'Fight the net?'

A newly declassified 2003 document from the Pentagon, still moderately blacked out, has revealed the grand scheme of future Information Operations. Authored by various analysts at the Pentagon and signed off by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, it represents a striking shift in the priorities of Information Operations in our military. One of the main conclusions of this "roadmap" document, that "We Must Fight The Net," represents a shift in our approach to warfare. \nMost of the document outlines a grand plan for the future of Information Ops. Information has long been a piece of military strategy and tactics, from specific intelligence to general deception. Info Ops was also recently exposed to be guilty of planting pro-American news stories in Iraqi papers, and the negative publicity might be at least part of the reason for this document's declassification. \nWhile this "roadmap" document has lots of information on the future of Psychological Operations and public affairs officers, the most ambitious -- and perhaps most frightening -- piece of the document concerns Electronic Warfare. The authors declare that the United States must "dominate the electromagnetic spectrum with attack capabilities." \n"Dominate the electromagnetic spectrum?" "Fight The Net?" When did the Pentagon start sounding like a bad James Bond villain? We've developed plenty of defensive and preventative electronic measures, but now it appears that we are taking the offensive. \nAccording to the document, we need the electronic attack capability to "deny, degrade, disrupt and destroy" enemy networks and sensors and to protect ourselves. Are we now, as the document purports, in an age of weaponizing the Internet and other public networks? Certainly the authors describe the Net as something worth fighting, and this presents plenty of problems.\nSuch an explicit intention to escalate the still-young art of electronic warfare represents nothing less than the commencement of a new arms race. It might sound silly, but consider that fairly amateur electronic attacks can shut down Web sites, causing economic damage, or severing communication lines between troops, causing traditional military damage. With so much at stake, it's understandable to try to look to the future and stay ahead of the curve. Living in the Information Age, it would be foolish to avoid information warfare.\nThere exists a danger, however, in focusing on information-based warfare, which befalls us each time we move into a new area of technology. Just as an over-reliance on air warfare brought us the folly of winning war from the air, an over-reliance on information warfare could leave us woefully behind in the basic tactics of troops on the ground. War is dirty, bloody and chaotic, and you can't win it from behind a desk.\nAlso, with the increasingly fuzzy lines that separate national from international, domestic from foreign, friend from foe, who's to say information warfare couldn't be waged internally? From Bush's domestic wiretap order we see that a determined administration can easily engage in information warfare within our borders. \nVisionary though this document might be, it might prove to be dangerous if we bull-headedly plow in the wrong direction. We must tread carefully or risk the weakening of an already strained military at the expense of an unproven pipe dream.