Future War, Cyber War

Once again another part of the middle east has armies marching. Once again innocent civilians suffer. At this time, I won't debate the merits of the Israeli action against Hamas in Gaza. What i find interesting is combat in another sphere- cyberspace.

I believe that I have reached the point of annoying some friends in the military by focusing to such a great degree on cyberspace.Unfortunately, it seems that most of the military is pre-occupied with fighting the last war, no matter how they determine what the last war might have been. For example, was the last war the surge in Iraq? The failures in Afghanistan? Arab-Israeli conflicts? Panama? Vietnam? For the professional military, the question is, "What was the last war and what are the lessons to be learned?" While this certainly is a valid exercise, the real question is, "What is the next war and what do we have to know in order to win it?"

In my estimation, the next war will occur in cyberspace, specifically the control of information via electronic means, especially the internet. By necessity, this is a broad definition of the battlefield but let me give some examples. Today, one of the web sites that I view regularly Debka.com, which specializes in Israeli affairs, reported that it was "off the air" yesterday because it was under cyber attack. In the past few months, I reported on suspected Chinese penetration of computers belonging to members of the United States Senate. Further Chinese penetration occurred to computers that were taken into that country during the Beijing Olympics. Unknown entities have penetrated systems used by the the Department of Defense, which relies heavily on cyberspace for everything from internet e-mails to combat operations and communications. NASA systems have been penetrated. Al Qeda and other terrorist organizations use the internet to disseminate information. It was reported that Russia penetrated and blocked Georgian cyber systems during their recent war.

Infantry, and assault weapons and field guns and fighter jets will always be needed, and I have no doubt about the value of "lessons learned" sessions. I just hope that some quality theoretical thinking is taking place and practical applications are being developed to ensure our superiority in the next battlefield-cyberspace.