text: Chapter 1
  Information Operations Overview
  1-1. Conflict is fundamentally a contest of wills. Winning this contest requires commanders to employ
  combat power to execute decisive action across the range of military operations. Combat power is the total
  means of destructive, constructive, and information capabilities that a military unit or formation can apply at
  a given time (ADRP 3-0). Combat power is comprised of eight elements, the last six of which are warfighting
  functions: leadership, information, mission command, movement and maneuver, intelligence, fires,
  sustainment, and protection.
  1-2. Information operations (IO) creates effects in and through the information environment. IO optimizes
  the information element of combat power and supports and enhances all other elements in order to gain an
  operational advantage over an enemy or adversary. These effects are intended to influence, disrupt, corrupt
  or usurp enemy or adversary decision making and everything that enables it, while enabling and protecting
  friendly decision making. Because IO’s central focus is affecting decision making and, by extension, the will
  to fight, commanders personally ensure IO is integrated into operations from the start.
  SECTION I –OPERATIONAL AND INFORMATION ENVIRONMENTS
  1-3. An operational environment is a composite of the conditions, circumstances, and influences that affect
  the employment of capabilities and bear on the decisions of the commander (JP 3-0). It encompasses physical
  areas and factors of the air, land, maritime, space, and cyberspace domains, and the information environment,
  which includes cyberspace. The information environment is the aggregate of individuals, organizations, and
  systems that collect, process, disseminate, or act on information (JP 3-13). Although an operational
  environment and information environment are defined separately, they are interdependent and integral to the
  other.
  OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENT
  1-4. Several characteristics of the operational environment have a significant impact on land force
  operations. Each of these characteristics has a significant information aspect. They are:
  * Speed and diffusion of information.
  * Information asymmetry.
  * Proliferation of cyberspace and space capabilities.
  * Operations among populations.
  1-5. Across the globe, information is increasingly available in near-real time. The ability to access this
  information, from anywhere, at any time, broadens and accelerates human interaction, across multiple levels
  (person to person, person to organization, person to government, government to government). Social media,
  in particular, enables the swift mobilization of people and resources around ideas and causes, even before
  they are fully understood. Disinformation and propaganda create malign narratives that can propagate quickly
  and instill an array of emotions and behaviors from anarchy to focused violence. From a military standpoint,
  information enables decision making, leadership, and combat power; it is also critical to seizing, gaining and
  retaining the initiative, and consolidating gains in the operational environment.
  1-6. Threats, large and small, increasingly operate in an indeterminate zone between peace and war. They
  seek to avoid U.S. strengths and, instead take advantage of U.S. laws and policies regarding the use of
  information and cyber capabilities. Coupled with the nation’s initial reluctance to engage in major combat
  operations, they achieve incremental gains that advance their agenda and narrative. They use a range of
  techniques including non-attribution, innuendo, propaganda, disinformation, and misinformation to sway
  global opinion favorable to their aims.