Volume 7, Perceptions Are Reality: Historical Case Studies of Information Operations in Large-Scale Combat Operations, is a collection of ten historical case studies from World War II through the recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Ukraine. The eleventh and final chapter looks forward and explores the implications of the future information environment across the range of military operations during both competition and conflict. The case studies illustrate how militaries and subnational elements use information to gain a position of relative advantage during large-scale combat. The intent of this volume is to employ history to stimulate discussion and analysis of the implications of information operations in future LSCO by exploring past actions, recognizing and understanding successes and failures, and offering some lessons learned from each author's perspective.

Impending technological advances will widen an adversary’s attack plane over the next decade. Visualizing what the future will hold, and what new threat vectors could emerge, is a task that traditional planning mechanisms struggle to accomplish given the wide range of potential issues. Understanding and preparing for the future operating environment is the basis of an analytical method known as Threatcasting. It is a method that gives researchers a structured way to envision and plan for risks ten years in the future. Threatcasting uses input from social science, technical research, cultural history, economics, trends, expert interviews, and even a little science fiction to recognize future threats and design potential futures. During this human-centric process, participants brainstorm what actions can be taken to identify, track, disrupt, mitigate, and recover from the possible threats. Specifically, groups explore how to transform the future they desire into reality while avoiding an undesired future. The Threatcasting method also exposes what events could happen that indicate the progression toward an increasingly possible threat landscape. This book begins with an overview of the Threatcasting method with examples and case studies to enhance the academic foundation. Along with end-of-chapter exercises to enhance the reader’s understanding of the concepts, there is also a full project where the reader can conduct a mock Threatcasting on the topic of “the next biological public health crisis.” The second half of the book is designed as a practitioner’s handbook. It has three separate chapters (based on the general size of the Threatcasting group) that walk the reader through how to apply the knowledge from Part I to conduct an actual Threatcasting activity. This book will be useful for a wide audience (from student to practitioner) and will hopefully promote new dialogues across communities and novel developments in the area.

Information operations (IO) creates effects in and through the information environment. IO optimizes the information element of combat power and supports and enhances all other elements in order to gain an operational advantage over an enemy or adversary. These effects are intended to influence, disrupt, corrupt or usurp enemy or adversary decision making and everything that enables it, while enabling and protecting friendly decision making. Because IO's central focus is affecting decision making and, by extension, the will to fight, commanders personally ensure IO is integrated into operations from the start

Field manual 3-90.6 provides the commander and staff of the Brigade Combat Team (BCT) and subordinate units with doctrine relevant to Army and joint operations. It applies to the Heavy Brigade Combat Team (HBCT), the Infantry Brigade Combat Team (IBCT), and the Stryker Brigade Combat Team (SBCT). The doctrine described in this manual applies across the full spectrum of military operations - offense, defense, stability or civil support. This publication: Provides BCTs with a framework in which they can operate as part of a division or independently as part of a joint task force; Provides doctrine for BCT commanders, staffs, and their subordinate commanders and leaders responsible for conducting major activities performed during operations; Serves as an authoritative reference for personnel who: Develop doctrine (fundamental principles and tactics, techniques, and procedures), materiel, and force structure; Develop institution and unit training; Develop unit tactical standard operating procedures for BCT operations.