 should focus not simply upon military skills, but upon those aspects which troops will find most demanding or fruitful, including legal rights and obligations, languages, media awareness, and cultural orientation. In counterinsurgency simply being able to hold a polite conversation with a civilian is a military "skill" that may need to be developed in training.
There are clearly risks in delegating authority to make decisions. Troops need clear and comprehensive orders, orders which link the commander's intent with SOPs. This approach adds an extra safeguard to minimize the risk of a commander jeopardizing the political aim. Most junior commanders and soldiers will not need to know the details of how the strategy is constructed, but through mission command they will have a feel for what is expected of the Army, what the military constraints are, and why they are imposed.
The Core Functions
Doctrine is intended to guide, and thus to help view the overall government campaign and the military element of it through the prism of the core functions; find, fix, and strike. The role of various agencies and the part they are to play will be expressed in the overall campaign director's concept of operations. The intelligence services, elements of the Army (covert, overt, and clandestine), and other government agencies "find" the insurgent by gathering all available information on him. The uniformed services, the police, and the major spending departments of government--combined with diplomatic efforts and an active Hearts and Minds campaign (including P INFO)--"fix" the insurgent. Locally raised forces can also help to "fix" and have been employed to good effect in numerous counterinsurgency campaigns. Special forces, overt military and police units, psychological operations (PSYOPS), and the legal system spearhead the government's campaign to "strike," which is also reinforced through socioeconomic activities such as reorganizing local government, creating jobs, and improving social services.
In counterinsurgency the strategic application of information warfare is primarily concerned with gaining the command advantage at national level, and the preparation and implementation of a strategic information plan. In the former case, this would involve the protection of government and alliance command centers and the disruption of the equivalent command centers within any insurgent organization; in the latter case, the implementation of the strategic information plan covers the acquisition and control of the information available to an insurgent organization by all national means. The targets of this information war may include political, financial, commercial, and public media sources as well as military resources.
The military part of information warfare is command and control warfare, which integrates all military capabilities including operations security, psychological operations, deception, electronic warfare, and physical destruction. It is supported by all-source intelligence and communications and information systems. Its purpose is to deny information to an adversary, and to influence, degrade, or destroy his command and control capabilities, while protecting friendly command and control capabilities against similar actions.
These five disciplines can stand alone, but are most effective when integrated to form an overarching command and control warfare strategy. Any command and control warfare cell should be within the G3/J3 operations structure, but its function involves a complex interrelation of all staff areas. There is, however, real potential for mutual interference between the different components of command and control warfare operations, which underscores the need for close coordination at all levels.
The use of electronic warfare and the destruction of command and control sites may not be so applicable in counterinsurgency operations, although this will depend on the nature of the insurgency and the way the insurgents operate. Different counterinsurgency campaigns will have differing calls on the use of information 