Information warfare (IW) (as different from cyber warfare that attacks computers, software, and command control systems) is a concept involving the

battlespace Battlespace or battle-space is a term used to signify a unified military strategy to integrate and combine armed forces for the military theatre of operations, including air, information, land, sea, cyber and outer space to achieve milit ...

use and management of

information and communication technology Information and communications technology (ICT) is an extensional term for information technology (IT) that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of telecommunications ( telephone lines and wireless signals) and computer ...

(ICT) in pursuit of a competitive advantage over an opponent. Information warfare is the manipulation of information trusted by a target without the target's awareness so that the target will make decisions against their interest but in the interest of the one conducting information warfare. As a result, it is not clear when information warfare begins, ends, and how strong or destructive it is. Information warfare may involve the collection of tactical information, assurance(s) that one's information is valid, spreading of

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...

disinformation Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. It is sometimes confused with misinformation, which is false information but is not deliberate. The English word ''disinformation'' comes from the application of the ...

to demoralize or

manipulate Manipulation may refer to: * Manipulation (psychology) - the action of manipulating someone in a clever or unscrupulous way *Crowd manipulation - use of crowd psychology to direct the behavior of a crowd toward a specific action ::* Internet mani ...

the enemy and the public, undermining the quality of the opposing force's information and denial of information-collection opportunities to opposing forces. Information warfare is closely linked to

psychological warfare Psychological warfare (PSYWAR), or the basic aspects of modern psychological operations (PsyOp), have been known by many other names or terms, including Military Information Support Operations (MISO), Psy Ops, political warfare, "Hearts and M ...

. The United States military focus tends to favor technology and hence tends to extend into the realms of

electronic warfare Electronic warfare (EW) is any action involving the use of the electromagnetic spectrum (EM spectrum) or directed energy to control the spectrum, attack an enemy, or impede enemy assaults. The purpose of electronic warfare is to deny the opponent ...

cyberwarfare Cyberwarfare is the use of cyber attacks against an enemy state, causing comparable harm to actual warfare and/or disrupting vital computer systems. Some intended outcomes could be espionage, sabotage, propaganda, manipulation or economic ...

, information assurance and computer network operations, attack, and defense. Most of the rest of the world use the much broader term of "Information Operations" which, although making use of technology, focuses on the more human-related aspects of information use, including (amongst many others)

social network analysis Social network analysis (SNA) is the process of investigating social structures through the use of networks and graph theory. It characterizes networked structures in terms of ''nodes'' (individual actors, people, or things within the network) ...

decision analysis Decision analysis (DA) is the discipline comprising the philosophy, methodology, and professional practice necessary to address important decisions in a formal manner. Decision analysis includes many procedures, methods, and tools for identifyi ...

, and the human aspects of

command and control Command and control (abbr. C2) is a "set of organizational and technical attributes and processes ...

hat A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...

employs human, physical, and information resources to solve problems and accomplish missions" to achieve the goals of an organization o ...

Overview

Information war has been described as "the use of information to achieve our national objectives." According to

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two N ...

, "Information war is an operation conducted in order to gain an information advantage over the opponent." Information warfare can take many forms: *

Television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...

and

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a tr ...

transmission(s) can be jammed. * Television,

and radio transmission(s) can be hijacked for a

campaign. *

Logistics network In commerce, a supply chain is a network of facilities that procure raw materials, transform them into intermediate goods and then final products to customers through a distribution system. It refers to the network of organizations, people, activ ...

s can be disabled. * Enemy

communications network A telecommunications network is a group of nodes interconnected by telecommunications links that are used to exchange messages between the nodes. The links may use a variety of technologies based on the methodologies of circuit switching, messa ...

s can be disabled or spoofed, especially online social community in modern days. *

Stock exchange A stock exchange, securities exchange, or bourse is an exchange where stockbrokers and traders can buy and sell securities, such as shares of stock, bonds and other financial instruments. Stock exchanges may also provide facilities for t ...

transactions can be

sabotage Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening a polity, effort, or organization through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. One who engages in sabotage is a ''saboteur''. Saboteurs typically try to conceal their identitie ...

d, either with electronic intervention, by leaking sensitive information or by placing disinformation. * The use of

drone Drone most commonly refers to: * Drone (bee), a male bee, from an unfertilized egg * Unmanned aerial vehicle * Unmanned surface vehicle, watercraft * Unmanned underwater vehicle or underwater drone Drone, drones or The Drones may also refer to: ...

s and other surveillance robots or webcams. *

Communication management Communications management is the systematic planning, implementing, monitoring, and revision of all the channels of communication within an organization and between organizations; it also includes the organization and dissemination of new communi ...

Synthetic media Synthetic media (also known as AI-generated media, generative AI, personalized media, and colloquially as deepfakes) is a catch-all term for the artificial production, manipulation, and modification of data and media by automated means, especiall ...

* The organised use of social media and other online content generation platforms can be used for opinion engineering among masses. The

U.S. Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Sign ...

has had Information Warfare Squadrons since the 1980s. In fact, the official mission of the U.S. Air Force is now "To fly, fight and win...in air, space and cyberspace", with the latter referring to its information warfare role. As the U.S. Air Force often risks aircraft and aircrews to attack strategic enemy communications targets, remotely disabling such targets using software and other means can provide a safer alternative. In addition, disabling such networks electronically (instead of explosively) also allows them to be quickly re-enabled after the enemy territory is occupied. Similarly, counter-information warfare units are employed to deny such capability to the enemy. The first application of these techniques was used against Iraqi communications networks in the

Gulf War The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: ...

. Also during the Gulf War, Dutch hackers allegedly stole information about U.S. troop movements from U.S. Defense Department computers and tried to sell it to the Iraqis, who thought it was a hoax and turned it down. In January 1999, U.S. Air Intelligence computers were hit by a coordinated attack (

Moonlight Maze Moonlight Maze was a 1999 US government investigation into a massive data breach of classified information. It started in 1996 and affected NASA, the Pentagon, military contractors, civilian academics, the DOE, and numerous other American governm ...

), part of which came from a Russian mainframe. This could not be confirmed as a Russian cyber attack due to non-attribution – the principle that online identity may not serve as proof of real world identity.

New battlefield

The innovation of more advanced and autonomous ICTs has engendered a new revolution in military affairs, which encompasses nations' use of ICTs in both

cyberspace Cyberspace is a concept describing a widespread interconnected digital technology. "The expression dates back from the first decade of the diffusion of the internet. It refers to the online world as a world 'apart', as distinct from everyday re ...

and the physical

battle A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and for ...

field to wage war against their adversaries. The three most prevalent revolutions in military affairs come in the form of

cyberattack A cyberattack is any offensive maneuver that targets computer information systems, computer networks, infrastructures, or personal computer devices. An attacker is a person or process that attempts to access data, functions, or other restricte ...

autonomous robot An autonomous robot is a robot that acts without recourse to human control. The first autonomous robots environment were known as Elmer and Elsie, which were constructed in the late 1940s by W. Grey Walter. They were the first robots in history ...

s and

communication management Communications management is the systematic planning, implementing, monitoring, and revision of all the channels of communication within an organization and between organizations; it also includes the organization and dissemination of new communi ...

. Within the realm of cyberspace, there are two primary weapons: network-centric warfare and C4ISR, which denotes integrated Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance. Furthermore, cyberspace attacks initiated by one nation against another nation have an underlying goal of gaining

information superiority Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random, ...

over the attacked party, which includes disrupting or denying the victimized party's ability to gather and distribute information. A real-world occurrence that illustrated the dangerous potential of cyberattacks transpired in 2007, when a strike from Israeli forces demolished an alleged nuclear reactor in Syria that was being constructed via a collaborative effort between Syria and North Korea. Accompanied with the strike was a cyberattack on Syria's air defenses, which left them blind to the attack on the nuclear reactor and, ultimately allowed for the attack to occur (New York Times 2014). An example of a more basic attack on a nation within cyberspace is a

distributed denial of service In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host conne ...

(DDOS) attack, which is utilized to hinder networks or websites until they lose their primary functionality. As implied, cyberattacks do not just affect the military party being attacked, but rather the whole population of the victimized nation. Since more aspects of daily life are being integrated into networks in cyberspace, civilian populations can potentially be negatively affected during wartime. For example, if a nation chose to attack another nation's

power grid An electrical grid is an interconnected network for electricity delivery from producers to consumers. Electrical grids vary in size and can cover whole countries or continents. It consists of:Kaplan, S. M. (2009). Smart Grid. Electrical Power ...

servers in a specific area to disrupt communications, civilians and businesses in that area would also have to deal with

power outage A power outage (also called a powercut, a power out, a power failure, a power blackout, a power loss, or a blackout) is the loss of the electrical power network supply to an end user. There are many causes of power failures in an electricity ...

s, which could potentially lead to economic disruptions as well. Moreover, physical ICTs have also been implemented into the latest revolution in military affairs by deploying new, more autonomous robots (i.e. –

unmanned drone An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controller ...

s) into the battlefield to carry out duties such as patrolling borders and attacking ground targets. Humans from remote locations pilot many of the unmanned drones, however, some of the more advanced robots, such as the

Northrop Grumman X-47B The Northrop Grumman X-47B is a demonstration unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) designed for aircraft carrier-based operations. Developed by the American defense technology company Northrop Grumman, the X-47 project began as part of DARP ...

, are capable of autonomous decisions. Despite piloting the drones from remote locations, a proportion of drone pilots still suffer from stress factors of more traditional warfare. According to NPR, a study performed by the Pentagon in 2011 found that 29% of drone pilots are “burned out” and undergo high levels of stress. Furthermore, approximately 17% of the drone pilots surveyed as the study were labeled "clinically distressed" with some of those pilots also showing signs of

post-traumatic stress disorder Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral disorder that can develop because of exposure to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, domestic violence, or other threats o ...

. Modern ICTs have also brought advancements to communications management among military forces. Communication is a vital aspect of war for any involved party and, through the implementation of new ICTs such as data-enabled devices, military forces are now able to disseminate information faster than ever before. For example, some militaries are now employing the use of iPhones to upload data and information gathered by drones in the same area.

Notable examples

Russo-Ukrainian War

In 2022 Ukrainian forces have taken advantage of deficiencies in Russian communications by allowing them to piggyback on Ukrainian networks, connect, and communicate. Ukrainian forces then eavesdrop, and cut off Russian communications at a crucial part of the conversation. In an effort to build support prior to its invasion of Ukraine, Russia perpetuated a narrative that claimed the Ukrainian government was committing violence against its own Russian speaking population. By publishing large amounts of disinformation on the internet, the alternate narrative was picked up in search results, such as

Google News Google News is a news aggregator service developed by Google. It presents a continuous flow of links to articles organized from thousands of publishers and magazines. Google News is available as an app on Android, iOS, and the Web. Google re ...

Russian interference in foreign elections

Russian interference in foreign elections, most notably the

Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections The Russian government interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election with the goals of harming the campaign of Hillary Clinton, boosting the candidacy of Donald Trump, and increasing political and social discord in the United States. Ac ...

, has been described as information warfare.

Legal and ethical concerns

While information warfare has yielded many advances in the types of attack that a government can make, it has also raised concerns about the moral and legal ambiguities surrounding this particularly new form of war. Traditionally, wars have been analyzed by moral scholars according to

just war theory The just war theory ( la, bellum iustum) is a doctrine, also referred to as a tradition, of military ethics which is studied by military leaders, theologians, ethicists and policy makers. The purpose of the doctrine is to ensure that a war i ...

. However, with Information Warfare, Just War Theory fails because the theory is based on the traditional conception of war. Information Warfare has three main issues surrounding it compared to traditional warfare: #The risk for the party or nation initiating the cyberattack is substantially lower than the risk for a party or nation initiating a traditional attack. This makes it easier for governments, as well as potential terrorist or

criminal organization Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally th ...

s, to make these attacks more frequently than they could with traditional war. #Information communication technologies (ICT) are so immersed in the modern world that a very wide range of technologies are at risk of a cyberattack. Specifically, civilian technologies can be targeted for cyberattacks and attacks can even potentially be launched through civilian computers or websites. As such, it is harder to enforce control of civilian infrastructures than a physical space. Attempting to do so would also raise many ethical concerns about the right to privacy, making defending against such attacks even tougher. #The mass-integration of ICT into our system of war makes it much harder to assess accountability for situations that may arise when using robotic and/or cyber attacks. For robotic weapons and automated systems, it's becoming increasingly hard to determine who is responsible for any particular event that happens. This issue is exacerbated in the case of cyberattacks, as sometimes it is virtually impossible to trace who initiated the attack in the first place. Recently, legal concerns have arisen centered on these issues, specifically the issue of the

right to privacy The right to privacy is an element of various legal traditions that intends to restrain governmental and private actions that threaten the privacy of individuals. Over 150 national constitutions mention the right to privacy. On 10 December 194 ...

in the United States of America. Lt. General Keith B. Alexander, who served as the head of Cyber Command under President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...

, noted that there was a "mismatch between our technical capabilities to conduct operations and the governing laws and policies" when writing to the

Senate Armed Services Committee The Committee on Armed Services (sometimes abbreviated SASC for ''Senate Armed Services Committee'') is a committee of the United States Senate empowered with legislative oversight of the nation's military, including the Department of Def ...

. A key point of concern was the targeting of civilian institutions for cyberattacks, to which the general promised to try to maintain a mindset similar to that of traditional war, in which they will seek to limit the impact on civilians.

Notes

References

Bibliography

Books

* Jerome Clayton Glenn, "Future Mind" Chapter 9. Defense p.195-201. Acropolis Books LTD, Washington, DC (1989) * Winn Schwartau, "Information Warfare: Chaos on the Electronic Superhighway" Thunder's Mouth Press (1993) * Winn Schwartau, ed, ''Information Warfare: Cyberterrorism: Protecting your personal security in the electronic age'', Thunder's Mouth Press, 2nd ed, (1996) (). * John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt
''In Athena's Camp''

RAND The RAND Corporation (from the phrase "research and development") is an American nonprofit global policy think tank created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces. It is finan ...

(1997). * Dorothy Denning, ''Information Warfare and Security'', Addison-Wesley (1998) (). * James Adams, ''The Next World War: Computers are the Weapons and the Front line is Everywhere'', Simon and Schuster (1998) (). * Edward Waltz, ''Information Warfare Principles and Operations'', Artech House, 1998, * John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt
''Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy''

(2001) (). * Ishmael Jones, ''The Human Factor: Inside the CIA's Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture'', Encounter Books, New York (2010) (). Information/intelligence warfare. * Gregory J. Rattray, ''Strategic Warfare in Cyberspace'', MIT Press (2001) (). * Anthony H. Cordesman, Cyber-threats, Information Warfare, and Critical Infrastructure Protection: DEFENDING THE US HOMELAND (2002) (). * Leigh Armistead, ''Information Operations: The Hard Reality of Soft Power,'' Joint Forces Staff College and the National Security Agency (2004) (). * Thomas Rid, ''War and Media Operations: The US Military and the Press from Vietnam to Iraq'', Routledge (2007) ().

Other

Science at War: Information Warfare
The History Channel (1998).

External links

Resources

Politically Motivated Computer Crime

Cyberspace and Information Operations Study Center
, Air University, U.S. Air Force.
IWS - The Information Warfare Site

Information Warfare Monitor - Tracking Cyberpower (University of Toronto, Canada/Munk Centre)

Twitter: InfowarMonitor

*

Association of Old Crows The Association of Old Crows is an international nonprofit professional organization specializing in electronic warfare, tactical information operations, and associated disciplines headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia. Its mission is to "advocat ...

http://www.crows.org The Electronic Warfare and Information Operations Association.
C4I.org - Computer Security & Intelligence

Air Power Australia.
Committee on Policy Consequences and Legal/Ethical Implications of Offensive Information Warfare
, The National Academies.
Program on Information and Warfare
Global Information Society Project, World Policy Institute.
Information Warriors
Information Warriors is web forum dedicated to the discussion of Navy Information Warfare.
Mastermind Corporation Information Warfare Tactics Analysis

Nature's Exploitation of Information to Win Survival Contests, Monash University, Computer Science.

Course syllabi

COSC 511
Information Warfare: Terrorism, Crime, and National Security @ Department of Computer Science, Georgetown University (1997–2002) (Dorothy Denning).

Information Conflict (Honours) @ School of Computer Science and Software Engineering, Monash University (2006) (Carlo Kopp).
Information Warfare, Cyberterrorism, and Hacktivism
from Cybercrime, Cyberterrorism and Digital Law Enforcement, New York Law School.

Papers: research and theory

* Col Andrew Borden, USAF (Ret.)

Aerospace Power Chronicles (1999). * Dr Carlo Kopp

(February 2000).

Cyberspace and Information Operations Study Center, Air War College, Air University, U.S. Air Force. * Lachlan Brumley et al.

(October 2012). * * * Michael MacDonald (2012) "Black Logos: Rhetoric and Information Warfare", pages 189–220 in ''Literature, Rhetoric and Values: Selected Proceedings of a Conference held at University of Waterloo, 3–5 June 2011'', editors Shelley Hulan, Murray McArthur and Randy Allen Harris, Cambridge Scholars Publishing . * Taddeo, Mariarosaria (2012). Information Warfare: A Philosophical Perspective. Philosophy and Technology 25 (1):105-120.

Papers: Other

An essay on Information Operations by Zachary P. Hubbard

News articles

''Army, Air Force seek to go on offensive in cyber war''
GovExec.com (June 13, 2007).
''NATO says urgent need to tackle cyber attack''
Reuters (June 14, 2007).
''America prepares for 'cyber war' with China''
Telegraph.uk.co (June 15, 2007).
''NATO, US gear up for cyberpunk warfare''
The Register (June 15, 2007).

United States Department of Defense IO Doctrine

Operations Security (JP 3-13.3)

Military Deception (JP 3-13.4)

Destabilizing Terrorist Networks: Disrupting and Manipulating Information Flows in the Global War on Terrorism
Yale Information Society Project Conference Paper (2005).
Seeking Symmetry in Fourth Generation Warfare: Information Operations in the War of Ideas
Presentation (PDF slides) to the Bantle - Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism (INSCT) Symposium, Syracuse University (2006). *

K. A. Taipale K. A. (Kim) Taipale is an investor, legal scholar, and social theorist specializing in information, technology, and national security policy. He is a partner in Stilwell Holding, a private investment firm, and the former chairman of the executive c ...

''Seeking Symmetry on the Information Front: Confronting Global Jihad on the Internet''
16 National Strategy F. Rev. 14 (Summer 2007). {{Authority control * Propaganda in the United States Propaganda techniques using information Psychological warfare techniques Warfare post-1945 Disinformation