Information warfare (IW) and analogous terms of art are not new to the U.S. military's vocabulary or that of the U.S. Air Force (USAF). Yet even with the decades-old recognition by USAF leadership that IW is fundamental to all aspects of air operations, the USAF's approach to conducting IW remains relatively nascent. In this report, RAND researchers provide actionable recommendations for how the USAF should organize, train, and equip for IW.

Operationalizing U.S. Air Force Information Warfare

Alyssa Demus, Elizabeth Bodine-Baron, Caitlin McCulloch, Ryan Bauer, Christopher Paul, Jonathan Fujiwara, Benjamin J. Sacks, Michael Schwille, Marcella Morris, Kelly Beavan

ResearchPublished Jul 30, 2024

Cover: Operationalizing U.S. Air Force Information Warfare
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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.

Key Findings

  • There is a widespread perception that USAF leadership does not prioritize IW.
  • The absence of explicit, formal requirements was consistently mentioned as one of the most significant barriers to USAF IW operationalization.
  • USAF IW remains highly stovepiped along organizational and disciplinary lines.
  • A crowded field of IW organizations, combined with undefined roles and responsibilities, engenders confusion and frustration.
  • All airmen need to think about IW some of the time, while some airmen need to think about IW all of the time.
  • Airmen in IW disciplines are expected to operate as IW forces despite having received little to no IW-specific training.
  • IW personnel are highly motivated and passionate about the mission such that they devote their own time to its advancement, but they recognize that doing so offers little career progression.
  • Ambitious IW personnel at 16 AF are undertaking innovative IW campaigns in addition to their normal duties but cannot scale these with existing resourcing.
  • Some see authorities as constraints, but nearly all personnel see risk aversion and tightly held permissions as core challenges to IW execution.
  • The USAF IW community is not led by a single, senior leader focused exclusively on IW who is endowed with the requisite authority to advocate for resources.
  • Few formal processes exist for IW in the USAF, resulting in intraservice, interservice, and USAF-joint frictions.

Recommendations

  • Publish actionable guidance and ensure that IW is included in USAF processes that lead to the development of concrete requirements.
  • Expend political capital and service leader time to demonstrate prioritization of IW and to socialize IW across the USAF and the joint force.
  • Restructure IW force presentation with an eye toward addressing identified procedural, cultural, and structural challenges.
  • Clearly formalize the roles and responsibilities of all USAF IW organizations.
  • Develop curricula based on IW-specific requirements and cultural identity, with tiers tailored to required IW proficiency.
  • Leverage others’ lessons learned to develop a framework to measure the effectiveness of IW.
  • Incorporate realistic IW capabilities and missions into USAF-wide exercises and allow participants to struggle even if it results in “mission failure.”
  • Consider establishing formal funding mechanisms that USAF personnel can use to apply and advocate for more-robust and more-stable resourcing.
  • Consider systematically cataloging the IW authorities and permissions needed for the full spectrum of IW missions, from competition through conflict.
  • Demonstrate the utility of IW to all airmen through roadshows, leader rhetoric, and other highly visible activities.
  • Consider establishing a holistic career path for all USAF IW personnel that could preserve disciplinary specialization while building a cadre of USAF IW professionals.
  • Design new internal USAF processes that are IW-specific rather than adapting those designed for kinetic missions.
  • Establish and routinize IW processes in the USAF such that USAF IW personnel can integrate into established joint structures and processes.
  • Designate responsibility for IW within the Air Staff at staffs across the USAF.

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Demus, Alyssa, Elizabeth Bodine-Baron, Caitlin McCulloch, Ryan Bauer, Christopher Paul, Jonathan Fujiwara, Benjamin J. Sacks, Michael Schwille, Marcella Morris, and Kelly Beavan, Operationalizing U.S. Air Force Information Warfare. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2024. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1740-1.html.
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The research reported here was commissioned by the Plans, Programs, and Requirements Division of Headquarters Air Combat Command (ACC/A5/8/9) and conducted within the Strategy and Doctrine Program of RAND Project AIR FORCE.

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