Pentagon envisions cyber-warfare rise

[InfoSec News <isn () C4I ORG>]

http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-200053122319.htm

Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Published 5/31/00

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.

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