Cyber-INT?

[RetPara]

Since the Law of Land Warfare does not seem to cover cyberwar, it would seem that the potential is pretty wide open right now. While there are numerous treaties, agreements, and international law (?) in the matter.... I think the conduct of hostile operations in cyberspace makes these agreements meaningless.

Cyber War require a new, very different, service branch under DOD. This would not have to be a huge branch, but should not fall under a traditional, uniformed service branchs. Because of the nature of the talent and skill sets needed, salaries are going to be WAY beyond what the normal military services could afford. Installations would be small, but expensive.

This is a whole new "thing". While Sun Tsu and Clausewitz will apply; the practical applications of Cyber War would bring in more Machiavelli than before.

 

[LongTabSigO]

Since the Law of Land Warfare does not seem to cover cyberwar, it would seem that the potential is pretty wide open right now. While there are numerous treaties, agreements, and international law (?) in the matter.... I think the conduct of hostile operations in cyberspace makes these agreements meaningless.

What's your basis for this assertion?

 

[RetPara]

I used to teach Law of Land Warfare for unit training before I retired. After the ABG shit hit the fan; I spent a lot of time reviewing it. No where have I seen offensive cyber operations specifically discussed, which opens the the argument that what is not forbidden is allowed.

The very nature of a cyber attack, or even active defensive operations, would have to their deny-ability. To penetrate a system, reduce its capability or cause it not to perform as designed has to be done without leaving any trace. At best it would appear to be a human command error, corrupted file, or error caused at random. Those executing such an operation would not leave a calling card (txt file) reading "Brought To You by the 235th Cyber Attack Squadron, 69th Tactical (Cyber) Air Force."

 

[LongTabSigO]

Lack of attribution does not mean that law of land warfare does not apply. After all, it's not like the US will engage in cyber-type attacks and claim that they are outside that scope. Neither will most of the West.

The question is, does the lack of state-sponsorship make response a "military" matter or a "law enforcement" one?

 

[RetPara]

The lack of state sponsorship, under current USG policy, would be to throw it at Law Enforcement. That opens up the discussion of the wisdom of the continuation of the doctrine, first established in either the Truman or Eisenhower Administration to regard non-state actor terrorist incidents as a LE issue. However, since the Regan administration and its actions against Palestinian\Islamic terrorist groups in Lebanon, that doctrine has been eroded. The erosion of the doctrine continued with the military interventions in A'stan in 2001.

Most of international law and the law of land warfare is based on the premise that such actions can only take place between nation-state actors. I would put forth that since the late 1970's that proclivity has decreased exponentially. While much of Western Europe have recognized and actually been subject to extensive, violent campaigns by groups such as the Red Brigades, Red Army Faction, IRA, PIRA, and Basque groups; the US has not. There have been a variety home grown groups such as the Weather Underground, Black Panthers, Posse Comitetus, their attacks and influence were limited in nature because of geographic and distant restraints. While they made the national news, their impact on the major institutions of the US were minimal.

The major actions by the USG in response to the highly increased threat of terrorist actions (homegrown & imported) have been new laws and bureaucracies. The root policy of responding to non-state actor terrorists with law enforcement has not changed, even if the capability to respond has. There in lies the root level failure of the USG to recognize the threat and react with the tools in the box at the time. As transportation and communication advances "shrink" the world, the ability of the non-state actor to influence governments and events grow daily. In this context the non-state actor can be terrorist organizations or NGO's that act in an ad hoc manner to fill gaps in the basic hierarchy of human needs that failed state actors can't.

Since the major threat now seems to come from the non-state actor, there is precedent to go against the policy/doctrine of law enforcement response. That is where a new branch of service, that operates only in the digital arena would come into play. It would only be "deployed' in support of CINC level combat commands or Theater JSOTF's. It would by nature have both a cyber recon and cyber direct action capability.

 

[LongTabSigO]

Message received; can't reply appropriately at the moment; will do so as soon as i can..

 

[PhredLegg]

I'm late on the posts here since I just joined the site. This is a very interesting topic, I was assigned to Western IO Center, a part of 1st IO (but a reserve unit). I also work cyber engineering for a government contractor. Cyber defense is great, since you can use contractors to support operations, but IMO, the weakness is always going to be the offensive side of IO or cyber (actually, I prefer the terms Information Warfare or Information Superiority, what happened to those?). Some cyber offensive operations must be conducted on the forward edge of the battle. I don't see pulling contractors (especially civilian contractors) into this type of enviornment. These positions need to be filled by fully trained and fully capable military (of which I KNOW there are not enough troops). More needs to be done to produce these types of warriors. I remember when I first started in IO, WIOC was an IA focused unit (mainly defense, such as CND), but our training was more hacker oriented, which meant a high degree of technical expertise and I don't mean policy makers. We have enough of those (too many if you go by certifications) but not enough with that hacker mentallity that are needed to win the battle (especially on the exploitation side of the house). This is a weakness I still see that is not being strongly addressed. As far as the subject about ownership, it should be unified command, don't much care who's in charge as long as everybody's on the same sheet of music (bad experiences in NATO!).