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Information Warfare

New Organization, New Rules: Information Warfare Can Thrive in the New OPNAV

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By Adam Reiffen

Working afloat and ashore, the U.S. Navy’s Information Warfare Officers engage adversaries, create plans, connect circuits, and drive operations around the world every day. In May 2026, the Information Warfare Community was directed by the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) to reorganize itself within the Pentagon, a large-scale change to the manning, funding, and authorities required for global operations. When taken with the December 2025 creation of the Information Warfare Line designation, the current moment marks a generational opportunity for broader community to make the changes necessary to take its hard-earned and permanent place among the Navy’s elite warfighting communities. The Navy’s Information Warfare community will need clear focus, strong leadership, and decisive action to make best use of the new paradigms wrought by administrative change, starting at the highest echelon of Navy command.

On May 21, 2026, the Chief of Naval Operations released Naval Administration Directive 123/26, “Realignment of OPNAV N2N6 Responsibilities,” a title which perhaps undersells the importance of its contents. The directive is the first major realignment of the Navy’s Information Warfare Officers and their roles on the Navy’s top Pentagon staff since 2009 and lays out a series of significant changes in the short and long term across every community designator. The message begins with a useful discussion of the community’s history that ties its past orientation to the present day. In 2014, Navy Information Forces was established as the Type Commander tasked with administering community training, manpower, tactics, readiness, and fleet integration within a constantly evolving number of fields. Left unsaid in the message is the community’s raison d’être: The ability to consolidate and streamline the man, train, and equip missions across subspecialities as varied as intelligence, cryptology, oceanography, communications systems, and cyber warfare.

Operationally, each discipline benefits from the skills of the others, and the community is stronger by virtue of its size, resourcing, and impact. The composite structure of the former Naval Operations (OPNAV) for Information Warfare (N2N6) reflected this reality, if imperfectly in spots, and the community’s early identity benefitted from OPNAV and the Navy Information Forces working together to promote and professionalize the newly formalized community. For example, OPNAV resourced the Warfare Tactics Instructor program, giving the Information Warfare community their own professional tacticians to develop tactics, techniques, and procedures for the Fleet. And when Navy Information Forces was given responsibility for overseeing Maritime Operations Center resourcing across all numbered fleets, OPNAV worked in tandem to expedite resourcing. The previously mentioned new administrative changes fundamentally upend that structure, and senior leaders must be attuned to historical approaches to resourcing requirements.

After establishing the background of Navy Information Warfare, the Chief of Naval Operations’ (CNO) message sets two principal directives for the OPNAV staff. Taken in order, the first change is the separation of intelligence functions, including support to plans, policy, and strategy, from Information Warfare requirements and capabilities. Under the previous construct, the three tenets of Navy Information Warfare–battlespace awareness, assured command-and-control, and integrated fires–were collectively housed under a single OPNAV staff code. A newly-created position, Assistant Deputy CNO for Information Warfare (IW) Requirements and Capabilities, “…will serve as the principal advisor to the CNO on IW policy and lead policy matters pertaining to information technology, space, and cyber and will serve as the Department of the Navy, Deputy Chief Information Officer Navy.”

More technically oriented functions like cryptology, oceanography, and information technology shared common cause within the Information Warfare community, bound by their shared emphasis on technology, natural sciences, and history within the Navy. Therefore, moving these technical fields into their own section within the Naval Operations (OPNAV) staff flows logically; it bins the complementary skills and interests of their practitioners in a dedicated lane to work on critical issues unique to their communities. For instance, senior leaders have directed the force to roll out artificial intelligence tools and speed the adoption of other digital technologies. The technical experts within Information Warfare are on the front lines of those critical changes; integrating and streamlining their work within the new directorate will hopefully provide the best circumstances to expedite progress.

Intelligence professionals rely on the technical acumen of these Information Warfare communities for collection, processing, and dissemination of information, but do not themselves necessarily possess the same technical mastery over the disciplines in question. For its part, the Intelligence component of the community will now report to the Deputy CNO for Intelligence, Operations, Plans, Strategy, and Warfighting Development for “operational intelligence support, intelligence production prioritization, and policy clarification and changes.” As the old adage goes, “intelligence drives operations, and operations inform intelligence.” We see this in the Fleet and Joint Force increasingly, as space-based systems, cyber effects, and electronic warfare have played central roles in recent and ongoing campaigns. OPNAV’s new structure now affirms this at the highest levels of Navy decision-making. Furthermore, integration with the Plans, Policy, and Strategy directorate ensures Intelligence is integrated directly into strategic planning for future operations. The Plans, Policy, and Strategy Directorate’s output directly informs and begets requirements, which are needed to generate authorities and funding. If operational relevance is the goal, Naval Intelligence only stands to benefit from this reorganization.

Still, for the first time in nearly two decades, there will be an administrative division between Information Warfare officers on the OPNAV staff, and the community must avoid creating conflict by failing to clarify mission, functions, and tasks. A schism within senior Information Warfare leadership at the OPNAV level would run counter to the increasing degree of the community’s integration and prominence in the Fleet today. After the Navy released message 094/24 that broke Information Warfare officers out of their previous Restricted Line status, a designation for technical specialties who officers are precluded from command at sea, Navy Information Forces has worked to define what it now intends IW officers to be. Notably, these efforts include establishing opportunities for IW officers to command at sea. The Information Warfare Squadron concept is in pilot right now with the first community’s officers serving as independent warfare commanders afloat vice holding staff positions. If successful, this would mark the beginning of a future in which the Information Warfare realizes its decades-long goal of operational autonomy. Rearranging OPNAV staff Information Warfare functions seeks to align the highest echelons of Navy strategic decision-making with operational and tactical objectives, not the least of which being resourcing and sustaining Information Warfare squadrons across the Fleet. Senior leaders must promote that unity of effort as personnel transition to new roles, responsibilities, and workflows within the Pentagon to ensure that the community’s capabilities, personnel, and effects are synchronized and deployed to maximum efficacy across the Fleet–especially if the community’s individual specialties are well served by splitting up across the OPNAV staff. The organizational rearrangement brings danger that OPNAV and Navy Information Forces can run in opposite directions. Mitigations must be put in place to ensure operational requirements continue to be captured and reflected in program development, even if the requirement is from an Intelligence analyst and the program is “owned” by another directorate.

The second directive in the new administrative guidance has the greatest potential to change Navy Information Warfare’s capabilities and standing within the service. Unrestricted Line communities–traditional naval operators in surface ships, aviation, subsurface, expeditionary forces, and special warfare–have dedicated branches within the office of the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Warfare Systems, or OPNAV N9. OPNAV N9 is the resource sponsor and requirements manager for each of these warfare areas, essentially determining what the Navy needs, how much money will be required to meet those needs, and serving as a central node for coordinating and integrating all of the analysis and oversight needed to turn spreadsheets into ships and memos into missiles. Each warfare area is broken out into a subordinate element—Expeditionary Warfare is N95, Surface Warfare is N96, Undersea Warfare is N97, Air Warfare is N98—and collectively they are known as the “High Nines” on the OPNAV staff.

Previously, similar functions for Information Warfare communities were performed within the now-defunct OPNAV N2N6. Information Warfare is now split between OPNAV Intelligence (N2) and Information Warfare Requirements and Capabilities (N6N9). These entities are focused on resourcing and requirements for each of Information Warfare’s distinct specialties. Following this year’s administrative realignment, Information Warfare has its own dedicated resource sponsorship and requirements office: N99. This marks a promotion for Information Warfare, putting the community and its portfolio—Tactical and Enterprise Networks, and Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications (NC3); Oceanography and Navigation; IW Resources and Manpower; Intelligence Capabilities; Integrated IW Fires; and IW Future Capabilities—on as close to an equal footing as it has ever been to its Unrestricted Line peers. The new N99 office will not report directly to the OPNAV Warfighting Requirements and Capabilities (N9) office like its sister branches do, which does keep Information Warfare somewhat siloed from other communities. But when taken together with new opportunities for command at sea, Information Warfare Officers and their mission areas have never had so much visibility or influence within the Navy. A major issue for now, however, is that the number of billets available for Information Warfare requirements officers on the OPNAV staff remains largely unchanged. This means that in the near term, the newly-established N99 will likely perform the same job as its previous incarnation but in a different part of the org chart. This means a bigger pool of officers hunting for resources but with the same number of IWOs. Without significant manpower changes from Millington that realign the operational and staff rotations in officer careers, IW is liable to lack firepower in these resourcing fights.

Less heralded but no less important are the professional development and career progression opportunities now available for Information Warfare Officers. In the long term, this change may prove among the most profound of the whole realignment effort. There is a tongue-in-cheek aphorism that appropriation is governed by the Golden Rule: Whoever has the gold makes the rules. Unrestricted Line communities have built their officers’ career progressions with requirements officer and financial management tours. These key roles are delineated in official career path guidance promulgated by Navy Personnel Command, called out in promotion board precept language, and reserved for high performers who are often recruited and talent managed. The net effect is that trained personnel bring their critical expertise to the Navy’s seemingly endless stream of key requirements and resourcing discussions, ensuring their communities are best represented when budgeting. The Information Warfare community will stand to gain from prioritizing the billets and officers that fight for these resources. 

By carving out its own “High Nine” within the OPNAV staff, Information Warfare can push to achieve parity in both job execution and career trajectory with Unrestricted Line for officers assigned to N99 billets. Navy Information Forces and Personnel Command must first address inventory problems for Information Warfare officers at the O-4 to O-6 ranks, where numbers thin out dramatically. A retention bonus would surely help, but a more cost-effective solution would be to fix the billet structure for a career trajectory that better balances operational and staff roles. Information Forces and Personnel Command should then begin to call out requirements officer and financial management positions by name in board precepts to ensure upwardly mobile and successful officers are assigned to them. Subsequently, they should expect those officers to both excel in their work and be competitive for future promotion to positions of authority. This could begin to look more like the “golden path” that defines traditional officer careers. Common career markers like requirements, financial management, and OPNAV staff jobs bridge the cultural and operational differences between officers in otherwise separate communities and provide a common framework to build leaders in the Fleet. For their part, N99 officers should integrate into the rhythm and pace of their directorate counterparts, using that organizational parity to give Information Warfare programs their best shot in budget battles. Also, the new N99 can and should create its own culture internal to the organization to both breathe life into its daily tasks and project an image of unity and identity out to the rest of the Navy staff.

NAVADMIN 123/26 affords the Information Warfare Community a once-in-a-generation chance to overhaul its officer career paths and shift attention to resourcing and requirements, changes that would yield significant long-term benefits for both the community and its personnel. Information Warfare remains a growth industry within the Navy, and for good reason. As the Fleet generates, processes, analyzes, and demands more information to plan and execute operations worldwide, Information Warfare personnel are poised to meet those needs and innovate to fight and win our nation’s wars at sea. The challenge now is ensuring we continue to modernize resourcing, requirements, and mission sets without losing the advantages the community gained by forging a unified effort over the past two decades. The threat of intra-community drift is real and requires proactive leadership, clear guidance, and consistent cross-specialty engagement to ensure that administrative separation does not lead to operational and cultural divorce. The realignment of responsibilities outlined by the Navy’s recent administrative updates has extraordinary potential to both facilitate and make permanent those changes, but Information Warfare must strike while the iron is hot to build the kind of weapon system it can wield with great skill and confidence for years to come. If Information Warfare’s many communities can remain united through these changes, they–and the Navy–will be stronger than ever.

Lieutenant Commander Adam Reiffen is an Intelligence Officer currently serving in the Wargaming Department of the Naval War College. He previously served as a Federal Executive Fellow at Brown University’s Watson School of International and Public Affairs, as well as a Requirements Officer at OPNAV N2N6.

The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the views or policy of the U.S. Department of War, the Department of the Navy, or the U.S. government. No federal endorsement is implied or intended.

Featured image: A U.S. Sailor stands watch in the combat information center aboard Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Donald Cook (DDG 75), June 8, 2026. (U.S. Navy photo)

Information Warfare

Russia’s Drone Machinations: Reflexive Control and Cognitive Warfare in the Maritime Domain

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By Catherine Marie Abbott

A version of this article was originally published by the Center for Maritime Strategy, a non-profit, non-partisan think tank and research institution dedicated to studying maritime issues and their context within wider American national security policy. This article is republished with permission.

Reflexive Control in the Maritime Domain

Originating in 1960s Soviet strategic military doctrine, reflexive control (RC) allows the user to employ and orchestrate manipulative tactics, including disinformation, deception, overload, provocation, and distraction, to compel adversaries to voluntarily adopt courses of action favorable to the user’s interests. Since the intensification of the Ukrainian-Russo War and NATO’s extended support to Ukraine, Russia has attempted to reconfigure the environment’s balance of power and assess the limit of the alliance’s collective deterrence.

The Federation, using its fleet of shadow tankers as a tool for asymmetric coercion, has leveraged the vessel’s plausible deniability to enable drone incursions for reconnaissance against the Western alliance. Flyovers have reportedly occurred in proximity to civilian areas, airports, critical infrastructure, and military installations, with at least 39 drone-related incidents between September 2025 and October 2025, and a suspected incident as recent as June 2026. Despite being generally interpreted as surveillance operations, drone incursions launched from naval platforms have received limited attention as instruments of cognitive warfare designed to alter NATO’s decision-making and induce strategic miscalculations.

Cognitive Warfare: Leveraging Plausible Deniability in the Maritime Domain

Russia’s augmented strategy leverages grey-zone asymmetry to conduct cognitive warfare against allied states by exploiting maritime legal safeguards and persistent drone activities. Notably, cognitive warfare, according to NATO, is deliberate strategic synchronized use of military and non-military to influence human cognition, degrade rational decision making, and secure a cognitive advantage over an adversary. Within this context, cognitive warfare specifically targets allied rational processing, strategic beliefs, and threat perceptions under the cover of constant, exploitable intrusions. In recent years, drone technology has fundamentally altered the calculus of modern conflict, allowing comparatively weaker states to counteract the air superiority of major powers through inexpensive, adaptable, and deniable means. While the vast majority of drone incursions occur along NATO’s eastern flank, with Russian and Ukrainian assets encroaching on Estonia, Latvia, Poland, and Romania, these instances are widely recognized as spillovers from the adjacent conflict. Notably, these incursions require sustained and aggressive air policing operations, as well as increased investment in NATO anti-drone capabilities.

However, unlike these generally regarded accidental land-border spillovers, drone operations launched from maritime platforms represent deliberate psychological efforts to impose societal distress and sow distrust between citizens and state authorities. Russian-affiliated sanctioned vessels such as Astrol 1 and Pushpa have been observed launching and operating airborne assets into NATO airspace. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has noted the use of these civilian-marked vessels for reconnaissance and potential sabotage coordination. Notably, when navigating in the Baltic Sea, shadow vessels operate exclusively within international waters and the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of European littoral nations, using the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) as an international legal shield against allied interdiction and seizures, effectively weaponizing international law to conduct cognitive warfare with near impunity.

NATO continues to contend with shadow vessels, with varying solutions and effects, including increased sanctions and barring known sanctioned vessels from accessing allied ports. However, the primary nexus constraining interdiction and seizure efforts being the region’s strict adherence to international conventions. Accordingly, UNCLOS does not permit seizure or interdiction operations and obligates states to allow freedom of movement on the high seas, with vessel authority delegated to the designated flag state. Shadow vessels notoriously employ deceptive tactics to maintain plausible deniability on the international stage, including opaque and decentralized ownership structures, shell corporations, flags of convenience, and opportunistic flag registrations. By amalgamating the legally insulated fleet into a nearly impenetrable mothership for drones, Russia can maintain plausible deniability while leveraging drones as an exploitable means of regional coercion.

Altering NATO’s Decision Calculus

Viewing itself as diametrically opposed to the West, Russia has leveraged a cumulative cognitive warfare diaspora, including deniable offensive cyber campaigns, misinformation operations, and the weaponization of existing migration pressures, to destabilize Western states and diminish institutional trust. Ideologically, Europe has exhibited political fragmentation, with NATO member states such as Slovakia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic shifting toward illiberal democratic models. Through these targeted efforts, Russia seeks to influence and exploit the vulnerable domestic political environments of NATO member states in ways that weaken alliance cohesion and reduce sustained support for Ukraine.

Because Russia’s RC strategy operates just below NATO’s Article 5 threshold, the Kremlin can observe and evaluate NATO’s collective responses, operational timelines, and escalation thresholds. Since the onset of the Ukrainian-Russo War in 2022, and following the annexation of Crimea in 2014, NATO has dynamically increased its kinetic deterrence posture. In conjunction with initiatives such as Eastern Sentry, the NATO Force Model, and the Allied Reaction Force, NATO has adopted a deterrence-oriented defensive posture, increasing conventional presence along its eastern flank. While these efforts strengthen deterrence, this shift from crisis management toward sustained territorial defense increases the frequency of NATO-Russia interaction, raising the probability of strategic miscalculation within a persistently contested operational environment.

Notably, maritime-enabled drone incursions function as a key instrument of Russia’s RC strategy to diminish institutional trust and generate perceptions of insecurity among NATO allies. Russia’s maritime hybrid campaign has coincided with repeated damage to subsea infrastructure in the Baltic Sea domain, alongside sustained surveillance and mapping of NATO’s critical undersea infrastructure (CUI) as pre-crisis preparation. Repeated incursions conducted via shadow fleet vessels function as observable probes that evaluate NATO’s deterrence, attribution capacity, and response timelines within the gray-zone threshold. Despite increased defensive measures, the persistence of such incidents may erode perceptions of institutional reliability and alliance security guarantees.

If NATO responds to persistent gray-zone activities with kinetic measures, it risks reinforcing the central dilemma of RC: restraint is interpreted as strategic weakness and an inability to provide security guarantees, while escalation enables Russia to frame NATO as the aggressor, thereby reinforcing broader narratives of anti-Western sentiment, hostility, and escalation.

Strategic Considerations for NATO

While NATO has undertaken significant aggressive efforts to counter Russia’s shadow fleet activities, including initiatives such as Baltic Sentry and the Nordic Warden System, these mechanisms primarily focus on protecting CUI and monitoring suspicious maritime activities. Notably, these strategies do not address the vessels as drone-enabled platforms, requiring NATO to consider initiatives targeting maritime-enabled drone incursions.  

Firstly, NATO cannot allow maritime-drone-enabled incursions to become a normalized non-kinetic activity. If left unchecked, Russia will perceive the passivity as permissive, emboldening the Federation to test alliance resolve through escalating behavior. Russia’s reflexive control strategy primarily relies on sustained ambiguity to reconfigure the decision-making calculus of a target; therefore, such incursions are likely to continue, if not exacerbate, over time to achieve its salami-slicing tactics to gradually reduce alliance credibility and security apparatus without invoking Article 5. Accordingly, NATO requires a comprehensive attribution mechanism addressing continual unauthorized drone activity, including a coordinated identification system linking vessels to drones, as well as non-kinetic interception strategies such as leveraging radio frequency jamming to diminish links between drones and pilots. Coastal states maintain sovereignty over their territorial sea and the above airspace, providing a legal basis for states to regulate unauthorized aerial activity within territorial waters.

Simultaneously, NATO must continue to expand legal efforts to address shadow vessels. Although, according to UNCLOS, surveillance conducted by vessels operating within a coastal state’s EEZ is not inherently prohibited, with its legality depending on the activity conducted and the status of the vessel permitting it. Shadow fleet vessels equipped with specialized surveillance systems, military-grade communication equipment, or drone launch capabilities may challenge their designation as ordinary commercial vessels, especially when operating in proximity to CUI. Given that civilian vessels under UNCLOS do not maintain equivalent sovereign protections afforded to military vessels, NATO member states should reassess whether vessels engaged in state-directed intelligence collection or military support activities can continue to benefit from the legal assumptions afforded to legitimate commercial actors.

Conclusion

Russia is leveraging multi-domain campaigns as part of its greater RC strategy. While not actively seeking conventional warfare with the Alliance, it is simultaneously defining the informational and operational environment in ways that preserve escalation optionality and strategic positioning in the event of a near-peer conflict. In this sense, Russia’s maritime-enabled RC has increasingly determined NATO’s decision-making environment through sustained uncertainty and ambiguity by leveraging regional vulnerabilities and international frameworks. Given the fragmented and expansive nature of the maritime domain, NATO is likely to contend with this challenge over an extended period, as efforts to constrain shadow vessel fleet activity are offset by Russian adaptation through vessel reconstitution. Currently, Russia is incorporating known sanctioned vessels, such as Pushpa, now Feniks, into its naval directory while continuing to acquire new tankers for shadow fleet activities, sustaining conditions that enable sanctions evasion, infrastructure disruption, and its maritime-enabled drone incursions as part of its larger RC strategy.

Catherine Marie Abbott holds a master’s degree in security policy studies from George Washington University and a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, specializing in maritime security, intelligence analysis, and counterintelligence. Her research primarily focuses on maritime logistics, emerging technology, and intelligence processing, with a distinct focus on analyzing overlooked variables and externalities that disrupt strategic decision-making.

The views and opinions are those of the author and do not reflect or represent those of her employer or any other organization with which she is affiliated.

Featured image: The Tactical Resupply Vehicle-150 lands on the beach after a series of contested logistics experimentations from ship to shore as part of Project Convergence-Capstone 4 at Camp Pendleton, Calif., Feb. 29, 2024. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Howard Lee)

Information Warfare

Information Warfare is Integrated Warfare

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By Corey Grey

When the USS Carney (DDG-64) downed the opening salvos of Houthi land-attack cruise missiles and drones over the Red Sea in October, the Pentagon hailed the feat as a “demonstration of the integrated air and missile defense architecture.” It was much more than that. Long before Carney’s medium-range Standard Missile-2s (SM-2s) erupted from their launch cells, Information Warfare (IW) capabilities provided crucial combat support to neutralize the inbound threats, enabling these shots with critical IW equipment, intelligence, internal communications, and electronic support. In short, naval IW—with the exception of launching the SM-2s— ensured critical strategic objectives. This event, and many others like it, demonstrates the underappreciated depth of IW for the current and future fight.

As the military grapples with recruiting shortfalls, the IW community has a compelling story to counter: integrated warfighting. This narrative, epitomized by Carney and other units’ recent successes, covers efforts across a diverse range of specialties that are too often seen in isolation: meteorology/oceanography, cryptology, intelligence, communications, space, and cyber operations. As important as the success of these individual elements are for the U.S. Navy, the real impact relies on the full integration of information forces and capabilities through improved recruiting, training and career paths integration, as underscored by the recent Department of Defense Strategy for Operations in the Information Environment (SOIE).

With this in mind, the U.S. Navy should take concrete steps to further promote an integrated warfighting ethos which better incorporates all elements of the IW community, starting from initial officer training to senior level carrier strike group operations. By defining what it means to be an integrated information warfighter rather than just being an Intelligence Specialist, Cryptologist, Meteorologist, or Information Professional, the IW community will better educate, train, and most importantly, recruit the next generation of IW personnel. Equally important is the need to enhance retention. To further maintain the impressive cadre of IW personnel in service, the Navy should improve its career opportunities with better advanced training and cross-detailing availability. In the aftermath of these changes, IW will be better positioned to dominate the information environment and enable mission success.

Shared Identity

The Navy’s IW community currently boasts favorable recruiting but should do more to meet the growing demand from supported operational forces. Vice Admiral Kelly Aeschbach, Naval Information Forces commander, recently confessed that “our biggest challenge right now is facing demand. We are needed everywhere, and I cannot produce enough information warfare capacity and capability to disrupt it everywhere that we would like to have it, and so that remains a real pressing challenge for me: how we prioritize where we put our talent and ensure that we have it in the most impactful place.”

Better recruiting starts with stronger, more compelling messaging. Aviators join to fly, submariners join to drive boats, surface warfare officers to drive ships, but there is less consistency in why each IW officer volunteers for service. Future IW candidates require a holistic message that knits together the disparate range of specialties that encompass the community.

The Navy’s maritime sister service provides a clear model for messaging, encapsulated in five simple words: Every Marine is a Rifleman. This iconic phrase is based on the foundational infantry skills every Marine receives, regardless of their specialty, and the expectation that every Marine can serve in the capacity of a rifleman if called upon to do so. This narrative and ethos is so effective that last year, without any substantial increase in compensation or incentives, the Marine Corps exceeded its recruitment goals while the other services experienced shortfalls not seen in decades. Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Smith said it best: “Your bonus is that you get to call yourself a Marine.”

Sadly, the IW community lacks the clarity of the Marine Corps model. Instead, the community prescribes to an identity built around specialization. Personnel share the title of Information Warfighter, which encompasses seven officer designators and eight enlisted ratings, but the same personnel are only expected to master their own specific capability. Case in point, Congress recently compelled the Navy to produce a new maritime cyber warfare officer designator and cyber warfare technician rating due to a lack of specialization by Cryptologic Warfare Officers and Cryptologic Technicians. This change stands as criticism to the IW community as a whole as it raises questions towards their unified identity. Cyber operations cannot exist without Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) yet the Navy decided to separate the integrated IW capacity under two officer designators (1810, for SIGINT, and 1880, for Cyber Operations). Officers who joined the Navy to perform cyberspace and SIGINT functions should not have to laterally transfer to a new community to ensure they can continue to deliver and lead cyber operations. The capriciousness of this shift only leads to frustration and difficulties in recruiting and retaining talent.

Overall, the true lesson from all this is not the need to create more IW communities, but instead the need to produce a capable warfighter that can understand and provide full IW effects to the operational commander regardless of designator. Many will look to the Information Warfare Commander (IWC) position, both afloat and at maritime operation centers ashore, as the model for this vision, but how does the U.S. Navy assure future and present IW professionals that they will be properly trained to support or even become this commander?

Solutions for Integration

Although the Information Warfare Commander (IWC) for amphibious readiness groups and carrier strike groups drives the Navy towards a more integrated IW force, there is no consolidated career pipeline to properly prepare a rising officer to leverage all IW capabilities. Moreover, if that commander has done well to master his or her specialty, it comes at the opportunity cost of lesser competence in commanding an integrated force. More training is needed to ensure junior IW professionals feel competent, confident, and motivated to stay in the Navy through this milestone. Lengthening and strengthening courses that all IW officers can attend, such as the Information Warfare Officer Basic Course and Information Warfare Officer Intermediate Course, would better develop and refine how every IW specialty supports the fight while also fostering an integrated warfighting ethos, starting from the officer corps and spreading to the enlisted ratings. These trainings should highlight integrated IW operations for air, surface, sub-surface, naval special warfare, amphibious readiness group, and carrier strike group operations while leveraging evolving initiatives such as live, virtual, and constructive training. IW leaders would then be well postured to motivate and further develop the diverse cadres within the larger community.

Beyond better messaging and training is the need for increased cross-detailing, that is, assigning an officer from one IW discipline into a billet normally filled by another. The aim of this process is to ensure greater exposure and integration as IW officers broaden their experiences serving in capacities that are not traditionally aligned with their core skills. However, the IW force is not fully exposed or integrated because few leadership positions at the O-4 to O-6 levels are available for cross-detailing. These few billets are highly selective; consequently, most IW officers will never work outside their designator. The largest pool of IW officers, namely junior officers, are thus unaware of the full breadth and scope of the IW community due to a lack of experience and exposure. One especially important key to retaining talented people is to provide broader career opportunities, especially when they are most impressionable and likely to decide whether to stay in the Navy or leave for industry.

In a time when IW officers are filling senior roles once thought exclusive to unrestricted line officers, such as chief of staff, maritime operations center directors, and IWC, the question stands how they have not fully integrated within their own community. It is inconsistent to think that an Intelligence Officer can serve as the Commanding Officer of the largest Navy Information Operations Command (traditionally a Cryptologic Warfare Command) but a cryptologist cannot serve as a numbered fleet N2/N39. The same can be said for a number of other IW billets at every level. Certainly there are some positions that are best served by specific designators but this should be the exception and not the rule. The lack of cross-detailing creates identity challenges that degrade both community effectiveness and retention.

More deliberate solutions for integration, such as consolidating new accession IW officers under one broad designator and then having them select specific community tracks later in their careers, similar to the Navy’s Human Resource Officer community, should also be considered. Officer candidates would be presented with the full IW portfolio and then have the opportunity to select and support any of the various disciplines. After a set number of years being exposed to the broader community, the officer would then select a designator track from one of the IW disciplines. This could be implemented via a competency based selection process as determined from additional qualification designations (AQDs), type of assignments completed, and personal preference. The framework would enable deliberate career development, preparing officers to better succeed in more challenging IW assignments while also offering greater exposure and integration to succeed in senior level Information Warfare Commander positions.

Five Simple Words

With these solutions and more in this vein, operational commanders will be able to look to a fully pinned IW professional and receive an authoritative voice in navigating throughout the entire IW domain. This expectation should not be reserved for the select few who serve as IWC but for each individual who belongs to the IW community. IW is a compilation of many specialties in one vast domain and each sailor must be able to understand their place within it. As each member of a ship’s crew understands his or her place in maintaining a warship afloat, so must all IW professionals as they sail through the information environment.

The generalist versus specialist argument is not novel, yet these assertions go beyond that. The Navy must refit the individual IW operator’s identity towards integrated domain operations. Attracting and retaining qualified talent to meet the heavy IW demand necessitates a full commitment towards greater interconnectedness. Fourteen years have passed since the establishment of the IW community and while progress has been made, great strides still need to be achieved towards full synthesis. Without a comprehensive approach that meaningfully gets to how the IW community better integrates – from messaging, to training, to detailing. It is questionable whether the Navy will indeed be capable of recruiting and retaining forces for the many and varied challenges along the horizon. More must be done and a good place to start is by putting the community’s initiatives and visions into five simple words – “Information Warfare is Integrated Warfare.”

Lieutenant Corey Grey is a cryptologic warfare officer, qualified in information warfare and submarines. He holds a master’s degree from the Naval War College in defense and strategic studies with an Asia-Pacific concentration. He is assigned as the cryptologic resource coordinator on the staff of Commander, Submarine Group Seven.

Featured Image: PACIFIC OCEAN (Aug. 25, 2023) Operations Specialist 2nd Class Itzel Ramirez identifies surface contacts in the combat information center of the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Paul Hamilton (DDG 60) in the Pacific Ocean, Aug. 25, 2023. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Elliot Schaudt)

Information Warfare

Gaining the Operational Intelligence Advantage through Data Literacy

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By Andrew Orchard

The U.S. Navy’s history is rich with inspiring achievements in information warfare, from Station Hypo’s successes in World War II to supporting raids against high-value targets during the Global War on Terror. Inspiring as U.S. Naval Intelligence history has been, achieving victory in the next fight will require specific training focused on developing the skills required to cope with all the data available to today’s information warriors.

Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. Navy has greatly expanded its data-technology and collection capacity to meet analytical needs, creating a challenging paradigm:  a data glut and an information deficit. Data literacy is key to reducing the disparity.1

Data literacy centers on reading, analyzing, and communicating with data. It is not a science:2 Reading requires understanding what data is and the aspects of the world it represents. Analyzing data refers to aggregating, sorting, and converting it into useful information. Finally, communicating with data means using that data to support a logical narrative to a particular audience, and is of the utmost importance to any navy’s information warriors.3 A naval intelligence example of data literacy at work is determining adversary reconnaissance aircraft sortie schedules and maintenance days, and then effectively communicating the derived intelligence to improve and better inform the Warfare Commander’s decision space.

Operational Intelligence Center

Pressured by advances in the speed, precision, and destructive force of naval weapons, operational intelligence (OPINTEL) is critical, and empowering U.S. Naval Intelligence through data literacy may be the key. This is not a new concept. Analysts harnessed these techniques during the Cold War when Navy Ocean Surveillance Information Centers (NOSIC) developed and employed databases of prior Soviet activities to inform analyses of ongoing operations.4 These successes in data literacy facilitated a favorable Cold War OPINTEL asymmetry that proved a key advantage over the Warsaw Pact.5 Available battlespace awareness technology is already making this task easier. However, making sense of the battlespace requires more than just using automated OPINTEL applications.

Data literacy, not science or analytics, is the answer, as it provides Naval Intelligence professionals with the ability to synthesize information and further aid tactical commanders in making informed decisions. OPINTEL centers can become tailored centers of excellence through data literacy. To streamline scouting the positions of Soviet forces in the 1970s, Fleet Ocean Surveillance Information Facility (FOSIF) centralized collection, exploitation, analysis, and dissemination, as scouting is not complete until the collected information is delivered to the tactical commander. Fusing information from national and tactical sensors, FOSIF’s dedicated support provided the intelligence needed for the fleet to operate further forward resulting in more efficient scouting.6, 7, 8

What and Why … Data-Driven Decision Making

Advances in digital technology produced exponential data growth, and the private sector began to develop essential technology and skills to understand this ever-expanding resource. This development mirrored similar operations analysis and research advances during World War II. Adding data and analysis in the private sector built an innovative school of thought: data-driven decision-making, emphasizing data literacy over science.9

Data literacy is an essential component of an organization’s strong data strategy. It promotes understanding and fosters workforce incorporation of data into daily operations. Not laying such a foundation and skipping right to higher-end approaches like data science will not achieve the macro-level result of making data more useful across the entire organization. The “godfather” of data literacy, Jordan Morrow, notes: “One doesn’t go from not being a runner to racing a 50-mile ultra-marathon the next day.” 10

Instead, Morrow emphasizes the three Cs: Curiosity, Creativity, and Critical thinking. Morrow’s proven approach promotes literacy and data “democratization.”11 An entire workforce using data can lead to a more adaptive and successful organization, as highlighted by a ThoughtSpot and Harvard Business Review study. The report found that successful companies enable all employees through data literacy to make more informed decisions resulting in higher customer and employee satisfaction and higher productivity.12 This increased productivity reduces the glut and bottlenecks by enabling data use among frontline workers.

Data experts recommend a three-step framework: defining literacy goals, assessing the workforce’s current skills, and laying out a learning path.13 Naval Intelligence’s goal should be to create a confident and curious force that can critically think with data to support better and faster decisions throughout the spectrum of conflict. This simple goal focuses on people, as they matter most.

The assessment process aims to set measurable goals and lay the foundation for making Naval Intelligence more data literate. Assessing baseline data skills begins with examining how Naval Intelligence uses data in battlespace awareness, assured command and control, and integrated fires. Understanding how data is applied across the community identifies core skills and helps foster a culture that appreciates the value of data literacy.

The assessment process should also include examining data tool usage and functionality. Experts believe such analysis is crucial to improving return on investment and developing a tailored learning path that fully leverages technology. The final part of the assessment process is surveying the force by testing a sample of personnel on their ability to read, work with, analyze, and communicate with data in ways that support better warfighting.

Informed by the assessment, the data literacy-learning path will align with the Naval Intelligence training continuum. A data-literate cadre begins with exposing personnel to data during accession schools. Initial instruction will teach new personnel the value of data by introducing common concepts and language. The foundational education cultivates the three Cs by building confidence and demonstrating data’s possibilities while reducing barriers. Training will continue throughout accession and intermediate schools as personnel will receive instruction on data tools and functionality.

The learning path will not end at the schoolhouse. Each step of the Fleet Response Training Program (FRTP) will reinforce data literacy by teaching information warfare teams afloat how to use data.

The Three Cs: Applied to a Taiwan ADIZ Case

Data literacy empowers a workforce to see the world differently. Economist Tim Harford wrote: “Whatever we’re trying to understand about the world, each other, and ourselves, we won’t get far without statistics.” 14 Applying these skills to publicly available Taiwan Air Defense Identification Zone (TADIZ) data can exemplify the power of data literacy.

Taiwan Ministry of Defense publicly released presentation on PLA TADIZ incursions for the day of Speaker Pelosi’s Taiwan arrival.

Since September 2020, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense has publicly reported on the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) air operations inside the TADIZ. The PLA flew 3158 TADIZ sorties as of 5 March 2023, likely as part of a larger effort to erode Taiwan sovereignty and message against outside interference. 15, 16, 17 This begs the question, is there an operational objective that aligns with the strategic intent?

PLA aircraft reportedly entered the TADIZ on 67% of days between 9 September 2020 and 5 March 2023.18 Most (77%) of the daily incursions involved less than the mean number of aircraft (5.04), and about a third (34%) of daily incursions had only one aircraft enter the TADIZ. The majority of single sortie missions (63%) occurred between October 2020 and September 2021. Reconnaissance aircraft primarily (95%) flew these missions. Such domain awareness sorties also normalized incursions and reinforced Chinese interests while challenging Taiwan’s ability to enforce its declared ADIZ.19

These actions likely forced Taiwan to choose between either not responding to the incursions or expending finite military resources (aircraft and pilot hours), thereby achieving China’s goal of pressuring Taiwan, according to Dr. Ying Yu Lin.20 If Taiwan did not respond, the flights could be perceived as legitimizing Chinese claims and eroding those of Taiwan.

The composition of aerial incursions into Taiwan’s ADIZ. (Author graphic)

The PLA transitioned to predominantly fighter incursions (a mean of 64% of monthly TADIZ activity) in September 2021, further bolstering its claims of control over the airspace while increasing the pressure on Taiwan. Fighter sorties also accounted for an even more significant portion (89%) of TADIZ incursions in reaction to then Speaker Pelosi’s 2 August 2022 Taiwan visit.

During the month-long response to the Speaker’s visit, the PLA persistently flew a larger volume of incursions. The daily mean (15) number of aircraft throughout the response was well above the mean (11) number of aircraft flown in reaction to other international engagements with or exercises near Taiwan. Previous reactions also only lasted 1-3 days. The PLA likely increased its sorties to explicitly demonstrate airspace control and force Taiwan to expend more resources as punishment.

The Need for Data Literacy

Applying the Three Cs to recognize patterns like the transition to predominantly fighter TADIZ incursions increases operational awareness in near real-time and can support ongoing analysis similar to the NOSIC’s databases. This renewed emphasis on data can improve fleet operations by providing tactical commanders with objective facts, increasing OPINTEL support and understanding of adversary objectives.

Achieving such an OPINTEL advantage requires a data-literate U.S. Naval Intelligence community that can rapidly turn the glut into usable information. An entire force able to discover critical insights and efficiently communicate will tightly couple intelligence and analysis to the engagement of targets during distributed maritime operations. As ADM Gilday noted: “Information has become the cornerstone of how we operate.”21 Gaining favorable OPINTEL asymmetry enables the decision advantage by providing commanders with the information required to “…decide and act faster than anyone else.”22, 23, 24

Andrew Orchard is a U.S. Navy intelligence officer and selected Mansfield Fellow, currently serving as the Officer in Charge of the Joint Reserve Intelligence Center New Orleans.

The views expressed in this article is that of the author and does not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Navy, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

Endnotes

1. Sharman, CAPT Christopher. China Moves Out: Stepping Stones Toward a New Maritime Strategy. Washington D.C.: Nation Defense University, 2015.

2.  Morrow, Jordan. Data Literacy – The Human Element in Data United Nations Office of Information and Communications Technology. 25 November 2020.

3. Brown, Sara. “How to Build Data Literacy in Your Company.” 9 February 2021. MIT Sloan Management School. https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/how-to-build-data-literacy-your-company.

4.  Rosenberg, Christopher Ford and David. “The Naval Intelligence Underpinnings of Reagan’s Maritime Strategy.” The Journal of Strategic Studies (2005): 397.

5. Ibid, 402.

6. Hughes, CAPT (ret) Wayne. Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2000. 175.

7. Rosenberg, Christopher Ford and David. “The Naval Intelligence Underpinnings of Reagan’s Maritime Strategy.” The Journal of Strategic Studies (2005): 402.

8. Ball, Desmond Ball and Desmond. The Tools of Owatatsumi: Japan’s Ocean Surveillance and Coastal Defence Capabilities. Canberra: ANU Press, 2015. 93-96.

9. Stobierski, Tim. “The Advantages of Data-Driven Decision-Making.” 26 August 2021. Harvard Business Review. https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/data-driven-decision-making.

10. Morrow, Jordan. Data Literacy – The Human Element in Data United Nations Office of Information and Communications Technology. 25 November 2020.

11. Morrow, Jordan. Jordan Morrow and Qlik’s Mission to Create a Data-Literate Workforce. 15 April 2020. https://medium.com/digital-bulletin/jordan-morrow-and-qliks-mission-to-create-a-data-literate-workforce-c450a01714f5.

12. ThoughtSpot and Harvard Business Review. The New Decision Makers. Cambridge: Harvard Business Review, 2020.

13. Brown, Sara. “How to Build Data Literacy in Your Company.” 9 February 2021. MIT Sloan Management School. https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/how-to-build-data-literacy-your-company.

14. Harford Tim. The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics. New York: Penguin Random House, 2021. 16.  

15. All TADIZ data is derived from public releases by the Taiwan Ministry of Defense. Military News Updates. 10 November 2022. https://www.mnd.gov.tw/English/PublishTable.aspx?types=Military%20News%20Update&Title=News%20Channel. 

16. Kenneth Allen, Gerald Brown, and Thomas Shattuck. Assessing China’s Growing Air Incursions into Taiwan’s ADIZ Bonny Lin. 1 April 2022.

17. U-Jin, Olli Pekka Suorsa and Adrian Ang. “China’s Air Incursions Into Taiwan’s ADIZ Focus on ‘Anti-Access’ and Maritime Deterrence.” The Diplomat 20 July 2021.

18. TADIZ analysis based on publicly available data and conducted by Andrew Orchard in private capacity.

19. Silva Shih, Shuren Koo, Daniel Kao, Sylvia Lee, Yingyu Chen. “Why the Chinese Military Has Increased Activity Near Taiwan.” CommonWealth 2 November 2021.

20. Deutsche Welle. “China’s Taiwan Military Incursions Test the Limits of Airspace.” Deutsche Welle 4 October 2021.

21. Gamboa, Elisha. “CNO in San Diego, Meets with Project Overmatch Team on Fleet Modernization.” Navy.mil 23 February 2021.

22. Ibid.

23. For an additional collated form of the Taiwan Ministry of Defense publicly available data please see Gerald C. Brown’s and Ben Lewis’ google sheet. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qbfYF0VgDBJoFZN5elpZwNTiKZ4nvCUcs5a7oYwm52g/htmlview 

24. The author wishes to thank Christopher Underwood and Ryan Meder for advice on this article.

Featured Image: SOUTH CHINA SEA (Feb. 6, 2023) U.S. Navy Ensign Bradley Davis stands watch aboard the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Wayne E. Meyer (DDG 108). (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Mykala Keckeisen)