Information Maneuverability and the Transformation of the Warfighting Environment

Increasingly, modern conflicts will be fought in information space as opposed to a classically physical battlefield environment. The purpose of the paper is to show the parallels between emerging Electromagnetic Maneuver Warfare (EMW) and cyber warfare (CW) concepts aligned with the US military Third Offset Strategy and introduce new concepts and measures defined as information power and information maneuverability. Specifically, the paper presents an extension of the Col. John Boyd Observe-Orient-Decide-Act (OODA) process and his “Destruction and Creation” thesis where he originated “Energy-Maneuverability” (EM) theory towards information power and information maneuverability. There is a need to transition from physical entropy and specific energy to proposed information equivalents. This paper sets forth formulae that introduce the concepts of “strong” and “weak” information positions as compared to an adversary or competitor - hence “information maneuverability”. The paper asserts that the future force challenges of mitigating uncertainty and increasing the speed of command in complex environments cannot be won without superior agility and autonomy within the information domain.