Military

Understanding Information Power And Organizing For Victory In Joint

Warfighting

 

CSC 1995

 

SUBJECT AREA - Warfighting

 

 

 

 

                               Executive Summary

 

      Title: Understanding Information Power and Organizing

             for Victory in Joint Warfighting

 

    Author:  Fred W. Gortler, III, Major, United States Air Force

 

   Research  To develop a framework for understanding information power so

   Problem:  the United States armed forces can organize for victory in joint

             information warfighting.

 

Discussion:  We live in the Information Age, a time when information power is

transforming the world. In the US, advanced civil sector technologies passed to the military offer quick, off-the-shelf combat applications.  Some see this as a Revolution in Military Affairs; others say the US armed forces have not begun to understand information power and its impact on modern warfare. Meanwhile, as the US defense community debates the role of information in warfare, new information-age threats             and enemies are emerging. States, even individuals, without traditional sources of military power, can threaten US global military leadership. To confront this new potential, the US armed forces must understand information power and how to organize for victory in joint warfighting.  Perspective must shift from the Cold War to threats and enemies of a new era.

 

             These are vexing challenges. How should the US define its role in

an info-world where military and civilian issues blur, where enemies become amorphic, and where old structures can't keep up with new technologies?  How must the US organize for victory in information warfare? This paper explores information power in relation to US joint warfighting. It seeks to advance the understanding of information power and proposes theater-level organization for joint information warfighting: specifically,             that responsibility for existing tools of information power--command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence--should be functionally assigned to a single combatant commander.

 

Conclusion:  Information power is changing the American way of war. The United

             States armed forces must develop a better understanding of the

             relationship between information power and modern warfare. The

 United States can organize for victory in joint information

 warfighting by assigning functional responsibility for information 

 warfare to a single combatant commander. US Space Command is the

 combatant command most suited for this assignment.

 

                              Table of Contents

 

 

Introduction

1

Background

4. The Gutenberg Analogy 5

Section I

   7 Defining Information Warfare

   .A New Paradox 9

   .Thinking About New Threats and Enemies 11

   .Military Application 13

   .Building on Experience 16

Section II

19 The Electronic Umbrella

   .The New Migration 20

   .Technological Revolution in the US Military 21

   .Integrating New Ideas 23

   .Obstacles to Integration 24

Section III

27 Making the Most of Information Power

   .The Mandate to Pursue Information Power 27

   .The Road Most Travelled 29

   .Redefining Presence 30

Section IV

33 Leveraging Information Power in the Post-Cold War Era

   .The Crossroads 33

   .Contrasting Nuclear and Information Power 34

   .Meeting New Challenges 35

Section V

36 Recommendations and Conclusions

   .Innovating Organizationally 37

   .Innovating Operationally 40

   .Innovating Doctrinally 44

   .A Concluding Parable 46

48 Bibliography

53 Abbreviations

54 Endnotes

 

                        Understanding Information Power

 

                                      and

 

                  Organizing for Victory in Joint Warfighting

 

 

       We live in an age that is driven by information. It's an age which Alvin Toffler

 

       has called the Third Wave. The ability to acquire and communicate huge

 

       volumes of information in real time, the computing power to analyze this

 

       information quickly, and the control systems to pass this analysis to multiple

 

       users simultaneously--these are the technological breakthroughs that are

 

       changing the face of war and how we prepare for war.1

 

                                                               William Perry

                                                          Secretary of Defense

 

 

                                 Introduction

 

 

    Information power is changing the American way of war. Secretary Perry spoke of

 

information's impact on how America fights, of how the Persian Gulf War demonstrated

 

that "information operations can determine a mission's success."2 The Pentagon's vision

 

of future battlespace is built on a cornerstone of information power: soldiers "able to

 

draw intelligence about their adversaries quickly and directly from continually updated

 

electronic displays, then fire weapons from over the horizon without ever having to get

 

close to targets."3 Other visions are more aggressive, expanding "traditional conceptions

 

of military presence to include not only the 'physical merits' of air, land, and sea forces,

 

but also the 'vitural' advantage obtained with space forces and information-based

 

capabilities."4

 

    How must America think of information power to organize for victory in joint

 

warfighting? This is a thorny issue. While most military discussions reflect consensus

 

that information warfare is important militarily, little agreement exists on precisely what

 

it constitutes. "[E]ach of the services has its own definition; none are exactly alike; and

 

all are similar...."5 A coherent information warfighting strategy is thus unlikely to

 

emerge.  "US leaders need a roadmap--an azimuth enabling all concerned to march

 

toward a common objective."6 At the national level, the President of the United States is

 

considering a Presidential Decision Directive.7 But more is needed. Since the

 

Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, combatant

 

command, or warfighting authority, was assigned to the unified commands; military

 

services organize, train, and equip the forces. The Joint Staff's Unified Action Armed

 

Forces (UNAAF), JCS Pub-02, establishes these principles for the armed forces.

 

Therefore, the US needs a theater-level commander to plan and execute joint information

 

warfighting.

 

    This paper explores aspects of information power in order to foster a more precise

 

understanding of its relation to modern, joint warfare. The paper proposes that functional

 

responsibility for existing tools of information power--command, control,

 

communications, computers, and intelligence (C4I)--be assigned to a single combatant

 

commander so this power can truly revolutionize the US armed forces. Section I,

 

Defining Information Warfare, begins to make this case. It defines information warfare

 

by presenting the best definitions offered by Department of Defense (DoD) organizations

 

at the unclassified level, and introduces the reader to new threats and enemies spawned

 

by information power.

 

    Information power is transforming modern societies. Why is this important to the

 

US Military? Section II, The Electronic Umbrella, describes the effects of information

 

power on the civil sector which are, in turn, migrating to the military. It explores the

 

concept of a Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA), and seeks perspective for changes

 

the US military is now undergoing.

 

    The Global Information Infrastructure (GII), the systems of commercial grids and

 

telecommunications sub-infrastructures that comprise the information superhighway,

 

gives life to the RMA. Section III, Making the Most of Information Power, characterizes

 

the GII and opportunities it presents for US warfighting. Equally important, this section

 

explains why information warfare is larger than the DoD, more than just a military issue.

 

    Information power poses unique, organizational challenges for the US military.

 

Section IV, Organizing for Success in Information Warfare, transitions the reader from

 

understanding information power to addressing how the US must organize at the theater

 

level to succeed in joint information warfighting. To add perspective, this section

 

contrasts information and nuclear power, and draws lessons from the US military's past.

 

It also raises concerns about the fitness of our current military organization to deal with

 

threats posed by hostile use of information power.

 

    Section V argues that the US armed forces are at the dawn of opportunity for

 

information power. Revolutionizing military affairs through information power is the

 

sine qua non to global military leadership. Before it can revolutionize, the US armed

 

forces must modify its military organization, as well as its operational and doctrinal

 

approaches. This section concludes with a parable underscoring the challenge of

 

changing one's perspective in order to consider new constructs. Only in this way will

 

the US armed forces be able to understand information power and organize for victory in

 

joint warfighting.

 

                                  Background

 

    Information warfare has been a hotly debated topic since the Persian Gulf War.

 

Leaders from the highest levels of our government and military, private industry, and

 

academia have called for the President of the United States to articulate a national policy

 

on information warfare. Yet four years after the war, when many glimpsed the potential

 

of information warfare for the first time, its relevance to how America fights or her role

 

as an international leader remains unclear. As a result, the concept of information

 

warfare is hazy, and even leadership of the US military services offer divergent views.

 

    Information warfare--applying information-age technologies militarily--is generally

 

accepted to mean the competition between friendly and hostile information-based

 

systems.8 The information revolution is transforming warfare as it has nearly every

 

aspect of modern society. Secretary of Defense William Perry calls it "the ability to

 

acquire and communicate huge volumes of information in real time, the computing

 

power to analyze this information quickly, and the control systems to pass this analysis to

 

multiple users simultaneously--these are the technological breakthroughs that are

 

changing the face of war and how we prepare for war."9 Yet little consensus exists on the

 

significance of these breakthroughs on warfighting. Those who would diminish their

 

value argue the US military has long engaged in information warfare activities, though

 

they were known by different names. For example, Allied planners in World War II

 

relied on deception to adversely affect Hitler's information processes in an action that

 

also provided protection for Operational OVERLORD's landing. But the US must be

 

careful not to underestimate information power's significance. Information-age

 

technologies hold the promise of revolutionizing our weaponry and the very character of

 

war itself--but only if military organizations retool to assimilate information power.

 

Viewed from this perspective, information warfare is not just a new name for the

 

traditional military activities it encompasses; it is the recognition of an Information Age,

 

a new era for both American society and its military, the impact of which can now only

 

remotely be perceived and understood. This is why the debate on information warfare

 

has raged without bringing critical issues into focus.

 

 

The Gutenberg Analogy

 

As we explore the information revolution and its significance to modern warfare, it is

 

helpful to consider other breakthroughs that have profoundly influenced whole societies.

 

By leveraging the mechanical power of a simple wine press, Johannes Gutenberg

 

launched the first information revolution. His mechanized printing press spread the

 

power of the written word--previously the domain of the privileged--to ordinary people.

 

The result: mass education and literacy, first for Europe and soon the New World.

 

Today Gutenberg's influence reaches nearly every corner of modern life. Electronic

 

publishing takes Gutenberg's revolution to the next level, with paperless operation as the

 

ultimate goal. Some doubt a paperless world is likely. Yet explosive popularity of the

 

Internet, computer on-line services, and even the computerized grocery check-out signal

 

the contrary. In a parallel sense, the Information Age offers America's military new

 

opportunities to leverage the mechanics of warfare to revolutionary proportions.

 

    The advent of the airplane is another breakthrough that ultimately redefined modern

 

warfare. When closely scrutinized, aerospace power and information power share key

 

characteristics. Indeed, information warfare appears to be aerospace power raised to an

 

exponential level. Offensively, information power, like air power, can strike at targets

 

across the globe. Travelling through the medium called cyberspace, information power is

 

unencumbered by events occurring on the earth's surface. As aerospace power is

 

projected rapidly and flexibly, information power is projected through cyberspace's

 

computers and telecommunications systems, connecting the world's communities through

 

the GII. Immediate and relatively boundless, these are the key characteristics of

 

information power.

 

    If the armed forces successfully revolutionize information power for military ends,

 

perhaps information power alone can create the kind of effect we have traditionally

 

produced with fire and steel on target. In this way information warfare promises to

 

leapfrog mechanical processes through system-to-system interface. Warfare as we know

 

it is raised to the next level. Applying the Gutenberg analogy, aerospace power can be

 

thought of as the mechanical level of information power, just as the printing press was

 

the springboard to electronic publishing.

 

    If aerospace and information power share characteristics, then aerospace doctrine,

 

refined through a century of aerospace warfare, may likewise apply to information

 

power. Aerospace axioms gleaned from early battles of World War I, retried in World

 

War II, and validated over the jungles of Vietnam and the sands of the Persian Gulf may

 

offer insight into how the US should organize its armed forces to integrate new ideas

 

about information power into military operations.

 

                                  Section I:

 

                         Defining Information Warfare

 

    Before US armed forces leadership can understand information power and organize

 

for victory in information warfare, they must be able to define it. Yet, defining

 

information warfare has not been an easy task for policy makers, perhaps because it

 

mixes elements as old as warfare itself, like deception and psychological operations, with

 

new technologies and applications. Or perhaps the very nature of information warfare is

 

partly to blame. Since information warfare requires intensive peacetime intelligence

 

operations, the US government is understandably circumspect in deciding exactly how

 

federal agencies will weigh intelligence needs with the citizens' right to privacy. As a

 

result, the term means a variety of things to different organizations.

 

      The military services have each forged their own vision of information warfare and

 

are aggressively seeking programmatic support within the DoD. At the same time, the

 

military services and federal agencies, especially within the DoD, have embraced

 

information warfare, and academic and scientific circles have eagerly contributed to the

 

discussion. Even so, forging a joint definition or vision of information warfare has

 

proved complex. Adding to the confusion, "other terms, such as command and control

 

warfare, are used in related contexts, but they are also interpreted in varying ways."10

 

    Meanwhile, the pace of information technology continues to outstrip information

 

warfare policy making. Here are some indications. The Joint Staff's Department of

 

Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms,11 revised in March 1994, does not

 

contain an unclassified definition for information warfare. In the CJCS' Joint Doctrine

 

for Command and Control Warfare (C2W) Operations, Part II--Terms and Definitions, a

 

definition for information warfare is deferred: "information warfare: To be provided by

 

Joint Staff."12 The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), which has been steadfast in

 

its efforts to build consensus on information warfare among the services,13 is obviously

 

confronted by similar obstacles. More than two years since OSD's Assistant Secretary of

 

Defense for Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence (ASD/C3I) issued a

 

classified definition of information warfare,14 only a "working unclassified definition" is

 

offered: "Actions taken to achieve information superiority in support of national military

 

strategy by affecting adversary information and information systems while leveraging

 

and protecting our information and information systems."

 

    Will all of this discussion ever meld into an information warfighting strategy for the

 

combatant commander? Without consensus on a single definition, it seems unlikely that

 

the military services will be able to fulfill ASD/C3I's intent. Even less certain is the

 

prospect for information warfighting success at the US combatant command level. Yet

 

while the US defense community may be hamstrung, advances in civilian information

 

technology continue to migrate to potential adversaries, yielding quantum changes in

 

both the character and focus of warfare. The Persian Gulf War has heightened

 

expectations of the US military and the public for military operations that are

 

accomplished rapidly, surgically, and with minimum casualties. For success in

 

information warfighting, OSD envisions "the exploitation and disruption of hostile

 

information systems, while protecting the integrity of one's own information systems and

 

architecture. The objective of information warfare is to gain an information advantage--

 

measured in time and space--to enable our forces to quickly overwhelm the enemy

 

force."15 Like ours, the enemy's observe-orient-decide-act (OODA) loops are bounded by

 

factors of time and space (Figure 1 16). "When the US effort can increase the friction, it

 

extends the time the adversary needs to observe, orient, decide, and act. If this effort

 

simultaneously reduces friction and time for the United States, the military effectively

 

will outperform an adversary in combat and will prevail in an engagement, crisis, or

 

conflict."17 Failure of the US defense community to organize for joint information

 

warfighting may place the US military in the same vulnerable position that OSD

 

envisions the enemy will occupy.

 

Click here to view image

 

A New Paradox

 

    This is not about war by conventional means. This is about war by other means,

 

    and those other means do not wear a uniform, salute, pull a trigger, or even

 

    appear for muster.... Everything we ever learned about warfare, and especially

 

    about the difference between war and peace, between allies and enemies, between

 

    combat arms and supporting services, between CONUS and OCONUS, is out the

 

    window.18

 

                                                             Robert D. Steele

                                              President, Open Source Solutions

 

 

    Historian and Congressman Newt Gingrich agrees with Steele. In a presentation to

 

senior Pentagon leadership in Summer 1994, Gingrich offered that in the 200-plus years

 

since the American Revolution, such incredible changes in military operations have

 

occurred that Washington and Schwarzkopf would find little common ground.19 If Steele

 

and Gingrich are correct, the US military may require an equally dramatic shift in

 

emphasis.

 

    Combat in the Information Age mandates that the US warfighting commander

 

contemplate issues never before associated with warfare; information power poses so

 

many new opportunities and threats for the US military commander. Unfortunately the

 

warfighting organization built for the Cold War and adapted for success in Southwest

 

Asia is not equipped for these new threats. Information power presents the US military

 

with a new paradox that must be considered if we are to organize for new, relevant

 

strategies: As the US armed forces become more reliant upon information-based systems,

 

its information infrastructure becomes more vulnerable than ever before.

 

    Information-age technologies shrink the dimensions of time and space, conversely

 

expanding the US commander's battlespace to global dimensions. Offensively, this

 

provides opportunities to strike global targets as if they were nearby. Defensively, it

 

adds risk. The enemy is no longer confined to a battlespace for which control is

 

completely within the purview of the warfighting commander. That many warriors do

 

not readily accept this notion does not diminish its significance. The warfighter, the

 

troops with GPS receivers, even our smart weapons share a reliance on a high volume of

 

precise information. US forces in the Persian Gulf minimized the fog of war for

 

themselves while maximizing it for the Iraqis. Should the US fail to grasp the wartime

 

implications of the Information Age, it may find itself in the same position as the Iraqis

 

in the next conflict.

 

    Frederick Cohen warns: "When the fog of war hits the information infrastructure, the

 

warfighter better be able to restore clarity in short order." What does this mean for the

 

US commander? Absent a full range of concrete data, telecommunications experts

 

provide estimates of the threat new enemies portend. Consider that 95 percent of US

 

military communications transit commercial systems,20 and that teenagers regularly take

 

control of these systems.21 Simple viruses have taken down computer networks for

 

extended periods, and most military systems have the same vulnerabilities.22 US

 

commanders must address the information warfare capability of the opposing force and

 

also of "'information assassins' [who] are bringing a new level of sophistication to

 

deliberate attacks. The FBI reports 57 countries are targeting Silicone Valley alone."23

 

"The threat is not the rag-tag teenage hacker, but rather well-organized and financed

 

groups with clear objectives detrimental to national security...."24

 

    Cohen provides alarming estimates of US vulnerability to foreign information

 

warfare attacks. He estimates that ten people with $100,000 to target the US Defense

 

Information Infrastructure could disrupt it for a period of weeks. Twice the number of

 

information warriors and $1,000,000 could bring the US to its knees for two to four

 

weeks. With 100 warriors and $30,000,000, Cohen estimates the disruption to the total

 

US information infrastructure would require a recovery period of several years. Since

 

anyone armed with a modem is a potential combatant, the joint warfighting commander

 

loses control of weapons in a battlespace with a new cyber-dimension.

 

    The Information Age brandishes a two-edge sword. The US armed forces must

 

define the threat, then organize for the opportunity.

 

 

 

Thinking About New Threats and Enemies

 

A popular cartoon hangs in several classrooms at the US Marine Corps University. A

 

sketch shows the giant Goliath laying flat on the ground, while the much smaller David

 

looks on, slingshot in hand. Inscribed are the words "He who thinks...wins."

 

    The US must muster all with a stake in information power, military and non-

 

military, to harness the collective thought capability if it hopes to win the information

 

war. So many factors critical to victory in information warfare are beyond the

 

commander's traditional forces and capabilities. When faced with new challenges,

 

organizations, like the people that comprise them, are often tempted to turn to

 

comfortable solutions. The services continue to think in terms of a battlespace defined

 

by dimensions of time, space, and height. Yet, as Steele asserts for information warfare,

 

"it is counter-productive to limit our discussion to arcane issues of 'space and electronic

 

warfare' or 'offensive command and control.' The enemy is not just inside the gate, there

 

is no gate, there are no perimeters, nothing is sacrosanct."25

 

    The US armed forces traditionally operate best when the threat is defined and

 

structured. Threat drives acquisition, training, force build, nearly everything. Yet a

 

vision of a defined threat--or even clear sight of the enemy--is growing increasingly

 

elusive. With information power, the threat is less defined, less organized, and

 

consequently, far more dangerous. The critical question then is whether the US armed

 

forces are organizing, training, and equipping to support new, amorphic enemies. And

 

while the Information Age has spawned new threats and enemies, it has not eradicated

 

the old threats; North Korea is perhaps the best example. Battle in the Information Age

 

will potentially pit the joint warfighting commander against formal and informal enemies

 

whose activities may or may not be synchronized or even coordinated. Steele succinctly

 

describes four warrior classes that have emerged:

 

    The high-tech brute, with expensive armor and aircraft which require huge

 

    logistic trains to support, is the traditional enemy. while this enemy will be with

 

    us for decades to come, this is also the least likely opponent. The other three

 

    warrior classes require differing levels of investment which we have not

 

    undertaken: the low-tech brute, meaning the transitional criminal, the narco-

 

    terrorist, these represent the very difficult low slow singleton' problem for

 

    intelligence, and are especially difficult for the military to address because of

 

    their tight kinship and ethnic foundations and their unconventional aspects. The

 

    low-tech seer, represented by major cultural and religious movements, and

 

    including for convenience's sake massive groups of refugees spawned by internal

 

    disorder as well as environmental disaster, is another challenge which the

 

    military will have to deal with and for which it is not ready.... But it is the last

 

    class, the high-tech seer that is of concern to us here today; I count in this group

 

    both those who conduct information-based economic warfare and those who use

 

    information warfare for personal, financial, or political motives. The balance of

 

    power has shifted from organized forces supported by taxation and

 

    conscription, to autonomous electronic agents dawned at no cost in

 

    cyberspace, and targeted by single individuals against complex systems which

 

    are at this time impossible to defend.[Emphasis added.]26

 

    Like Steele, a recent report by DoD's Undersecretary for Acquisition and

 

Technology forecasts dramatic changes for the US armed forces. "The world is fraught

 

with destabilizing factors that make the threat to US interests ambiguous and hard to

 

define."27 The DoD foresees operations other than war (OOTW), including combat and

 

non-combat, as the predominant type of military operations in the future. Also like

 

Steele, the report expresses concern for outlaw groups in possession of weapons of mass

 

destruction (WMD) and associated technology that "pose the most complex and serious

 

challenges that the US is likely to face short of war." Figure 2 illustrates the "continuum

 

of potential military operations between peace and regional contingencies."28

 

    Before proceeding, it is important to define the boundaries of this discussion. Since

 

information technologies have affected nearly every aspect of how America lives and

 

fights, it is reasonable to assume that every major governmental and industrial player

 

involved in these aspects may also have a stake in information warfare. Clearly,

 

information warfare is bigger than just the armed forces. With information as the

 

common denominator, the distinction between the civil and military communities in

 

information warfare continues to blur. America's society and her armed forces now rely

 

on the same base of information technologies. Warfare, traditionally the domain of

 

combatants, may be a misnomer for the Information Age. Therefore, while accounting

 

for the important non-defense agencies involved in information warfare, this discussion

 

is limited to the impact of information power on the US armed forces. And for the US

 

armed forces, information warfare is command and control warfare (C2W).

 

 

Military Application

 

   Here's how to wage a revolution in the Information Age: two weeks ago Mexican

 

   government troops lunged into the rain forest of Chiapas state in renewed pursuit

 

   of the Zapatista rebels.... [T]he guerrillas melted into the jungle, leaving behind

 

   a few trucks but taking with them their most valuable equipment--fax machines

 

   and laptop computers. In retreat, the Zapatistas faxed out a communique

 

   claiming that the army was 'killing children, beating and raping women...and

 

   bombing us.' ...[T]he government...stopped the offensive and allowed reporters

 

   into the area. They found no signs of atrocities or bombing. But the government

 

   Click here to view image

 

   attack had been thwarted, and the rebels were free to fight on, with words as their

 

   best weapons.29

 

 

    A picture of a Samburu warrior from a remote, desolate region of northern Kenya

 

was featured in a recent Newsweek30 article on the power of information. The warrior,

 

dressed in traditional garb, held a spear in one hand and a cellular phone in the other.

 

Around the globe, not just in the United States and the West, information power is

 

revolutionizing military operations. In the US, DoD is grappling with the difficult issues

 

of how it will leverage information power. Some consensus has been achieved.

 

    Recognizing information warfare is bigger than the military, the Joint Staff has

 

redefined C2W as the military application of information warfare. Effective C2W,

 

according to the Joint Staff; combines the denial and influence of information, deception,

 

disruption, and destruction to counter adversary C2 while simultaneously protecting

 

friendly C2.31 From this definition, the military's charter for information warfare

 

includes the two broad categories of offense and defense. A third category addresses the

 

integration of information-age technologies with weapons systems, essentially making

 

them smart. Butler et al...32 refer to these as information-attack, information-protect, and

 

information-enhance.

 

    With information-attack, the warfighter "achieve[s] the same precision kill as he

 

presently accomplishes with precision guided munitions;"33 however, the target is the

 

information system controlling an adversary's weapons and platforms. Many think of

 

information-attack as non-lethal, or less than lethal, but this is only one dimension.

 

Attack encompasses military deception, psychological operations, electronic warfare, and

 

physical destruction.34

 

    Information-protect is designed to defend friendly forces and information sources. It

 

includes operations security, communications security, computer security, and physical

 

security.35 Since DoD continues to field information systems vulnerable to outside

 

attack,36 protect may represent the US' Achilles' heel, a tantalizing soft target for virtually

 

every class of warrior Steele describes.

 

    Information-enhance seeks to provide the commander an accurate, comprehensive

 

picture of the battlespace. "Information-[e]nhance attempts to clarify a friendly decision

 

maker's understanding of the entire environment of the battlefield."37 The goal is to get

 

the right information, to the right individual, in the right format, at the right time.

 

    The US Army, Navy, and Air Force have each established information warfare

 

centers to pursue these categories and their respective visions of how information power

 

will revolutionize military operations. The services' intelligence organizations were

 

among the first in DoD to become enamored with information warfare after the Gulf War

 

and remain deeply committed. In fact, just as the USAF established its information

 

warfare center in the new Air Intelligence Agency (formerly the Air Force Intelligence

 

Command), each of the services have closely associated their new centers with their

 

intelligence organizations. The Army's Land Warfare Center was activated at the

 

Intelligence and Security Command while the Navy's was with the Naval Security

 

Group. Each of these service intelligence organizations are Service Cryptologic

 

Elements, linked to the National Security Agency which, by the National Security Act of

 

1947, was named the executive agent for US cryptologic activities. From these elements

 

must emerge military applications of information power that will give the decisive edge

 

to the US combatant commander in the Information Age.

 

 

Building On Experience

 

       The successes of the air campaign in the gulf rested almost as much on

 

       organizational innovations as on technology. To speak of a revolution in

 

       warfare as a purely technological affair is to miss half the significance of the

 

       war.... The centralized control of airpower made for a much more coherent

 

       campaign than would otherwise have occurred.

 

                                               Eliot Cohen in Foreign Affairs

 

 

    Like Cohen, air power advocates have argued since flight was adapted for military

 

use that centralized control is the most effective way to employ air power.38 This, along

 

with other tested air power doctrine, may be relevant to information power because it

 

may provide insight to the best way for the US armed forces to organize for success in

 

information warfighting. Why? Because as introduced earlier in this paper, air and

 

information power share striking similarities. Also because advances in information

 

technology are blurring the distinction between air, space, and cyberspace. Perhaps the

 

emphasis on joint command of air assets39 is equally compelling when power in the

 

fourth dimension, information, is considered. To demonstrate this, air and information

 

power are examined on the basis of(1) characteristics (2) capabilities, and (3) targetting.

 

    (1) Air and information power share characteristics that do not exist with land or sea

 

power. As the USAF Joint Forces Air Component Commander (JFACC) Primer states,

 

"The air covers everything and is one substance in which movement takes place

 

irrespective of what is under the flying machine, whether land or water."40 Air power,

 

like information power, can be applied rapidly, in a manner far less constrained by time

 

and space than land and sea operations. Information power traverses cyberspace and can

 

potentially attack global targets on a near instantaneous basis, in a manner even less

 

constrained than air by time and space. Until information power, elevation was the

 

unique quality distinguishing aerospace forces from surface forces. USAF Aerospace

 

Doctrine identifies the vantage point of air as its distinguishing factor. "From their

 

elevated positions, aerospace platforms have a broader perspective and, with freedom

 

from surface constraints, they can travel faster, go farther, and move through a broader

 

variety of motions than surface forces."41 But when one considers information power,

 

the nature of aerospace power is no longer unique. Information power raises the

 

characteristics of air power--speed, range, and flexibility--to exponentially higher levels.

 

To be sure, information power stretches the limits of the vertical third dimension.

 

Information power holds the potential for warfighting capabilities that diminish, perhaps

 

eliminate, traditional battlespace boundaries of time, space, and height.

 

    (2) Air and information power also share capabilities. Like air power, information

 

power can "quickly maneuver over and past the front line forces to strike critical targets

 

anywhere in the enemy rear area [and] can often contribute even more to the success of

 

all the components and to theater warfare."42 Neither air nor information power are

 

dependent upon geography. Not so for surface forces, which must divide the overall

 

campaign or operation into geographic areas of control. Air and information power can

 

be applied by "mission, campaign phase, and result."43

 

    (3) Similarities in character and capabilities suggest air power targeting is applicable

 

for information power. Like air power, information power will be necessary to interdict

 

lines of communication (LOC), the definition of which has undergone draconian

 

evolution since the original concept. Consider that "the concept for lines of

 

communication was developed in a time when communications and information traveled

 

along the same land or sea routes as supplies, trade, and military forces."44 Information,

 

however, is no longer bound to these routes. Information LOCs are served by modern

 

telecommunications systems, whose computers automatically route information services

 

over terrestrial and spaceborne links. The optimal LOC for information may be longer in

 

distance, but shorter in time and expense. As the USAF JFACC Primer reminds, "the

 

root to the center(s) of gravity may not be a straight line."45 "Instead of only opposing

 

ground, sea, and air forces, we must now consider the opportunity to interdict

 

information systems."46

 

 

                                  Section II:

 

                            The Electronic Umbrella

 

 

       "...the world is united under this kind of overarching umbrella of almost

 

       instantaneous electronic communication: satellites and satellite dishes, CNN

 

       and all this stuff. But what's happening to the map--everything is Balkanizing

 

       itself as quickly as possible.... Everything is breaking down into smaller and

 

       smaller cohesive units under the electronic umbrella...."47

 

 

                                                          Laurence B. Chollet

 

 

    The United States and the world's modern nations are united and covered by

 

Chollet's electronic umbrella. Construction of the umbrella began in the l970s and has

 

continued unabated, spurring technological advances so numerous and rapid they begin

 

to appear routine. In the early l990s, the Persian Gulf War was the proving ground for

 

computer-based, smart weapons that delivered stunning kill rates and surgical strikes.

 

The Gulf War was immediately recognized as the watershed event for the Information

 

Age--a demonstration of information-age technology weaponized through reliance on

 

computer-based information systems that drive strategy, planning, and operations. After

 

the war, new vocabulary emerged. Information warfare and information dominance

 

sought to explain the importance of information in modern combat. Pentagon planners

 

were left enticed by information power and excited by its possibilities. Section I

 

addressed how US policy makers must define information warfare before they can

 

organize to use it. Section II takes these definitions and explores them within the context

 

of the information revolution, provides specific examples of how this revolution has

 

migrated from civilian to military sectors, and how, once recognized, the opportunities

 

offered by this revolution can be integrated and leveraged for successful military

 

application.

 

 

 

The New Migration

 

Information-age technologies have changed the way Americans live. Use of personal

 

computers, facsimile machines, and even home banking and shopping services are

 

widespread. Figure 3 48 illustrates the skyrocketing growth of computers on Internet, the

 

backbone of the information superhighway. Nearly 30 million households use personal

 

computers today, most of them "three generations more sophisticated than the computer

 

that supported putting a man on the moon."49 Available telecommunications bandwidth

 

doubles every 18 to 24 months, and computer processing power doubles every 24

 

months.50 Why are advances in civilian technology relevant to military operations?

 

Simply because many of the same information technologies that make these modern

 

conveniences possible in the civilian sector are changing how America goes to war.

 

    Just a few decades ago, mention of civilian information technologies in a military

 

warfare paper would have seemed irrelevant, if not ludicrous. Not so now, for several

 

reasons. First, American society has traditionally benefited from spin-off technologies

 

which migrated from military research and development activities. Now however, the

 

American military is the benefactor, able to apply technologies migrating from the civil

 

sector to military operations. In the Information Age technological advances are

 

outpacing our ability to assimilate them. This is especially true in our defense

 

organization, which requires time-consuming coordination for joint warfighting

 

initiatives. Second, "until recently technological innovation was largely limited to

 

combat and logistics; that is, to moving troops to the battlefield and sustaining them."51

 

Now however, modern militaries rely upon information technology to employ nearly

 

every weapons systems in their arsenal--the same kinds of information technology upon

 

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which civilian societies also rely. As a result, civilian and military sectors often use like

 

technologies to manage and perform quite different activities.

 

    Applications for information technology in combat portend such change for the

 

American way of war that the outcome may be impossible to predict at this time. In

 

ancient Rome, the Emperor connected far-flung provinces through an elaborate wheel of

 

roads, all spokes joined at the hub of Rome. Across the globe today, the information

 

superhighway unites the world under Chollet's electronic umbrella in a way analogous to

 

Rome's system of roads. In both examples the effects of time, distance, and even

 

geography are diminished. The Roman Empire prospered as a result of the roads, but

 

were ultimately defeated because the same roads lead back to Rome, offering avenues of

 

attack to hostile armies. The view from the threshold of the Information Age is an

 

exciting one, but as we organize to apply information technologies, we must realize that a

 

world made smaller can bring our enemies closer to home.

 

 

Technological Revolution in the US Military

 

    The form of any war--and it is the form which is of primary interest to men and

 

   war--depends upon the technical means of war available.52

 

 

                                                          Guilio Douhet, 1921

 

 

    What we set in motion is an entirely new era in warfare.... What is changing is

 

    the very nature of modern battle.53

                                                   Gen John M. Shalikashvili

                                                Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff

 

    Is the US military ready to leverage information power? In The Washington Post,

 

Bradley Graham reported that "With growing emphasis, the [Defense] Department's top

 

civilian and military officials are championing the notion that the United States is in one

 

of those rare historical periods when revolutions happen in how wars are fought and how

 

branches of the military are organized."54 The impact of information-age technology on

 

military operations has been alternately referred to as the RMA or the Military

 

Technological Revolution. The character of this revolution is evident in US military

 

weaponry and doctrine. For example, the ability of combat forces to maneuver was once

 

constrained by the limits of the human eye. Now, technological electronic eyes enable

 

US commanders to plan and coordinate over-the-horizon operations. In the following

 

excerpt, Alan Campen of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics

 

Association illustrates how relatively inexpensive information technology provided

 

leverage to US combat forces in the Gulf War:

 

       Using a hand-held [Global Positioning System] receiver, a ground soldier

 

       could locate his position. Using a laser range finder he was able to obtain

 

       the range and bearing of the target for relay to an air control officer to

 

       provide precise target information for ground support aircraft. These, in

 

       turn, using their own GPS equipment, were able to offset their bombing

 

       instruments and attack with devastating surprise and lethal precision. Thus

 

       the effectiveness and safety of an $18 million aircraft could be enormously

 

       enhanced with a $3,000 hand-held instrument.55

 

 

 

    Many US officials and military strategists, including Secretary of Defense William

 

Perry, cite the Gulf War as proof that a revolution has already begun.56 Others provide

 

compelling arguments to the contrary. Andrew Krepinevich points out that "the Gulf

 

War [provided] a glimpse of the revolutionary potential of emerging technologies and

 

military systems",57 but argues the revolution has not yet occurred. As proof, he notes

 

the war was essentially fought with forces trained and organized to fight the Soviets in

 

Europe. "Neither dramatic doctrinal changes nor major new force structures or

 

organizational innovations were demonstrated."58 Historical perspectives underscore

 

Krepinevich's views.

 

 

Integrating New Ideas

 

The WWI Battle of Cambrai on the western front, 1917, offers similarities to both WWII

 

blitzkrieg and the allies' unexpectedly rapid victory in the Gulf War. Using wireless

 

communications to coordinate air and land maneuver elements, the British "overcame the

 

quagmire of trench warfare and broke through the German lines on a 12-kilometer front

 

within hours."59 The idea to integrate the enabling technologies of aircraft, tanks, and

 

radio resulted in a mini-RMA of sorts, and undoubtedly influenced German development

 

of strategies and tactics after WWI, which later became blitzkrieg in WWII. Regrettably,

 

the British Army "squandered" the advantage offered by their "cutting-edge

 

technologies," failing to exploit them with equally brilliant innovative concepts necessary

 

to create their own blitzkrieg capability."60

 

    Though the term RMA was only recently coined, German blitzkrieg provides a

 

striking example of what it embodies. Blitzkrieg would certainly not have been possible

 

without its enabling technologies--the internal combustion engines, aircraft, tanks, and

 

radios. Each of these technologies were available in WWI, and all major military powers

 

had access to them. "...[O]nly the Germans used them to initiate new operational

 

concepts and innovate organizationally."61 Therefore, the crucial ingredient in blitzkrieg

 

was the idea to integrate them, to combine and apply these technologies to coordinate

 

close air support and maneuver units.

 

    Ideas were similarly at the root of the most dramatic military-technological

 

applications in the Gulf War. By interoperating US Space Command's (USSPACECOM)

 

spaceborne information sensors with the US Army's PATRIOT system, US forces

 

minimized the effects, physical and psychological, of the Iraqi SCUD missile system.

 

The Global Positioning System (GPS) enhanced operations on land, sea, and in the air.

 

But clearly, US and coalition strategy against Iraq was not built on a conscious

 

recognition of how information power could be applied. In fact, US political and

 

military leadership were surprised by the lopsidedness and short duration of the war.

 

"Their surprise was due, in part, to the fact that they had greatly underestimated the

 

military potential of these new tools of war"62 made possible with information power.

 

Likewise, the equally surprising clumsiness and missteps of Iraqi forces was due less to

 

their lack of military power and more to their inability to access or even think in terms of

 

information power.

 

    This hindsight perspective of blitzkrieg is useful in determining the current state of

 

the RMA. The Information Age has provided the US military with enabling technologies

 

of GPS, stealth, and Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS), just as the

 

Germans developing blitzkheg doctrine relied on crucial enabling technologies. Yet the

 

ideas to integrate these technologies came later or not at all, as did our ability to detect

 

and kill Iraq's mobile SCUD missile systems. An information revolution has indeed

 

begun. Like the British in WWI, the US has developed a dazzling array of technological

 

wonders to be shared by the civil and military sectors. But also like the British, the US

 

has not developed the new organization needed to truly revolutionize information power-

 

-really fuel the RMA. Many Pentagon staff officers contend that information warfare is

 

merely a new name for military activities performed for quite some time. Perhaps some

 

on the German General Staff felt the same way about the enabling technologies of

 

blitzkrieg.

 

 

Obstacles to Integration

 

   The one thing harder than getting a new idea into the military is to get an old

         

   one out.63

                                                   Basil Henry Liddell Hart

 

 

    If ideas or the way we think is critical to revolutionizing the military, then the US

 

armed forces may be facing a formidable challenge. Given Liddell Hart's observation

 

about the tendency for status quo in the military, this factor can only add to a number of

 

others that work against widespread acceptance of information warfare at a most crucial

 

time. First, military service chiefs are already trying to adjust to smaller budgets, fewer

 

personnel, and an increased operations tempo around the globe. Operations in Bosnia-

 

Herzogovina, Iraq, and Haiti have highlighted shortcomings in force structure and

 

combat service support. Recall the national debate on whether the US could respond to

 

Iraq's redeployment to the Kuwaiti border in late 1994 while simultaneously engaged in

 

Haiti. As Graham of The Washington Post points out, "While the service chiefs have

 

expressed interest in studying the implications of the new technologies, they have

 

sounded cautious about the pace and prospects for change and often argue for not losing

 

sight of more immediate demands, such as coping with decidedly low-tech players in

 

Haiti and Bosnia."64

 

    A second factor operating against harnessing the RMA is an attitude questioning the

 

prudence of tinkering with a military that is currently considered second-to-none. Gen

 

Richard D. Hearney, Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps, expresses concern

 

about the Pentagon's emphasis on high-technology warfare. "Sometimes we get so

 

wrapped up in this RMA technology discussion that we forget the basics like leadership

 

development."65 Many at the senior level share this opinion, remaining skeptical that

 

new technologies offer a silver bullet for likely threat scenarios facing US armed forces.

 

In combat, warriors' lives depend on the capability of their weapons systems. So it is not

 

surprising that most warriors probably have difficulty seeing how information power, in

 

its embryonic stage, can contribute to combat success. A conversation with a US Marine

 

Corps major, an infantry officer and combat veteran, illustrates:

 

    There's not an extra pound on a ground infantryman's load to spare for this new

 

    gear. People who talk about hanging hi-tech things on an infantryman's helmet

 

    have just never operated as an infantryman on the ground. A sustainment and

 

    combat load already constitute minimum requirements, and you can't take away

 

    from that. In fact, we really need a reduction in load weight. Technology hasn't

 

    lightened our load. When I see a picture of the infantryman of the Future...great

 

    concept but its got a long way to go. A lights equipped combat soldier...face in

 

    the mud and gun barrel smoking...that's what makes a difference for me. My

 

    marines must be concerned with the sector in front of me. I don't see how

 

    information power as it is today will help me.66

 

    Though compelling, these arguments cannot slow the information revolution

 

transforming societies and their militaries. Since the United States is arguably the most

 

reliant on information technology for all aspects our society, we have the most to lose if

 

we fail to harness the RMA. Electing to ignore the RMA is dangerous on two counts.

 

First, other nations are pursuing their own versions of the RMA. The US armed forces,

 

currently second-to-none, would have to step back in the line. Secondly, the nature of

 

information-age technology places substantial power in the hands of individuals with the

 

right skills and access to threaten our national security by interfering with both defense

 

and non-defense information-based systems.

 

    Krepinevich counts as many as ten military revolutions since the fourteenth century.

 

Each of these holds historical lessons for nations who elect to ignore the impact of

 

technology on warfare. Consider how many national powers clung to the cavalry long

 

after it was evident that new, rapid-fire weapons had made the horse a terrifyingly

 

susceptible target.67 Yet despite the impact of technology, most of what Sun Tzu and Carl

 

von Clausewitz wrote is still valid today. As Brig Gen Robert Stewart emphasizes, "It is

 

the task of the commander to apply the principles in the face of technologies so advanced

 

that Sun Tzu would have considered them magic."68 The dictum is clear. Information-

 

age technologies will allow us to revolutionize warfare, but one if we are able to

 

revolutionize our thinking. The nature of information warfare, overlapping the military

 

and civilian spheres, at once provides the US with potential for powerful new weapons

 

and significant vulnerabilities (Figure 4).69

 

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                                Section III:

 

                     Making the Most of Information Power

 

 

    We should have an Information Warfare Summit.... Question: Who is doing what

 

    in Info War?

                                                            Merill A. McPeak

                                                          USAF Chief of Staff

                                                               18 April 1994

 

 

    Many senior Pentagon officials voiced surprise when Gen McPeak, former chief of

 

staff, USAF, established the first Service Information Warfare Center in September

 

1993.70 His question, "Who is doing what in Info War?," was penned to Air Staff seniors

 

in April 1994 and resulted in a USAF Summit that outlined his service's information

 

warfare strategy. Posed nearly eight months after the USAF Information Warfare Center

 

was established, the general's seemingly vague question is symptomatic of the difficulties

 

in retooling a large, complex organization. His question echoes throughout DoD as the

 

debate on information power narrows to make the most of existing technologies for

 

information warfare.

 

 

 

The Mandate to Pursue Information Warfare

 

C2W is the military strategy that implements information warfare....

                                  DoD Directive 3600.1 (Cited in CJCS MOP 30)

 

 

 

 

   [Command and Control Warfare is] the integrated use of operations security

 

   (OPSEC), military deception, psychological operations (PSYOP), electronic

 

   warfare (EW) and physical destruction, mutually supported by intelligence, to deny

 

   information to, influence, degrade or destroy adversary C2 capabilities, while

 

   protecting friendly C2 capabilities against such actions....[apply] across the

 

   operational continuum and all levels of conflict. (See Figure 5)

 

                                                                     CJCSMOP 30

 

 

    Information warfare is arguably larger than DoD, more than a military issue.71 A

 

national review currently underway is preparing a Presidential Review Document for the

 

Clinton Administration, underscoring that nearly all participants in the information

 

warfare debate agree on this point.72 The lack of a national policy on information warfare

 

has not suppressed the Pentagon's appetite. In December 1992, the OSD directed

 

services to develop information warfare capabilities in a regulation entitled DoD

 

3600.1.73 Three months later, the Joint Staff's Memorandum of Policy No. 30 (MOP 30)

 

provided policy and guidance for integrating information warfare into military strategy,

 

planning, and operations.74 A new Joint Staff directive now being coordinated, JCS Pub

 

3-13 (Draft), provides guidelines to integrate C2W into joint operations and exercises.

 

To the military services, these documents were like a starter's gun signaling the

 

beginning of the information warfare race. Encouraged by the lopsided victory of US

 

and coalition forces, the services seek to capitalize on Gulf "lessons learned." It is

 

natural, even laudable, that the military services would so aggressively pursue combat

 

initiatives that had proven successful. So it should not be surprising that each service

 

views information warfare somewhat differently and has structured budgetary programs

 

that reflect their distinctive cultures.

 

    Unique service visions, lacking consensus of basic issues like joint terminology,

 

does not bode well for the combatant commander, the ultimate benefactor of information

 

warfare systems produced for military forces. As a term, information warfare is new: a

 

new focus and new adaptation of warfighting doctrines and technologies. As already

 

noted, the current DoD Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, 1994, does not

 

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contain a definition of information warfare. The differences among the services "are

 

great enough to seriously impair development of policy strategy, tactics, and program

 

plans."75 Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 gives

 

combatant command, defined as authority for warfighting, to the unified commands.

 

The services in turn organize, train, and equip the forces for combat. As further codified

 

by the UNAAF, JCS Pub. 0-2, the commanders-in-chief (CINCs) of the unified

 

commands will be the ultimate benefactors of the services information warfare activities.

 

At stake then is whether CINCs will be able to forge a coherent information warfare

 

strategy from the individual service visions. It is useful to categorize information

 

warfare by its major components in order to examine this aspect of military preparedness.

 

 

The Road Most Travelled

 

The GII is the information superhighway, the vast system supported by the world's

 

commercial grids and telecommunications infrastructure. It comprises the web of

 

electronic thoroughfares over which more than 95 percent of military communications

 

travel (Figure 6 76). Tens of thousands of computers are connected to other computers,

 

offering appealing opportunities and frightening vulnerabilities (Figure 7 77). GII is as

 

vital to US military operations as it is to nearly every aspect of modern life in America

 

including finance, mass media, communications, even power systems. The Internet,

 

which has grown in popularity since the Pentagon built it in 1969, is a major information

 

throughway. Interestingly, the Internet was designed not by high-technology visionaries,

 

but by Cold War-Warriors concerned about communications redundancy in a thermo-

 

nuclear environment. With the Internet as a foundation, the Clinton Administration is

 

building the national information infrastructure, the network of tomorrow.  As Business

 

Week reports, "phone lines, cable systems, and high-speed data networks...would link

 

CEOs and couch potatoes alike to one another."78 Now add the joint warfighting

 

commander to this cyber-chain. Enormous implications become apparent.

 

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    The crucial communications zone or reachback, the umbilical cord that nourishes

 

America's force projection capability, is recognized immediately as a lucrative target by

 

the information-age warriors described by Steele. What was once the rear area becomes

 

suddenly and globally exposed. As Steele describes, "The battlefield has flipped--the

 

traditional front line is now a sideshow, and the rear area knowledge terrain has become

 

both the Achilles' heel and the center of gravity for what Alvin and Heidi Toffier call

 

'war and anti-war'."79 As the strength of any chain is limited by its weakest link, so will

 

the protection of the joint warfighting commander's rear area be limited by others linked

 

to the GII. Now every major government and private organization occupies the role that

 

major subordinate components (MSCs) have traditionally occupied. Only these MSCs

 

are not operationally subordinate to the warfighter.

 

    Lack of a national policy on information warfare inhibits US ability to harness the

 

information revolution for military success. This means the disparate group of US

 

players that should be cooperating on information warfare--the departments of State,

 

Treasury, Commerce; the Federal Emergency Management Agency; the intelligence

 

agencies; and now private industry--are not working together. Despite this major

 

shortcoming, the military services are aggressively pursuing their respective visions of

 

information warfighting.

 

 

Redefining Presence

 

Information power impacts the traditional concept of US military presence in the post-

 

Cold War. During the Bottom-Up Review, the Navy argued that it needed two additional

 

aircraft carriers to maintain a deterrent US military peacetime presence, convincing a

 

President whose agenda included a reduction in the carrier force. More recently, the US

 

Air Force offered up its aircraft, satellites, and other reconnaissance capabilities as a way

 

of "providing both real and 'virtual' presence."80 Many warfighters, like Admiral Jeremy

 

Boorda, chief of the Navy, scoff at this idea. "I don't know what that means.... I guess

 

we're never going to have a "virtual Navy."'81 At first glance, the admiral's side appears

 

most defensible and adds virtual to the list of techno-babble despised by many warriors.

 

Clearly a battle carrier task force deployed to a potential adversary's coast constitutes

 

serious presence. But the admiral's position illustrates the over-reliance by the entire US

 

military on sunset systems and a reluctance to allocate dwindling resources to sunrise

 

systems that confront non-traditional Information Age enemies.

 

    Today the US armed forces must prepare for an exhaustive list of all-the-world

 

adversaries. A careful mix of actual and virtual presence may offer the only route to

 

maintaining cognizance of global US interests given the downward trend of the US

 

defense budget. Further, putting all of our eggs in the actual presence basket does not

 

address the information-age trend toward new classes of enemies and threats. Just as the

 

US developed maneuver warfare to triumph over a numerically superior Soviet enemy

 

during the Cold War, so could nations lacking traditional military and power projection

 

instruments use information power and the GII to maneuver around US military

 

concentrations and strike at the US homeland. When the Information Age was ushered

 

in, conventional military power did not leave. So while we cannot discard elements of

 

traditional US military power, we must harness information power and virtual presence if

 

we are to remain the single global military power.

 

    Information power is redefining presence. The US Navy (USN) recently unveiled a

 

new system called Cooperative Engagement Capability, which links airborne and

 

shipborne radar and sensing assets of a carrier task force. The system permits every

 

ship's commander to see instantly what every other ship and plane can see.82 In its first

 

test in Summer 1994, "the system enabled the Marine amphibious assault ship USS Wasp

 

to shoot down an 'enemy' cruise missile skimming toward it across the water long before

 

the ship's own radar could spot it."83 Of course existing technology already offers link-

 

up with sensors that include the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS),

 

JSTARS, RC-135 RIVET JOINT, and even national systems, all far from the carrier

 

force's location. We have already come to rely on virtual presence to conduct modern

 

warfare. Clearly our vision of presence, actual or virtual, is still at the mechanical level,

 

as discussed in the Gutenberg analogy. As Vice Admiral Arthur Cebrowski, Director of

 

Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence (C4I) at the

 

Pentagon, says, "these are things you must do if you're going to get smaller."84 But the

 

Information Age offers more: the opportunity to project power to distant points without

 

physically moving instruments of warfare. The only remaining obstacle may be our

 

reluctance to change the way we think about warfare.

 

 

                                  Section IV:

 

             Leveraging Information Power in the Post-Cold War Era

 

 

The Crossroads

 

As the predominant global military power, the United States is at a crossroads. Two

 

revolutions--one caused by dramatic geo-political events in the post-Cold War era, and

 

the second by awesome advances in information technology--form the junction. The two

 

conspire to fundamentally challenge the American way of war, as recent American

 

military experiences illustrate.

 

    Twice since 1990, the US, with overwhelming military superiority and cooperative

 

international relations, forced the legitimate government of Iraq to recapitulate. The US

 

was not similarly successful in Somalia and is continually daunted by events in Bosnia.

 

In the latter cases, Balkanization, a visible trend in international politics, complicated US

 

efforts. The US did not have the luxury of dealing with a single legitimate government

 

or power broker; instead, power was diffused among rival clans and ethnic groups. Now

 

consider the synergy that occurs at the crossroads of geo-political trends and information

 

power. Open access to information, traditionally protected within the confines of

 

governments, is now available to anyone with access, regardless of societal position. The

 

Internet does not recognize position or borders. As Balkanization diffuses political

 

power, information technology can simultaneously place a volume of destructive power--

 

previously controlled only by legitimate states--into the hands of potential enemies. The

 

US armed forces must understand how information power conspires with political events

 

and organize appropriately for information-age threats.

 

 

Contrasting Nuclear and Information Power

 

The United States exploits modern information technology more than any other nation.

 

Information technology, translated into military power during the Gulf War, possesses

 

unique characteristics that challenge the traditional concept of balance of power between

 

states. The US can draw lessons by exploring how new sources of military power were

 

assimilated in the past. Comparing air and information power in Section 1 offered

 

insight into how the US armed forces can understand new technologies. Contrasting

 

information and nuclear power underscores the responsibility of the US to re-think its

 

military organization in this new age (Figure 8 85).

 

     "IW technologies and capabilities are largely being developed in an open

 

commercial market and are outside of direct Government control."86 This means new

 

players can buy into the latest technology without incurring tremendous research and

 

development costs. Unlike nuclear weapons, which were developed in relative

 

government secrecy, information power is out in the open. Indeed information

 

technologies are being developed in the civil sector and are more likely to migrate to the

 

military. As a result, information power can be developed rapidly and discreetly, and

 

does not require rare assets which, when a nation seeks to procure them on the

 

international market, offers insight into their capability and intent. Thus, even a

 

developing state that lacks credible, traditional military power could have information

 

power capable of inflicting damage on the information-dependent United States.

 

     Distinguishing between civilian uses of nuclear power--like power generation--from

 

military applications has traditionally vexed the US in countering proliferation of nuclear

 

weapons. When we consider the co-mingled nature of civilian-military information

 

technologies, this distinction becomes exponentially difficult. An ever-blurring

 

distinction greatly magnifies the difficulty of identifying and tracking the intent of states

 

to build information warfare capabilities. Information-age technologies challenge

 

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traditional military concepts and raise important questions. It is easy to envision US

 

military response to a nation that fires a missile at Wall Street. In contrast, try to imagine

 

US response to a trans-national actor who targets the New York Stock Exchange with an

 

information bomb through the GII. This is more difficult perhaps because the US armed

 

forces are not organized to respond to information-age warriors like Steele describes.

 

 

Meeting New Organizational Challenges

 

The US is challenged to react to new demands of a post-Cold War world while

 

substantially modifying the way the armed forces is conditioned to do business. In the

 

latest National Security Strategy, President Clinton described the nature of the threat.

 

"Worldwide, there is a resurgence of militant nationalism as well as ethnic and religious

 

conflict." Thus far, this paper is consistent with the President's theme, echoing concerns

 

by Chollet, Steele, and others. In considering the post-Cold War world and information

 

power, OSD underscores the major challenge facing the US armed forces. During the

 

Cold War, the US sought to avoid global conflict, particularly nuclear war. The

 

information customer was the National Command Authority, and information flowed

 

from top to bottom in order to minimize risk of inappropriate military action. While our

 

defensive posture must still address nuclear war, the likelihood we will employ these

 

weapons is minimal. Our new focus is conventional operations oriented on regional

 

scales, as highlighted in the National Security Strategy. The new information customer

 

is the CINC/JTF commander. And the information needs in this case are radically

 

different (Figure 9 87) In the regional scenario, the CINC/JTF commander "controls and

 

directs events, carrying out the NCA mandate, with the implied understanding that no

 

nuclear operations are envisioned and these remain the purview of the NCA."88

 

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                                  Section V:

 

                        Recommendations and Conclusions

 

 

   It is clear...that neither the US military as a whole, nor its allies, have established

 

   even the most rudimentary agreement with respect to concepts, doctrine, training,

 

   equipping, and organizing for information warfare.89

 

                                                            Robert D. Steele

                                              President, Open Source Solutions

 

 

   Those who will employ our forces will plan for and execute deployment of our

   forces.                                          

                                                              General Al Gray90

                                                         Former Commandant, USMC

 

 

    Growing evidence suggests new military organizations and far more capable means

 

and methods of warfare will supersede the military systems, operations, organizations,

 

and force structures that dominated the Cold War.91 To maintain its lead in the

 

Information Age, the US must truly revolutionize its military structure. Piecemeal

 

infusion of information-age technologies is insufficient. Such infusions certainly

 

provided an overwhelming edge to the US during the Gulf War, but now the genie is out

 

of the bottle. Others, nations and individuals, are pursuing information power. To

 

revolutionize military operations, the US must radically change its organizational,

 

operational, and doctrinal approaches. If the US military does this methodically, it will

 

emerge from the revolution prepared to confront the formidable information-age threats

 

posed by an expanded battlespace and non-traditional classes of warriors.

 

 

Innovating Organizationally

 

Information power presents attractive opportunities to US joint warfighting. The nature

 

of information power is to gather, process, and disseminate data for informed decision

 

making and execution--the role that rigid organizational hierarchies have traditionally

 

performed. Just as information power is flattening business organizations, it can

 

consolidate the staggering number of players required for the US to succeed in

 

information warfare. To start, the nature of information power means its role in national

 

defense is bigger than just DoD. This discussion recognizes that national defense in the

 

Information Age includes nearly every major player in US government, business, and

 

science. Moreover, the pervasive nature of information technology, demonstrated by the

 

GII, includes players that have not traditionally been associated with defense. The focus

 

here, however, must be limited to revolutionizing US military affairs. So while the

 

import of other participants is recognized, this paper examines changes necessary for the

 

US to succeed in joint warfighting. To integrate and synchronize information power

 

with joint warfighting, the US must innovate organizationally at the theater level by (1)

 

establishing a combatant commander with responsibility for information warfare, and (2)

 

establishing the process for joint wartime employment of information warfare.

 

    (1) Since the Gulf War, the Pentagon has substantially advanced its vision for

 

information warfare. The debate on information warfare has centered within the Capital

 

Beltway, predominantly in the Joint Staffs OSD, and service headquarters. Though

 

sometimes acrimonious, each of these participants understands that information warfare

 

must be planned and executed jointly. Meanwhile, to carry out their respective charters

 

for organizing, training, and equipping forces for joint warfare, the services have

 

aggressively pursued individual information warfare centers and visions for employment

 

of information power.

 

    The nature of organizations to resist change is well documented.92 For this reason,

 

it is fortunate that the seeds of information warfare have been nurtured at the highest

 

levels of the DoD. Now DoD's concept of information warfare has matured sufficiently

 

and must be consolidated at the combatant command level. The US must assign

 

responsibility for cyberspace to a combatant commander with singular, functional

 

responsibility for command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence (C4I)

 

to revolutionize joint warfighting around information power. This is consistent with the

 

Goldwater-Nichols Act and the UNAAF, which govern how the US will fight and

 

capitalize on the nation's military experience that joint application of military power

 

delivers the most lethal combat punch.

 

    While the current fiscal and political environment seeks to reduce the numbers of

 

commanders and staffs at the unified level, organizational changes to the existing

 

USSPACECOM, headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado, makes sense for

 

numerous reasons. Foremost, it assigns responsibility for information power--a fourth

 

dimension--to the appropriate warfighting command, thereby permitting DoD and the

 

Joint Staff to focus on policy making, and the senior service headquarters on organizing,

 

training, and equipping forces for the combatant commander. This places the combatant

 

commander in a position to establish requirements for information warfighting and to

 

influence service acquisition programs, oversight of which now occurs by those with

 

primarily policy making functions. Further, this organizational change responds to the

 

impact of information technology on military operations. As its name implies,

 

USSPACECOM focuses only on space. Though important, space is only one element of

 

cyberspace. Like other sources of military power, information power is diminished when

 

compartmented and penny-packeted. The combatant commander charged with C4I will

 

be the focal point for critical interaction between US warfighters and non-defense

 

organizations and will drive service acquisition processes through the integrated priority

 

list as the combatant commander currently does with other warfighting programs.

 

In the meantime, CJCS' latest MOP 30 provides definitive guidance for DoD to

 

proceed with C2W, the military application of information warfare. MOP 30 would

 

appear to be the best work-around for revolutionizing information power, given the

 

absence of a combatant commander tasked with the cyberspace mission. Yet several

 

shortcomings are immediately evident in these MOP 30 excerpts:

 

   The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is responsible to the NCA for providing

 

   recommendations concerning the joint and combined employment ofC2W...93

 

 

   The Combatant Commanders will designate a single staff component to be

 

   responsible for C2W designate specific points of contact for counter C-2 and C-2

 

   protection where feasible, and ensure that subordinate commands assign

 

   responsibilities for C2W as necessary.94

 

By compartmenting the information warfare mission within the Pentagon, MOP 30

 

ignores this nation's military experience that joint application of combined arms--and

 

information power must be included--provides the most lethal combat punch. Further,

 

diffusing responsibility for information power in this manner poses obstacles for the

 

combatant commander in planning, exercising, and executing combined arms

 

employment. As a result, the combatant commander is challenged to design operational

 

art and orchestrate a truly combined arms campaign.

 

    (2) To revolutionize military affairs in the Information Age, information power must

 

be completely integrated and synchronized with traditional combat power. The rationale

 

to elevate C4I to the combatant commander's level also mandates a joint organization to

 

command and control information power during wartime. Similarities between air and

 

information power have already been discussed. Information, like air power, offers

 

unique capability, inherent flexibility, and support to multi-service operations. The

 

JFACC concept, proven during the Gulf War, provides an existing organizational model

 

for wartime employment of information power.

 

 

Innovating Operationally

 

   The past had its inventions and when they coincided with a man who staked his

 

   shirt on them the face of the world changed. Scythes fixed to the axles of the war

 

   chariots; the moving towers which overthrew Babylon; Greek fire; the short bow,

 

   the cross-bow, the Welsh long bow and the ballista; plate armour; the Prussian

 

   needle gun; the Merrimac and Ericsson's marvelous coincidental reply. The future

 

   is pregnant with inventions....95

 

 

                        General Sir Ian Hamilton, Soul and Body of an Army, 1921

 

 

 

    The Information Age brings an abundance of inventions, the likes of which Sir Ian

 

Hamilton wrote. However, the entirety of the US military services must invest in them if

 

the US hopes to revolutionize military affairs around information power. Though each

 

possess distinctive traditions and warfighting doctrine, the services contribute to some

 

operational approaches which merely impede progress. Before information technology

 

can be the fuel for a revolution in military operations, the services must transform

 

operational approaches that would otherwise contaminate the mixture. Specifically, the

 

military services must recognize (1) cyberspace as a fourth dimension of battlespace, (2)

 

the primacy of intelligence in information warfare, (3) information power as applicable

 

at the operational level of war, and (4) the criticality of a streamlined operations-

 

acquisition interface.

 

    (1) Blitzkrieg best illustrates that operational advantage in warfare goes to the nation

 

that can use new technology. Faced with a new menu of non-traditional missions,

 

evolving classes of elusive warriors, and a reduced operating budget, the US military

 

must seek new operational approaches. Information power can help. An example is the

 

use of USN cooperative multi-mode sensors to provide dispersed warfighting elements

 

with a comprehensive battlespace picture. With certainty of Commander's Intent, these

 

elements can contribute more to achieving the theater goal, thereby compensating for

 

reduced forces. But far more is possible. Information power must be synchronized with

 

traditional military power--air, land, and sea--to strike adversary strategic and operational

 

centers-of-gravity at the onset of hostilities, achieving the maximum, combined arms

 

effect. To achieve this, the US military must recognize the importance of battlespace's

 

information dimension. Most warriors readily agree on the importance of space in

 

military operations, especially in force projection. However, they are often reticent to

 

recognize the larger domain, cyberspace, of which space is merely a segment. Instead of

 

being dismissed as techno-babble, cyberspace must be viewed as an operational rear

 

area, a soft-spot upon which modern US military power relies for information-based

 

systems, but which conversely becomes a lucrative target for hostile actions.

 

    The services must also recognize the inherent and appealing operational flexibility of

 

information power to deliver a moderated blow or knock-out punch. Information power

 

holds the same potential for the joint warfighting commander as non-lethal technologies

 

used by the US joint task force commander who presided over the final withdrawal of

 

United Nations forces from Somalia in March 1995. Information power also offers

 

operational flexibility that reaches beyond traditional kill weapons for use in the non-

 

traditional missions that are becoming more prevalent. This discussion has repeatedly

 

focused on the non-traditional enemy, the trans-national actor or individual with the skill

 

and access to hurt US military capability. As information power proliferates, the US

 

must be able to project discriminate power against such an enemy, whose operations base

 

may be in a nation like Iran or Korea, and which is unlikely to cooperate with the US.

 

How would the US respond to an information attack by a trans-national actor against the

 

New York Stock Exchange? We must prepare for such eventualities now.

 

    (2) US military services must recognize the primacy of intelligence in information

 

warfare, of effectively melding operations and intelligence. Information is the fuel of

 

information-based systems, and modern warfare requires a higher volume of precise

 

intelligence than conventional weaponry. During the last few decades the US

 

Intelligence Community allocated the bulk of its resources to the monolithic Soviet

 

Union. Now, the enemy has shrunk in size and capability, but has become more

 

numerous and dispersed. The US Intelligence Community must be prepared to provide

 

intelligence on virtually any nation, group, and even individuals. The potential target list

 

is exploding while the budget to conduct intelligence operations is imploding. "The top

 

targets...include countries such as Iraq, Iran, and North Korea; subjects such as weapons

 

of mass destruction and counterterrorism; and 'trans-national' issues such as Muslim

 

fundamentalism and 'over-the-horizon' problems that might arise in the future."96 The

 

trans-national actor, perhaps even an individual whose ideology is contrary to that of the

 

US, could use information power to inflict great damage against a US military operation.

 

Perhaps the implications are most pressing for the joint warfighter, whose battlespace,

 

particularly reachback or communications zone, has been expanded.

 

    Several countervailing events interact to challenge the intelligence community at a

 

time when the services are looking for higher volumes of more precise intelligence to

 

compensate for force reductions and decreases in service O&M. First, the complexity

 

and breadth of the intelligence mission has expanded greatly. The old Soviet focus is

 

replaced with what intelligence professionals call all-the-world. In the aftermath of the

 

Gulf War, when the opportunity in Somalia seemed tailored for the new US role, military

 

planners were dismayed with the paucity of information available. This, too, was the

 

case in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. But information warfare places even greater

 

demands on the intelligence community, demanding a high volume of precise

 

intelligence which the community is currently ill-suited to provide. Consider the type of

 

intelligence required by modern weaponry. During the Vietnam era, precise geo-

 

coordinates would get fire and steel on target. In the expanded battlespace of the

 

Information Age, this task is exponentially more difficult. If the US is to win an

 

information war, the intelligence community must provide traditional intelligence, like

 

an enemy's force disposition and doctrine. Additionally, information warfare must probe

 

more deeply into an enemy's C4I infrastructure and the systems that support it. Probing

 

the information infrastructure of potential adversaries--their hardware, software, and

 

firmware--for offensive and defense ends brings new meaning to traditional

 

reconnaissance missions.

 

    Now more than ever, a high premium must be placed on all-source intelligence to

 

succeed in information warfare. Von Clausewitz believed war was man's most complex

 

endeavor. His thoughts are particularly prescient given information-age weaponry. Just

 

as traditional combat systems require logistics support, information weapons systems

 

need substantial information support. Information power requires a volume of precise

 

technical intelligence that the US Intelligence Community is not currently postured to

 

provide well.

 

    (3) Similarities between aerospace power and information power previously

 

discussed suggest that successful aerospace employment schemes may also be

 

appropriate for information warfare. Joint and service information warfighting doctrine

 

is only now being crafted and will surely undergo much evolution as it matures. Joint

 

warfighting doctrine recognizes that once air superiority is achieved, aerospace power

 

supports theater-level, operational objectives. "Air operations seek to gain control of the

 

air and then to allow all friendly forces to exploit this control for military and non-

 

military purposes."97 The desired end-state is one in which naval and land component

 

commanders prosecute the Joint Force Commander's battle plan unimpeded by enemy air

 

activities. While the maritime and land components deliver distinct contributions for

 

joint warfighting, the nature of the aerospace component--capable of combat elevated

 

from surface-level activities--marks it as unique. "Land forces can, for example, seize

 

and secure air bases and sea ports to facilitate air and maritime component operations in

 

theater."98 But control of a surface area is different. In war, aerospace superiority is a

 

necessity. "Since the German attack on Poland in 1939, no country has won a war in the

 

face of enemy air superiority, no major offensive has succeeded against an opponent who

 

controlled the air, and no defense has sustained itself against an enemy who had

 

superiority. Conversely, no state has lost a war while it maintained air superiority...."99

 

    Like aerospace power, information power may be most appropriately applied at the

 

operational level. Finally, Cholletts description of the electronic umbrella should raise

 

serious concerns about fratricide in information warfare. Orchestrating information

 

warfare at the combatant command level should reduce the risk of friendly fire.

 

    (4) A streamlined operations-acquisition interface that will keep pace with critical

 

military technologies is required. We cannot hope to maneuver within the decision-

 

making cycle (OODA loop) of our adversaries when we cannot maneuver within our

 

own acquisition cycle. This point is already widely recognized, though broadly based

 

solutions have not been forthcoming. During the last year, the Undersecretary of

 

Defense for Acquisition introduced Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrations

 

(ACTDs), which if successful, will serve as a model for the acquisition process at large.

 

ACTDs seek to shorten the acquisition time between designing a weapon in the

 

laboratory and delivering it to the warfighter, especially important to the complex nature

 

of information warfare, and the security classification systems required to protect

 

sensitive offensive and defensive capabilities. Additionally, information warfare

 

capabilities should tend to be unlike those of traditional weapons systems. In both

 

offensive and defensive systems, software munitions, once developed, can be copied

 

without the expense of producing additional copies of, say, an aircraft.

 

 

Innovating Doctrinally

 

   In itself the danger of a doctrine is that it is apt to ossify into a dogma, and to be

 

   seized upon by mental emasculates who lack virility of judgment, and who are

 

   only too grateful to rest assured that their actions, however inept, find

 

   justification in a book, which, if they think at all, is in their opinion, written in

 

   order to exonerate them from doing so. In the past many armies have been

 

   destroyed by internal discord, and some have been destroyed by the weapons of

 

   their antagonists, but the majority have perished through adhering to dogmas

 

   springing from their past successes--that is, self-destruction or suicide through

 

   inertia of mind.100

 

 

                           Major General J.C.F. Fuller, The Reformation of War, 1923

 

 

    Doctrine is the set of fundamental principles guiding military actions in support of

 

objectives.101 Outmoded doctrine typically yields disaster. Military history provides

 

tragic illustrations: the French at the Maginot Line, the British at Gallipoli. Technology

 

is setting the pace, and US military doctrine must keep up. Personal experiences at the

 

USMC Command and Staff College are germane. One need look no further than this

 

intermediate service school for evidence the US military needs to do more to support

 

understanding of information power. The fact that few officers have been exposed to

 

RMA discussions was illustrated when a navy officer in the audience requested that a

 

guest lecturer, a general officer, explain the acronym RMA which appeared on the visual

 

aid. The general, unprepared for the query, responded he knew little of the topic.

 

Krepinevich is right. It is hard to conceive that RMA has occurred if our leadership,

 

current and future, cannot recognize it.

 

    All of our nation's fighting forces need information. Streamlined, organized, and

 

smart economics mandate information warfare be a joint game. But again, the

 

characteristics of the GII intervene to strengthen the case. Employment of information

 

power must be considered in light of potential fratricidal effects. Remember, in the GII

 

if you are connected to any node, you are connected to all of them. This holds important

 

implications for both offensive and defensive information warfare, and the key to

 

crafting appropriate doctrine. Service doctrine must consider all potential participants,

 

defense and non-defense. Information power presents vulnerabilities that the battlefield

 

commander did not have to consider previously. Greater emphasis on doctrine will help

 

burn through the inevitable fog and lessen the friction.

 

 

 

 

 

A Concluding Parable

 

History may well record this time as the dawn of opportunity for the US armed forces. A

 

time when US military leaders chose to take brave new steps to prepare for a new era of

 

warfare. The mandate is clear. The US military must develop a better understanding of

 

information power and organize for joint information warfighting at the combatant

 

command level. We must shift our perspective on warfare, focusing on a new threats and

 

enemies. In Proceedings, Frank Koch offers a parable that shows how events forced an

 

unsuspecting navy captain to shift his perspective.102

 

        Two battleships assigned to the training squadron had been at sea on

 

   maneuvers in heavy weather for several days. I was serving on the lead battleship

 

   and was on watch on the bridge as night fell. The visibility was poor with patchy

 

   fog, so the captain remained on the bridge keeping a eye on all activities.

 

        Shortly after dark, the lookout on the wing of the bridge reported, "Light,

 

   bearing on the starboard bow."

 

        "Is it steady or moving astern?" the captain called out.

 

        Lookout replied, "Steady, captain," which meant we were on a dangerous

 

   collision course with that ship.

 

        The captain then called the signalman, "Signal that ship: We are on a

 

   collision course, advise you change course 20 degrees."

 

        Back came a signal, "Advisable for you to change course 20 degrees."

 

        The captain said, "Send, I'm a captain, change course 20 degrees."

 

        "I'm a seaman second class," came the reply. "You had better change course

 

   20 degrees."

 

        By that time, the captain was furious. He spat out, "Send, I'm a battleship.

 

   Change course 20 degrees."

 

        Back came the flashing light, "I'm a lighthouse."

 

        We changed course.

 

 

    The captain and reader are struck at once by an understanding that makes all the

 

difference. So it should be as we contemplate information power. In an information

 

war, the fog will be thick, the stakes will be high, and the chances of collision, great. By

 

understanding information power and organizing for joint information warfighting at the

 

combatant command level, the US can prepare for the challenges and opportunities of the

 

Information Age.

 

 

 

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  New York: Bantam Books, 1992.

 

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  Horses?" Army, January 1995.

 

Sussman, Vic, "Gotcha! A Hard-Core Hacker is Nabbed." US News & World Report,

  27 February 1995.

 

Szafranski, Richard, Col, "Neocortical Warfare?," Military Review, November 19, 1994.

 

Toffler, Alvin and Heidi, War and Anti-War: Survival at the Dawn of the 21st Century.

  Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1993.

 

"Outlook." US New & World Report, February 27, 1995.

 

"USAF Information Warfare Summit." Presentation Slides. Washington, DC, 9 August

  1994.

 

"USAF and IW for Warfighting." Presentation Slides for Unified Commanders.

  Washington, DC, circa January 1995.

 

Van Creveld, Martin, Command in War. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985.

 

Warden, John A. III, The Air Campaign, Planning for Combat. Washington, DC:

  National Defense University Press, 1988.

 

Watts, Barry D., Lt Col, The Foundations of US Air Doctrine: The Problem of Friction

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                                 Abbreviations

 

 

ACTD            Advanced Concept Technical Demonstration

 

ASD/C3I         Assistant Secretary of Defense/Command, Control, Communications,

                and Intelligence

 

AWACS    E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System

 

C2              Command and Control

 

C2W             Command and Control Warfare

 

C4I             Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence

 

CINC            Commander-in-Chief

 

DoD             Department of Defense

 

GII             Global Information Infrastructure

 

GPS             Global Positioning System

 

JFACC           Joint Forces Air Component Commander

 

JFC             Joint Forces Commander

 

JSTARS          Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System

 

MSC             Major Subordinate Component

 

OODA            Observe-Orient-Decide-Act

 

OOTW            Operations Other Than War

 

OSD             Office of the Secretary of Defense

 

RIVET JOINT     RC-135, USAF Airborne Reconnaissance Platform

 

RMA             Revolution in Military Affairs

 

UNAAF           Unified Action Armed Forces

 

USAF            United States Air Force

 

WMD             Weapons of Mass Destruction

 

 

                                   Endnotes

 

    1Dr William Perry, Presentation to Global Air and Space 1994 International Forum,

Hyatt Regency Hotel, Crystal City, Virginia, 5 May 1994.

 

    2Lt Gen James R. Clapper, Jr, and Lt Col Eben H. Trevino, Jr, "Critical Security

Dominates Information Warfare Moves," Signal, March 1995, 71.

 

    3Bradley Graham, "Battle Plans for a New Century, The Washington Post, No. 78,

21 February 1995, 1.

 

    4USAF White Paper, Global Presence, February 1995, 1.

 

    5Clapper and Trevino, 71.

 

    6Ibid.

 

    7Col Douglas P. Hotard, Director of Information Warfare, Assistant Secretary of

Defense/C3l, Pentagon, in interview by author, 28 December 1994.

 

    8Lt Col Wyatt C. Cook, "Information Warfare: A New Dimension in the

Application of Air and Space Power," Research Paper, Air War College, Maxwell AFB,

Alabama, April 1994, 4.

 

    9Perry, Global Air and Space Presentation 1994.

 

    10Report of the Defense Science Board, Summer Task Force on Information

Architecture for the Battlefield, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for

Acquisition and Technology, October 1994, 27.

 

    11Joint Pub 1-02: Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated

Terms, 23 March 1994.

 

    12Joint Pub 3-13: Joint Doctrine for Command and Control Warfare (C2W)

Operations, 2nd Draft, 1 September 1994, GL-17.

 

    13Based on personal accounts of HQ USAF staff observed by author, June 1992-June

1994.

 

    14DoD TS-3600.1, quoted in CJCS MOP 30.

 

    15Cook, 4.

 

    16Col John R. Boyd, "A Discourse on Winning and Losing," August 1987, 5-7, 141, as

adapted by Lt Col Bill Riskii, OSD ASD/C3I.

 

    17Clapper and Trevino, 72.

 

    18Robert D. Steele, Presentation to National Computer Security Association,

Second International Conference on Information Warfare, 18-19 January 1995,

Montreal Airport Hilton, Canada, quoted in OSS Notices, Volume 3, Issue 1, 31 January

1995, 10.

 

    19Congressman Newt Gingrich, Presentation to Armed Forces Communications

and Electronics Association Conference, National Defense University, May 1994.

 

    20 Hotard.

 

    21Dr Frederick B. Cohen, "Information Warfare-Concepts and Concerns, The First

Information Warfare War Game," briefing by Science Applications International

Corporation for presentation to OSD/Net Assessment's Study on Information Warfare,

December 1993,23.

 

    22Ibid.

 

    23Dr Michel E. Kabay, Presentation to National Computer Security Association,

Second International Conference on Information Warfare, 18-19 January 1995,

Montreal Airport Hilton, Canada, quoted in OSS Notices, ed. Zhi M. Hamby, Volume

3, Issue 1,31 January 1995.

 

    24Maj Gen Alan Pickering, Presentation to National Computer Security Association,

Second International Conference on Information Warfare, 18- 19 January 1995,

Montreal Airport Hilton, Canada, Ibid.

 

    25Robert D. Steele, Presentation to the Second International Conference on

Information Warfare: Chaos on the Electronic Superhighway, Montreal, Canada, 19

January 1995, 7.

 

    26Steele, Presentation to the Second International Conference on Information

Warfare: Chaos on the Electronic Superhighway, 10.

 

    27Report of the Defense Science Board Summer Study Task Force, 7.

 

    28Ibid., reproduced, 5.

 

    29Michael Meyer, "When Words Are The Best Weapon," Newsweek, 27 February

1995.

 

    30Ibid., 37.

 

    31Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Memorandum of Policy No. 30, Command

and Control Warfare, issued 1990, first revised 1993, 5.

 

    32Robert J. Butler et al., "Information Warfare and the Joint Forces Air Component

Commander," Research Paper, Air Command and Staff College, Maxwell AFB, Alabama,

June 1994, 8.

 

    33Report of the Defense Science Board Summer Study Task Force, 28.

 

    34Butler et al., 2.

 

    35Ibid.

 

    36Report of the Defense Science Board Summer Study Task Force, 30.

 

    37Butler et al., l4.

 

    38Joint Forces Air Component Commander (JFACC) Primer, Second Edition,

Headquarters USAF/XO, February 1994, 1.

 

    39Joint Pub 0-2: Unified Action Armed Forces (UNAAF).

 

    40JFACC Primer, Foreword.

 

    41Air Force Manual I-I, Volume II: Basic Aerospace Doctrine of the United States

Air Force, March 1992, 79.

 

    42JFACC Primer, 8.

 

    43Ibid.

 

    44Cook, 3.

 

    45JFACC Primer, 23.

 

    46Ibid.

 

    47Laurence B. Chollet, "William Gibson's Second Sight," Los Angeles Times

Magazine, 12 September 1993.

 

    48,"Outlook," US News & World Report, reproduced from Basic Data: Internet

Society, Win Treese's Internet Index, 27 February 1995.

 

    49Cook, 3.

 

    50Col Gregg A. Wheeler, "US Air Force Information Warfare," Headquarters

USAF/INXY briefing, undated, circa July 1993.

 

    51Lt Col Donald E. Ryan, "Implications of Information-Based Warfare," Joint Force

Quarterly, Autumn/Winter 1994-95/Number 6, November 1994.

 

    52Giulio Douhet, 1921, quoted by Lt Col Barry D. Watts, The Foundations of US

Air Doctrine: The Problem of Friction in War (Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Air University

Press, 1984), 6.

 

    53Bradley Graham, "Battle Plans for a New Century, The Washington Post, 118th

Year, No. 78, 21 February 1995, 1.

 

    54Ibid.

 

    55Sir Peter Anion and Dennis Cummings, "The First Space War: the Contribution of

Satellites to the Gulf War," The First Information War, ed Alan D. Campen, AFCEA

International Press, 1992, 127.

 

    56Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., "Keeping Pace with the Military-Technological

Revolution," Issues in Science and Technology, Summer 94, 22.

 

    57Ibid., 23.

 

    58Ibid., 24.

 

    59Ibid., 24.

 

    60Ibid., 25.

 

    61Ibid., 25.

 

    62Ibid., 25.

 

    63Captain Sir Basil Liddell Hart, "Thoughts on War," quoted by Peter G. Tsouras,

Warriors' Words, (Arms and Armour Press, 1992), 63.

 

    64Graham.

 

    65Ibid.

 

    66Maj Mark Bean, US Marine Corps Command and Staff College, Quantico MCB,

Virginia, in interview by author, 8 February 1995.

 

    67Graham.

 

    6Brig Gen Robert L Stewart, Army, Vol. 45, No. 1, January 1995, 24.

 

    69Reproduced from the Report of the Defense Science Board Summer Study Task

Force, 23.

 

    70Based on personal accounts of HQ USAF staff observed by author, June 1992-June

1994.

 

    71Report of the Defense Science Board Summer Study Task Force, 34.

 

    72Ibid.

 

    73Presentation for USAF IW Summit, Headquarters USAF, 9 August 1994, 7.

 

    74Ibid.

 

    75Report of the Defense Science Board Summer Study Task Force, 27.

 

    76Ibid., 25.

 

    77Ibid., 24.

 

    78John Carey, "From Internet to Infobahn," Business Week, 32.

 

    79Steele, Chaos on the Electronic Superhighway, 7.

 

    80Thomas L Ricks, "Air Force Says It Can Offer 'Presence' In Peacetime at Lower

Cost Than Navy," Wall Street Journal, 28 February 1995.

 

    81Ibid.

 

    82Bruce B. Auster, "Info Wars: When Knowledge Is Military Power," US News &

World Report, 24 October 1994.

 

    83Ibid.

 

    84Ibid.

 

    85Adapted from Report of the Defense Science Board Summer Study Task Force,

Appendix B-2.

 

    86Report of the Defense Science Board Summer Study Task Force, ES-5.

 

    87Reproduced from the Report of the Defense Science Board Summer Study Task

Force, 6.

 

    88Report of the Defense Science Board Summer Study Task Force, A-5.

 

    89Steele, Chaos on the Electronic Superhighway.

 

    90Joint Operations Force Sustainment, quoted in US Marine Corps Command and

Staff College Student Handout, 10 March 1995.

 

    91Krepinevich, "Keeping Pace with the Military-Technological Revolution," 23.

 

    92Peter Allan and Stephen Rosenberg, Public Personnel and Administrative Behavior,

Duxbury Press, 1981, 135-150.

 

    93CJCS MOP 30, 19.

 

    94Ibid., 19.

 

    95Tsouras, Warriors' Words, 223.

 

    96Walter Pincus, "Control Tightened on Spy Agencies," The Washington Post, 10

March 1995.

 

    97Joint Pub 3-0: Doctrine for Joint Operations, Proposed Final Pub, B-1.

 

    98Ibid., B-3 to B-4.

 

    99Col John A. Warden III, The Air Campaign, Planning for Combat, Washington,

DC: National Defense University Press) 1988, 13.

 

    100Tsouras, Warriors' Words, 148-9.

 

    101JCS Pub 1: Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms,

1 June 1987,118.

 

    102Koch, Frank, in Proceedings (date unknown), as quoted in Covey, Stephen R., The

Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990) 33.