The following paper was translated by the CIA's Foreign Broadcast Information Service. It is an analysis -- said to be taken by the author from popular sources in the open "foreign press" -- of the U.S. Department of Defense's efforts in information warfare as of February 1996. The information in this article on American views was re-used in a 1997 research paper published by the Hudson Institute think tank which purported to be about "Russian" views on electronic and information warfare, not American.
--------------
Article Id: druma026__s96017
Document Id: 0dmhls102fvufh
Insert Date: 02/08/96
Purge Date: 02/21/98
Publish Date: 02/07/96
Publish Region: Undetermined
Lines: 447
Title: Russia: Information War
Document Number: FBIS-UMA-96-026-S
Document Type: Daily Report
Document Date: 7 February 1996
Division: RUSSIAN MILITARY
Subdivision: NAVAL FORCES
Sourceline: 96UM0128G Moscow MORSKOY SBORNIK in Russian, Oct 19 No
10, 95 pp 69-73
AFS Number: 96UM0128G
Citysource: Moscow MORSKOY SBORNIK
Language: Russian
Article Type: CSO
Subslug: [Article by Major M. Boytsov under rubric "In Foreign
Navies"]
[FBIS Translated Text] The development of science and
technology in recent decades engendered discussions about
the use of robots, psychotronic means, antimatter, and also
plasma, laser, beam, electronic and other varieties of
lethal and nonlethal weapons in future wars. Some of these
ideas already are materializing, and among them a new
quality of information opposition.
In general, information is information on people,
objects, facts, events, phenomena and processes. Information
opposition is the struggle of sides to win supremacy in the
quantity, quality and rate of collection of information and
in its timely analysis and use. It envisages a constant
upgrading of information processes, information systems and
information resources simultaneously with the fulfillment
of measures for improving their protection against enemy
effect.
Many examples can be given, and from the most ancient
times, of the sides' information opposition in various
spheres. Here is a little-known fact from recent history. In
1945 the victors over fascist Germany, above all the United
States, took as war trophies around 350,000 patents and
over one million inventions, the content of which was
determined by 40,000 new terms in all fields of science and
engineering. Later they called that the operation to "carve
out the brain of the German nation," which allowed the
United States to increase the competitiveness of its
commodities and assert its economic leadership in a war-
weakened world.
Even today the United States applies greatest efforts
in this area, openly laying claim to the role of world
leader and striving to consolidate the order which now has
formed. Therefore it is advisable to examine the situation
involving military kinds of information opposition practiced
and planned specifically by the United States of
America.1
It should be noted that new directions of information
opposition in military affairs appeared in the United
States in the last one or two decades. They are based first
of all on historically formed features of Americans'
military thinking; secondly, on their traditional concept of
intimidation; and thirdly, on the latest achievements of
science and engineering. All this can be reduced to the
following propositions:
reliance on force and on military and military-
technical superiority;
use of intimidation based on force and military
superiority to keep an enemy from a war not needed by the
United States (it is more advantageous not to allow a war
than to wage it);
imposition of one's own rules of waging war on a
probable enemy in peacetime and on the enemy in wartime,
and hitting him in vulnerable and critically important
places;
a war must be brief, with little blood, and victorious
for the United States and must be waged as far as possible
from its own territory;
the profit from victory must be considerably higher
than the cost of winning it.
The American concept of intimidation has been
undergoing changes over time. Thus, because of its inherent
shortcomings (answering nuclear intimidation by an enemy
equal in might), nuclear intimidation was supplemented by a
more flexible and effective intimidation with conventional
weapons, above all precision weapons. Intimidation by
conventional weapons in turn began to be supplemented by
intimidation by nonlethal weapons, particularly electronic
weapons. Now we have seen progress toward war in the
intellectual sphere, toward a war of machines and
electronic equipment without a direct involvement in combat
operations of friendly soldiers, whose losses, to the merit
of American taxpayers and electors, are taken very
painfully.
The circumstance that, as specialists believe, over
half of the world population will be living in cities in the
first third of the 21st century and can especially suffer
in case of wars began to play a role of no small importance
here. Therefore it is believed that to win victory with
minimum victims among the civilian population and minimum
property damage, it will be necessary to employ very
precise lethal and nonlethal kinds of weapons in order to
exert sufficient pressure on the opposing country's
leadership directly or through the population masses of
cities. Electronic weapons in particular can prove to be
specifically such a means.
Achievements in spheres of communications, cybernetics
and information science as applied to new methods of
collecting, processing and rapidly communicating
intelligence to forces, in the methodology and methods of
computer simulation of the situation and operations, in the
field of cryptanalysis and so on permit speaking of the
appearance of a new concept in modern military affairs such
as "information war." It is noted that already today the
United States uses three terms in interpreting component
parts of information opposition:
command and control warfare--C2W;
information warfare--IW;
information war.
The first term began to be used in the 1970's and the
second and third ones in the 1990's after the war against
Iraq of the coalition headed by the United States.
Information war even has been elevated to the rank of U.S.
national strategy, as is evident from the special mission:
"Win the information war."
It appears that the concept of information war is to
show a potential enemy the U.S. Armed Forces superiority in
intelligence and in the capability of blinding, deafening,
demoralizing and decapitating the command and control system
of its armed forces and of the state as a whole, and in the
ability to neutralize his computer equipment and
communications assets, disrupt information processes and
destroy information systems and resources "at global
distances and with the speed of light." This is supposed to
induce a probable enemy to reject war, having understood
its lack of prospect for himself. If intimidation does not
work, use all available means en masse for victory. In
other words, achieve your goals:
in peacetime by electronic intimidation;
in a period of threat by use of electronic means
against military and civilian information and command and
control structures that is selective in terms of targets
but massive in terms of intensity;
during a military conflict by massive use both of
electronic as well as of fire-delivery means against all
systems of the aforementioned targets.
A particular kind of information war is the
destruction by "nonlethal weapons" (read: electronic
weapons) of the most important elements of military
industry and the civilian regional infrastructure by
disabling, for example, power supply, communications,
transportation and other installations. But if we are
speaking about information warfare, and above all about
warfare against command and control systems
(IW/C2W), it has two main goals:
offensive--to deceive, disorganize or destroy the enemy
information infrastructure; to confuse, disorganize or
totally disrupt the process of operational command and
control of his forces and assets for rapid neutralization of
resistance;
defensive--to protect the friendly information
infrastructure and the command and control process against
enemy effect.
The essence of IW/C2W is to take advantage
of vulnerable places in the enemy system of command and
control, communications, computer support and intelligence
in order to diminish the effectiveness of their work, to
create a false picture or a distorted impression of the
situation in the enemy, and under conditions of a scarcity
of time to force him to take incorrect and disadvantageous
actions. This will permit friendly command and control
entities, using the advantage of time and reliability of
information, to preempt the enemy in estimating the
situation, making a decision, planning, communicating
orders to those responsible for execution, checking plans
of action by running them on automated systems for modeling
combat operations and, finally, to preempt him in final
organization of combat employment of troops and forces.
Superiority in IW/C2W permits ensuring surprise
and the possibility of delivering a knock-out blow even
before a formal announcement of the beginning of combat
operations (and such blows already have been legitimized),
and it will permit seizing and holding the initiative and
concluding the crisis or military conflict as fast as
possible on terms most favorable to yourself.
As of today the organization of IW/C2W in
the United States includes the following aspects:
1. Deception,
2. Operations security,
3. Psychological operations,
4. Electronic warfare,
5. Destruction.
Making simultaneous and maximum possible use of all
means and methods of warfare in their close interaction for
achieving highest results and concentrating main efforts on
destroying the most important vulnerable links of the enemy
information infrastructure and command and control system
are a guarantee of success here. Radars, surveillance and
reconnaissance equipment, communications centers and lines,
transmitting and receiving components of communications
centers, radio-relay stations, fixed navigational
equipment, television and radio broadcasting stations and so
on can be included among vulnerable links of the
information infrastructure. Other vulnerable links are
elements of the support infrastructure--electrical power
stations, power supply lines and so on. And critically
important vulnerable links include the most important
components of the command and control system, destruction
or annihilation of which will entail an immediate decrease
in capabilities for command and control of troops and
forces and for effective conduct of combat operations. They
are military and civilian command and control entities at
all levels with their electronic equipment (electronic
computers, automated control systems, electronic data
bases, communications systems, situation display systems
and so on), and satellite surveillance, reconnaissance,
communications and navigation systems. Try to imagine the
chaos that would arise as a result of a shutdown of
computers and technical and information systems serving,
for example, a city's municipal economy.
Now briefly about the five aspects of
IW/C2W.
Deception is an element of stratagem which "controls"
the enemy by creating a false impression in him of the
actual situation and status of forces opposing him and about
the concept, time periods and nature of their operations,
forcing him to act in a predictable manner unfavorable to
himself. Here are examples: in preparation for and during
the 1944 Normandy Operation, the Allies used simulated
assets to create a situation which forced the Germans to
hold 19 divisions on a diversionary axis at the Strait of
Dover; feints with a similar concept by U.S. amphibious
groups with only one Marine brigade, and also
disinformation and a false electronic situation created in
the Persian Gulf in 1991 forced the Iraqis to divert 7
divisions for an antilanding defense.
Electronic means of deception now are used, first of
all, by introducing to enemy systems one's own emissions
that simulate his; secondly, by changing friendly emissions
or simulating them. In the first instance enemy
disinformation is achieved by penetrating (intruding) into
his unclassified and classified information networks and
channels for transmitting false information in them. In the
second instance this is, for example, the creation of dummy
ship groups which divert enemy forces and assets to
themselves and allow the main body to act covertly and
suddenly.
Operations security is a disruption of enemy efforts
to diminish the effectiveness of operations by opposing
forces. Added here to various methods of protecting friendly
information systems are measures for countering enemy
intelligence, maskirovka [lit. "camouflage", however,
includes "concealment" and "deception" -- FBIS], secrecy of
the operational concept, electronic countermeasures,
delivery of fire and so on.
Methods of psychological operations in information
warfare include praising one's own way of life, intimidating
servicemen and the population of the enemy country by the
might of one's war machine, undermining their faith in
their own military and civilian leaders, sowing
dissatisfaction and psychosis, inciting to disobedience,
desertion and surrender, and fanning defeatist and
capitulationist sentiments. For example, such an effect was
accomplished during the war against Iraq by disseminating
appropriate video materials inside the country and by radio
and television broadcasts from outside. The Iraqi command
even went so far as to confiscate radio receivers from its
servicemen. As it turned out, around 60 percent of Iraqis
who surrendered had listened to foreign broadcasts and
largely gave them credence. The U.S. Voice of the Gulf
radio, which broadcast for the Iraqis 18 hours a day,
achieved such authority among them that by transmitting a
message about the approach of coalition forces to the
capital of Kuwait, it contributed to the beginning of mass
flight of Iraqi troops from the city.
Electronic warfare envisages accomplishing EW
suppression by jamming enemy communications equipment,
detection and position finding equipment, navigation
equipment, and space-based, airborne, ground-based and sea-
based computer support equipment in order to make him
blind, deaf and dumb. The success of operations by U.S.
forces for EW suppression of Iraqi radar and communications
equipment in the 70 MHZ-18 GHz band is generally known. It
seemed that new electronic warfare tactics also were tried
out in combat operations against Iraq. For example, one
cannot exclude the use of software inserts [programmnyye
zakladki] in imported gear used in the Iraqi air defense
system for blocking it at the beginning of the war. And in
general, EW suppression methods are becoming more and more
refined and effective. Already by 2000 one can expect the
appearance of a so-called remote virus weapon against
computers. This computer virus, such as in the form of
automatic and controlled software inserts and interference,
will be introduced via radio channels and laser
communications links between central computers and user
terminals. One hardly can overestimate the danger of a
remote virus weapon (computer virus weapon--CVW) to
automated control systems and above all to command and
control of strategic missile complexes. While destruction
is achieved for now basically by fire-delivery weapons, in
the near future it will begin to be done more and more also
with the help of electronic means.
A few words about the scenario or dynamics of the
beginning of combat operations. Based on the experience of
the war against Iraq, the blinding of its command and
control system began at H minus 22 minutes by the
destruction of air defense radars, which by the end of the
first 24 hours of the war permitted disrupting the operation
of 95 percent of radars by massive employment of antiradar
missiles and by missile and bombing strikes. Decapitation
of the Iraqi military command and control system began at H
minus 9 minutes to H plus 5 minutes by the delivery of air
strikes and Tomahawk sea-launched cruise missile strikes
against Armed Forces and National Air Defense command and
control entities. As a result, in the first two weeks of
war 60-75 percent of command and control facilities of the
highest and middle echelons had been destroyed or damaged.
The delivery of air and missile strikes against
civilian radio broadcasting and television stations, against
radio-relay station masts, against bridges over which
fiber-optic communications lines ran, and against telephone
and telegraph stations and switching substations contributed
to disruption of command and control. And destruction of
the electrical power supply, achieved by analogous strikes
against electric power stations or by using carbon fiber
from air-launched cruise missiles against power
transmission lines, led to disruptions in operations of
military computers and to creation of an acute time
shortage for command and control entities.
As it is noted, SHF-generators ("microwave weapons"),
intended for disabling space-based, airborne, ground-based
and sea-based electronic gear by means of a powerful,
directed-effect electromagnetic pulse, will become a new
means of warfare against command and control,
communications, computer support and intelligence systems by
2005-2010. It is expected that, depending on type and
location, the effective casualty zone of such generators
will vary from several hundreds of meters for a cruise
missile to several tens of kilometers for heavier platforms.
Figuratively speaking, such selective and massive
electronic and fire strikes will achieve paralysis of the
enemy nervous system--his brain, nerves and organs of
sense, i.e., the command and control, communications,
computer support and intelligence systems.
Direction of offensive IW/C2W in the United
States is assigned to information warfare sections and
centers set up on staffs of branches of the Armed Forces
and strategic formations. In the Navy they operate under the
aegis of the Defense Department National Security Agency and
the Navy Staff Space and Electronic Warfare Directorate.
Vertical development of these agencies is expected.
Direction of defensive information warfare evidently will
become the prerogative of the Defense Information Systems
Agency, since defensive information warfare is becoming very
acute even now. Suffice it to say that every day one or two
attempts at illegal penetration into U.S. Defense
Department cyberspace are recorded, and for the country as
a whole U.S. business circles suffer annual losses of up to
$300-500 billion as a result of the penetration of
electronic hackers into computers ...
Intelligence agencies of branches of the Armed Forces
and strategic formations are assigned to provide
information warfare entities with a complete, timely and
reliable data base with a determination of vulnerable and
critically important elements of the command and control and
information system of probable enemies and an assessment of
their strong and weak sides, capabilities, disposition and
intentions. Special importance is attached to the decryption
service, which supports decisionmaking for "electronic
attacks." Two propositions concerning weak protection of
computers against actions of special services and potential
capabilities of cryptanalysis are fully understood: there
is no refuge in cybernetics; and today's computer equipment
fundamentally simplified code-breaking.
In the future of development of information warfare
methods, the security of U.S. Armed Forces information
structures will be substantially increased by 2001 and a
unified global network of Defense Department information
systems will be established by 2010. It will be possible to
perform missions at a tactical, operational and strategic
level in automated fashion and in real time with its help
based on continuously updated, complete, reliable, timely
data that is immediately communicated to users on the
situation forming in the "combat space." Moreover, it is
even expected that an opportunity will appear to reliably
uncover the enemy operations concept, identify the
information network he has activated to conduct an
operation, and determine the purpose of forces and assets
he is using, which will provide great chances to disrupt
these operations.
The Americans now believe the crown of the information
war concept lies in creating a global U.S. Armed Forces
combat information/control system which continuously
monitors the status and activity of other countries' armed
forces and which is intended for winning indisputable
supremacy over scattered regional command and control and
communications systems of probable enemies.
In the opinion of U.S. specialists, capabilities of
IW/C2W will be increased through the creation of
new electronic weapons categorized as nonlethal, capable of
conducting both electronic intimidation of the enemy as
well as an electronic attack on him. Combining the three
components--the latest means of surveillance,
reconnaissance and means for their transmission of
intelligence; an improved, integrated command and control,
communications, computer support and intelligence system;
and precision lethal and nonlethal weapons, including
electronic weapons--into a single whole will create a
powerful system of conventional weapons which will become
the equivalent of nuclear weapons in capabilities for
intimidation and destruction and will surpass them in
flexibility of employment.
And so information warfare, warfare against enemy
command and control systems, has been put into full swing. A
modern, flexible, versatile and global means of selective
intimidation of regional enemies in peacetime and a powerful
means of ensuring victory in a conventional military
conflict is being born based on the U.S. Armed Forces
global combat information/control system that is being
established and on new kinds of lethal and nonlethal
precision weapons.
The race for victory in the information war is picking
up speed.
Footnotes
1. Based on foreign press materials.
------------
More relevant links: