What Is Information Warfare?

Is Information War (IW) a nascent, perhaps embryonic art, or simply the newest version of a time-honored feature of warfare? Is it a new form of conflict that owes its existence to the burgeoning global information infrastructure, or an old one whose origin lies in the wetware of the human brain but has been given new life by the information age? Is it a unified field or opportunistic assemblage? Since March 1993, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Memorandum of Policy Number 30 (MOP 30) has set forth definitions and relationships that have guided the joint community in its thinking about the related concepts of information warfare and command and control warfare. As these seminal ideas have evolved, their definitions and relationships have changed as well. MOP 30 is under revision, and both higher level policy documents for the Department of Defense and doctrinal publications of the Joint Staff and Services are either in draft form or under revision.