Cyberwar Is Coming
Abstract
Suppose that war looked like this: Small numbers of your light, highly mobile forces defeat and compel the surrender of large masses of heavily armed, dug-in enemy forces, with little loss of life on either side. Your forces can do this because they are well prepared, make room for maneuver, concentrate their firepower rapidly in unexpected places, and have superior command, control, and information systems that are decentralized to allow tactical initiatives, yet provide the central commanders with unparalleled intelligence and topsight for strategic purposes. For your forces, warfare is no longer primarily a function of who puts the most capital, labor and technology on the battlefield, but of who has the best information about the battlefield. What distinguishes the victors is their grasp of information not only from the mundane standpoint of knowing how to find the enemy while keeping it in the dark, but also in doctrinal and organizational terms. The analogy is rather like a chess game where you see the entire board, but your opponent sees only its own pieces you can win even if he is allowed to start with additional powerful pieces. We might appear to be extrapolating from the U.S. victory in the Gulf War against Iraq. But our vision is inspired more by the example of the Mongols of the 13th Century. Their hordes were almost always outnumbered by their opponents. Yet they conquered, and held for over a century, the largest continental empire ever seen. The key to Mongol success was their absolute dominance of battlefield information. They struck when and where they deemed appropriate; and their Arrow Riders kept field commanders, often separated by hundreds of miles, in daily communication. Even the Great Khan, sometimes thousands of miles away, was aware of developments in the field within days of their occurrence.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1997
- Accession Number
- ADA485253
Entities
People
- David Ronfeldt
- John Arquilla
Organizations
- Naval Postgraduate School