It's 2010, Can Someone Please Tell Me What Information Warfare Really IS?
There are several Chinese authors who command respect for the scope of their works and depth of their thought on IW issues, as well as Mr. Timothy L. Thomas from the Foreign Military Studies Office in Fort Leavenworth, K.S., to whom I owe a great debt for the translation of much of this material.
I will do my best to briefly cover the span of years 1996-2010; however,it is interesting to note the slight shifts in definitions with accordance to social, political and economic issues in the world during those times. I have done my best to weave prime examples in and out of these "definitions" of Information Warfare.
The developing nature of the Chinese perspective of IW
1996: one of the first definitions offered stated that "IW is a war in which both sides strive to hold the battlefield initiative by controlling the flow of information and intelligence."
This initial definition did not address information superiority or information operations, just control. Instead of protecting friendly information systems and attacking enemy systems, (as the U.S. defines the term), the emphasis was on protecting oneself and controlling the enemy.
Also in 1996 Wang Pufeng, Yang and Guo stated that the central issue in achieving victory in IW is control of information, that the most important initiative of future battlefields would be the power to control information. "Victory will be determined by the side that has the capability to control information resources and their utilization". These are the indices of a nation's capacity to direct a war effort, they wrote.
An example of a victory (performed in 2008!) can be seen here .
For now, it is suffice to say that clearly, in 1996, the emphasis was on control.
1997: fewer attempts to define IW were made. Noted author stated that IW includes all types of war fighting activities that involve the exploitation, alteration, and paralysis of the enemy's information and information systems, as well as those types of activities which involve protecting one's own.
Author Liang Zhenxing added that the Chinese definition of IW should take cognizance of Chinese characteristics but be in line with the definition prevailing internationally. In that respect his IW definition is more aligned than some to the U.S. definition.
1998: even fewer original discussions of the term IW. One analyst defined IW as the ability to hinder an opponent's decision-making while protecting friendly decision-making abilities.
It is interesting that the Chinese emphasis is not on attacking enemy information systems but on "hindering" an opponent's decision-making. ... I suppose attacking the enemy's information systems wouldn't allow much room for control.
1999: Chinese analysts again return to a serious debate over IW issues,defined more broadly this time as involving two sides in pitched battle against one another in the political, economic,cultural, scientific, social,and technological fields. The fight was over information space and resources.
IW was also defined narrowly as the confrontation of warring parties in the field of information. The essence of IW, Shen wrote, is to attain the objective of "forcing the enemy troops to surrender without a fight" through the use of information superiority.
Obviously this definition echoes historical Chinese thoughts on warfare;however this seems to imply that information superiority is more of a cognitive than systems related process.
Another definition in 1999 was proposed by Chinese author Yuan Banggen, the head of a General Staff Directorate. He stated that IW is the struggle waged to seize and keep control over information, and the struggle between belligerent parties to seize the initiative in acquiring, controlling and using information.
This is accomplished by capitalizing on and sabotaging the enemy's information resources, information systems, and "informationized" weapon systems, and by utilizing one's own.
Yuan thus substitutes capitalizing and sabotaging for the U.S. term attacking while simultaneously emphasizing control. He also noted that IW is a kind of knowledge warfare, a rivalry between groups of professionals with hi-tech knowledge.
A third 1999 discussion distinguished IW and informationized war, defining IW as a form of fighting and part of a complete war, and informationized war as an entirely new form of war. IW will gradually become informationized war, but this won't happen until the middle of the 21st Century when informationized forces will be available. The latter is the follow-on to mechanized forces.
(Does this sound familiar?) Read on...
In 1999 informationized forces were viewed as the soul of Sun Tsu's "subduing the enemy without battle," the tactic requiring superior military strength, full preparedness, destroying the enemy's strategy, and cultivating, conducting and fostering discipline with the goal being to "force the enemy side to regard their goal as our goal," to "force the opponent to give up the will to resist and end the confrontation and stop fighting by attacking an enemy's perception and belief via information energy."
If perceptions are attacked correctly, morale drops and with it control,the main ingredient in IW. The proper information assault can make this work.
Again, the focus in 1999 includes some cognitive aspects of IW and again an emphasis on control.
In late December of 1999, Xie Guang, the Vice-Minister of the Commission of Science, technology and Industry for National Defense stated IW "in the military sense means overall use of various types of information techniques,equipment, and systems,using disturbance, misinformation or destruction of the enemy's information systems, to shake the determination of the enemy's policymakers,and at the same time the use of all means possible to ensure that one's own information systems are not damaged or disturbed."
Ouch.
2000: IW specialist Wan Pufeng offered a deeper explanation of IW than any seen to date, distinguishing it from information war. In his opinion an information war refers to a kind of war and a kind of war pattern, while information warfare refers to a kind of operation and a kind of operational pattern. The new operational pattern refers to operations in a computer network space.
Information warfare embraces information detection systems, information transmission systems, information and weapon strike systems, and information processing and use systems. Information war embraces information warfare. Both integrate information and energy and use an information-network-based battlefield as their arena of activity.
I'll talk more about operational patterns in part 2.
{ end part one }
I will do my best to briefly cover the span of years 1996-2010; however,it is interesting to note the slight shifts in definitions with accordance to social, political and economic issues in the world during those times. I have done my best to weave prime examples in and out of these "definitions" of Information Warfare.
The developing nature of the Chinese perspective of IW
1996: one of the first definitions offered stated that "IW is a war in which both sides strive to hold the battlefield initiative by controlling the flow of information and intelligence."
This initial definition did not address information superiority or information operations, just control. Instead of protecting friendly information systems and attacking enemy systems, (as the U.S. defines the term), the emphasis was on protecting oneself and controlling the enemy.
Also in 1996 Wang Pufeng, Yang and Guo stated that the central issue in achieving victory in IW is control of information, that the most important initiative of future battlefields would be the power to control information. "Victory will be determined by the side that has the capability to control information resources and their utilization". These are the indices of a nation's capacity to direct a war effort, they wrote.
An example of a victory (performed in 2008!) can be seen here .
For now, it is suffice to say that clearly, in 1996, the emphasis was on control.
1997: fewer attempts to define IW were made. Noted author stated that IW includes all types of war fighting activities that involve the exploitation, alteration, and paralysis of the enemy's information and information systems, as well as those types of activities which involve protecting one's own.
Author Liang Zhenxing added that the Chinese definition of IW should take cognizance of Chinese characteristics but be in line with the definition prevailing internationally. In that respect his IW definition is more aligned than some to the U.S. definition.
1998: even fewer original discussions of the term IW. One analyst defined IW as the ability to hinder an opponent's decision-making while protecting friendly decision-making abilities.
It is interesting that the Chinese emphasis is not on attacking enemy information systems but on "hindering" an opponent's decision-making. ... I suppose attacking the enemy's information systems wouldn't allow much room for control.
1999: Chinese analysts again return to a serious debate over IW issues,defined more broadly this time as involving two sides in pitched battle against one another in the political, economic,cultural, scientific, social,and technological fields. The fight was over information space and resources.
IW was also defined narrowly as the confrontation of warring parties in the field of information. The essence of IW, Shen wrote, is to attain the objective of "forcing the enemy troops to surrender without a fight" through the use of information superiority.
Obviously this definition echoes historical Chinese thoughts on warfare;however this seems to imply that information superiority is more of a cognitive than systems related process.
Another definition in 1999 was proposed by Chinese author Yuan Banggen, the head of a General Staff Directorate. He stated that IW is the struggle waged to seize and keep control over information, and the struggle between belligerent parties to seize the initiative in acquiring, controlling and using information.
This is accomplished by capitalizing on and sabotaging the enemy's information resources, information systems, and "informationized" weapon systems, and by utilizing one's own.
Yuan thus substitutes capitalizing and sabotaging for the U.S. term attacking while simultaneously emphasizing control. He also noted that IW is a kind of knowledge warfare, a rivalry between groups of professionals with hi-tech knowledge.
A third 1999 discussion distinguished IW and informationized war, defining IW as a form of fighting and part of a complete war, and informationized war as an entirely new form of war. IW will gradually become informationized war, but this won't happen until the middle of the 21st Century when informationized forces will be available. The latter is the follow-on to mechanized forces.
(Does this sound familiar?) Read on...
In 1999 informationized forces were viewed as the soul of Sun Tsu's "subduing the enemy without battle," the tactic requiring superior military strength, full preparedness, destroying the enemy's strategy, and cultivating, conducting and fostering discipline with the goal being to "force the enemy side to regard their goal as our goal," to "force the opponent to give up the will to resist and end the confrontation and stop fighting by attacking an enemy's perception and belief via information energy."
If perceptions are attacked correctly, morale drops and with it control,the main ingredient in IW. The proper information assault can make this work.
Again, the focus in 1999 includes some cognitive aspects of IW and again an emphasis on control.
In late December of 1999, Xie Guang, the Vice-Minister of the Commission of Science, technology and Industry for National Defense stated IW "in the military sense means overall use of various types of information techniques,equipment, and systems,using disturbance, misinformation or destruction of the enemy's information systems, to shake the determination of the enemy's policymakers,and at the same time the use of all means possible to ensure that one's own information systems are not damaged or disturbed."
Ouch.
2000: IW specialist Wan Pufeng offered a deeper explanation of IW than any seen to date, distinguishing it from information war. In his opinion an information war refers to a kind of war and a kind of war pattern, while information warfare refers to a kind of operation and a kind of operational pattern. The new operational pattern refers to operations in a computer network space.
Information warfare embraces information detection systems, information transmission systems, information and weapon strike systems, and information processing and use systems. Information war embraces information warfare. Both integrate information and energy and use an information-network-based battlefield as their arena of activity.
I'll talk more about operational patterns in part 2.
{ end part one }
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Спасибо информативно, только можно узнать как с вами связатся есть пару вопросов по теме.
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Translation from Russian to English:
"Thank informative, is to know how to contact you with a couple of questions on the subject."
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Автор хватит информационный шум делать, и так уже рунет забит по самое неболуйся
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Translation from Russian to English:
"The author is enough information to make noise, already scored the most by ðóíåò very small"
ðóíåò = Runet = Internet in Russia
Runet description: (via Wikipedia):
"It is believed a member of one of the few early core Russian online communities Raffi Aslanbekov invented the term in the spring of 1997.The Internet culture was first slowly spreading through Russian language people from all over the world. Usage of the word "Runet" later became almost official and is now used in the title of the Runet Prize given out yearly and supported by the governmental Federal Agency on Press and Mass Communications (FAPMC) and in President Medvedev's addresses as well as in Western academic studies..."
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First of all, I would like to appreciate the effort that you have put in making such an informative blog. I enjoyed this post of yours and I must say that every time Icome back to your blog, I always have something new and informative to read. Thanks for keeping me updated.
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Informative, but not convincing.
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Hm. Is there anything specific that you would like to address? I would be happy to research/re-write/develop further (and/or debate the topic) with you, to finalize this information. Thanks! - admin@cyber-uproar.com
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