Information Operations and Cyberspace: It's “Time” to Chat

By Craig Harm

Last week, Carl Hunt and I had the opportunity to talk about the SENDS effort at the Defining IO/Cyber Spectrum Operations Conference hosted at SPAWAR, Charleston, SC.  The conference was conducted by the Association of Old Crows.  The conference theme was “Defining IO & Cyber Capabilities in 21^st Century warfare”.  Keynote speakers were headlined by Vice Admiral “Mike” McConnell, U.S. Navy (retired) who was previously the Director of the National Security Agency and the Director of National Intelligence.  This was an important conference!

Discussions the first day centered on the strategic issues of DoD and national cyber operations and defense efforts.  While we heard how each of the military services is reorganizing to make cyber operations a more main-stream activity, we also heard about the complexity of their network management and defense challenges.  Senior-level operators expressed their concerns about being unable to see into their own networks.  The speakers included an Army general officer, a reservist on active duty, who has also worked in senior leadership positions in the commercial sector.

Many of the senior-level presenters on the first day talked about their efforts to secure their own networks.  As would be expected from those with such responsibilities, they all seemed to focus on the key areas of management, oversight, accountability, command and control and roles and missions.   These points were highlighted by recurring mention of organizational studies, effectiveness inspections, committee formations and “way-ahead” talks.

The second day was focused more on the “tactical” level and network operations.  A key point about network dependencies was brought up during these discussions.  The upshot of all of the presentations was that despite the talk of Net Centric Operations and Warfare, the DoD is really Net Dependent, and it is this Net Dependency that presents the most opportunities for vulnerability; this creates a driving force behind the requirement for secure networks.   With over 1.4 million DoD users on the network (including an increasing mobile presence), the challenge for network operators is building the culture to ensure users are protecting data and the network.

Yes, despite the leap in technologies and accessibility, it is still a culture issue – a people issue.

Although the details and the content of most of the discussions about Information Operations (IO) were classified, there were some key points of interest we can discuss here.  The first and foremost to me is the incongruence of the definition of Information Operations and what it is composed of.   Even today, there is still debate about what IO is and how it’s done.  The conventional DoD definition of IO includes both electronic warfare (EW) and computer network operations (CNO).   While some of these discussions look and feel “new”, such as computer network operations, the main themes are not, as I point out below.

The third and last day was conducted as a panel forum on new technologies.  The panel members were asked to address “What are some new technologies on the horizon, and how are these technologies transitioned to the warfighter?  What are Cyber and Net-Centric Warfare, and how will these capabilities help the warfighter?”

There were discussions and presentations on adaptive antenna technologies, text and video content extraction, as well as Information Management systems: the technologies of cyber-enabled operations, if you will.  It was in these sessions that Carl presented the SENDS Project.  His was the only presentation of the entire conference to specifically address the need to understand the human part of cyberspace, the linkage between “new” and “old” thinking about Information Operations (see below).

Many of the presentations during the conference alluded to the human element, but none called it out specifically.   In addition to giving a basic overview of the SENDS philosophy and the concept of the Science of Cyberspace, Carl talked of how the biggest source of both gratification and aggravation in the growth of cyberspace is in innovation….persistent, emergent innovation, a human process, by the way.

There is a paradox of sorts, where the ultimate uses of technologies and policies in many cases deviate to a use that was not the original intent.  This, Carl pointed out, is the manifestation of emergence from human, technological and cultural exchanges.  Cyberspace is a breeding ground for adaptation and innovation.  People interacting with other people, often through cyberspace technologies, show us daily how adaptive and yet unpredictable we truly are: this also helps explain why social science, while making progress, still has a long way to go!

After hearing three days of talk about the importance of Information Operations, the tremendous focus and effort within the DoD towards these operations, and the monumental challenges DoD has to overcome to implement them I began to wonder why this seems so new to people.  Information, communication, connectivity and secure lines of communication have historically always been important, vital parts of our lives as humans.

Several in the conference pointed out that during the revolutionary war, it was George Washington’s tremendous human network for gathering information that enabled him to outmaneuver the British and keep the Colonial Army intact.  While moving to intercept Robert E. Lee's army of Northern Virginia, Union soldiers from George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac discovered a misplaced copy of Lee's detailed battle plans wrapped around three cigars; even though McClellan failed to exploit the discovery to victory, he was still able to achieve a tactical draw at Antietam (interestingly, some of the first “cyberspace” technologies such as the telegraph, linked people during that time).  World War II saw the dependence on wireless transmission, another manifestation of cyberspace.  The Allied exploitation of Japanese codes and the German Enigma machine gave a significant advantage to the Allied war efforts.

So why is there the sudden emphasis on Information Operations?  Why is this different now, in the 21^st Century, than it has been in the past?  Why are these operations drawing so much attention from our national leaders in the last few years?

I believe what is really making this different is rooted in the effects modern cyberspace connectivity brings to operations.  Near-ubiquitous human connectivity and the massive quantities of data, interacting through the technology of cyberspace, have a transformational temporal impact.  It is really about time, and the massive human-human, human-machine and machine-machine interactions that modern, fast-paced flows of information enable.   SENDS is attempting to gain an understanding of these same themes through the study of exchange, emergence and self-organization.

These elements that cyberspace brings to Information Operations makes things different now, more than at any other period in history.  And it is these elements, including the effects of time, through which we must gain a more fundamental understanding before any study, reorganization or new policy will ever have any significant impact.

Cyberspace as Social Science

by Jack Holt

This is a bit of a different take on Cyberspace, but I've always believed it is less about technology and more about the behavior that technology enables.

I attended a National Association of Public Adminstrators meeting yesterday morning discussing “Creating a Culture Where Employees Thrive and Agencies Succeed.” Speakers included Marlise Streitmatter, Deputy Chief of Staff at the U.S. Department of Transportation and Toni Dawsey, Assistant Administrator for Human Capital management and NASA’s Chief Human Capital Officer.

Focal point of the discussion was the Partnership for Public Service and American University’s Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation’s “Best Places to Work in the Federal Government” 2010 survey results. DoT ranked dead last in the last survey and was voted “Most Improved” in 2010, and NASA has consistently been in the top 10 in every “Best Places to Work” survey.

This discussion was almost a reiteration of the WaPo interview with Gregory B. Jaczko, Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which was ranked the #1 overall best place to work in the federal government.

Main take-aways are that listening and engageing the workforce makes all the difference. Not a new concept to be sure, but woefully under-exercised. I’m reminded of the Cherokee proverb my grandfather taught me: If you listen to whispers, you’ll not hear screams. Also points out what I’ve been saying; there is a difference between managing, directing, and leading. Rear Adm. Grace Hopper once astutely noted: “You manage things, you lead people.” A leader’s role is to strengthen and unify the workforce by managing the workflow, directing the action and meeting the needs across the spectrum of the force. One of Jesus’ leadership lessons is: “The first must be last and the last first.” A leader’s focus and effort should be toward strengthening the weak points. These three thoughts have always guided my efforts when in leadership positions.

Social media played a very large part in making the dramatic turnaround in both the DoT and NRC and is what has kept NASA at the top. Inside the firewall employee communication and engagement are essential; but the tools are of little effect without leadership. It is the engagement piece that is most important.

DoT focused on leadership and supervisory training as part of a strategic plan to address the previous survey results which placed them dead last. Yet two of their agencies rated very high in the survey, the Federal Railroads Administration and the Federal Highways Administration. Marlise Streitmatter engaged them to learn how they did it. Finding ways to stay in communication were the keys. She found that the DoT, as a whole, was experiencing the siloed effects of an isolated, dispersed workforce. Subcultures developed because of the lack of communication between the hierarchies as well as between management and employees. This gave rise to a lack of trust compounded by a question of supervisory competence. Sound familiar? The DoT Secretary and agency administrators developed a strategic plan to address the failings. With a series of townhall meetings, luncheons, and other face-to-face meetings with employees and building a communication infrastructure, dialogue opened across the DoT encouraging ideas and innovation. Lead, show action, and listen is what Ms. Streitmatter acknowledges brought the DoT the “Most Improved” award.

NASA has for some time, been working to improve employee satisfaction with a focus on recruiting and retaining a younger workforce. The average age of the NASA employee in 2001 was 48 years. The question was, to whom do we hand this mission? Where is the succession management? In 2008 NASA produced the “Gen Y Perspectives” done by Gen Y employees for the NASA leadership to understand what needed to happen in order to cultivate the next generation workforce. The influencers for NASA, and I’ve seen this in other organization as well, are:

1. The Mission – understanding the importance of the mission at all levels and how every employee contributes.
2. An engaged leadership – (you cannot lead if you are not engaged – jh)
3. Engaged employees – (as a rule they won’t be engaged if leadership is not engaged – jh)
4. Progressive programs – Strategically thinking about how you engage and address the needs of the workforce in a human capital strategy.
5. Communication – multiple venues. (Communication is a human development activity. It is the tie that binds one to another and each to the whole. – jh)

Some of the tactics of NASA’s Human Capital Strategy are:

1. Leadership benchmarking – sharing lessons learned and best practices in leadership across the enterprise. When mission changes cause confusion and uncertainty, leaders communicate with each other to help unify the needed vision of the future and openly share with the dispersed workforce to create the common direction of the organization.
2. Opening avenues and encouraging “alternate views.” Even the terminology is chosen to be inclusive. Consider “alternate views” rather than “dissenting opinions.”
3. “Skip” luncheons. Brown bag lunchs or dinners where employees meet with the next higher level in the organizations. Basically informal meetings with your bosses boss.
4. Beginning leadership training at lower levels. Cultivating the leadership you will want and need in your organization.

It is not the "network" but "people networking" that makes the difference. Facilitating the access to information for better individual situational awareness, enabling the sharing of knowledge to create and enhance corporate wisdom and leadership that leads allows for employees to self-synchronize around the ideas, topics and events as needed to contribute to the corporate mission.

For the federal government as a whole performance management has always been a problem. NASA has addressed this by constant evaluation of their processes, constant evaluation of the workforce, and constant evaluation of the leadership. It is NOT pro forma, but a focus on a consistent process of improvement. In a word, management. Consistency is paramount in expectation management. Expectation management is paramount in leadership and leadership should be exercised at every level of the organization.

There is nothing new in any of this but these are good examples of what cultivating a culture of success looks like.

– Jack