War In The Information Age

The crisis is upon us: We have no viable doctrine for tomorrow's wars. Now that the world has entered the information age, principles that have served to enlighten the art of war no longer work. Born of agrarian times and honed during the industrial age, the classical principles of war are, in large part, hopelessly outdated. Radical change is needed now. The Principles of War for the Information Age provides a prescription for this change.

There has been a great deal of speculation recently concerning the likely impact of the 'Information Age' on warfare. In this vein, much of the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) literature subscribes to the idea that the Information Age will witness a transformation in the very nature of war. In this book, David Lonsdale puts that notion to the test. Using a range of contexts, the book sets out to look at whether the classical Clausewitzian theory of the nature of war will retain its validity in this new age. The analysis covers the character of the future battlespace, the function of command, and the much-hyped concept of Strategic Information Warfare. Finally, the book broadens its perspective to examine the nature of 'Information Power' and its implications for geopolitics. Through an assessment of both historical and contemporary case studies (including the events following September 11 and the recent war in Iraq), the author concludes that although the future will see many changes to the conduct of warfare, the nature of war, as given theoretical form by Clausewitz, will remain essentially unchanged.

Topics include the emerging information-age security environment; assembly, analysis, and distribution of war information; and operational issues of maneuver, precision-strike and joint/combined operations.

War 2.0: Irregular Warfare in the Information Age argues that two intimately connected grassroots trends—the rise of insurgencies and the rise of the web—are putting modern armies under huge pressure to adapt new forms of counterinsurgency to new forms of social war. After the U.S. military—transformed into a lean, lethal, computerized force—faltered in Iraq after 2003, a robust insurgency arose. Counterinsurgency became a social form of war—indeed, the U.S. Army calls it "armed social work"—in which the local population was the center of gravity and public opinion at home the critical vulnerability. War 2.0 traces the contrasting ways in which insurgents and counterinsurgents have adapted irregular conflict to novel media platforms. It examines the public affairs policies of the U.S. land forces, the British Army, and the Israel Defense Forces. Then, it compares the media-related counterinsurgency methods of these conventional armies with the methods devised by their irregular adversaries, showing how such organizations as al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and Hezbollah use the web, not merely to advertise their political agenda and influence public opinion, but to mobilize a following and put violent ideas into action.

Enemies of America who have no hope of competing with conventional U.S. military forces, Wayne Michael Hall warns in the opening pages of this timely book, will instead seize upon the strategies, tactics, and tools of asymmetric warfare to win future conflicts. A retired brigadier general in the U.S. Army with thirty years of experience in intelligence, Hall has written the book primarily for the military community and civilians interested in or responsible for homeland security. He explains the notion of knowledge warfare as our adversaries' principal asymmetric strategy and information operations as their tactic du jour, and then offers a wealth of ideas on how to deal aggressively with these threats in the twenty-first century.

Along with knowledge war and information operations, the book discusses deception, information superiority, and knowledge management. It also recommends ways for the country to prepare for knowledge war through merging the country's brainpower and technology in Knowledge Advantage centres, developing a joint information-operations proving ground where leaders train their staffs in a cyber-world environment, and developing an internet replicator to prepare for conflict in cyberspace.

The information revolution--which is as much an organizational as a technological revolution--is transforming the nature of conflict across the spectrum: from open warfare, to terrorism, crime, and even radical social activism. The era of massed field armies is passing, because the new information and communications systems are increasing the lethality of quite small units that can call in deadly, precise missile fire almost anywhere, anytime. In social conflicts, the Internet and other media are greatly empowering individuals and small groups to influence the behavior of states. Whether in military or social conflicts, all protagonists will soon be developing new doctrines, strategies, and tactics for swarming their opponents--with weapons or words, as circumstances require. Preparing for conflict in such a world will require shifting to new forms of organization, particularly the versatile, hardy, all-channel network. This shift will prove difficult for states and professional militaries that remain bastions of hierarchy, bound to resist institutional redesign. They will make the shift as they realize that information and knowledge are becoming the key elements of power. This implies, among other things, that Mars, the old brute-force god of war, must give way to Athena, the well-armed goddess of wisdom. Accepting Athena as the patroness of this information age represents a first step not only for preparing for future conflicts, but also for preventing them.

We are beginning to realize the emergence of a new age--the information age. On the one hand, the full dimensions of this new age, if indeed it is such, are unknown. On the other hand, the authors argue that enough is known to conclude that the conduct of war in the future will be profoundly different. Paradoxically, however, they claim that the nature of war will remain basically the same. In this monograph, General Sullivan and Colonel Dubik examine that paradox and draw some inferences from it. When societies and states changed from an agrarian base to an industrial base, the way they made war also changed. Industrial nations furnished their armies with tools very different from those produced by agrarian nations: the machine gun, steam and petroleum powered engines, the railroad, telegraph, radios, aircraft, and much more. Furthermore, industrial armies changed in organization. Their leadership requirements were different and they developed new operational concepts. The nature of war, however, did not change. In spite of the "new" industrial technology, war remained a human endeavor and very much as Carl von Clausewitz described it in the early 18th century; subject to emotion and characterized by death and destruction. Human fears, bravery, sacrifice and courage operated within the realm of fog, friction and uncertainty. Great captains were masters of both the science and art of war. The root causes of war also stayed the same. People, whether heads of states or leaders of other kinds of groups, still started wars as a result of fear, hatred, greed, ambition, revenge or a host of other "nonrational" considerations. The authors of this study suggest that today we stand at what many consider the threshold of the information age, an age that has already begun to transform the conduct of warfare just as the industrial age did earlier. New weapons systems, organizations, and operational concepts will emerge, just as they did in response to industrialism. No one knows the full details of what the information age will bring, but the authors demonstrate that the future is sufficiently clear to move the Army in the right direction. Also clear is the fact that Clausewitz is still relevant to the study of war because while the conduct of war will change, the nature of war will be the same. This monograph explains the governing concepts of the industrial age and how they affected the concept of war. Then it describes the concepts emerging to govern the information age and suggests ways in which these concepts may affect the conduct of war. Finally, the monograph discusses those steps that the Army is taking to position itself to exploit what are becoming the dominant military requirements of the information age: speed and precision. Specifically, the authors discuss the ways in which the Army has changed its strategic systems over the past several years so that the Army operational and tactical forces will be able to "see" a situation, decide, adapt, and act faster and more precisely than their opponent. These changes will give strategic planners, and operational and tactical commanders, a new set of information age tools to use in theater and on the battlefield. The net result: more flexibility, more versatility, faster decision making, and broader scope of weapons systems at their immediate disposal.

Here's an advanced practitioner's guide to the latest concepts and threats associated with modern electronic warfare (EW). This new book identifies and explains the newest radar and communications threats, and provides EW and radar engineers, managers, and technical professionals with practical, "how-to" information on designing and implementing ECM and ECCM systems.