Measures of merit for offensive information operations courses of action

Developing, assessing, and selecting information operations (IO) courses of action is a difficult problem for IO planners. One of the most difficult parts of the planning process is the linkage between the decision maker's IO objectives and option selection. Value-Focused Thinking (VFT) provides an efficient and effective means of evaluating courses of action (COAs) on these objectives. The decision maker's preferences also serve as a baseline against which sensitivity to small preference changes can be analyzed. Finally, the merit of COAs can be directly translated into the ability to achieve the decision maker's objectives for IO. VFT was applied in the development of an offensive IO value model. This model was created with the direct support of the Joint Command and Control Warfare Center (now the JIOC) and the US Special Operations Command. A joint IO planning cell applied this value model to an example problem of conducting IO operations against a weapons-of-mass destruction (WMD) facility in order to rollback WMD development, production, and stockpiling while minimizing collateral damage, minimizing the friendly personnel at risk, maximizing weapons survivability, and protecting sensitive information.