Assessing inform, influence, and persuade efforts has remained a challenge for the U.S. Department of Defense. This report presents a realistic but fictional scenario as context for how assessment planning should work in practice. In the process, it demonstrates core principles of effective assessment and best practices for developing assessments that can accurately measure progress toward campaign objectives and support decisionmaking.

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Assessing and Evaluating Department of Defense Efforts to Inform, Influence, and Persuade

Worked Example

by Christopher Paul

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Research Questions

  1. What are good practices for identifying objectives and assessing IIP efforts to ensure that they support the larger goals of an information operations campaign?
  2. How can a logic model support assessment planning and connect activities to objectives?
  3. What measures are best for gauging progress toward objectives, and how should this information be collected?
  4. How can assessment inform refinements to IIP efforts, and what are the indications that an effort is succeeding or failing?
  5. How should an information operations staff officer approach the planning and execution of assessment in preparation for and during an operation?

To achieve key national security objectives, the U.S. government and U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) must effectively and credibly communicate with a broad range of foreign audiences. These activities also represent a significant investment: DoD spends more than $250 million per year on inform, influence, and persuade (IIP) efforts. It is clearly important to measure the performance and effectiveness of these efforts, but assessment has remained a challenge for DoD. To better support IIP planners and assessment practitioners, this report presents a realistic but fictional scenario as context for a step-by-step example of how assessment planning should work in practice. In the process, it demonstrates several core principles of effective assessment articulated in previous RAND research, along with insights and best practices for developing assessments that can accurately measure progress toward campaign objectives and directly support decisionmaking.

Recommendations

  • Ensure that the objectives of an IIP effort are SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound).
  • Break objectives into smaller subordinate objectives or sequential steps for a clearer picture of progress toward larger objectives.
  • Develop a logic model in reverse to avoid bad assumptions and identify possible constraints, barriers, disruptors, or unintended consequences. Begin by identifying objectives and work backward to identify the activities and resources that will support the objectives.
  • Be thoughtful in selecting measures: Choose multiple measures that will detect both success and failure and capture trends over time. Seek out existing sources of data to support the assessment and measure only as precisely as required.

Table of Contents

  • Chapter One

    Introduction and Purpose

  • Chapter Two

    Review of Relevant Assessment Principles

  • Chapter Three

    Scenario: MNF-DP's Takanwei Campaign

  • Chapter Four

    Worked Example of Assessment Design and Planning for Selected Campaign Elements

  • Chapter Five

    Conclusions and Review

  • Appendix A

    Telecommunications and Media in Takanwei

  • Appendix B

    Timeline and Road to Crisis, January–July 2022

Research conducted by

This research was sponsored by the Joint Information Operations Warfare Center and conducted within the International Security and Defense Policy Center of the RAND National Defense Research Institute, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelligence Community.

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