Opsec
What is OPSEC and Why Do We Have It What is OPSEC? It’s a process of protecting little pieces of information that might grouped together to give the bigger picture. It is also protecting critical information deemed mission essential for military commanders. It is simply denying your adversary the information that they might need to harm you or the mission. The AR that covers OPSEC is AR 530-1 and goes over purposes, responsibilities, policy, procedures, training requirements, OPSEC review, assessment, survey, contract and subcontract requirements and special access programs. The reasons why we have OPSEC is because any vital information that the enemy can get their hands on can give them an advantage on the battle field or operations. Those little pieces of information could show the enemy the full picture of what it is that we plan to execute. Most don’t know what is considered vital information. Think about it, what would you like to know about your enemy and how to infiltrate, interfere or stop their objective. How about where you are going, when you are going, how are you moving, what equipment that you will be using and even what paths have you taken before. Even your unit’s job association can be a part of the information they can gather on. Certain identifying marks such as your unit patch, or any other unit/ battalion identifiers can even give information. For instance the enemy is looking at the patch and can look up through Google and find out what unit you are with and keep open eyes and ears to see if they can get any information on what your purpose is and where you will be. Even taking pictures in certain places can give the enemy a layout of an area. It’s not wise to take pictures of equipment, it would not be hard with the information highway to find out all they need to know about certain functions of our equipment and their weak spots as well. In this day in age we have the social media network that can also help the enemy track and get
References: Operation Security on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_security Operation Security AR 530-1: www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/ar530-1.pdf OPSEC Indicators: www.opsecprofessionals.org/articles/indicators.htm How to Conduct an Operations Security (Opsec) Assessment: http://www.wikihow.com/Conduct-an-Operations-Security-%28Opsec%29-Assessment