text: Information Operations Overview
  understanding, and capability all contribute to and sustain decision making and, if compromised, can impair
  that decision making. In terms of will, awareness, understanding, and capability, advantage is achieved when
  commanders preserve their will to fight, as well as their situational understanding and their full capacity and
  ability to prosecute operations. Further, commanders achieve advantage when they preserve their freedom of
  action in the information environment while degrading enemy or adversary freedom of action.
  THREE INTERRELATED EFFORTS
  1-24. IO is comprised of three inter-related efforts: a commander-led staff planning and synchronization
  effort; a preparation and execution effort carried out by IRC units, IO units, or staff entities in concert with
  the IO working group; and an assessment effort carried out by all involved. These three efforts work in
  tandem and overlap each other.
  1-25. The planning and synchronization effort includes planning and synchronizing IRC employment to
  create effects in and through the information environment that result in advantage over the threat. Preparation
  and execution involves positioning and employing IRC assets in accordance with the IO working group
  synchronization plan to create desired effects at the right place and time. Assessment involves determining
  whether planned effects were achieved and recommending adjustments, as necessary.
  1-26. The IO officer, IO working group, and the assistant chief of staff, intelligence (G-2/S-2), especially,
  contribute to the assessment. The IO officer prepares the IO portion of the assessment plan. The IO working
  group monitors execution of the assessment plan and compares desired results with actual results. The G-2
  (S-2), in coordination with the assistant chief of staff, operations (G-3/S-3), contributes by ensuring collection
  assets are available and tasked to gather information needed to validate measure of effectiveness.
  ARMY-JOINT RELATIONSHIPS
  1-27. IO, by its nature, is joint. Based on the theater campaign plan, each service component contributes to
  an integrated whole synchronized by the joint force headquarters. Army IO supports joint force missions two
  ways. The first is when Army or land component command IRCs are specifically tasked to support a joint
  force mission. The second is when the Army or land component command, in its support of the joint force,
  develops its own IO plan, specific to its mission and area of operations. In both instances, IRCs are
  synchronized across the joint force to create desired effects in and through the information environment, as
  well as prevent the diminishment or negation of one IRC’s effects by another. In multinational operations,
  the U.S. joint force commander is responsible for coordinating the integration of U.S. IO with multinational
  information activities.
  1-28. The IO officer at joint force headquarters (J-39) synchronizes joint IO efforts. All component
  commands participate in a synchronization process to maximize effects in the information environment. The
  process is informed by an IO working group, cell, or virtual center that delivers its recommendations to
  various decision-making boards. Examples include the Joint Targeting Coordination Board and Joint
  Intelligence Collection Board. The J-39 provides a staff capability that synchronizes all service-specific IRCs
  to achieve unity of effort in support of the joint force. Army forces submit requests for IRC or IO unit support
  and deconfliction measures through multiple channels to higher echelons. For example, requests may go
  through the J-6 for spectrum management, through liaison at the Air Operations Center for electronic warfare
  support, through a supporting cyberspace operations center for an effects request, or through the targeting
  cell for targeting vetting and validation. The J-39 and joint IO cell are kept informed in order to publish plans
  and orders depicting, maximizing, and assessing mutual support mechanisms for the joint force commander.
  INFORMATION OPERATIONS ACROSS THE RANGE OF MILITARY
  OPERATIONS
  1-29. Army forces conduct IO within joint force parameters. From peace to war, and across the range of
  military operations, commanders integrate and synchronize IO to focus combat power and gain advantage in
  the information environment. In all situations, Army forces do not act in isolation. Army forces conduct
  operations in support of a larger joint or multinational plan. Figure 1-1, on page 1-6, depicts the three main
  categories of military operations within the range of military operations construct: