text: Chapter 2
  picture of key friendly aspects. Those aspects can include presence, capability, strength, intent, readiness,
  location of future operations or activity, timing, and method of operations.
  2-104. MDOs consciously and continuously analyze and manage friendly operational profiles so what the
  enemy can see is no more or less than what the MDOs deliberately plan. OPSEC focuses primarily on
  identifying and protecting critical information and indicators associated with the planned COA. Deception
  leverages the visible aspects of friendly operations and combines them with a deceptive activity to create
  plausible alternative facts and conditions in an operational environment to which targeted decision makers
  feel they must respond.
  2-105. OPSEC planners, with the intelligence community, use OPSEC to—
  * Identify critical information and indicators by phase, type of operation, or mission.
  * Determine how the enemy collects (sees).
  * Determine how the enemy perceives potentially visible friendly critical information and
  indicators.
  * Measure the enemy’s ability to collect, analyze, and respond to the critical information and
  indicators to a level that generates an unacceptable risk (time and operational ability to respond).
  * Develop and apply OPSEC measures and countermeasures to protect and deny critical information
  and indicators that enable the enemy to accurately determine and subsequently interdict planned
  operations.
  2-106. To achieve the desired level of control over enemy perceptions, OPSEC planners and MDOs
  coordinate activities across a spectrum of influence that includes—
  * Truth: factual information and actions visible to all.
  * Denial: critical information and indicators protected by OPSEC.
  * Misdirection: DISO and other activities designed to confuse enemy analysts and decision makers.
  * Deceit: deceptive activity and information delivered as part of the approved deception plan.
  2-107. While OPSEC identifies and protects critical information and indicators about the actual COA,
  deception actively generates what appears to be critical information and indicators supporting the deception
  story. Deception deliberately leads the enemy decision makers to the wrong conclusion, thus usurping their
  decision making and subsequent action.
  2-108. Deception and OPSEC planners can save significant time and resources by collaborating during the
  military decisionmaking process. Enemy threat assessment in the OPSEC planning process to determine
  technical aspects of how an enemy sees and perceives friendly activity correlates directly with the MDO’s
  identification of conduits necessary to deliver deceptive information to military decision makers. Both
  OPSEC and deception require a detailed knowledge of enemy decision making to project the impact of
  planned activities. In concept development, the OPSEC planner and MDO both require detailed knowledge
  of friendly indicators (signature, association, profile, contrast, and exposure). They use OPSEC to identify
  and protect critical information and indicators and use deception to replicate desired indicators that
  effectively portray the deception story.
  2-109. OPSEC also supports deception directly during planning, preparation, and execution. The existence
  of a deception plan in and of itself is critical information, and indicators require protection. Planners need an
  OPSEC analysis of the planned deception to protect against an inadvertent or unintentional disclosure of
  deception existence, techniques, or particular means being used. Failure to maintain good OPSEC can enable
  the enemy to identify the operation as a deception effort with resulting second- and third-order effects such
  as the refocusing of enemy intelligence collection and combat power against actual friendly force dispositions
  and intent.
  MILITARY DECEPTION AS AN INFORMATION-RELATED
  CAPABILITY
  2-110. An information-related capability is a tool, technique, or activity employed within a dimension of
  the information environment that can be used to create effects and operationally desirable conditions
  (JP 3-13). A properly planned and executed deception is one of the most effective IRCs available to the