I am incredibly thankful for Steve Tatham’s latest book, Information Operations: Facts, Fakes, Conspiracists.1Tatham, Steve. Information Operations: Facts Fakes Conspiracists. Howgate Publishing Limited. 2024. I am often asked by colleagues what books they should read to quickly understand the environment and capabilities that comprise this realm of warfare. While I’m accustomed to pointing people to Like War (Singer and Brooking), Information Operations now stands in a similar pre-eminent place on my bookshelf and will serve as one of my “go-to” recommendations for novices and information professionals alike.
Why? Because Steve Tatham speaks with unimpeachable authority. Unlike more academic treatments, Information Operations provides real case studies backed up by Steve’s intimate involvement in many of them as a former Royal Navy information professional who served across the UK defense establishment in and out of uniform. On a personal level, I was delighted to find that my former command benefitted from the groundwork Steve’s 15 (UK) PsyOps Group established during Op Herrick in Afghanistan. I deployed with Marine Expeditionary Brigade-Afghanistan to Helmand Province in 2009 where we integrated with the Royal Air Force IO division at Camp Bastion to synchronize influence operations in defense of our now combined strategic operating base and airfield. Later, as commander of II MEF Information Group, I worked extensively with the Royal Marines’ version of my command, 30 Commando, and found Steve’s treatment of recent UK information operations very familiar.
So what’s in store? As a further testament to his expertise in the field, Steve starts in Chapter 1 by defining exactly what he means in using the term information operations (IO). On the American side of the profession, we still seem to be awash in multiple terms when describing this realm: operations in the information environment, information warfare, etc. Steve is right to nail this down from the beginning and settles on a fairly broad approach that includes “everything that gets done in the information environment” except cyber. Excluding cyber from IO is a longstanding debate, and Steve is right not to waste his time on it to keep his treatise, particularly from a military IO perspective, focused on the art and science of informing and influencing audiences. If you are looking for more information on cyber operations, you should look elsewhere.
Speaking of where to look, Information Operations is one of those books you may want to “skip to the good parts” depending on your background. The early chapters on the UK (chapter 2), the US (chapter 3), past IO campaigns (chapter 6), and our mutual adversaries (chapters 7 and 8) are excellent primers of what has happened in the space. Servicemembers of my generation will want to take a trip down memory lane for IO successes and failures in Iraq and Afghanistan (chapter 4). And Steve does a masterful job weaving in current events like the war in Gaza and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine so the book is contemporary. While the information professional will be familiar with these examples, Steve structured the entire book to help them delve deeper. Information Operations is referenced with a supporting website (IOFFC.info) providing audio and video resources for each chapter as a great jumping-off point for further research.
I think the best parts of Information Operations come in chapters 4 (Audience) and 9 (Psychology). These chapters detail the hard work and time-tested approaches that make IO effective. As a warning to the intelligence professional, all the intent in the world won’t bring real change in a target population’s behavior without a detailed cultural understanding of that audience. And Steve is right to warn that you can only glean so much information about that audience from afar. Technology is helpful but won’t give you all the answers in this realm, so you need to spend some time with “boots on the ground.” Chapter 9 gives a similar warning about the intent to win “hearts and minds.” A tendency of the IO community of late, and leaders looking for quick wins, has been to leverage commercial marketing techniques to shift the attitudes of target audiences. Steve shows the folly of this approach with several examples and rightly points us toward the goal of behavior change as something entirely possible: “if you know your audiences well enough and understand a little of the psychology of human nature, then predicting human behaviour in certain circumstances is perfectly possible.” (pg 172).
Steve closes the book with a treatment on conspiracy theories that will interest anyone immersed in the modern information environment, perhaps all of us. His detailed overview of the Cambridge Analytica affair (chapter 11) is fascinating in its own right but I think it serves as a cautionary tale for leaders in the space looking for any “magic bullets” to solve their IO challenges. Especially in the military community, information has recently taken a prominent position, and there is no lack of businesses offering quick-win solutions to these challenges. Leaders would do well to take a hard look under the hood at these capabilities to see if they match what Steve lays out in this book before buying.
I am already looking forward to Steve’s next book. I welcome his thoughts on the emerging trend of artificial intelligence (AI), which he touches on briefly in his last chapter. My overall takeaway from Information Operations, supported by my own experience, is that this space has no free wins. In the human realm, effects and behavior change come from hard work, a deep understanding of an audience, and persistence to affect the outcome you desire. Technology will always be helpful but won’t completely win the day. Steve reminds us of this, so Information Operations is well worth your time and further study. It is also well worth your investment. All book royalties go to Hounds for Heroes, an organization providing specially trained assistance dogs to injured and disabled men and women of the UK Armed Forces and Emergency Services.
Brian Russell is the founder of Information Advantage and a Key Terrain Cyber Senior Fellow. He is a retired Marine Corps artillery officer, with previous assignments as the commanding officer of II Marine Expeditionary Force Information Group (II MIG) and 1st ANGLICO. His combat deployments include serving as the Military Transition Team Leader in Habbaniyah, Iraq, the executive officer of Brigade Headquarters Group in Helmand Province, Afghanistan and Plans Director in Bagram, Afghanistan. Some of his notable staff assignments include: Operations Directorate at Marine Corps Special Operations Command, Operations Directorate at United States Cyber Command, and U.S. Plans Directorate at Marine Corps Forces Cyberspace Command. He recently joined Peraton as a Cyber and Information Warfare subject matter expert. He is also an Information Professionals Association member.
- 1Tatham, Steve. Information Operations: Facts Fakes Conspiracists. Howgate Publishing Limited. 2024.