Operationalizing U.S. Air Force Information Warfare

📖 The Scoop

Information warfare (IW) and analogous terms of art are not new to the U.S. military's vocabulary writ large or that of the U.S. Air Force (USAF) specifically. Yet even with the decades-old recognition by senior USAF leadership that IW is fundamental to all aspects of air operations, the USAF's approach to conducting IW remains relatively nascent. Years after the establishment of the Sixteenth Air Force (16 AF), which lies at the center of the USAF's approach to contemporary IW, the USAF continues to wrestle with its operationalization of IW. It is against this backdrop that RAND researchers were tasked with identifying actionable recommendations for how the USAF should organize, train, and equip for IW. First, the researchers characterized the current state of USAF IW and compared it with the approaches taken by other service and joint force organizations. Next, they identified the gaps that exist between policy, expectations, and reality regarding the roles, tasks, and missions the USAF IW community is expected to support. To address these gaps, they developed alternative constructs for the USAF's presentation of IW forces, describing both strengths and challenges of these constructs. Lastly, the researchers teased out the organize, train, and equip requirements associated with these constructs. This report describes the research and presents key findings and recommendations that emerged.

Genre: Business & Economics / Human Resources & Personnel Management (fancy, right?)