You Can't Dominate What You Can't Define

Of the myriad of things I have issues with about the whole "Informtion Dominance" cadre - from their title, to their overcompensating rhetoric, to their everyone-gets-a-trophy pot-metal "warfare" pin, their greatest issue is that fact they they seem to have issues with themselves.

The issue isn't the individual members of the cadre themselves, but the mushy construct they have been told they are a part of.

With a field report from West14 over at USNIBlog, Still Struggling to Define “Information Dominance”, our buddy URR outlines the issue well.

... the biggest shortcoming ... was the inability of any of the panel members to actually define the term “Information Dominance” in any meaningful way. ... We heard what information dominance is similar to, and what the supposed goals of information dominance were, but neither was in any way a real definition. (This is not a surprise. Two years ago, the Navy had an “Information Dominance” booth on the “gizmo floor”, staffed alternately by a Captain and two Commanders. I asked each, separately, over a couple days, to give me their definition of “information dominance”. None of theirs were remotely similar, nor any more adequate than what we heard today.)

The problem, of course, is the term itself. Information cannot be “dominated”, despite assertions to the contrary. An enemy with a very specific information requirement that he can fulfill reliably and in a timely manner can be said to have information “dominance” over our massive sensor and communications networks that commanders and staffs pore over in attempts to see through the fog of war. The dust cloud from the dirt bike as the teenager rides from Baghdadi to Hit to tell the insurgents of the Coalition convoy headed their way trumps our networked, data-driven ISR platform links that cannot help prevent the ambush that awaits us.

We have much work ahead of us to make most effective use of our incredibly robust data collection systems and information networks. The solution to the problems of analytical capacity resident in C2 nodes with which to turn raw data into useful information and intelligence will be far more human than digital. Commanders have to insist on a philosophy of “Don’t tell me everything, tell me what I need to know”. And then go about ensuring that those who collect, compile, and analyze data have a very good idea of what they need to know.

And we can start by retiring the troublesome and ill-suited term “Information Dominance”. As General van Riper is fond of saying, “Words MEAN things!”. They’re supposed to, anyway.

You can catch the full panel at the below video.