Information Dominance, Can We Afford It?

Information superiority is one of the United States Air Force's (USAF) six core competencies. Although delineated as a USAF core competency, it is no less important to other Services. In fact, each Service strives to obtain information that will ensure its battlefield success. Their goal is to dominate all campaign areas such as air and fire superiority. This paper focuses on information warfare (IW) and its subset, information dominance (ID), and whether or not the United States or its military can afford it. This paper seeks to answer the following questions: What does the US give up to obtain and maintain ID? What will it cost? Does the US have the forces to meet the operational tempo as we trade personnel power for technology? Does the US need information dominance, especially offensively, against second and third world countries, or should it put resources into active defense? Does the US need defensive and offensive modes of information dominance; can we afford both? Are we headed for information "overkill" to gain information supremacy of the battlefield?