Information operations > Related Articles
From Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium
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Parent topics
- Deception [r]: The act of deceiving or misleading, through the intentional concealing or misrepresentation of facts. [e]
- Grand strategy [r]: The application of all national means of affecting the actions of other nations and non-national actors; specifically includes but is not restricted to military means [e]
- Strategic Forces Subcommittee, House Armed Services Committee [r]: U.S. House of Representatives organization with oversight over nuclear and strategic forces, strategic arms control, ballistic missile defense; related intelligence programs, space programs, information warfare programs; and the United States Strategic Command and U.S. Department of Energy defense-related nuclear and environmental programs [e]
Subtopics
- Psychological warfare [r]: Add brief definition or description
- Propaganda [r]: Information issued by governments, intended to influence a target audience; it may be acknowledged by its source, be of ambiguous source, or have a false source; the content may be true or false, independently of the truth of its ostensible origin [e]
- Electronic warfare [r]: A subset of information operations that deals with the use of electromagnetic or kinetic means to degrade an enemy's military electronics systems, to be able to operate one's own electronics in the face of enemy attacks, and to evade those attacks through protection or deception [e]
- Electronic attack [r]: A subset of electronic warfare that directly interferes with the operation of hostile systems [e]
- Electronic defense [r]: Add brief definition or description
- Electronic intelligence [r]: Collection and analysis of electronic signals not intended to be intelligible to humans, such as radar or navigational aids [e]
- Electronic protection [r]: A part of electronic warfare which includes a variety of practices which attempt to reduce or eliminate the effect of electronic countermeasures (ECM) on electronic sensors aboard vehicles, ships and aircraft and weapons such as missiles. [e]
- Computer network operations [r]: Add brief definition or description
- Malware [r]: A term created from the words "malicious" and "software", used to describe undesirable or harmful software and changes to a computer. [e]
- Information security [r]: The set of policies and protective measures used to ensure appropriate confidentiality, integrity and availability to information; usually assumed to be information in a computer or telecommunications network but the principles extend to people and the physical world [e]
- Civil-military operations [r]: Add brief definition or description
- Operational Preparation of the Environment [r]: Clandestine operations of the U.S. Department of Defense that can fall into Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace or Operational Preparation of the Battlespace, but are of sufficient sensitivity that if they were conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency, the Congressional leadership would need to be informed [e]
- Provocation [r]: Add brief definition or description
Other related topics
- Agency for International Development [r]: U.S. government agency responsible for nonmilitary foreign aid of goods, services, and certain finances, although it does not operate at the highest levels of international finance. May operate assistance and development programs in foreign countries [e]
- Al-Qaeda [r]: International islamist terrorist network. Responsible for the 9-11 attack and other terrorist attacks. [e]
- Beach Jumpers [r]: U.S. Navy special warfare units, specializing in deception and psychological warfare. [e]
- Eric Cantor [r]: U.S. Representative (R-VA), Minority Whip; Republican Study Committee [e]
- CIA influence on public opinion [r]: Add brief definition or description
- Civil affairs [r]: Military organizations and doctrine intended to deal with the needs of civilians in an area of operations; may be associated with peace operations; related term is civil-military operations [e]
- Clandestine human-source intelligence and covert action [r]: Intelligence and military special operations functions that either should be completely secret (i.e., clandestine: the existence of which is not known outside the relevant government circles), or simply cannot be linked to the sponsor (i.e., covert: it is known that sabotage is taking place, but its sponsor is unknown). [e]
- Command and control [r]: The combination of lawful authority over people and resources, coupled with the methods of directing their execution of missions and tasks directed at goals set by that authority [e]
- Committee for State Security [r]: Usually known as the KGB, one of Organs of State Security of the Soviet Union, with extensive responsibilities in intelligence (information gathering), border security, counterintelligence and suppression of dissent [e]
- Covert action [r]: Any of a range of activities, intended to affect the behavior of a target nation or non-national actor, where the fact of the action is known, but the responsibility for the action cannot be proven. [e]
- Dau tranh [r]: A term of art used in Vietnamese Communist revolutionary war theory, roughly translated to "struggle", and having components of political action, guerilla warfare, and psychological warfare [e]
- William Donovan [r]: Add brief definition or description
- False flag [r]: In a variety of situations ranging from clandestine human-source intelligence to fraud to counterintelligence to false flag interrogation techniques, a manipulative technique where the manipulator leads others to believe he is the representative of a group they either admire or fear, in order to secure a benefit for his own cause, symbolically represented by a national flag [e]
- Fear, uncertainty and doubt [r]: A set of emotional responses that tend to make an choice undesirable, often deliberately created by someone who would benefit from that choice not being made [e]
- Foreign internal defense [r]: The United States military doctrine for assisting Host Nations in their counterinsurgency programs [e]
- Foundation for Defense of Democracies [r]: An American think tank focusing on threats from terrorism and militant Islamists, from which Democratic advisers resigned and many of the leadership are identified as Republican or conservative [e]
- Joseph Goebbels [r]: German propaganda minister under Hitler. [e]
- Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace [r]: "An analytical methodology employed to reduce uncertainties concerning the enemy, environment, and terrain for all types of operations. Intelligence preparation of the battlespace builds an extensive database for each potential area in which a unit may be required to operate. The database is then analyzed in detail to determine the impact of the enemy, environment, and terrain on operations and presents it in graphic form. Intelligence preparation of the battlespace is a continuing process. Also called IPB." (Joint Chiefs of Staff) [e]
- Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs [r]: An organization dedicated to advancing the strategic relationship between the US and Israel, with military exchanges, education and research [e]
- MACV-SOG [r]: The U.S. organization responsible for covert operations against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, as well as related cross-border operations from South Vietnam into Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam War; the abbreviation had an unclassified cover meaning, but was actually the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Special Operations Group [e]
- Maskirovka [r]: A very broad Soviet/Russian military theoretical concept, encompassing what the West regards as camouflage, or deception, concealment and counterintelligence, but going to a conscious plan of convincing the opponent to believe what one wants him to believe [e]
- Office of War Information [r]: During the Second World War, this was the official United States public information source, conducting what today is called the "white propaganda" aspect of psychological operations [e]
- Operational Preparation of the Battlespace [r]: Non-intelligence activities conducted prior to D-Day, H-Hour, in likely or potential areas of employment, to train and prepare for follow-on military operations (United States Special Operations Command) [e]
- Restructuring of the United States Army [r]: A major doctrinal and organization redesign of the United States Army, with its chief feature being moving from the division to the Brigade Combat Team and new supporting brigade structures as the basic Unit of Action [e]
- Sacrificial decoy [r]: Using electronic warfare techniques, a (usually) mobile transmitting device that will lure an enemy weapon to attack it rather than the real platform it is protecting [e]
- Unconventional warfare (United States doctrine) [r]: The United States' doctrinal term for the way the Department of Defense sees its forces operating in the more global context of insurgency. [e]
- Unified Combatant Command [r]: Operational line-of-commands for United States military groups. [e]
- United States Army Special Forces [r]: United States Army organization originally created to train and lead guerillas, highly qualified to work with other cultures; acquired additional missions including foreign internal defense, direct action (military), special reconnaissance, counterterrorism, etc. [e]
- United States Information Agency [r]: Originally an independent agency for white propaganda, now the organization for worldwide communication of official U.S. government positions, in the U.S. Department of State [e]

