Chinese Tactics > PART ONE: People’s Liberation Army Forces > Chapter 5: Tactical Information Operations > Principles of Information Operations
5-8. Four principles describe the PLA’s concept of IO: actively attack, target nodes, achieve synthesis, and protect tightly. These principles are described in paragraphs 5-9 through 5-13.
Actively Attack
5-9. Attack is the primary method by which initiative is gained in an IO campaign. The PLA stresses aggressive and integrated attack methods early in the conflict as the best way to ensure information superiority. Further, in an information war it is harder to steal or regain the initiative once it is lost, so greater emphasis is placed on seizing information superiority early in the campaign. Three specific characteristics of IO contribute to the focus on early action: its clandestine nature and ease of concealment; the low requirements on manpower and material resources, making operational sustainment relatively easy; and the inherent vulnerabilities of information systems due to their reliance on the electromagnetic spectrum. A strong initial attack takes advantage of these characteristics, but it requires the conditions to be set long before active hostilities commence.
Target Nodes
5-10. The Chinese define a node as a critical component of an information system that either provides a capability or links other nodes. In this context it refers primarily to sensors, information processing centers, and the network backbone that enables them. Nodal attack attempts to identify, isolate, and target these objects, and it is the centerpiece of the IO campaign. Destroying or neutralizing nodes has the highest efficiency of any IW operation: if a critical node is destroyed or neutralized, then all systems reliant on it become either degraded or disabled. Nodal attack embodies the basic principle of targeting points of weakness rather than strength and, if applied appropriately, it can concurrently weaken strong points of the enemy system through isolation and confusion. It is best employed in an integrated manner along with psychological attack in order to maximize confusion and extend the effects of nodal destruction.
Achieve Synthesis
5-11. Synthesis in the context of an IO campaign implies a variety of different measures all intended to carefully align, synchronize, and coordinate different IW efforts. This includes coordinating information attack and defense to maximize the efficiency of both; assuring deconfliction between different efforts so that one effort does not interfere with another; ensuring that all efforts are unified in their movement towards a clear objective; and focusing on building mutually supportive efforts that in turn create a combined arms effect.
5-12. Adjustment is an analogue to synthesis: it refers to the act of assessing and changing operations quickly and without the need for extensive planning. IO are inherently fluid; changes are rapid and often unpredictable. Agility in operations is vital to ensuring IW efforts are targeting the right objects and achieving desired effects. The primary focus of adjustment is to evaluate different friendly systems and their respective targets, then deconflict actions between them.
Protect Tightly
5-13. As discussed in paragraph 5-9, attack is viewed as the most important basic requirement in campaign IW. The corollary to this axiom is that one must blunt the enemy’s attacks in order to effectively gain information superiority. The PLA views information defense as fundamentally more difficult than information attack due to the broad reliance upon—and disparity in—information systems. Because of the wide variety of different points of vulnerability, comprehensive information defense is a practical impossibility—so building systems with resiliency and redundancy is critical. While information defense typically takes the form of passive defense, active defense also has a significant role. This may be described as information counterattack: the use of information attack capabilities to strike at and undermine enemy information attack efforts.