Pentagon Envisions Cyber-Warfare Rise
Source: The Washington Times
May 31, 2000
The U.S. military by 2020 will develop the capability to
conduct attacks on foreign computers and networks while defending its
systems against strategic information warfare strikes, a Pentagon
report on future war fighting made public yesterday says.
Additionally, the military will seek to improve
weaknesses uncovered during the Kosovo conflict last year to better
conduct operations with allies in combat, the Joint Staff report
"Joint Vision 2020" says:
"We have superior conventional warfighting capabilities
and effective nuclear deterrence today, but this favorable military
balance is not static," the report stated. "In the face of such strong
capabilities, the appeal of asymmetric approaches and the focus on the
development of niche
capabilities will increase."
The report makes no mention of which nations will
threaten the United States two decades from now. Several references to
"asymmetric" threats, however, hinted that China will be the
military’s main adversary in the future.
China’s military has announced it too plans to make
information warfare a military capability equal in stature to its
army, navy and air forces.
In official writings China also has stated it intends to
confront a technologically superior United States in the future using
asymmetrical warfare means.
"In 2020, the nation will face a wide range of
interests, opportunities, and challenges and will require a military
that can both win wars and contribute to peace," the report says.
"The global interests and responsibilities of the United
States will endure, and there is no indication that threats to those
interests and responsibilities, or to our allies, will disappear."
The report outlined future concepts as winning wars
through decisive force, power projection, overseas presence and
strategic agility.
Key war-fighting goals are to dominate conflicts through
advanced communications and intelligence, rapid-maneuver forces,
focused logistics support and precision attack.
"The overall goal of the transformation described in
this document is the creation of a force that is dominant across the
full spectrum of military operations - persuasive in peace, decisive
in war, preeminent in any form of conflict."
On information warfare, the report states that the
military "must be capable of conducting information operations" aimed
at protecting U.S. decision makers and "in a conflict degrade those of
an adversary."
"The United States itself and U.S. forces around the
world are subject to information attacks on a continuous basis
regardless of the level and degree of engagement in other domains of
operation," the report says.
"The perpetrators of such attacks are not limited to the
traditional concept of a uniformed military adversary. Additionally,
the actions associated with information operations are wide-ranging
from physical destruction to psychological operations to computer
network defense."
Computer and other electronic strikes will be used
against adversaries’ networks and include using deception to "defend
decision-making processes by neutralizing an adversaries’ perception
management and intelligence collection efforts."
The report concludes that information warfare operations
"will become as important as those conducted in the domains of sea,
land, air, and space."
"Such operations will be inextricably linked to focused
logistics, full dimensional protection, precision engagement, and
dominant maneuver, as well as joint command and control," the report
says. "At the same time, information operations may evolve into a
separate mission area requiring the
services to maintain appropriately designed organizations and trained
specialists."
Navy Capt. Steve Pietropaoli, a spokesman for the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the document outlines the
"core requirements for the warfighter" in 2020.
by Bill Gertz
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-200053122319.htm