Todd Simmons
One of the central questions in modern warfare is how to organize military forces to fight with information effects to gain an advantage. Across the military services, commanders grapple with how to harness data, employ sensors, and use influence to generate real combat power. Within the Marine Corps circles, this debate has centered on the role and structure of the Marine Expeditionary Force Information Group (MIG). On one hand, there’s a sense that the information group is a failed concept; on the other, several authors propose taking the idea a step further and forming “information combat elements” led by their own commander. The creation of the MIG was a necessary corrective that injected critical planning factors into the understanding of modern war, but the idea of an information commander pushes a good thing too far.
Modern war is an information war. But the question isn’t whether information matters—it’s how to best organize to fight in an information-saturated environment. Every drone video, radio transmission, and social media post generates a potentially overwhelming stream of information. Making operations in the information environment the responsibility of any single commander is a mistake. Information is the coin of the realm for all commanders. Subordinate commanders should be able to understand their battlespace independently of higher headquarters in order to act effectively in the absence of orders. Every commander must be able to sense the threats and opportunities they face (physically and in the electromagnetic spectrum) without requesting that information from a higher headquarters that may have other priorities. Winning the battle for information, by blinding, deceiving, and confusing the adversary to out-cycle their OODA loop (observe, orient, decide, and act), isn’t the concern of any individual commander. It’s the primary concern of every commander. Information is too important to centralize.
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