Operation Security: A Case Study

The origin of Operation Security had come from the Rolling Thunder and Arc Light missions in the Vietnam War. (NSA 1993, 7) Reason for the OPSEC initiative to take hold, was the Vietnamese were receiving intelligence from the Chinese, which the Missions were subsequently linked to being ineffective due to the messages that were intercepted by the Chinese intelligence collection. (NSA 1993, 7) When the lapses were discovered were in the transmissions themselves, with communication security being lapsed on certain communications. (NSA 1993, 15) In order to determine these lapses, a team was put into operation in order to determine where and how the enemy had gained knowledge for attacks and where they were gathering this intelligence. (NSA 1993, 16) What was seen after the Purple Dragon survey, was the enemy’s ability to gather intelligence on future attacks had been affected a great deal, leading to increased battle damage from the lack of intelligence received by the enemy. (NSA 1993, 25)
What OPSEC has become is tool to protect US forces and limit enemy intelligence to ensure success of operations

(JP 3-13.3 N.D., I) What OPSEC does during IO operations, is allow for MILDEC operations to allow false information to flow to the enemy that would hamper their ability to collect intelligence on true intentions on US efforts. (JP 3-13.3 N.D., I) Under the processes of OPSEC indications of potential vulnerability, Critical Information that could lead to enemy operations being effective as well as information that could lead to vulnerability through the release of information. (JP 3-13.3 N.D., I) This could be information that would be determined as unclassified but still important enough that would cause damage to an operation or physical security. (JP 3-13.3 N.D.,