Information on the Twenty-First Century Battlefield. Proposing the Army’s Seventh Warfighting Functi

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Information on the Twenty-First Century Battlefield
Proposing the Army’s Seventh Warfighting Function
Capt. Charles M. Kelly, U.S. Army


In May 2013, Ukrainian artillery officer Yaroslav Sherstuk designed a smartphone application to decrease the artillery targeting process from minutes to less than fifteen seconds.1 The application experienced initial success with upward of nine thousand Ukrainian soldiers using it to conduct fire missions against Russian forces.2 However, the independent security firm CrowdStrike reported a Russian information attack on the application via malware offered Russian forces “the potential ability to map out a unit’s composition and hierarchy, determine their plans, and even triangulate their approximate location.”3 Russian forces presumably used the malware to target Ukrainian artillery units employing the application. This example aptly demonstrates the character of war confronting modern militaries in the information age. The U.S. Army’s current warfighting model does not adequately reflect the reality of this evolution. The Army should adopt information as the seventh warfighting function because the rapid change in the character of war brought about by the advent of the internet enables the weaponization of information. Furthermore, the information warfighting function would enable the adequate integration of information in operational planning and execution and provide an improved ability to apply force below the threshold of lethal effects.

https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/January-February-2020/Kelly-Info-warfighting/