Keep your pantry well-stocked. The nature of warfare is changing.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/353982.asp?cp1=1

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U.S. plots cyberwarfare strategy

Pentagon officials say they intend to target foes computers

WASHINGTON, Jan. 5  The Pentagon plans to make cyber blitzes on a foes computer networks a standard war tactic, the incoming number two U.S. military officer said Wednesday.

AFTER POLICY and legal issues are sorted out, cyber tactics should take their place in every commanders arsenal alongside bombs, cruise missiles and attack helicopters, Air Force Gen. Richard Myers told a Pentagon briefing.

I think its just going to be one more arrow in the quiver, said Myers, who takes over as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on March 1.

The formal establishment of a cyberwar-fighting doctrine will build on covert military and intelligence capabilities that have been scattered in black programs in the past.

A VERY ELEGANT WAY

Myers said such keystroke attacks would have the advantage of limiting both U.S. casualties and spillover harm to a target nations population.

If you can degrade an air defense network of an adversary through manipulating ones and zeros, that might be a very elegant way to do it as opposed to dropping 2,000-pound bombs on radars, he said.

These are tools that need to go to the operational and tactical levels.

Currently, each of the U.S. armed services has a covert cyber attack capability of its own, said Myers. I think its fair to say that we have done this in the past on a case-by-case basis.

He cited the conflict in Kosovo last year, after which Gen. Henry Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said the United States had mounted electronic attacks into Serbian networks during a NATO air campaign.

We worked through some policy and legal issues during Kosovo that will hopefully help us in the future, Myers said. But he said Serbia offered limited opportunities because the Serbs were not relying on systems that were heavily involved with information technology.

Myers said other countries considered cyber attack as a way of neutralizing nations like the United States which had overwhelming advantages in conventional forces. The Colorado Springs, Colo.-based U.S. Space Command, which is headed by Myers, assumed responsibility on Oct. 1 for defending Defense Department computer networks from hacker or foreign attack.

Next October 1, a companion computer network attack research team will formally take shape at Peterson Air Force Base, headquarters of the Space Command. Its first job will be to piece together covertly developed U.S. cyber weapons currently scattered among intelligence and military units.

Among the thorny policy issues is the potential blurring of the line between military and civilian targets. Myers cited the case of knocking out a communications network handling civilian applications as well as a nations air defense.

I think its going to be the legal advisers and the war fighters thinking our way through this, he said. And its just something we havent spent an awful lot of time doing, and we just need to do that.

Critics have warned that the United States is opening a Pandoras box in moving to integrate information warfare tools into military doctrine.

Those same tools would likely be a bigger threat to our systems than to those of any potential opponent, said Kawika Dagui of the Financial Information Protection Center, a Washington-based industry trade group.

-- MS (n@b.c), January 06, 2000