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that computers are affecting our industries, our social setting, and even the way
our brains process information. Cybersecurity is a focus for these institutions
and the government. For example, in February 2003, President George W. Bush
issued a “National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace” which outlined five
cyberspace-security priorities. The Department of Homeland Security has also
tried to strengthen cyberspace security with a number of steps. These include
building cybersecurity operations with a National Cyber Security Division;
establishing a Cyber Security Readiness and Response System; sponsoring
cybersecurity education and training; creating a Government Forum of Incident
Response and Security Teams (GFIRST); partnering with the Multi-State
Information Sharing and Analysis Center; implementing a process to maintain a
Common Vulnerability and Exposure, Common Malware Enumerator, and
Open Vulnerability Assessment Language; establishing International
Information Sharing Conference calls; and initiating an Internet Infrastructure
Security Program. 37 The military, on the other hand, talks of information
operations and information security.
The US military focuses on “information” as it relates to several wellestablished
military capabilities (deception, psychological war, electronic war,
and operational security) and one new item, computer network operations,
which is limited primarily to attack and defend operations. The military pays
almost no attention to cyber processes. A quick check of the military’s
dictionary, Joint Publication 1-02 (as amended through 30 November 2004),
supports and demonstrates this. Only two cyber-related terms were listed, cyber
counterintelligence and cyberspace, while there were thirteen informationrelated
entries including a definition for the term “information.” The new draft
of Joint Publication 3-13, Information Operations, even eliminated cyber
counterintelligence leaving cyberspace as the only cyber-related term. A social
transformation is happening, and the subjective nature of warfare is changing
yet the military is having trouble adapting fast enough. It appears stuck in old
prisms and paradigms.
There are reasons for this. Modern military theorists have long held the
view that warfare, if it were ever to occur in contemporary times, would be a
struggle between nations in possession of precision-guided weapons that
utilized computer chips to guide weapons and troops with accuracy, speed, and
efficiency. It would be a system-against-system struggle. Fortunately, such a
confrontation has never occurred. When the US has fought in conflicts around
the globe, the confrontation has been one-sided. The US has not fought another
high-technology force on the battlefield of equal or greater status than itself. To
37 Press Release Fact Sheet, printed in Information Operations Newsletter, Mr. Jeff
Harley editor, Vol. 5, No. 10, 8-18 February 2005.
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