in order to affect behaviour in a desired manner, which, many would argue, is the raison d'etre of Information Operations. This thesis identifies these problems and offers several suggestions for closing the gap between allied doctrines and for addressing this major weakness.