The more you know, the less you understand: The problem with information warfare

Abstract

Since the 1991 Gulf War military analysts have talked of a Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA), the idea that just as the ‘Information Era’ has transformed how societies live and work it has also transformed the way that they fight. Advocates of the two derivative concepts of the RMA, Information Warfare (IW) and Network-Centric Warfare (NCW), are distinguished from each other in that the former sees information as a potential weapon in and of itself whereas the latter seeks to exploit data to make regular weapons more effective. But both make exaggerated and misleading claims because the experience of recent campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq suggests that both IW and NCW are extremely tricky to implement in practice. Moreover, ‘information’ is a double-edged sword which benefits, strengthens, and enhances the operational effectiveness of non-conventional forces as much as or more than it does conventional forces.

Key Words:

• information warfare
• network-centric warfare
• Revolution in Military Affairs

Notes

¹Sun Tzu, Art of War, trans. S.B. Griffith (London: Oxford UP 1971), 84.

²There is less evidence to judge as far as naval warfare. No one yet has engaged in a serious fight with a networked naval force with a working ‘Cooperative Engagement Capability’; whereas, from the fate of the few who have attempted to challenge Western air superiority in recent decades the lesson has been taken not to even bother trying.

³RMA theorizing is abstracted from geopolitics and focussed on technology at the expense of manpower, organization and doctrine, according to Eliot Cohen, ‘Change and Transformation in Military Affairs’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 27/3 (Sept. 2004), 395–407.

⁴The ‘OODA loop’ is a concept originated by the strategist Colonel John Boyd (USAF) who used it first to train fighter pilots in techniques for succeeding in aerial combat. Also known as the ‘decision cycle’ or ‘Boyd cycle’ it posits that decision-making occurs in a circle – Observe-Orient-Decide-Act. Being able to process this loop more quickly than your opponent, it is argued, confers a significant advantage. For more on Boyd's ideas, his writing and numerous articles by like-minded observers of contemporary conflict see the website Defense and the National Interest: Boyd and Military Strategy, <www.d-n-i.net/second_level/boyd_military.htm> (20 June 2005).

⁵One hesitates to use the term ‘asymmetry’ which as Steven J. Lambakis concludes in a recent article is ‘classically general; its very ubiquity renders it irrelevant’. See his ‘Reconsidering Asymmetric Warfare’, Joint Forces Quarterly, No. 26 (Dec. 2004), 108. Yet if one takes the definition proffered by Roger W. Barnett, ‘those actions that an adversary can exercise that you either cannot or will not’, I think the concept retains some analytical currency. See Barnett, Asymmetrical Warfare: Today's Challenge to US Military Power (Washington DC: Brassey's 2003), 15.

⁶For a more detailed discussion of this see John Mackinlay, Defeating Complex Insurgency: Beyond Iraq and Afghanistan, White Hall Paper 64 (London: Royal United Services Institute 2005), esp. x–xi.

⁷Jarret M. Brachman and William F. McCants, Stealing Al Qa'ida's Playbook (West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism Center, Jan. 2006), 18–21.

⁸Alvin and Heidi Toffler, War and Anti-War: Survival at the Dawn of the 21st Century (London: Warner 1994) and James Adams, The Next World War: The Weapons and Warriors of the New Battlefields in Cyberspace (London: Arrow 1998), are representative of the respective ends of this spectrum.

⁹Martin Libicki, What is Information Warfare? (Washington DC: National Defense Univ. 1995). The forms are Command and Control Warfare, Intelligence-Based Warfare, Electronic Warfare, Psychological Warfare, Hacker Warfare and Economic Warfare.

¹⁰Martin Libicki, The Mesh and the Net: Speculation on Armed Conflict in an Age of Free Silicon, McNair Paper 28 (Washington DC: National Defense Univ. 1996).

¹¹John Arquila and David Ronfeldt, ‘Cyberwar is Coming!’ Comparative Strategy 12/2 (Spring 1993), 141–65.

¹²See also Roger C. Molander, Andrew S. Riddile and Peter A. Wilson, Strategic Information Warfare: A New Face of War (Santa Monica, CA: RAND 1996).

¹³Michael Vlahos defined the infosphere as ‘shorthand for the fusion of all the world's communications networks, databases, and sources of information into a vast, intertwined and heterogeneous tapestry of electronic interchange’. See, ‘Entering the Infosphere’, Journal of International Affairs 51/2 (Spring 1998), 512. Joint Vision 2020 refers to the ‘information environment’: ‘the aggregate of individuals, organizations and systems that collect, process, or disseminate information, including the information itself’ (emphasis added). The resonance of the term ‘Infosphere’ with ‘biosphere’ is useful, as Jeffrey Cooper has put it, because it suggests ‘a distinct domain built on information …’. See, ‘The Emerging Infosphere: Some Thoughts on Implications of the “Information Revolution”’ (McLean, VA: Center for Information Strategy and Policy, Science Applications International Corporation 1997), 27. For more on this and on the broader concept of the ‘Noosphere’ see John Arquila and David Ronfeldt, The Emergence of Noopolitik: Towards and American Information Strategy (Santa Monica, CA: RAND 1999) <www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1033/> (Jan. 2006).

¹⁴Thomas Hammes illustrates this in The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century (London: Zenith Press 2004).

¹⁵Admiral Bill Owens, Lifting the Fog of War (London: Johns Hopkins UP 2000), 15.

¹⁶A point made forcefully by David Martin Jones and M.L.R. Smith, in ‘Greetings from the Cybercaliphate: Some Notes on Homeland Security’, International Affairs 81/5 (2005), 925–50.

¹⁷Owens, Lifting the Fog of War, 97–102.

¹⁸Fred Barnes, ‘The Commander: How Tommy Franks Won the Iraq War’, The Weekly Standard 8/37 (2 June 2003), <www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/722iittz.asp?pg=1> (20 June 2005); also, Tommy Franks, American Soldier (New York: Regan Books 2004).

¹⁹Williamson Murray and Robert H. Scales, The Iraq War: A Military History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 2003), 233.

²⁰Frank Hoffman, ‘Small Wars/21st Century’, presentation at the Royal United Services Institute, London, 27 June 2005.

²¹The best illustration of this is the ‘Logical Model for Network-Centric Warfare’ in Arthur K. Cebrowski and John J. Garstka's seminal article ‘Network-Centric Warfare: Its Origin and Future, US Naval Institute Proceedings 124/1 (Jan. 1998), <www.usni. org/proceedings/Articles98/PROcebrowski.htm> (20 June 2005).

²²Alan Stephens, ‘The Transformation of Low-Intensity Conflict’, Small Wars and Insurgencies 5/2 (Autumn 1994), 146 and 149.

²³The speaker is referring of course to suicide bombings, the preferred Islamist term for which, according to the same article, is ‘sacred explosion’. See Nasra Hassan, ‘Are you ready? Tomorrow you will be in Paradise …’, The Times T2, London, 14 July 2005, 4.

²⁴Eliot A. Cohen, ‘The Mystique of US Airpower’, Foreign Affairs 73/1 (Jan./Feb. 1994), 109.

²⁵Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade, Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance (Washington DC: National Defense UP 1996), <www.ndu.edu/inss/books> (20 June 2005).

²⁶Ralph Peters, ‘Shock, Awe and Overconfidence’, Washington Post, 25 March 2003, A09.

²⁷Cohen, ‘The Mystique of US Airpower', 120.

²⁸See Daniel L. Byman and Matthew C. Waxman, ‘Kosovo and the Great Air Power Debate’, International Security 24/4 (Spring 2000), 23–5; also Daryl G. Press, ‘The Myth of Air Power in the Persian Gulf War and the Future of Warfare’, International Security 26/2 (Fall 2001), 5–44.

²⁹The most recent and comprehensive treatment of the political, ethical, and tactical dimensions of urban combat is Alice Hills, Future War in Cities: Rethinking a Liberal Dilemma (London: Routledge 2004).

³⁰Patrick Lambe, ‘The Perils of Knowledge-Based Warfare’, Knowledge Management, 1 April 2003, <www.destinationkm.com/articles/default.asp?ArticleID=1043> (20 Nov. 2005).

³¹Christopher Ankersen and Losel Tethony, ‘Rapid Decisive Ops Are Risky Business’, US Naval Institute Proceedings, Oct. 2003, <www.principlesessay.com/Proceedings/Articles03/PROan,kersen10.htm> (20 Nov. 2005).

³²Colin Gray, ‘Information and Security: A Rejoinder’, Orbis 50/1 (Spring 1996), 276.

³³Scott Shuger, ‘General's Apathy’, Slate, 4 April 2002, <http://slate.msn.com/id/2064055/> (20 June 2005).

³⁴For more on this incident and subsequent hearings see ‘Friendly Fire’, CBC News Online, 6 June 2005, <www.cbc.ca/news/backgrouond/friendlyfire/index.html> (20 June 2005).

³⁵Evan Wright, Generation Kill (London: Bantam Press 2004), 180. Notwithstanding the lurid title, this is one of the best first person accounts of the war.

³⁶Joshua Davis, ‘If we run out of batteries this war is screwed’, Wired, Issue 11.06 (June 2003), <www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.06/battlefield_pr.html> (20 June 2005).

³⁷John A. Antal, ‘Battleshock XXI’, in Robert L. Bateman III, Digital War: The 21st Century Battlefield (NY: ibooks, 1999), 60 and 72.

³⁹Richard D. Hooker Jr., H.R. McMaster and Dave Grey, ‘Getting Transformation Right’, Joint Force Quarterly, Issue 38 (2005), 25.

³⁸Lawrence Freedman, ‘The Changing Forms of Military Conflict’, Survival 40/4 (Winter 1998–99), 52.

⁴⁰Arquila and Ronfeldt, ‘Cyberwar is Coming!’

⁴²Rebecca Grant, ‘An Air War Like no Other’, Air Force Magazine On-Line 85/11 (Nov. 2002), 34, <www.afa.org/magazine/nov2002/1102airwar.pdf> (20 June 2005).

⁴¹Thomas E. Ricks, ‘Target Approval Delays Irk Air Force Officers’, Washington Post, 18 Nov. 2001, A1. Franks specifically rejected the allegation in an interview for the PBS Frontline programme, ‘After Action: Evaluating the Military Campaign’, <www. pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/campaign/ground/after.html> (20 June 2005).

⁴³US Joint Doctrine for Targeting, Joint Publication 3-60, 17 Jan. 2002, tries to address this problem by integrating Judge Advocate General lawyers in the decision-making cycle for targets of opportunity. See Appendix A, ‘International and Legal Considerations for Targeting’, Sec. 9, A-6.

⁴⁴Stephen Biddle, Afghanistan and the Future of Warfare: Implications for Army and Defense Policy (Strategic Studies Inst. monograph, Carlisle, PA: US Army War College, Nov. 2002).

⁴⁵Michael O' Hanlon, Technological Change and the Future of Warfare (Washington DC: Brookings 2000), chap. 3.

⁴⁶Kim Burger et al., ‘What Went Right?’ Jane's Defence Weekly, 30 April 2003.

⁴⁷John A. Gentry, ‘Doomed to Fail: America's Blind Faith in Technology', Parameters (Winter 2002–3), 97.

⁴⁹Gen. Charles C. Krulak, ‘The Strategic Corporal: Leadership in the Three Block War’, Marines Magazine (Jan. 1999), <www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usmc/strategic_ corporal.htm> (20 June 2005).

⁴⁸This problem is well understood by the United States Marine Corps. See Marine Corps, Warfighting Manual, MCDP-1 (Washington, DC: Department of the Navy, Headquarters of the United States Marine Corps, 20 June 1997), 31.

⁵⁰Colin Gray, Another Bloody Century: Future Warfare (London: Weidenfeld 2005), 120.

⁵¹Colin McInnes, Spectator-Sport War: The West and Contemporary Conflict (London: Lynne Rienner 2002), 136; also the chapter ‘The Quest for Bloodless War’.

⁵²Gen. Sir Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World (London: Penguin 2005), 284–5.

⁵³Timothy L. Thomas, ‘Information Warfare in the Second (1999–present) Chechen War: Motivator for Military Reform’, in Anne C. Aldis and Roger N. McDermott (eds.), Russian Military Reform, 1992–2002 (London: Frank Cass 2002), 209–33.

⁵⁶Joanna Bourke, An Intimate History of Killing (London: Granta Books 1999), 37.

⁵⁴This website maintains an updated list of ‘Soldier Blogs’ (‘Sblogs’, for short): <www.aapavatar.net/blogs.htm> (20 Nov. 2005).

⁵⁵Chris Thompson, ‘War Pornography’, East Bay Express, 21 Sept. 2005, <www.eastbayexpress.com/Issues/2005-09-21/news/news.html> (20 Nov. 2005).

⁵⁷Andrew Marr, ‘Digital cameras have dispelled the fog of war’, Daily Telegraph, 12 May 2004.

⁵⁸David J. Lonsdale, The Nature of War in the Information Age: Clausewitzian Future (London: Routledge 2004), 185.

⁵⁹‘General advocates “bold” moves against terrorists’, ABC News Online, 27 Nov. 2004, <www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200411/s1252864.htm> (20 June 2005).

⁶⁰Interview with an unnamed ‘Hacker’, who runs a private military company providing information security services to the US government, for the programme ‘Cyberwar!’, Frontline, PBS, 2004, which can be viewed online at <www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cyberwar/> (20 June 2005).

⁶¹‘General advocates “bold” moves’.

⁶²Stephen Ulph, ‘A Guide to Jihad on the Web’, Jamestown Foundation Monitor 2/7 (31 March 2005), <http://www.jamesetown.org/publications_details.php?volume_id=410&issue_id=3285 &article_id=2369531">www.jamesetown.org/publications_details.php?volume_id= 410&issue_id=3285&article_id=2369531> (20 June 2005); Episode 1 of a three part BBC series on Al Qaeda also investigates Al Qaeda's use of the Internet as a means for command and control, recruiting, training and proselytizing globally. See, ‘Jihad.com’, The New Al Qaeda, BBC, 25 July 2005.

⁶³Mark Duffield, ‘War as a Network Enterprise: The New Security Terrain and its Implications’, Cultural Values 6/1&2 (2002), 158.

⁶⁴Bruce Berkowitz, The New Face of War: How War will be Fought in the 21st Century (NY: The Free Press 2003), 17.

⁶⁵ Joint Doctrine for Military Operations Other Than War, Joint Pub 3-07, Washington, DC: Joint Chiefs of Staff, 16 June 1995, II-5.

⁶⁶Ibid., II-6.

⁶⁷James Dao and Eric Schmitt, ‘Pentagon Readies Efforts to Sway Sentiments Abroad’, New York Times, 19 Feb. 2002, A1.

⁶⁸Quoted in Eric Schmitt and James Dao, ‘A “Damaged” Information Office is Declared Closed by Rumsfeld’, New York Times, 27 Feb. 2002.

⁶⁹James Der Derian, ‘The Rise and Fall of the Office of Strategic Influence’, Information Technology, War, and Peace Project, Watson Institute, 4 March 2002, <www.watsoninstitute.org/infopeace/911/article.cfm?id=42> (20 Nov. 2005).

⁷⁰Tim Benbow, The Magic Bullet? Understanding the Revolution in Military Affairs (London: Brassey's 2004), chap. 5 ‘Information Warfare’.

⁷¹Ibid., 116.

⁷²Norman Podhoretz's short essay in the special section ‘Defending and Advancing Freedom’ Commentary, Nov. 2005, 57.