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WHAT IS INFORMATION WARFARE?

MARTIN LIBICKI
Chapter 10

Summary

A summary evaluation of the various forms and subforms of warfare asks: which are real, for which the United States has an advantage, which are new, and how effective each might be. (i) Which wars are real and which are theoretical constructs, (which do not yet exist or, if it did, could stretch the definition of warfare)? Specifically, which are war as commonly recognized -- a destructive, extralegal struggle between two forces for control of a state's powers, its actions, or its assets (e.g., territory)? Real forms of warfare include everything under C2W, EW, IBW, and psychological operations against commanders and forces. Arguable forms of warfare include psychological operations against the national will and culture, as well as techno- imperialism. Hacker warfare, information blockades, information terrorism, and semantic attacks are potential forms of warfare. Finally, simula-warfare and Gibson-warfare are unlikely in the foreseeable future. (ii) How would the United States fare against a prototypical sophisticated foe of the future (e.g., a middle-income country with access to global markets for electronic equipment and engineering talent)? The United States is powerful at antiradar and cryptographic aspects of EW, offensive intelligence-based warfare, psychological warfare against commanders and forces, and simula- warfare; it has distinct advantages in kulturkampf and blockading information flows. The United States is both powerful but vulnerable when it comes to C2W, defensive intelligence-based warfare, hackerwarfare, techno-imperialism, and Gibson-warfare. The United States is vulnerable to psychological warfare against the national will, information terrorism, and semantic attack on computer networks. (iii) The following table lays out which of these forms are new in whole or in part. It also sketches the effectiveness of each form of information warfare against its likely defenses.

Table 1. Information Warfare -- What's New, and What is Effective

FORM      SUBTYPE     IS IT NEW?        EFFECTIVENESS

C2W       Antihead    Command systems,  New technologies of
                      rather than       dispersion and repli-
                      commanders, are   cation suggest that
                      the target.       tomorrow's command
                                        centers can be pro-
                                        tected.

          Antineck    Hard wired com-   New techniques (e.g.,
                      munication links  redundancy, efficient
                      matter.           error encoding) permit
                                        operations under reduced
                                        bit flows.

IBW                   The cheaper the   The United States will
                      more can be       build the first system
                      thrown into a     of seeking systems, but,
                      system that       stealth aside, pays too
                      looks for tar-    little attention to 
                      gets.             hiding.


EW        Antiradar   Around since      Dispersed generators and
                      WW II.            collectors will survive 
                                        attack better than
                                        monolithic systems.


           Anticomms  Around since      Spread spectrum, frequency
                      WW II.            hopping, and directional
                                        antennas all suggest 
                                        communications will get
                                        through.


          Crypto-     Digital code      New codemaking techno-
          graphy      making is now     nologies (DES, PKE) favor
                      easy.             code makers over code
                                        breakers.


Psycho-   Antiwill    No.               Propoganda must adapt
logical                                 first to CNN, then to
Warfare                                 Me-TV.


          Antitroop   No.               Propaganda techniques
                                        must adapt to DBS and
                                        Me-TV.


          Anti        No.               The basic calculus of
          commander                     deception will still
                                        be difficult. 


          Kultur-     Old history.      Clash of civilizations?
          kampf


Hacker                Yes.              All societies are be-
Warfare                                 coming potentially more
                                        vulnerable but good house-
                                        keeping can secure systems.


Economic  Economic    Yes.              Very few countries are yet
Infor-                                  that dependent on high-
mation                                  bandwidth information 
Warfare                                 flows.


          Techno-Im-     Since the      Trade and war involve
          perialism      1970s.         competition, but trade
                                        is not war.


Cyber-    Info-          Dirty linen    The threat may be a good
Warfare   Terrorism      is dirty       reason for tough
                         linen wheth-   privacy laws.
                         er paper or
                         computer files.


          Semantic       Yes.           Too soon to tell.


          Simula-        Approaching    If both sides are
          warfare        virtual        civilized enough to
                         reality.       simulate warfare, why
                                        would they fight at all? 


          Gibson-        Yes.           The stuff of science
          warfare                       fiction.
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