Battlefield of the Future: Information War, CyberWar, NetWar
by George J. Stein
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Battlefield of the Future
Chapter 6
Information War - Cyberwar - Netwar
George J. Stein
In Arthur Waley's Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China,
Chuang Tzu tells the story of a simple gardener who was shown a
new tool that promised to change gardening. He laughed scornfully
and replied,
I used to be told by my teacher that where there are cunning
contrivances there will be cunning performances, and where there
are cunning performances there will be cunning hearts. He in whose
breast a cunning heart lies has blurred the pristine purity of his
nature; he who has blurred the pristine purity of his nature has
troubled the quiet of his soul, and with one who has troubled the
quiet of his soul Tao will not dwell. It is not that I do not know
about this invention; but that I should be ashamed to use it.1
Strategy, according to the Department of Defense, is the "art and
science of developing and using political, economic, psychological,
and military forces as necessary during peace and war, to afford the
maximum support to policies, in order to increase the probabilities
and favorable consequences of victory and to lessen the chances of
defeat."2 For most people, it is obvious that the political and
economic aspects of the national security policies of the United
States are developed by the national political authorities (e.g., the
president and the Congress) and, in dealing with foreign states or
groups, executed by the Departments of State, Commerce,
Agriculture, etc.
Policies for developing and using military forces are formulated by
the national political authorities and conveyed to the armed forces
through the secretary of defense. Few, however, have paid much
attention to just how and by whom psychological forces are to be
developed to support national policies. More importantly: What are
psychological forces? By whom will these forces be used? With
what authority? To what ends?
New tools and technologies for communication have created the
potential for a new form of psychological warfare to a degree
imagined only in science fiction. This new form of warfare is
known as "information warfare." When we come to know the Tao
of such an invention as information warfare, we may find that we
are ashamed to use it.
The futurists Alvin and Heidi Toffler have argued that the United
States armed forces need to develop a "systematic, capstone
concept of military knowledge strategy." Such a strategy would
include clear doctrine, and a policy for how the armed forces will
acquire, process, distribute, and project knowledge.3
Quoting from the "Memorandum of Policy No. 30" (6 May 1993)
of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Tofflers argue that the US
military is expanding the concept of Information War to include
psychological operations aimed at influencing the "emotions,
motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior" of
others. Such an expansion would mirror the evolution of traditional
warfare toward Information War. It would also mirror the
progrssive steps of generating wealth from agriculture and natural
resources in much earlier times, to the nineteenth and early
twentieth century emphasis on industrial production, to the present
emphasis on generating information products as a major new source
of income.
As "first wave" wars were fought for land and "second wave" wars
were fought for control over productive capacity, the emerging
"third wave" wars will be fought for control of knowledge. And,
since "combat form" in any society follows the "wealth-creation
form" of that society, wars of the future will be increasingly
"information wars."
Currently, there is neither formal military doctrine nor official
definitions of information warfare. Despite the computer jargon
involved, the idea of information warfare has not only captured the
attention of military analysts-it also poses important policy
questions.4
Despite the lack of authoritative definition, "netwar" and
"cyberwar" are emerging as key concepts in discussing Information
War. Originally these ideas seem to have come from the science
fiction community. Consider, for example, the thought-provoking
future war suggested in Bruce Sterling's Islands in the Net.5 More
recently, the concepts of netwar and cyberwar have been developed
by John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt in their important essay,
"Cyberwar is Coming!"6 Their suggestions provide a thoughtful
starting point for exploring the issues that surround "information
war."
Netwar, according to them, is a societal-level ideational conflict
waged in part through internetted modes of communication. That is,
netwar is most likely to be a nation-against-nation strategic level
conflict. Netwar is about ideas and epistemology- what is known
and how it is known. It would be waged largely through a society's
communication systems.
The target of netwar is the human mind. One could argue that
certain aspects of the cold war had the characteristics of a dress
rehearsal for future netwar. Consider, for example, Radio Free
Europe, the Cominform, Agence France Presse, or the US
Information Agency. But netwar may involve more than traditional
state-to-state conflict. The emerging of nonstate political actors
such as Greenpeace and Amnesty International, as well as
survivalist militias or Islamic revivalists, all with easy access to
worldwide computer networks for the exchange of information or
the coordination of political pressure on a national or global basis,
suggests that the governments may not be the only parties waging
Information War.
At first glance, netwar may appear to be a new word for old-
fashioned propaganda. It would be comforting to believe that the
"tried and true" methods (and limitations) of propaganda still
worked. And the Gulf War showed that both Saddam Hussein and
the Alliance were still of the old school. The war contained many
elements of classic propaganda: accusations of bombed baby-milk
factories and stolen baby incubators, inflated rhetoric and inflated
stakes of the conflict; the future of the new world order and "the
mother of battles" for the future of Islam; and the classic "us or
them" polarization in which "neutrality" or unenthusiastic support
was decried.
One element of traditional propaganda was absent, however, while
Saddam Hussein became the "new Hitler" and President Bush was
the "Great Satan," there was little demonization or dehumanization
of the opponent. Perhaps the multicultural nature of the American-
led alliance precluded turning the Iraqi army into something
subhuman. Indeed, there may have been a spark of netwar genius in
treating the Islamic Iraqi soldiers as "brave men put into an
impossible situation by a stupid leader." Under such conditions,
there is no dishonor in surrendering. And there may have been a
glimpse of future netwar-it is rumored that Baghdad Radio signed
on one morning with "The Star-Spangled Banner."
Traditional propaganda was usually targeted to influence a mass
audience. Contemporary technologies have the potential to
customize propaganda. Anyone who has received individually
targeted advertising from a company specializing in "niche"
marketing has had a momentary shudder upon realizing that some
private companies seem to know everything about our tastes and
buying habits.
Contemporary databases and multiple channels for information
transmission have created the opportunity for custom-tailored
netwar attacks. Computer bulletin boards, cellular telephones,
video cameras tied to fax machines-all provide entry points and
dissemination networks for customized assault.
A major new factor in information war results directly from the
worldwide infosphere of television and broadcast news. Many
people have begun to realize that governmental decisions are
becoming increasingly reactive to a "fictive" universe created by,
CNN and its various international competitors. This media-created
universe is dubbed "fictive" rather than "fictional" because while
what is shown may be "true," it is just not the whole, relevant, or
contextual truth. And, of course, the close etymological
relationship between "fictive" and "fictional" suggests how easy it
is to manipulate the message.
Nevertheless, this fictive universe becomes the politically relevant
universe in societies in which the government or its military is
supposed to "do something." Somalia gets in the news and the
United States gets into Somalia despite the reality of equally
disastrous starvation, disorder, and rapine right next door in Sudan.
There were no reporters with "skylink" in Sudan because the
government of Sudan issued no visas. The potential for
governments, parties in a civil war such as Bosnia, rebels in
Chiapis, or even nonstate interests to manipulate the multimedia,
multisource fictive universe to "wage societal-level ideational
conflicts" should be obvious.7
Fictive or fictional operational environments, then, whether mass-
targeted or niche-targeted, can be generated, transmitted,
distributed, or broadcast by governments or all sorts of players
through increasingly diversified networks. The niche-manipulation
potential available to states or private interests with access to the
universe of internetted communications such as the networks over
which business, commercial, or banking information are
transmitted to suggest that "Mexico" is about to devalue the peso
could easily provoke financial chaos. The target state would not
know what had happened until too late.8
Direct satellite broadcast to selected cable systems, analogous to
central control of pay-per-view programs, again offers the potential
for people in one province or region of a targeted state to discover
that the maximum leader has decided to purge their clansmen from
the army. To put it in the jargon of the infowarriors, info-niche
attack in an increasingly multisource fictive universe offers
unlimited potential for societal-level netwar.
Pictures Worth A Thousand Tanks
When the new, but already well-understood, simulation
technologies of the Tekwar and MTV generation are added to the
arsenal of netwar, a genuinely revolutionary transformation of
propaganda and warfare becomes possible. Traditional propaganda
might have attempted to discredit an adversary's news media
showing, for example, that as the official casualty figures were
demonstrably false, all "news" from the government was equally
false. The credibility of the opponent was the target and the
strategic intention was to separate the government from the people.
Today, the mastery of the techniques of combining live actors with
computer-generated video graphics can easily create a "virtual"
news conference, summit meeting, or perhaps even a battle which
exists in "effects" though not in fact. Stored video images can be
recombined endlessly to produce any effect chosen. Now, perhaps,
"pictures" will be worth a thousand tanks.
Of course, "truth will out" eventually, but by the time the people of
the targeted nation discover that the nationwide broadcast of the
conversation between the maximum leader and "Jimmy Carter" in
which all loyal citizens were told to cease fighting and return to
their homes was created in Hollywood or Langley, the war may be
over. Netwar is beginning to enter the zone of illusion.
This is not science fiction; these are the capabilities of existing or
rapidly emerging technologies. Here's how it might work: through
hitching a ride on an unsuspecting commercial satellite, a "fictive
simulation" is broadcast. Simultaneously, various "info-niches" in
the target state are accessed via "the net." These info-niche targets,
and the information they receive, are tailored to the strategic needs
of the moment: some receive reinforcement for the fictive
simulation; other receive the "real" truth; others receive merely
slight variations. What is happening here?
This kind of manipulation elevates the strategic potential of
infopropaganda to new heights. This is not traditional propaganda
in which the target is discredited as a source of reliable
information. Rather, the very possibility of "truth" is being
replaced with "virtual reality"; that is, "information" which
produces effects independent of its physical reality. What is being
attacked in a strategic level netwar are not only the emotions, or
motives, or beliefs of the target population, but the very power of
objective reasoning: this threatens the very possibility of state
control.
Let us return to the previous scenario to play out its effects. The
fictive simulation of the maximum leader's call to stop fighting
would, of course, be followed immediately by a "real" broadcast in
which state "Voice and Vision" exposes the netwar attack as
propaganda invented by "culture destroyers in Hollywood." "Jimmy
Carter" is denounced as a hoax. But the damage has already been
done: it is all but impossible for the television viewers of the
targeted state to tell which broadcast is true and which fiction, at
least in a timely manner. In a society under assault across its entire
infosphere, it will become increasingly difficult for members of that
society to verify internally the truth or accuracy of anything.
Objective reasoning is threatened.
At the strategic level, the ability to "observe" is flooded by
contradictory information and data; more importantly, the ability to
"orient" is weakened by the assault on the very possibility of
objective reasoning; "decisions" respond increasingly to a fictive or
virtual universe and, of course, governmental or military "actions"
become increasingly chaotic as there is no "rational" relationship of
means to ends.
It would seem, then, that strategic-level netwar or information war
brings us within sight of that elusive "acme of skill" wherein the
enemy is subdued without killing by attacking his ability to form a
coherent strategy.9
Reality, however, may be far more complex than the infowarriors
yet imagine, and victory not so neat. The idea of "societal-level
ideational conflict" may need to be considered with all the care
given to the conduct of nuclear war, as the "end state" of netwar
may not be bloodless surrender but total disruption of the targeted
society. Victory may be too costly as the cost may be truth itself.
What Is Truth?
Any discussion of information warfare, netwar, cyberwar, or even
perception manipulation as a component of command and control
warfare by the armed forces of the United States at the strategic
level must occur in the context of the moral nature of
communication in a pluralistic, secular, democratic society. That is,
the question must be raised whether using the techniques of
information warfare at the strategic level is compatible with
American purposes and principles.
Likewise, the question must be raised whether the armed forces of
the United States have either the moral or legal authority and, more
importantly, the practical ability to develop and deploy the
techniques of information warfare at the strategic level in a prudent
and practical manner. There are good reasons to be skeptical.
According to the philosopher Eric Voegelin, the moral basis of
communication in any society can be discussed in terms of its
substantive, pragmatic, and intoxicant functions.10 The substantive
purpose of communication is the building or developing of the
individual human personality; it is simultaneously the process by
which a substantive, real-world community of "like-minded"
persons is created, developed and sustained. Simply, it is the glue
which binds a society together.
At the most trivial level, the moral purpose of substantive
communication can be seen in contemporary American efforts to
remove sexist or racist language from accepted use. At a more
serious level, the debates in American society about prayer in the
public schools illustrate a recognition of the substantive and
formative nature of communication in society, as "private religious
views," in the view of many, must not corrupt the public school
formation of character for life in pluralistic, modern America.
Finally, any real world society rests on the substantive
communication and understanding among its members. Again, in
Voegelin's terms, society is no mere external structure of
relationships; it is a "cosmion," a universe of meaning "illuminated
with meaning from within by the human beings who continuously
create and bear it as the mode and condition of their self-
realization."11
The efforts of several nations such as China, Iran, or Saudi Arabia
to insulate their societies from the effects of the global
communications network illustrate their awareness that their
cultures and societies may depend on a shared, substantive universe
of discourse distinctive to their societies.
Even within the West, the French believe the continued existence
of France as a distinctive society organized for action in history
may require state intervention in the substantive content of
communication within society.12 That France seeks to limit the
percentage of foreign broadcast material and American films in
Europe illustrates the seriousness with which they consider the
substantive nature of communication.
Voegelin's second construct, identifying the pragmatic function of
communication in society, is reasonably straightforward. Pragmatic
communication is defined by its goal and consists of the universe
of techniques designed to influence other persons to behave in
ways the communicator wishes. Only behavior matters. Most
political and commercial communication is merely pragmatic. It is
usually indifferent to the substantive moral content of the
communication and intends to mold perception, and consequently
behavior, to the purposes of the communicator. This pragmatic use
of communication as an attempt at perception manipulation is, of
course, the central essence of information war. Its use by the
government and the armed forces is, consequently, the real issue.
Finally, the intoxicant function of communication in American
society is equally straightforward. The addiction of a considerable
part of the citizenry to talk shows, soap operas, romance novels,
professional sports broadcasts, high-profile legal trials and other
well-known forms of distraction and diversion is well catered to by
the entertainment industry.
For Voegelin then, civil communication or public discourse in
contemporary American society is dominated almost entirely by the
intoxicant and pragmatic modes. More importantly, the absence of
substantive communication in public life is defended by much of
the secular and liberal political class in the name of freedom,
pluralism, and multiculturalism.
Pluralistic America is supposed to be a society in which the
formation of character or opinion is left, through the use of various
means of communication, to private initiative. Government attempts
at "communication" in an information war, especially if prosecuted
by the armed forces, would raise serious questions in a pluralistic,
multicultural society.
The official military view of strategy, recall, is the "art and science
of developing and using political, economic, psychological, and
military forces as necessary during peace and war to afford the
maximum support to policies, in order to increase the probabilities
and favorable consequences of victory and to lessen the chances of
defeat."13
Strategy is the means to achieve an end, with military strategy
serving political or policy purposes. A slightly different view of
strategy, however, may highlight a problem of Information War. If
strategy were seen as "a plan of action designed to achieve some
end; a purpose together with a system of measures for its
accomplishment," the limitations of infowar thinking are
obvious.14
Sound military strategy requires influencing the adversary decision
maker in some way that is not only advantageous but reasonably
predictable. The goal is control, not chaos. A national security
strategy of information war or netwar at the strategic level-that is,
"societal-level ideational conflict waged in part through internetted
modes of communication"-and an operational-level cyberwar or
command-and-control warfare campaign to decapitate the enemy's
command structure from its body of troops may or may not be
"advantageous" but, more importantly, is unlikely to produce
effects that are reasonably predictable.
Conflict is about a determinate something, not an indeterminate
anything. If the goal of influencing the adversary's ability to
"observe" by flooding him with corrupted or contradictory
information and data; disrupting his ability to "orient" by the
elimination of the possibility of objective reasoning; and forcing
his "decisions" to respond to a fictive or virtual universe, "actions"
will, of course, be produced, but they may well be actions which
are chaotic, random, nonlinear and inherently unpredictable by our
side as there is no "rational" relationship of means to ends.
In the context of military operational-level cyberwar or command-
and-control warfare, this appeals to the infowarrior an attractive
military strategy. The inherently unpredictable nature of combat,
the notorious "fog and friction" of real battle, will be amplified for
the enemy in a successful cyberwar.
A successful cyber-strategy depends on the ability of the local
military commander to deploy his power assets, especially his
combat forces, not merely to dominate the enemy decision cycle
(which, after all, has just been rendered chaotic), but to exploit
opportunities as they evolve unpredictably from the disoriented,
decapitated, or irrational enemy actions. Whether, then, command-
and-control warfare can "shape" the battlefield or will merely
generate chaos remains to be seen.
Cyber-strategy is the control of the evolution of the battlefield or
theater power distribution to impose the allied commander's
"order" on the enemy's "chaos." As Sun-Tzu observed, "Those who
are able to adapt to changes in the enemy and achieve victory are
considered supreme."15 The threat exists, however, that the
destruction of enemy rationality may collapse "battle" into mere
"fighting" with no outcome but surrender or death. Merely
defeating hostile fielded military forces may be insufficient.
Sun-Tzu also observed that "when battles gain victories and attacks
achieve occupations, yet these successes are not followed up, it is
disastrous. This is known as `persisting turmoil'."16 Whether the
recent Gulf War was a strategic victory or mere "battle" remains for
historians to judge. Operational-level cyberwar may, then, be that
very "acme of skill" which reduces the enemy will without killing.
On the other hand, it may also be the abolition of strategy as it
attacks the very rationality the enemy requires to decide for war
termination.
Strategic Implications
The tools, techniques and strategy for cyberwar will be developed
and, during wartime, should be employed. In many ways, cyberwar
is more demanding than netwar. But the resources, organization,
and training needed for cyberwar will be provided once its war-
winning, and casualty-reducing, potential is grasped by the national
political leadership. Such a development would certainly be
prudent. On the other hand, many of the tools and techniques of
battlefield cyberwar can be applied to netwar or strategic-level
information war. This application may not be prudent, however, as
there are serious reasons to doubt the ability of the United States to
prosecute information war successfully.
One reason is that the United States is an open society; it may be
too vulnerable to engage in netwar with an adversary prepared to
"fight back." 17 The communications infrastructure, the
"information highway," is "wide open" in our society. American
society may be terribly vulnerable to a strategic netwar attack;
getting us to believe fictive claims appears to be what commercial
and political advertising are all about, and they seem to be
effective. Also we may find physical control and security to be
impossible. The domestic computer, communication, and
information networks essential for the daily functioning of
American society are very vulnerable to penetration and
manipulation-even destruction-by determined hackers.18 In the
future, these may not be amateurs but well-paid "network ninjas"
inserting the latest French, Iranian, or Chinese virus into
Compuserve or other parts of the internet.19
A strategic information warfare attack on America's communication
systems, including our military communication systems, air traffic
control system, financial net, fuel pipeline pumping software,and
computer-based clock/timing systems, could result in societal
paralysis.
Currently, for example, over 14,000 Internet databases are being
used by over 30 million people in over 90 nations. Over 1,600
software pirates are prowling the Internet, some in the employ of
hostile commercial or intelligence services. The recent "spy flap"
between France and the United States over alleged US attempts to
gather data on French Telecom may be indicative of the future.20
Infosphere dominance-controlling the world of information
exchange-may be as complex and elusive as "escalation
dominance" appeared to be in nuclear strategy.21 It will certainly
be expensive: the US business community and the US armed forces
are required to devote ever more resources and attention to
computer, communications, and database security. The resources
and skills required for battlefield cyberwar are not insignificant,
but the resources and skills required to wage Information War at
the national strategic level would be massive.
The second reason to doubt US ability to prosecute an information
war is that the political and legal issues surrounding info war are
murky. What of congressional oversight? Would one "declare"
information war in response, say, to an Iranian-originated computer
virus assault on the FBI's central terrorist database? And what
about preparing for it? How should we develop and implement a
national capability for netwar?
While theoretically a requirement to develop or implement a
national information war strategy, analogous to the nuclear-era
single integrated operations plan, could be communicated from the
president to the executive branch agencies, it is unclear whether
there would be adequate congressional oversight. Which
committees of the House or Senate would have control and
oversight of policies attendant to information war, and which
would have the power to inquire into the judgment of a local
ambassador or military commander who wished to use the tools of
cyberwar for a perception manipulation in peacetime that would
shape the potential wartime environment?22
The US armed forces only execute the national military strategy-
they do not control it. However, they are developing, quite
appropriately, the tools and techniques to execute the national
military strategy for operational-level cyberwar. They are
simultaneously, albeit unintentionally, developing the tools and
capabilities to execute a national strategic information war strategy.
The former is their job under the Constitution; the latter may not
be. Congressional oversight in the development of a national
strategic-level information war capability is even more essential
than oversight of the intelligence community.
The third reason to doubt US capabilities in prosecuting an
effective information war is that such a "societal-level ideational
conflict waged in part through internetted modes of
communication" may simply be beyond the competence of the
executive agencies that would have to determine the substantive
content to be communicated. Pluralism is a great strength of
American society, but perhaps a drawback in waging information
war.
While diversity may make the formation and execution of domestic
and even foreign policy more complex, the lack of a moral center or
public philosophy in American society could render the political
leadership incapable of building a consensus on strategic-level
information war policies. And, since there is no single view of what
is morally acceptable, but simply a host of contending views, a
national security strategy of information war could be developed by
the national security decision makers that lacked a moral
consensus.
The technological wizardry does not change the humanity of the
target. Unless the goal of information war is merely to unhinge
people from their ability to reason objectively, and thereby create
an interesting problem for post-conflict reconstruction, any
strategic-level netwar or information war would seem to require the
ability to communicate a replacement for the discredited content of
the target society.
If, say, an information war were to be mounted against China to
disrupt its drive for regional hegemony, the goal would be to
"withdraw the Mandate of Heaven" from the rulers and "influence"
the Chinese leaders and people to adopt the policies or behavior we
find appropriate.
Put in terms of such a concrete policy goal, the philosophically
problematic nature of information war becomes outrageously
obvious. Does anyone really believe that the US national executive
agencies, including the armed forces and the Central Intelligence
Agency, know the substantive discourse of China sufficiently well
to withdraw the Mandate of Heaven?
The final reason, then, can be stated in the form of a question: does
anyone really believe that anyone in the US government has the
philosophical sophistication to project an alternative discourse to
replace the emotions, motives, reasoning, and behavior grounded in
the Chinese reality we propose to influence? Would our "fictive"
creation really have "virtual" effects. We might be able to use the
armed forces or the CIA to destroy China's objective reasoning
through a "successful" information war. Indeed, we might be able
to loose anarchy in a society, but that is not usually the political
goal of war.
Second Thoughts
The techniques being developed by the armed forces for a more
narrowly constrained operational-level cyberwar was demonstrated
in the Gulf War. Translated to the strategic level, however, netwar
or information war is not a prudent national security or military
strategy for the simple reason that neither the armed forces nor any
other instruments of national power have the ability to exploit an
adversary's society in a way that promises either advantageous or
predictable results.
Societal-level ideational conflict" must be considered with all the
care given to the conduct of nuclear war, as the "end state" of a
netwar may be total disruption of the targeted society. Conflict
resolution, including ending wars this side of blasting people into
unconditional surrender, assumes and requires some rationality-
even if that rationality is the mere coordination of ends with means.
Moral reasoning and substantive communication may not be
required; minimal reasoning and pragmatic communication are
required. However, a successful all-out strategic-level information
war may, however, have destroyed the enemy's ability to know
anything with certainty and, thereby, his capacity for minimal
reasoning or pragmatic communication.
In some exercises during the cold war "decapitation" of the Soviet
military leadership in a hypothetical nuclear exchange was intended
to defend the United States by preventing an escalatory or
exploitative strike, nuclear or otherwise. Precisely how war
termination would have been accomplished without an effective
leadership will remain, hopefully, one of the great mysteries. The
"decapitation" of the leadership is, however, often proposed as a
key goal of an information war. That is, the credibility and
legitimacy-even the physical ability to communicate-of the
decisionmakers will be compromised or destroyed relative to their
own population and in terms of their own worldview. And even if
we merely "seize" his communication system electronically and
substitute our "reality" into his society, with whom, then, do we
negotiate the end of the conflict?
What confidence do we have that a call to surrender, even if
communicated to the people by either the enemy leadership or our
"net warriors," would be accepted as "real" and not another
"virtual" event? And, depending on the content, intensity, and
"totality" of a strategic information war, personalities could be
flooded with irrational or unconsciousness factors-the clinical
consequence of which is generally acute psychosis. How do we
accomplish conflict resolution, war termination, or postconflict
reconstruction with a population or leadership whose "objective
reasoning" has been compromised?
Just as the mutually destructive effects of nuclear war were
disproportionate to the goals of almost any imaginable conflict, so
may be the mutually destructive effects of a "total" information war
exchange on the publics exposed and subsequent rational
communication between the sides. And as the techniques of
"cyberstrike" proliferate throughout the world, enabling small
powers, nonstate actors, or even terrorist hackers to do massive
damage to the United States, "mutually assured cyberdestruction"
may result in a kind of infowar deterrence. As Sun-Tzu advised,
"without advantage, do not act; without gain, do not utilize;
without crises, do not battle."23
Information War, then, may be the central national security issue of
the twenty-first century. Therefore, the United States must develop
a coherent national-level policy on the military and strategic use of
new information warfare technologies. To facilitate this objective,
the US armed forces are developing, under the rubric of command
and control warfare, the technologies and systems that will provide
the capability for "cyberwar."
It may be possible to control and exploit information so as to
purposely generate stochastic chaos, though there are some
doubts.24 Many of the same technologies and systems can be used
to develop a national-level capability for strategic "netwar." Here,
however, there are genuine doubts. As Voegelin feared, it may not
be possible to control and exploit information and information
technologies to impose "a form on the remnants of societies no
longer capable of self-organization" because their substantive
universe of meaning has been destroyed or corrupted.25
Few info-warriors would claim the ability to "reorient" the former
Soviet Union into a liberal society, or to influence the far more
ancient barbarism in that heart of darkness, Rwanda. Perhaps
strategic-level information war is, indeed, like nuclear war: the
capability is required for deterrence; its employment, the folly of
mutually assured destruction. But if the United States is to develop
the capacity for information war, in the sure and certain knowledge
that the technologies have already "proliferated" to both state and
nonstate potential rivals, a realistic national consensus must be
built.
It is useless to pretend that the proliferation of these technologies
will not provide capabilities that can do serious harm. It is useless
to pretend that military-based command and control warfare
capabilities will not be developed, and it is useless to pretend that
cyberwar technologies could not be turned to netwar applications.
It is almost universally agreed that these capabilities are essential
on the contemporary battlefield.
It is essential, then, that the president and the Congress give serious
and sustained attention to cyberwar, netwar, and information war.
?
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Notes
1. Arthur Waley, Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China (New
York: Doubleday, 1939), 70.
2. Joint Pub 1-02, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military
and Associated Terms (Washington, DC: US Government Printing
Office, 1989), 350.
3. Alvin & Heidi Toffler, War and Antiwar: Survival at the Dawn of
the 21st Century (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1993), 141.
4. The vocabulary of information warfare includes information war,
information-based war, command and control warfare, information
operations, C3I, electronic warfare, and, in Russian usage, sixth-
generation warfare.
5. Bruce Sterling, Islands in the Net (New York: Ace, 1988).
6. John Arquilla & David Ronfeldt, "Cyberwar is Coming!,"
Comparative Strategy 12: no.2 (April-June, 1993), 141-165.
7. Historians may record that Ecuador's posting of government
communiqus on the internet at the beginning of the recent "war"
with Peru may have been the first "netstrike." "A Borderless
Dispute," Newsweek, 20 February 1995, 20.
8. H.D. Arnold et. al, "Targeting Financial Systems as Centers of
Gravity: `Low Intensity' to `No Intensity Conflict,' Defense
Analysis, 10, no.2, August, 1994, 181-208.
9. Ralph D. Sawyer, trans., Sun-tzu: The Art of War (New York:
Barnes & Noble, 1994), 177.
10. Eric Voegelin, "Necessary Moral Bases for Communication in
a Democracy," Problems of Communication in a Pluralistic Society
(Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1956), 53-68.
11. Eric Voegelin, The New Science of Politics, (Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1952), 27.
12. John Andrews, "Culture Wars," Wired, May 1995, 130-138.
13. Rear Admiral J.C. Wylie, Military Strategy: A General Theory
of Power Control (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1967),
14.
14. Sun-Tzu, The Art of War, trans., J.H. Huang. (New York: Quill,
1993), 68.
15. Ibid, 109.
16. Peter Black, "Soft Kill: fighting infrastructure wars in the 21st
century," Wired, July/August 1993, 49-50.
17. Paul Wallich, "A Rogue's Routing," Scientific American 272,
no. 5, (May 1995), 31.
18. Winn Schwartau, Information Warfare: Chaos on the Electronic
Superhighway (New York: Thunders Mountain Press, 1994).
19. Jean Pichot-Duclos, "Toward a French `Economic Intelligence'
Model," Defense Nationale, Jan 1994, 73-85, in Federal Broadcast
Information Service - West Europe, 25 January 1994, 26-31.
20. John Arquilla, "The Strategic Implications of Information
Dominance," Strategic Review, Summer, 1994, 24-30.
21. Joint Chiefs of Staff Memorandum of Policy 30, Command and
Control Warfare, 8 March 1993.
22. Sun Tzu, 110.
23. Jeffrey R. Cooper, Another View of the Revolution in Military
Affairs (Carlisle Barracks, Pa: Strategic Studies Institute, Army
War College, 1994).
24. Eric Voegelin, "The Ecumenic Age," in Order and History
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1974), 117.
25. Brig V.K. Nair, War in the Gulf: Lessons for the Third World
(New Delhi: Lancer International, 1991).
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Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those
of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic
environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official
position of the US Government, Department of Defense, the United
States Air Force or the Air University.
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