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Imperial Japanese cruiser
This painting by John Hamilton shows the Imperial Japanese Navy cruiser Yubari firing at Allied navy ships during the battle.
John Hamilton

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Information Warfare: Integrate to Dominate

By Commander J. Michael Dahm, U.S. Navy
January 2017
Proceedings
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The U.S. Navy’s 2016 strategic guidance, A Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority, invokes lessons from the masters – Alfred Thayer Mahan, Sir Julian Corbett, Carl Von Clausewitz, Sun Tzu and Mao Zedong. The Design also cites emerging challenges to U.S. military advantages. U.S. naval intelligence must reshape itself by similarly examining historical truths and leveraging its understanding of potential adversaries to divine whether the nature of warfare has changed in the Information Age. Moving forward, naval intelligence should take a leading role in evolving the Information Warfare Community (IWC) that the Navy created in 2009 to integrate the Intelligence, Cryptology, Information Professional (information technology and communications), and Oceanography Communities.

 

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1.Ira Wolfert, “Guadalcanal Risk Explained by King,” New York Times, 22 October 1945, 5.

2. Toshikazu Ohamae (Captain, former Imperial Japanese Navy), “The Battle of Savo Island,” Proceedings, vol.83/12/658 (December 1957), 1271-3, 1276.

3. Denis Warner and Peggy Warner. Disaster in the Pacific: New Light on the Battle of Savo Island (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute, 1992) 211-2.

4. Thomas Mahnken, “Asymmetric Warfare at Sea – The Naval Battles off Guadalcanal, 1942-1943,” Naval War College Review 64.1 (2011), 101-102, citing “Night Training and Operations,” ONI Report 261. 18 October 1934, citing R.B. Coffey, “Tactical Problem V-1933-SR (Operations Problem IV-1933-SR),” 16 January 1934, RG 4, Naval Historical Collection, Naval War College, Newport, R.I., 25.

5. Richard Bates and Walter Innis. The Battle of Savo Island, August 9th, 1942. Rep. no. AD/A-003 037. Department of Analysis, Naval War College. 1950. 98-103.

6. Thomas McCool, Battle of Savo Island, Lessons Learned and Future Implications. Thesis. U.S. Army War College, 2002. 16.

7. David Quantock, Disaster at Savo Island, 1942. Thesis. U.S. Army War College, 2002. 18.

8.Bates. 136, 350.

9.Mahnken. 115.

10.U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense. Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China, 2016. 43.

11. Robert Work, “Deputy Secretary of Defense Speech.” Army War College Strategy Conference. U.S. Army War College, Carlisle. 8 April 2015.

12.Information Office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, China’s National Defense in 2004.

13.See Ming Fangqiu, “Form of War Changing Toward Informationized War,” China National Defense News (in Chinese), 27 June 2003.

14. China Academy of Military Sciences (AMS). The Science of Military Strategy (in Chinese). Ed. Shou Xiaosong. 2013 ed. Beijing: Military Science Press, 2013. 129-30.

15. China Academy of Military Science (AMS). Lectures on the Science of Information Operations (in Chinese). Ed. Ye Zheng. Beijing: Military Science Press, 2013. 5. See also, U.S. Department of Defense, Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, Joint Pub 1-02, 15 February 2016: 111. “Information Superiority - The operational advantage derived from the ability to collect, process, and disseminate an uninterrupted flow of information while exploiting or denying an adversary’s ability to do the same.”

16. Larry Wortzel, The Chinese People’s Liberation Army and Information Warfare. Strategic Studies Institute & U.S. Army War College Press, March 2014. 11.

17. China AMS, Lectures. 7-8.

18. M. Taylor Fravel, “China’s New Military Strategy: Winning Informationized Local Wars,” China Brief, vol. XV. no.13 (2015): 3.

19. Guo Yuandan. “Fight the War at Sea? China Should Make Preparations for Military Struggle at Sea.” Huanqiu Shibao (“Global Times” in Chinese), 26 May 2015.

20. Sharon Anderson, “Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare - Taking the Pulse of the Fleet,” CHIPS Magazine, January-March 2016.

21. See, for example, the “Fleet Problem” proposal in Crooks, DeVere and Mateo Roberaccio. “The Face of Battle in the Information Age,” Proceedings, Jul 2015: 52.

22. Zhao Lei, “New Combat Support Branch to Play Vital Role,” China Daily, 23 January 2016.

23. U.S. Navy, IWCO Qualification Program, OPNAVISNT 1412.13.

24. U.S. Navy, Naval Intelligence Strategic Plan, 2013-2017, 18.

25. See, for example, VADM Nancy Brown et al, “Creating Cyber Warriors,” Proceedings, October 2012.

26. Mehta, Aaron, “Defense Department Budget: $18B Over FYDP for Third Offset,” Defense News, 9 February 2016.

27. Warner. 253. citing RADM Richmond Turner, Memorandum for CinCPac, in Aurthur Hepburn, Informal Inquiry into the Circumstances Attending the Loss of the Vincennes, etc. on August 9th, 1942. 13 May 1943.

Commander J. Michael Dahm

Commander Dahm is a career naval intelligence officer and former assistant naval attaché at the U.S. embassy in Beijing, China. He currently is serving as the senior naval intelligence officer for China at the Office of Naval Intelligence. With this essay, Commander Dahm won Second Prize in the Naval Intelligence Essay Contest, sponsored by Naval Intelligence Professionals.

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