11-23. Military deception is considered in all activities of the operations process. Planning, preparing, executing, and continually assessing military deception does not take place in isolation. It occurs simultaneously with the operations process. If it does not, then the risk increases exponentially for the military deception to be under resourced and not integrated into the larger operation as the military deception evolves. It is unlikely that an under resourced and nonintegrated military deception will succeed. Because military deception supports a range of missions, and to prevent one unit’s military deception from compromising another unit’s operations, leaders coordinate military deceptions both laterally and vertically. Deception operations are approved by the headquarters two operational echelons higher than the originating command. Only two authorities can direct a military deception: a higher headquarters and the originating unit commander.