Cyber_Warfare_Will_Require_a_Rma

Current National Defense doctrine, ergo Army doctrine, reflects strategic assumptions contrary to current realities, which are based on current intellectuality mired in obsolete thinking and strategy. The acceptance of computer technology as a reality of warfare gives birth to a new American Army force. Mature military development allows us to recognize the transition from Cold War thought processes to more modern ones; however, recent examples from the Russian/Georgian conflict resonate dramatically and warrant further study in depth that should guide the US Army to avoid any similar unpardonable surprise. The invasion of the Georgian Republic clarifies the existence of a new threat. Currently, the US is unprepared for that current threat to which a contemporary battle space--a new domain--has been created where the US Army must develop an innovative force to counter such threats. The utilization of cyber warfare in concert with Russian conventional forces, Special Forces, and psychological operations highlights the criticality of expediting the instutionaliztion of cyber warfare innovations into US Army doctrine, training, and force development. Rick Atkinson wrote in _An Army at Dawn_ (2002) that "it is pardonable to be defeated...but unpardonable to be surprised." And von Clausewitz (_On War_, 1832) roughly stated that every generation has its own kind of war and defeat is gauged by limiting conditions and preconceptions where innovations, unfortunately come, too, late and at a huge price. The creativity born from innovation, certainly the aptitude to grasp technologies immediately must have an effective and capable proponent able to communicate its benefits and not waiting for an initial surprise attack. Certainly lessons are learned from others' mistakes as in the case of Russia invading the Georgian Republic, but those lessons are merely noted because innovations cannot be derived when the current political bureaucracy stymies innovation and subsequent approval for implementation and introduction to the force. The path towards acceptance and institionalization in the American Army is through immediate development of doctrine, training, and organizational frameworks of a kind that defy current convention. Firstly, leadership training is key to development of such innovation within our Army. The synchronization between DOTMLPF (even C: cost) will complement existing and established Army activities, but the value to the force must be demonstrated immediately. Unfortunately leadership training is not as flexible as promoted. The lack of current DOTMLPF resolutions represents a significant risk to the institionalization process for better technology and a smarter force stemming from glacier-like fielding timelines ensconced in obsolete bureaucratic processes within Army acquisition and program management. Rapid proliferation and upgrades of technology, certainly innovations demonstrated last decade by real and potential adversaries specifically regarding cyberspace highlights an institutional disadvantage for the Army. It is not the lack of innovation in doctrine, training, or organization that makes the Army largely inferior to potential foes in cyberspace, but the presence of an immature mindset in the Army promulgates confusion and mistakes leading to a surprise and defeat. The US Army, again, is in an age where warning signs forecast huge risk. However the Army is also marked by vignettes of success of a kind that leaps beyond the obsolete DOTMLPF processes. Current Army operations across the globe since 9/11 highlight the operational needs for more and better technology, training, and tactics. Rapid fielding initiatives and QRC packages demonstrate the monies and efforts already invested into bridging gaps our forces face on the battlefield that certainly bring the Army beyond innovative infancy. It is not the bigger and better bomb or thicker armor that makes a force flexible or more agile today. It is the use and manipulation of information through the EMS (herein seen as a resource rather than a domain) and within cyberspace (denoting virtual real estate) that keeps the Army treading in water up to its neck, but ever slightly behind its enemies tactically on the battlefield. Technological inserts from rapid fielding initiatives are simply auxiliary to current Army operating procedures rather than honing the DOTMLPF processes allowing it as a whole to adapt uniformly and institutionally. There remains opposing views to how cyberspace is defined, where strategic and tactical operations begin, and where legalities permit Army forces to combat a new paradigm, but it is not a significant revolution in military affairs yet. Similarly parochial issues abound to the above mentioned opposition largely from branch chiefs and sister services arguing for control of the development of the force. There is no time to wait for the branches to resolve their differences, albeit ensconced in the current Army development processes; the Army is not prepared for cyber or simple information warfare being demonstrated so prolifically across the globe. There is no need for extensive training exercises to test various concepts for the role of cyber warfare. The continual emergence of enemy TTP matched by current ONS and technology purchases demonstrate that the current operating force has reached a point where practical application has gone beyond the current DOTMLPF institution. The Army has upgraded its doctrine, training, and organizational frameworks based on the technology it must use to counter an enemy's ability to maneuver and manipulate information on the battlefield. However institutionally, the Army has not upgraded as a whole. We continue to view aspects of cyberspace, information warfare, information dominance, as simply an effects-based role. What the Army currently does in cyberspace on the battlefield transgresses all roles and battlefield functions: it is inherently present and a part of all Army functions enhanced simply by TTP and technology insertions (rapid fielding both in material and training). The Army does not simply need to consolidate its efforts regarding cyber warfare. It must immediately develop doctrine, force structures, and training based on the lessons noted in the last decade both strategically and tactically. To do this, the Army must alter its acquisition and program management functions: a paradigm shift. Otherwise it will adopt a stove-pipe, otherwise separate force structure detracting from the finite and austere resources constraining operations today. Artillery is the traditional form of effects on the battlefield, however the emergence of how technologies are used on real and potential environments negate the necessity to place cyber warfare, even information warfare into a natural place for maneuver forces ergo a combat arm for decision because cyber warfare transgresses all existing forces rather than as a revolutionary weapon system. Since the demise of the Georgian Republic to Russian will in 2008, the US Army lacked the doctrine, training, and force structure to handle the complex and fluid environment shaping which the Russians fought so aptly. As a result the Georgian forces were isolated from their government, their leadership, and were completely surprised. Cyber warfare will require a RMA: cyber capabilities offer a quantum leap in military capability, but realizing this awesome capability for an accelerated operational potential requires the restructure of US troop formations and a complete overhaul of doctrinal techniques as well as implementation. Cyber war concepts must be fully integrated into a wide range of weapons and intelligence platforms in very diverse and weird ways. The simple notion that warfighting doctrines have already taken advantage of certain capabilities does not narrow the current gaps in military formations and thought processes. Political leaders will have to come to grips with this revolution in terms of legal and political responses. Current military doctrine and lawmaking hamstring any further developments or advancements to full maturation or complete consummation of cyber war capabilities into present Army arsenals. The revolution remains an academic concept despite radical leaps in technology, certainly in global proliferation of the same. Without a healthy respect for what limitations cyber warfare brings to the fight we cannot move forward across those gaps that truly embraces cyber warfare as a warfighting function. The electromagnetic spectrum (EMS), arguably, is a resource where cyberspace becomes a domain to be shaped, influenced, and controlled. Where Electronic Warfare formerly defines military concepts, revolutionary in its time, defining attack, protect, exploitation (Support), and deception as pillars upon which doctrine has remained unchanged since World War I; cyber warfare demands its own doctrinal development shaped by net-centric systems and platforms determined by broad applications and terms claiming to attack, protect and support Army warfighting functions and the decision-making process. The Army steadily moves toward recognizing cyberspace as an environment to shape acknowledging that cyber warfare is prosecuted at the lowest tactical level and a centerpiece of the modular Army. Operations are fully prosecuted influencing cyberspace both horizontally and vertically. Commanders already realize they must influence cyberspace. A comprehensive understanding of the cyber environment, recognizing its significance as a domain and the threats within will clarify the tactical reach to prosecute missions to success. Scrutiny therefore lies in the Army’s ability to currently train the fighting force to perform specific and broad missions within cyberspace. The indictment, then, lies within the standards to which DOTMLPF concepts are developed and to a greater extent implemented. Certainly how we carry out DOTMLPF functions regarding cyber warfare must change despite the Army’s reliance on conventional methods for analysis, the lack of political will, an absence of legal guidance, and despite the dominance of the Army‘s conventional capabilities forcing our adversaries to generate asymmetric techniques in order to marginalize our advantages. Warfare now is both asymmetrical and asynchronous. Foot Notes: Clay Wilson, “Information Operations, Electronic Warfare, and Cyberwar: Capabilities and Related Policy Issues”, Congressional Research Service, 20 March 2007. Warren Peterson, “Cyber Terrorism Today”, SCP Vault October 2007 "The National Strategy To Secure Cyber Space", GPO February 2003 John Lasker, “U.S. Military's Elite Hacker Crew”, Wired Magazine 2005, http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2005/04/67223'currentPage=2#ixzz0jNYXtglT _Cyberspace CONOPS (Pre-Decisional Draft)_, US Army Combined Arms Center, 28 August 2009, https://wiki.kc.us.army.mil/wiki/Cyberspace_Concept_of_Operations/ William J. Bayles, "The Ethics of Computer Network Attack", Parameters, Spring 2001, pp. 44-58. Technology, Policy, Law, and Ethics Regarding U.S. Acquisition and Use of CYBERATTACK CAPABILITIESWilliam A. Owens, Kenneth W. Dam, and Herbert S. Lin, Editors, The National Academies Press, Washington, DC, 2009. Arseniot Gumahadii, LTC USAF, "The Profession of Arms in the Information Age", Joint Forces Quarterly Spring 1997. _Operational Environment 2009-2025_, Ver. V, August 2009, US Army TRADOC. Robert M. Gates, _National Defense strategy_, GPO, 2008, Washington, DC. James F. Dunnigan, _The next war zone: Confronting the global threat of cyberterrorism_, Citadel Press, New York, NY 2003. Tim Stevens, "The Future of US Cyberattack", 29 April 2009; http://ubiwar.com/2009/04/29/the-future-of-us-cyberattack/