Cyberwarfare

At the most general level, cyberwarfare refers to a new type of war that relies on computers and other digital technologies as primary weapons. The term cyberwar does not have a single definition; the [Page 115]inflection of the term changes depending on whether it appears in a military report, a newspaper story, or an activist manifesto. Cyberwarfare emerged as a term during the late twentieth century in an attempt to create a label for the shift in warfare toward increased computerization and automation. Other terms that are used interchangeably with cyberwar include: hypermodern war, permanent war, technology war, postmodern war, netwar, and pure war.

Cyberwarfare falls under the more general category of infowar, which refers to warfare that emphasizes communications, intelligence, real-time data about the battlefield, networked communications systems, and simulations. Cyberwar specifically refers to reliance on computers and computerized networks. The arena of cyberwar takes place not in the air, on the land, or on the sea, but rather in the electromagnetic realm of cyberspace.

The reliance of the United States on computers as a primary weapon and technology began during World War II, when developments in computer science were a response to the need to calculate gunning tables with more accuracy. Computers such as the Colossus were also used during the war in attempts to decrypt encoded enemy messages, while the ENIAC was designed to calculate artillery-range tables. After World War II, computers became increasingly central to governmental and military institutions; they were used to wage the Cold War, and played a strong role in the U.S. invasion of Vietnam. Computers were also used by think tanks and military strategists in order to create simulations of possible war scenarios throughout the 1980s.

Most accounts describe the Persian Gulf War as the first instance of cyberwar; it featured extensive reliance on computers for battle simulations and for controlling technologically sophisticated weaponry. Furthermore, the Gulf War aimed to use fewer troops in land battle, attempting to substitute computers for human operators. This removal or reduction of the human element can be seen as the culmination of cybernetics and robotics projects dating back to World War II. Italian theorist Paul Virilio notes in Desert Screen that the Gulf War marked a new stage in conflict, in which the speed of electromagnetic exchanges came to prevail over the spatial battlefields of land, air, and sea. Virilio called it a “remote control war,” a “virtual war,” and a “cyberwar.” The U.S. actions in Kosovo have also been classified as a cyberwar.

The characteristics of a cyberwar have been defined by RAND Corporation analysts John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, in their reports entitled Cyberwar Is Coming! and The Advent of Netwar. Arquilla and Ronfeldt define cyberwar as the use of computers and computer networks by the military for high- to medium-intensity conflicts. They use the term netwar to indicate low-intensity conflicts waged through a network by non-military actors. Both cyberwar and netwar use information technologies as primary weapons, and target information in attacks. Although Arquilla and Ronfeldt identify a clear difference between cyberwar and netwar, many commentators use the term cyberwar loosely to mean cyberwar, netwar, or even cyberterrorism.

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