October 24, 2006: The U.S. Department of Defense, which has been working on Information War strategy and tactics for two decades now, has developed a new doctrine for this form of combat. The new ideas including better tracking of who is doing what, and making Information War tools available to more troops, at all levels. The new program will spend at least $330 million over the next six years.

One of the first tasks is to build a system for monitoring the "battlefield." That is, a computer based system that will monitor what's happening in the media around the world, as it applies to Department of Defense operations. Such systems have long been in use by firms in the world financial markets, and it may well be that the Department of Defense got some of these new ideas from there. Meanwhile, the Information War tactics at all levels of the military will be upgraded and coordinated to make the most of positive media, and limit damage from negative stories (especially ones that are false or misleading.)

This new approach was prompted by several factors. First, Islamic terrorists have been very successful at using, and exploiting, the media. Second, the troops have been taking things into their own hands, especially on the Internet, with blogs, web pages, videos and so on. Third, Congress, and the media, have shut down earlier attempts to expand Information War operations, and this latest attempt appears configured to resist any repeats of that.