Information Warfare and Deterrence

The essence of the Information Age is the emergence of a new form of organization.The information technology network seamlessly connects all of its parts, creating shared situational awareness throughout an organization.High connectivity supports both enhanced sustainability and greater accessibility.Information warfare is best understood by focusing on the concept of connectivity as both a societal and military asset.For strategists seeking to deter this new form of war, connectivity is a double-edged sword.Deterrence requires that the capability to inflict retaliatory costs be perceived as reliable.Deterrence weakens to the degree that the deterrent capability can be contested by a challenger through degradation or avoidance.The inherent accessibility of information technology invites challenges to a network's connectivity.Deterrent threats relying on such connectivity will be susceptible to technical, tactical, and operational contest.The contestability of connectivity will make deterrence of information warfare difficult.This article concludes that deterrence models developed during the Cold War will provide poor guidance for strategic thinking about this new form of war, which is better understood in the context of offense and defense. Information WarfareThere is as yet no consensus about the term information warfare.[1]The US Department of Defense's definition as of March 1995 is remarkable for its lack of specificity: "Information Warfare is `action taken to achieve information superiority in support of national military strategy by affecting an adversary's information and information systems, while leveraging and protecting our own information and information systems.'"[2] This phrasing is amorphous and loose enough that the strategic visions it describes are ones with which Sun Tzu or Attila the Hun could feel comfortable.[3]While the assumption is that we are talking about the employment of high technology, the DOD definition does not require it.In March 1993, Memorandum of Policy Number 30 (MOP 30), issued by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, identified seven different concepts to be grouped under the umbrella of information warfare.Of these, some, like command and control warfare (C2W), intelligence-based warfare, and psychological operations, do not necessarily involve information technology.Defense analyst Martin Libicki has concluded that currently the term is "an unfortunate catch-all phrase."[4]