BATTLEFIELD OF THE FUTURE
Battlefield of the Future - Air University Press
Battlefield of the Future - Air University Press
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<strong>BATTLEFIELD</strong> <strong>OF</strong> <strong>THE</strong> <strong>FUTURE</strong><br />
must develop a coherent national-level policy on the military<br />
and strategic use of new information warfare technologies . To<br />
facilitate this objective, the US armed forces are developing,<br />
under the rubric of command and control warfare, the<br />
technologies and systems that will provide the capability for<br />
"cyberwar ."<br />
It may be possible to control and exploit information so as to<br />
purposely generate stochastic chaos, though there are some<br />
doubts .24 Many of the same technologies and systems can be<br />
used to develop a national-level capability for strategic<br />
"netwar ." Here, however, there are genuine doubts . As<br />
Voegelin feared, it may not be possible to control and exploit<br />
information and information technologies to impose "a form<br />
on the remnants of societies no longer capable of selforganization"<br />
because their substantive universe of meaning<br />
has been destroyed or corrupted .25<br />
Few info-warriors would claim the ability to "reorient" the<br />
former Soviet Union into a liberal society, or to influence the<br />
far more ancient barbarism in that heart of darkness, Rwanda .<br />
Perhaps strategic-level information war is, indeed, like nuclear<br />
war: the capability is required for deterrence ; its employment,<br />
the folly of mutually assured destruction . But if the United<br />
States is to develop the capacity for information war, in the<br />
sure and certain knowledge that the technologies have already<br />
"proliferated" to both state and nonstate potential rivals, a<br />
realistic national consensus must be built.<br />
It is useless to pretend that the proliferation of these<br />
technologies will not provide capabilities that can do serious<br />
harm . It is useless to pretend that military-based command<br />
and control warfare capabilities will not be developed, and it is<br />
useless to pretend that cyberwar technologies could not be<br />
turned to netwar applications . It is almost universally agreed<br />
that these capabilities are essential on the contemporary<br />
battlefield .<br />
It is essential, then, that the president and the Congress<br />
give serious and sustained attention to cyberwar, netwar, and<br />
information war.<br />
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