Chinese Views on Information Warfare
Abstract
As Aristotle said, "All men desire by nature to know." This is even more so in the military where people's lives hang in the balance of every decision. In order to make the correct decision in a timely manner, the key ingredient necessary is information. The military today is being driven to a more automated warfighting machine by the speed of warfare. This entails storage and retrieval of huge amounts of data, identification of threats, multiple offensive and defensive weapons systems, data sharing over wide areas, and split second decision on weapons release. Thus, more and more computer technology is being implemented. As such, a new group of offensive and defensive capabilities are requiring development so that our technological edge is not rendered helpless by fairly low-tech attacks on our interconnected military data networks. Although this paper addresses the Chinese view of Information Warfare, topics covered will be assessed in the US context of the Six Pillars of Information Warfare. By using this context, it is readily apparent how different Chinese and US concepts are both in emphasis and focus of effort. These differences should be expected given the very different force structures of these two nations - and the corresponding inherent degree of incorporation of "high-technology" as the Chinese call it. But the roots of this difference go beyond just the military spheres. For China, IW, and its underlying premise of perception management, is a way of life in both the military and the civilian sectors. China and the US also have a very different history of warfare. Since the writings of Sun Tsu in 500BC, Chinese military theorists have been advocating and practicing some of the concepts now incorporated into the theory of Information Warfare - psychological operations, camouflage/concealment and deception (aka Denial and Deception). They also have a plan to strengthen the areas they know are less well developed such as computer network defense.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 02, 2000
- Accession Number
- ADA382118
Entities
People
- Kate Farris
Organizations
- Naval War College