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The Silent Battlefield

Information Warfare Maneuver in the Era of Strategic Competition

 

Maj. Scott C. Hall, US Army

 

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The modern battlefield is no longer defined by kinetic dominance alone. It is defined by who can shape perceptions and influence adversary decisions before action occurs.¹ Increasingly, US Army maneuver forces will be stalled not by enemy firepower alone but by failures to disrupt adversary communications, degrade sensing capabilities, and exploit resulting vulnerabilities at decisive moments.² Warfare no longer starts with mobilizations and declarations. Today, competition and clashes often begin through manipulated perceptions, cognitive pressure, and influence operations unfolding in the shadows of the vast information environment.³

This article argues that US Army formations must treat nonlethal effects (NLE) and nonkinetic activities (NKA) generated by information forces as coequal elements of maneuver, not as supporting enablers, to achieve information advantage and decision dominance in modern warfare. In a multidomain operational environment characterized by pervasive sensors, contested communications, and continuous competition below the threshold of armed conflict, failing to synchronize these effects into maneuver planning creates unnecessary operational risk and endangers soldiers’ lives.⁴ Rather than adding information effects after the fact, commanders must deliberately “bake in” windows of information advantage to shape adversary cognition, compress decision cycles, and influence behavior throughout echelons before decisive kinetic engagements occur.⁵

Information warfare’s doctrinal identity within the US Army has long been contested, cycling through names, annexes, and organizational structures without achieving full inclusion into maneuver planning. This article does not claim to resolve that debate anew. Rather, it provides a structured, operationally grounded planning framework, the convergence window model, as a practical bridge between existing doctrine and the integrated execution that modern multidomain operations demand.

Adversaries have already adapted to this reality. As Chinese Col. Qiao Liang and Col. Wang Xiangsui observed in Unrestricted Warfare, modern conflict recognizes no fixed boundaries between military and nonmilitary action, and that the most effective combatants will be those who recombine capabilities across domains to achieve strategic effects without triggering conventional military responses.⁶ China and Russia routinely synchronize influence operations, cyber activity, deception, and selective demonstrations of force to form perceptions, fracture alliances, and narrow the decision space of US and allied commanders long before forces deploy or shots are fired.⁷ When US maneuver forces fail to integrate information forces’ effects during the competition phase, they enter conflict reacting to a deck the adversary has already stacked, often after strategic and operational outcomes have been determined.⁸

Globalization has enabled widespread access to disruptive technologies, empowering even nonstate actors to field capabilities once reserved for major militaries, such as first-person-view drones; commercial intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR); and precision weapons, eroding the US military’s long-held qualitative edge at the tactical level. This reality reinforces that great power competition is waged mainly through economic, technological, and informational contestation as opposed to direct kinetic force.⁹ This requires a shift in how we plan and employ tools to fight, by synchronizing NLE and NKA with maneuver operations to disrupt, degrade, and ultimately defeat the enemy without depending exclusively on firepower. This analysis presents an operational blueprint grounded in technical detail, presenting actionable recommendations for Army leaders to institutionalize these concepts through doctrine, training, and planning.

The Transforming Battlefield: Maneuver in the Information Age

Mounted maneuver: Sustained strength and rising vulnerabilities. Mounted maneuver remains foundational to closing with and destroying enemy forces, seizing key terrain, and imposing the commander’s intent.¹⁰ Mobility, firepower, protection, and shock effect have proven decisive throughout history, from the armored thrusts that breached Nazi defenses in France to the rapid attacks that overwhelmed Iraqi divisions in Desert Storm.¹¹ Maneuver formations provide speed, protection, and concentrated firepower to breach or overwhelm defenses. However, today’s battlefield is more lethal and more transparent.

Near-peer adversaries have invested heavily in antitank guided missiles, long-range fires, drones, and electronic warfare capabilities.¹² These systems threaten to attrit or channelize maneuver forces before they can achieve decisive mass. More critically, adversaries attack beyond the physical domain, degrading communications, targeting networks, and eroding political will through disinformation.¹³

While mounted maneuver is still indispensable, its traditional advantages are now inextricably linked and often dependent upon success in the space and cyberspace domains. US Army formations now operate within pervasive informational, physical, and human dimensions, networked systems, ubiquitous sensors, and a global media environment that amplifies every action and inaction.¹⁴ To preserve its decisive potential, maneuver formations must operate within a broader structure that synchronizes kinetic and nonkinetic efforts, treating maneuver and information forces as coequal contributors.¹⁵

The tyranny of distance and the information imperative. US doctrine emphasizes lethality and decisive maneuver. However, adversaries often bypass these strengths by exploiting political, digital, and informational vulnerabilities. This challenge is magnified across theaters like the Indo-Pacific, where considerable distances and antiaccess/area denial systems impose a “tyranny of distance and time” that undermines responsiveness.¹⁶ In those environments, mission success depends not only on force projection but also on the synchronization of practical information forces’ effects across domains, dimensions, and time zones.

To conduct operations effectively in these conditions, formations must deliberately bound their electronic warfare (EW), ISR, and integrated air defense bubbles, not just for protection but as instruments to upset adversary decision-making. Historical similarities exist in the US Air Force’s Wild Weasel suppression campaigns during Vietnam, where F-105 “hunter-killer” teams conducted high-risk missions to neutralize hostile radar and air defense systems, clearing the way for follow-on forces.¹⁷ Similarly, future formations should leverage dispersed, mobile EW/ISR teams, some of which are unmanned, that probe, jam, and deceive, acting as tactical spearheads to fragment the adversary’s strike capacity and create windows of advantage for maneuver forces.

Information Advantage as Operational Imperative

Defining information advantage and decision dominance. Information advantage is the condition of possessing a greater ability to collect, process, disseminate, and act on information faster than the adversary.¹⁸ For maneuver operations, this translates to advanced situational awareness across all domains (physical, information, and human) and a faster, more effective observe-orient-decide-act loop that forces adversaries into the horns of multiple dilemmas and limits their decision-making.¹⁹

Decision dominance represents the operational manifestation of information advantage. Commanders sense, understand, decide, act, and assess inside the adversary’s decision cycles. This state ensures adversaries are left continually reacting, unable to execute coherent plans, while friendly forces maintain the initiative. This advantage is achieved through the synchronized application of nonkinetic and nonlethal capabilities, including electronic warfare, cyber operations, deception, psychological operations, operations security, civil affairs, and strategic communication.

A valuable planning tool is the creation of dedicated NLE/NKA overlays, developed alongside standard combined arms overlays to map these activities in time and space. These overlays can detail the timing and location of electronic attack, psychological operations dissemination, and deception efforts to misdirect enemy ISR. This visualization highlights “convergence windows,” periods when multiple cross-domain and cross-dimension capabilities are brought to bear simultaneously.²⁰ Unlike conventional fires, many nonkinetic effects require significant lead time to secure authorities, coordinate with partners, and sequence technical actions. Planning these effects with the same deliberation as preparatory fires provides alignment with maneuver forces and maximizes impact.²¹

Modern validation: From Nagorno-Karabakh to Operation Midnight Hammer. Recent conflicts demonstrate how synchronized multidomain effects achieve this. During the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War, Azerbaijani forces combined drones, EW, and information operations to systematically dismantle Armenian defenses. They used decoy drones to trigger air defense radars then struck with loitering munitions, all while broadcasting precision strikes to erode enemy morale.²² In Ukraine, real-time ISR combined with social media campaigns not only enabled the rapid targeting of Russian columns but also rallied international support, blunting Moscow’s objectives before they could consolidate their gains.²³

The June 2025 “12-Day War” between Israel and Iran offers a modern demonstration of this principle. When Iranian missile and drone attacks escalated, Israel struck back, and the United States followed shortly thereafter with Operation Midnight Hammer, a synchronized campaign combining kinetic and informational effects.²⁴ US B-2 bombers covertly deployed GBU-57 bunker-buster munitions against Iran’s Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan nuclear installations, simultaneously supported by Tomahawk missile strikes from a submarine.²⁵ The mission relied heavily on deception, including decoy aircraft flown toward Guam, to preserve tactical surprise.²⁶ Strategic communication accompanied the strikes, stressing their limited nature and intent as a deterrent rather than the opening of a larger war.²⁷ Iran responded with a retaliatory missile strike on Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, but preestablished diplomatic and information “off-ramps” helped stop further escalation.²⁸ These synchronized effects compressed Tehran’s decision-making window and facilitated a ceasefire, illustrating that integrated physical, cognitive, and informational operations can achieve strategic decision dominance rather than just tactical success.

Historical Lessons: Deception, Surprise, and Decision Dominance

The utility of deception as a force multiplier is not a new concept. Barton Whaley’s landmark studies on deception and surprise in warfare revealed that surprise was the decisive factor in over half of historical battles, and that deception was the main mechanism for achieving it.²⁹ Effective deception consistently offsets disadvantages in force ratios, terrain, or timing by imposing operational and psychological dislocation on adversaries.³⁰

Thaddeus Holt’s exhaustive account in The Deceivers illustrates how layered deception generated operational surprise during World War II. Operations Bodyguard and Fortitude convincingly misled Adolf Hitler regarding the main Allied landing point, delaying German reserves from Normandy for nearly seven weeks after D-Day.³¹ Whaley categorized deception into feints, ruses, camouflage, false information, and misdirection, all designed to shape enemy expectations and misallocate their resources.³² In modern operations, these take the form of integrated measures across all domains and dimensions that constrict the adversary’s decision space, induce misjudgments, and delay its ability to direct effective action. As Joint Publication (JP) 3-54, Joint Doctrine for Military Deception, emphasizes, deception and related activities are designed to deliberately mislead adversaries, induce misallocations, cause surprise and confusion, and reduce their overall effectiveness, ultimately preserving friendly freedom of action.³³

Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine provides a twenty-first-century example of these principles, exhibiting the effectiveness of maskirovka (disguise). This doctrine blends deception, concealment, and conditioning to mislead observers and reposition forces without triggering alarm.³⁴ Russian forces used large-scale exercises such as Zapad to normalize troop concentrations near Ukraine’s border, masking operational preparation even as US intelligence warned Kyiv and NATO allies of the likelihood of invasion.³⁵ This approach included manipulating the information environment and habituating adversaries to seemingly routine activity.³⁶ The lesson for US planners is not that maskirovka achieved total surprise, but that it successfully managed perceptions across multiple audiences simultaneously, creating strategic ambiguity that served Russian operational objectives in the critical weeks before invasion.

Integrating deception into maneuver planning is not a luxury; it is a doctrinal and historical necessity. It transforms the battlespace from a contest of mass and firepower into a contest of perceptions and decision cycles. When executed effectively, these techniques force adversaries to misallocate forces, delay counterattacks, or hold reserves against phantom threats, creating exploitable seams for maneuver.³⁷

Whaley’s findings show that surprise can systematically compensate for numerical or tactical inferiority. To operationalize this, modern maneuver practitioners should utilize the correlation of forces and means analysis during the course-of-action development. By assigning quantifiable correlation of forces and means values to information forces and assets, just as one does for direct and indirect fire systems, planners can provide data-driven evidence that synchronizing nonkinetic effects with traditional firepower is a decisive path to victory.³⁸

Planning Framework for Integrated Effects

Understanding the adversary: From center of gravity analysis to nonkinetic vulnerability. Efficiently integrating NLE and NKA starts with a thorough understanding of the adversary. This begins with identifying their centers of gravity (COG), critical capabilities, requirements, and vulnerabilities, as outlined in Army Doctrine Publication (ADP) 5-0, The Operations Process.³⁹ This core analysis then informs a detailed target systems analysis (TSA), which maps systemic dependencies and identifies nonkinetic vulnerability characteristics (NKVC). These NKVCs might include components such as leadership cohesion or reliance on unsecure communication channels. Nonlethal critical vulnerability analysis (NLCVA) then helps uncover exploitable weaknesses.⁴⁰ For instance, if the adversary’s legitimacy is a key COG, NLCVA might expose a vulnerability to information operations that interfere with their messaging, supplying a nonkinetic pathway toward strategic disruption.

Once NKVCs are identified, planners should employ a “menu of options” approach as recommended in JP 3-0, Joint Campaigns and Operations, to match available NLE/NKA capabilities.⁴¹ Each capability must be diligently evaluated against the desired effect, its feasibility, and its specificity. Planners must define measurable outcomes—such as reduced recruitment rates, increased public dissent, or degraded command and control response times—to objectively assess effectiveness. ADP 5-0 doctrine rightly cautions against assuming low risk, poorly targeted NLE/NKA may unintentionally escalate conflict or erode local support.⁴² All actions must conform to legal and ethical constraints under the Law of Armed Conflict and national policies.⁴³

A key challenge in this integration is found in the nature of NKA and NLE. In contrast to traditional kinetic strikes, NLE/NKA capabilities often necessitate deliberate planning time to materialize because of their inherent complexity, intensive review protocols, and governing policies. Furthermore, their impact is often indirect, building gradually to a critical mass, much like establishing an artillery smoke screen. Therefore, NLE/NKA planning should be viewed as analogous to fires planning: the maneuver element must clearly articulate the desired effect to NLE/NKA planners early in the military decision-making process. If a battalion S-3 needs to delay the adversary’s reserve by thirty minutes during an attack, they should proactively engage NLE/NKA planners during brigade mission analysis, not after the scheme of maneuver is already set.

The Five-Step Convergence Planning Framework

Achieving overmatch in multidomain operations demands more than the application of physical force; it requires establishing cognitive and informational dominance. The following five-step planning framework delivers a doctrinally informed and synchronized methodology for operationalizing NLE and NKA as true force multipliers, working alongside fires and maneuver to achieve decisive results.

Step 1: Build the menu of options. NLE/NKA planning begins with constructing a tailored menu of available capabilities. This inventory should include a broad range of options (see figure 1).⁴⁴ Each capability must be mapped according to its delivery method, the type of effect it generates (influence, deny, degrade, or deceive), and, critically, the approval process and associated timeline required, whether at the tactical, operational, or national level. This organized menu provides planners with a clear visualization of available information forces and the way they align with mission objectives.⁴⁵

Step 2: Match effects to targets. With a defined capability menu, planners identify exploitable NKVCs through TSA and NLCVA, thereby pinpointing critical vulnerabilities within the adversary’s system. This technique corresponds with Carl von Clausewitz’s enduring guidance to target centers of gravity by striking at the enemy’s will, cohesion, and capacity to act.⁴⁶ Each effect must be mapped to the adversary’s key functions or decision-making processes, specifying the domains influenced (physical, informational, or human) and their timing requirements. NLE/NKA effects often require buildup or repeated exposure, highlighting the need for deliberate planning during the military decision-making process and joint targeting cycles (see figure 1).⁴⁷

Step 3: Designing the convergence window. A convergence window is a planned point in time and space for synchronizing lethal, nonlethal, and nonkinetic effects to maximize operational impact.⁴⁸ In MDO, this synchronization is vital for disrupting adversary decision-making by overwhelming their ability to perceive, orient, and respond.⁴⁹ Commanders must fully integrate NLE/NKA with maneuver, deception, and shaping operations—not executed in isolation—to ensure complementary effects.⁵⁰ Key planning variables include lead time (time needed to initiate an effect), duration (how long to sustain the effect), and sequencing (actions before, during, and after effect delivery). Effective convergence design requires a knowledge of both cascading effects (unpredictable secondary impacts) and compounding effects (actions that build upon one another exponentially) (see figure 2). Visualizing these dynamics helps avoid timing discrepancies and ensures effects support maneuver forces when needed most (see figure 3). The convergence window model is a guide, not a rigid template; commanders must apply sound judgment and adapt these concepts to their specific operational environment.

Refer to figure 3 for a model illustrating the orchestration of nonkinetic and maneuver effects, delineating six planning windows: effect development, firing, time of flight, impact, maneuver convergence, and lasting impact. The lasting impact window highlights how effects can continue impacting the battlespace long after initial application, creating persistent operational advantages. This architecture supports targeted planning products, aligning information and physical effects in a unified scheme of action to achieve true cross-domain convergence.

Integrated effects timing: Orchestrating NLE/NKA for operational control. Effective application of NLE/NKA requires careful harmonization across domains and dimensions against a shared zero hour. Planners need to account for the unique timelines of each capability and design a convergence window that coordinates these effects to deliver impact when the commander needs it. These effect windows are then layered within the wider convergence window, which is nested with maneuver and driven by the commander’s intent (see figure 4).⁵¹

Step 4: Synchronize with maneuver and fires. NLE/NKA must be synchronized with maneuver and fires to generate complementary and reinforcing effects. They should be integrated into the overall scheme of maneuver, visualized on overlays similar to fire support overlays, depicting timing, delivery, effects, and supported objectives.⁵² This amalgamation allows commanders to visualize how effects generated by information forces impact tempo, deception, and operational reach. For example, cyber and EW can muzzle enemy ISR before a breach, while psychological operations can delay reserves or fracture cohesion.⁵³ Tools like the combined information overlay can additionally enhance this process by representing cyberspace, electromagnetic influence, and deception alongside fires and maneuver graphics (see figure 5).⁵⁴

Step 5: Codify in plans and authorities. Selected NLE/NKA effects must be codified in Army Service component command operation plans and concept plans, and supporting plans at lower echelons.⁵⁵ This includes updates to relevant annexes, overlays, and targeting products, such as the joint integrated prioritized target list, to ensure effects are resourced, tasked, and approved.⁵⁶ Formal integration aligns decision points with effect delivery, enabling commander flexibility.⁵⁷ Many NLE/NKA capabilities require lengthy development or national-level authorization. Embedding these effects early in plans ensures they are vetted and executable, avoiding delays.⁵⁸ Without formal integration, information forces’ effects risk delay or being overlooked; inclusion in joint and Army targeting cycles is essential for visibility and execution.⁵⁹

From air tasking order to integrated tasking order: Modernizing synchronization. The traditional air tasking order has limitations in incorporating NLE/NKA. The air tasking order, designed for predictable air-delivered fires, is optimized for kinetic operations and commonly struggles to accommodate the flexibility of delivery and the complex approval timelines.⁶⁰ Historically, this has resulted in information forces being treated as secondary, scheduled around kinetic priorities rather than being fully synchronized with maneuver from the outset. To address this, the joint force has transitioned to the integrated tasking order to synchronize cross-domain effects.⁶¹ This evolution calls for a modernization of Army targeting processes. While D3A (decide, detect, deliver, assess) remains foundational for ground targeting, it must now incorporate NLE/NKA as primary effects.⁶² Synchronizing lethal and nonlethal capabilities through targeting processes is required to achieve convergence and control adversary decision-making.

Institutionalizing Information Warfare: Doctrine, Professional Military Education, and the Way Forward

Technological enablers and doctrinal requirements. As technology hands us new NLE/NKA tools, the real hurdle is weaponizing them. We have to evolve our doctrine and planning cycles to bake these capabilities into our common practices, ensuring they are ready to use at the speed of conflict. Artificial intelligence and machine learning enhance target analysis and predictive intelligence, enabling planners to find vulnerabilities before they emerge. Big data analytics and natural language processing surface early warning indicators and adversary narratives, guiding precise psychological operations and deception planning.⁶³ Exercises like Scarlet Dragon showcase the operational value of integrating artificial intelligence into joint targeting; the XVIII Airborne Corps utilized the Maven Smart System to compress sensor-to-shooter timelines through agile development-security-operations and by employing teams fluent in data science, operational planning, and defense acquisition.⁶⁴ Yet technological advantages alone are insufficient. For decades, US military thought emphasized overwhelming force and dominance in the physical domain. But as modern conflicts demonstrate, massed lethality faces diminishing returns against dispersed, digitally shielded, and psychologically hardened opponents. The US Army must therefore elevate information forces from enablers to maneuver elements, recognizing that the fight for cognitive terrain begins before tanks roll or drones launch, and in many cases may end without either.

Building leaders who think in effects. To win the next fight, the Army must treat information forces integration not as innovation, but as doctrine. Enduring operational advantage requires institutional frameworks that preserve hard-earned lessons, develop tailored TSAs, and provide deception and nonkinetic options aligned with maneuver. Future-oriented structures, such as joint information targeting groups or multidomain analysis centers, could maintain repositories of adversary COGs and generate synchronized nonlethal strike packages for commanders. Information warfare must be regarded and resourced as a weapons system. Through our professional military education, commanders must learn to craft information advantage into their commander’s intent with the same rigor as fires, maneuver, and sustainment. Information advantage should not be relegated to an annex few read; it must be integrated into the base plan, explicitly tied to operational objectives, and framed in terms of measurable effects on the adversary’s decision-making.

Professional military education for maneuver, fires, and sustainment leaders must be updated across the entire leader development continuum, from Basic Officer Leader Courses and Captains Career Courses to the Command and General Staff College/Intermediate Level Education, Pre-Command Courses for battalion and brigade leaders, the service war colleges, and even the General Officer Capstone program. At each level, leaders should be taught to plan, resource, and assess the effects of information warfare within combined arms operations. This approach must be reinforced through cross-domain familiarization; information force leaders should attend courses such as the Cavalry Leader Course to better understand maneuver and fires integration, while maneuver and fires planners should complete the Army Cyber Operations Planners Course to gain proficiency in integrating cyber, electromagnetic, and psychological effects.⁶⁵ Planning must shift from rediscovery to readiness, embedding convergence as a routine expectation rather than an exception.⁶⁶

Information as the defining revolution in military affairs. The twenty-first-century revolution in military affairs is cognitive. Just as nuclear weapons redefined strategic deterrence and mechanized maneuver transformed combined arms doctrine, the weaponization of perception, belief, and trust defines today’s revolution. Modern warfare focuses on shaping human terrain, eroding societal cohesion, and discrediting institutions long before conflict escalates. Russia’s operations in Ukraine and Georgia, and China’s global influence campaigns exemplify a battlefield without borders, where misinformation, psychological pressure, and economic levers achieve strategic effects. We are witnessing a doctrinal shift not unlike the emergence of AirLand Battle in the 1980s. The US military must evolve its doctrine to treat information as a primary maneuver space rather than a supporting function.

Conclusion

Modern war no longer begins on physical terrain; it unfolds first in the cognitive and informational domains where perceptions, decisions, and will are contested. Adversaries exploit this reality through persistent influence, deception, and information operations, shaping the battlefield long before maneuver forces engage. The Army can no longer treat nonlethal and nonkinetic effects produced by information forces as supporting fires. To prevail, it must elevate information forces planning to the same level as maneuver planning, synchronizing them with lethal capabilities to achieve information advantage and decision dominance.

Victory will not be measured solely by ground gained or targets destroyed. It will be defined by the adversary’s inability, or unwillingness, to act as intended, compelled by effects deliberately created in the operational information environment. As multidomain operations mature, this integration is no longer optional; it is a strategic imperative. Effective planning must be anticipatory, information-centric, and capable of delivering scalable, reversible options across the entire competition continuum.

War has always been about the human terrain. What has changed is the diffusion of disruptive technologies, accelerated by globalization and the ubiquity of information networks. Today, perception is often more decisive than projectiles. The Army must seize this moment to institutionalize information synchronization as a core element of maneuver doctrine, ensuring that US forces retain the initiative, dominate the information environment, and preserve freedom of action against sophisticated adversaries, achieving victory on the silent battlefield before the first shot is fired.

 

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Notes

1. Robert W. White, “Easier to Kill than to Text: A Mandate for Information Warfare Reform,” Small Wars Journal, 24 March 2026, https://smallwarsjournal.com/2026/03/24/easier-to-kill-than-to-text-a-mandate-for-information-warfare-reform/.
2. Army Doctrine Publication (ADP) 3-13, Information (US Government Publishing Office [GPO], 2023), 1-5, 2-10–2-11, 3-10.
3. Frank Hoffman, “Assessing ‘Cognitive Warfare,’” Small Wars Journal, 14 November 2025, https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/11/14/assessing-cognitive-warfare/.
4. US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Pamphlet (TP) 525-3-1, The US Army Operating Concept: Win in a Complex World, 2020–2040 (TRADOC, 2014), 14, https://api.army.mil/e2/c/downloads/367967.pdf.
5. Scott C. Hall, “Enhanced Mounted Maneuver Operations through NLE/NKA Synchronization,” Cavalry and Armor Journal (Fall 2024): 12–16.
6. Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, Unrestricted Warfare (PLA Literature and Arts Publishing House, 1999), 7.
7. Austin Branch et al., “America Is Being Out-Gunned in Cognitive Warfare” (Information Professionals Association, May 2025), https://information-professionals.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/White_Paper_Glossy_210x148mm_15-1-3.pdf.
8. Richard Creed and Michael Flynn, “Information Advantage: A Combined Arms Approach,” Military Review 104, no. 3 (May-June 2024): 50–56, https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/May-June-2024/MJ-24-Information-Advantage/.
9. Jake Dulligan et al., The Rising Threat of Non-State Actor Commercial Drone Use: Emerging Capabilities and Threats (Combating Terrorism Center, April 2025), 41–43.
10. Army Techniques Publication (ATP) 3-90.1, Armored and Mechanized Infantry Company Team, incorporating change 1 (US GPO, October 2025), 1-3, 1-8–1-11.
11. Robert H. Scales Jr., Certain Victory: A History of the Gulf War (Brassey’s, 1993), 145–50.
12. Richard D. Hooker Jr., “The State of the US Army,” Parameters 56, no. 2 (Summer 2026): 7–10, 12, https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol56/iss2/3/.
13. ADP 3-13, Information, 1-12–1-14.
14. Field Manual (FM) 3-0, Operations (US GPO, 21 March 2025), 10, 22–23.
15. ADP 3-13, Information, 2-1–2-9.
16. Jonathan B. Warr, “Rethinking the Approach to Security Cooperation in the Indo Pacific,” Security Nexus 24 (29 September 2023), https://dkiapcss.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/N2651-Rethinking-the-Approach-to-Security-Cooperation-in-the-Indo-Pacific-2.pdf.
17. William A. Hewitt, “Planting the Seeds of SEAD: The Wild Weasel in Vietnam” (master’s thesis, Air University, 1992), 5–6.
18. ADP 3-13, Information, 1-1.
19. Frans Osinga, Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd (Routledge, 2007), 186, 228–29, 272–76, http://www.projectwhitehorse.com/pdfs/ScienceStrategyWar_Osinga.pdf.
20. ADP 3-13, Information, 2-13.
21. TP 525-3-1, The US Army Operating Concept, 17–20.
22. Peter de Werd et al., “2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War: Diplomacy, Drones and Deception,” in Towards a Data-driven Military, ed. Peter Pijpers et al. (Springer, 2023), 303–32.
23. Weilong Kong and Timothy Marler, “Ukraine’s Lessons for Hybrid Warfare,” RAND, 28 November 2022, https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2022/11/ukraines-lessons-for-the-future-of-hybrid-warfare.html.
24. Joseph Rodgers, “What Operation Midnight Hammer Means for the Future of Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, 23 June 2025, https://www.csis.org/analysis/what-operation-midnight-hammer-means-future-irans-nuclear-ambitions.
25. Heather Mongilio and Sam LaGrone, “Operation Midnight Hammer Drops 14 Bunker Busters in Record B-2 Strike Against Iranian Nuclear Sites,” USNI News, 21 June 2025, https://news.usni.org/2025/06/21/u-s-strikes-3-iranian-nuclear-sites-using-b-2s-sub-launched-tomahawks.
26. Kelsey Baker, “How the US Military Tricked Everyone to Surprise Iran with B-2 Bomber Strikes on Its Nuclear Sites,” Yahoo News, 22 June 2025, https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-military-tricked-everyone-surprise-142440676.html.
27. C. Todd Lopez, “‘Historically Successful’ Strike on Iranian Nuclear Site Was 15 Years in the Making,” DOD News, 26 June 2025, https://www.war.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/4227082/historically-successful-strike-on-iranian-nuclear-site-was-15-years-in-the-maki/.
28. “Experts React: The United States Just Bombed Iran’s Nuclear Sites. Here’s What to Expect Next,” New Atlanticist (blog), Atlantic Council, 23 June 2025, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/experts-react/experts-react-the-united-states-just-bombed-irans-nuclear-sites-heres-what-to-expect-next/.
29. Barton Whaley, Stratagem: Deception and Surprise in War (Artech House, 2007), 115–18.
30. Whaley, Stratagem, 118–22.
31. Thaddeus Holt, The Deceivers: Allied Military Deception in the Second World War (Scribner, 2004), 486–94.
32. Whaley, Stratagem, 116.
33. Joint Publication (JP) 3-54, Joint Doctrine for Military Deception (US GPO, 11 January 2019), I-1.
34. Andrew Monaghan, How Moscow Understands War and Military Strategy (Center for Naval Analyses, November 2020), 16, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/trecms/pdf/AD1145613.pdf.
35. Gilbert W. Merkx, “Russia’s War in Ukraine: Two Decisive Factors,” Journal of Advanced Military Studies 14, no. 2 (2023): 13–33, https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/419/article/909028.
36. Mick Ryan and Peter Singer, “The Future of Deception: Lessons from Ukraine,” New America, 5 June 2025, https://www.newamerica.org/insights/the-future-of-deception-in-war/.
37. Whaley, Stratagem, 116, 118–22; Holt, The Deceivers, 486–94; JP 3-54, Joint Doctrine for Military Deception, I-1–I-3.
38. Hall, “Enhanced Mounted Maneuver Operations,” 12–16.
39. ADP 5-0, The Operations Process (US GPO, July 2019), 2-8.
40. FM 3-0, Operations (US GPO, 2025), 3–6.
41. JP 3-0, Joint Campaigns and Operations (US GPO, 2022), II-17.
42. ADP 5-0, The Operations Process, 2-6.
43. JP 3-04, Information in Joint Operations (US GPO, 14 September 2022), xii, III-33–III-34.
44. JP 3-04, Information in Joint Operations, IV-19–IV-20.
45. JP 3-04, Information in Joint Operations, III-2, IV-19–IV-20.
46. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton University Press, 1984), 595–96.
47. Whaley, Stratagem, 118–22; JP 5-0, Joint Planning (US GPO, December 2020), I-5, III-22.
48. FM 3-0, Operations, 49–50.
49. FM 3-0, Operations, 63.
50. ADP 3-13, Information, 2-11.
51. ADP 3-13, Information, 2-13.
52. FM 3-0, Operations, 51.
53. FM 3-0, Operations, 11–12, 166.
54. ATP 3-13.1, The Conduct of Information Operations (US GPO, October 2018), 2-16.
55. JP 5-0, Joint Planning, I-14, III-6.
56. ADP 5-0, The Operations Process, 2-6.
57. ADP 5-0, The Operations Process, 2-4.
58. ADP 3-13, Information, 1-5.
59. JP 5-0, Joint Planning, III-4.
60. JP 3-60, Joint Targeting (US GPO, January 2022), II-1–II-5.
61. JP 3-60, Joint Targeting, III-1–III-4.
62. ADP 3-19, Fires (US GPO, July 2019), iii, 3-5–3-10.
63. Department of Defense, Data, Analytics, and Artificial Intelligence Adoption Strategy: Accelerating Decision Advantage (Office of the Deputy Secretary of Defense, November 2023), 3, 5–6, https://media.defense.gov/2023/Nov/02/2003333300/-1/-1/1/DOD_DATA_ANALYTICS_AI_ADOPTION_STRATEGY.PDF.
64. Emelia Probasco, “Building the Tech Coalition” (Center for Security and Emerging Technology, 2024), https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/building-the-tech-coalition/.
65. ADP 3-13, Information, iv, vi, 8-18–8-19.
66. TP 525-3-1, The US Army Operating Concept, 19–21.

 

 

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