Computers Are the Weapons and the Front Line is Everywhere
The Information Age has come to the battlefield and simultaneously the battlefield has spread to anyplace where information is crucial. Information Warfare describes how warfare is changing as the computer chip becomes a part of military technology, and adversaries target each other's infrastructures (power grids, air-traffic control, telephone grids, etc.). To bigger and stronger, now add smarter.
In the 21st century wars will be fought in a radically different way. We've had a glimpse of this in the Persian Gulf War, where the Iraqi command and control system was knocked out early in the war and communication among the military command there was made extremely difficult. In addition, we saw how key civilian infrastructures, for example, bridges, were destroyed at the beginning of the war, making troop movement difficult. The strategies and tactics are in place, awaiting further developments in technology, which are ongoing.
For the United States, the news is both good and bad. Good in the sense that we are the leader in information technology and, therefore, likely to be the first to anticipate, if not use, these new technologies (and, consequently, first to prepare against them). Bad, though, in the sense that we have more to lose than anyone else since our economy is so dependent on information and so vulnerable to attack. And information warfare offers great potential to the less powerful nations. No longer does a country need a huge military with powerful weapons. A few skilled hackers can become a powerful military asset, leveling the playing field for smart but militarily weak nations.
These developments come at an important time. As we have seen in Somalia, where the loss of only a few lives caused the U.S. to pull out of peacekeeping operations, advanced Western nations will no longer tolerate a large loss of life on the battlefield. Recognizing this, the Pentagon is accelerating its development and deployment of information warfare.
