Information Superiority in Ukraine

In my work on Data Strategy, I have drawn heavily on the concept of information superiority / information advantage, which was originally developed in a military / defence context. Like many other innovations, there is significant potential for peaceful / civilian use of this concept.

There are now some early hints of information advantage / disadvantage emerging from the war in Ukraine. One obvious area is Information, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaisance (ISTAR).

By utilizing its intelligence and surveillance assets in Eastern Europe, the United States was able to build a picture of Russia’s movements and strategically release information about Russia’s plans. US source quoted in Insinna

Another area where information is important is logistics. As already predicted before the invasion started (for example Vershinin), Russia's troops appear to have suffered significant problems in this area, at least initially.

In other areas, however, predictive computer models of the conflict seem to have been way off the mark, mainly because they failed to adequately represent the human factor.

John Naughton wonders why Russia appears to have abandoned the Gerasimov doctrine of new generation (nonlinear) warfare, which appears to have been executed successfully in the occupation of Crimea in 2014, and reverted to an older style of warfare. Ukraine, on the other hand, appears to have applied the Gerasimov doctrine more successfully, protecting against cyber attack while easily managing to intercept insecure Russian communications. By a strange historical irony, it is reported that one of the Russian generals killed after his geolocation was intercepted by the Ukranians was called Vitaly Gerasimov. Wikipedia advises us not to confuse him with Valery Gerasimov, the author of the doctrine.

No doubt there will be more clues emerging from this horrible conflict.

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Valerie Insinna, Top American generals on three key lessons learned from Ukraine (Breaking Defense, 11 March 2022) 

Martin Murphy, Understanding Russia’s Concept for Total War in Europe (Heritage Foundation, 12  September 2016)

John Naughton, Putin has a 21st-century digital battle plan, so why is he fighting like it’s 1939? (Guardian, 26 March 2022)

Dan Sabbagh, Russia solving logistics problems and could attack Kyiv within days – experts (Guardian, 8 March 2022)

Alex Vershinin, Feeding the Bear: A Closer Look at Russian Army Logistics and the Fait Accompli (War on the Rocks, 23 November 2021)

Wikipedia: ISTAR, New Generation Warfare, Valery Gerasimov, Vitaly Gerasimov

Previous posts on Information Superiority: Information Superiority and Customer Centricity (March 2017), Developing Data Strategy (December 2019), Information Advantage (not necessarily) in Air and Space (July 2020)