- SAN DIEGO -- The Defense Department last week revealed its plan for how
the military services will carry out offensive and defensive information
operations in future wars -- a move that holds wide-ranging implications
for information systems.
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- The Joint Chiefs of Staff formally codified
in October an Information Operations (IO) doctrine when it endorsed a guidance
document called "Joint Publication 3-13," according to Daniel
Kuehl, chairman of the Information Operations Department, School of Information
Warfare and Strategy at the National Defense University.
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- Kuehl said the new doctrine treats cyberspace
as "a critical environment [and] moves information operations from
an ad hoc process and institutionalizes it."
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- Although doctrinal publications are rarely
visionary in nature, " 'Joint Pub 3-13' was clearly written with Joint
Vision 2010 in mind," Kuehl said. Joint Vision 2010 is a DOD effort
to create seamless battlefield communications across the services. "This
[new document] institutionalizes a process for looking at IO as a strategy
and makes it part of the planning process for all joint [military] plans."
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- "Our ability to conduct peacetime
theater engagement, to forestall or prevent crisis and conflict, and to
fight and win is critically dependent on effective IO at all levels of
war and across the range of military operations," wrote Army Gen.
Henry Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, in his introduction to "Joint
Doctrine for Information Operations." Shelton said that IO, which
includes both offensive and defensive information warfare operations, is
as crucial to the national defense as air, land or naval operations.
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- Offensive IO will include such existing
military operations as psychological operations, electronic warfare, physical
attacks or destruction of enemy information systems, special information
operations "and may include computer network attack," Shelton
said. The doctrine foresees offensive IO conducted "at all levels
of war -- strategic, operational and tactical -- throughout the battlespace,"
he said.
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- The doctrine broadens the definition
of an adversary, including not only attacks by a known enemy state but
also any IO threat "that is organized, resourced and politically sponsored
[and] motivated to affect decision-makers," including hackers, criminals
and organized crime, industrial and economic espionage, and in some cases,
terrorism, Shelton said.
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- "This threat requires monitoring
for indications of a specific IO threat and subsequently may require additional
IO defensive measures," according to Shelton.
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- DOD plans to give primary responsibility
for information operations to the joint commands, such as the Atlantic
Command, the Pacific Command and the Central Command and their subordinate
Joint Task Forces. The doctrine calls for the Joint Force Commands to staff
so-called IO cells, with staff being drawn from existing combatant commands.
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- The National Security Agency, the Defense
Intelligence Agency and the Defense Information Systems Agency will support
IO for the combatant commands and the Joint Staff. The DIA will be given
the responsibility of selecting key offensive IO targets, help combat commanders
develop a command intelligence architecture to support IO and detect IO
attacks in cooperation with DISA.
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- DISA will be charged with protecting
the Defense Information Infrastructure, and the NSA will provide information
security and operational security products as well as analyze the vulnerability
and threats to U.S. and allied information systems. On the operational
side, the Special Forces Command was directed to begin IO training and
"organize forces with capabilities to conduct IO...across the range
of military operations," Shelton said.
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- A Pentagon source said the Joint Chiefs
have put an "intense" effort behind the newly established Joint
Task Force for Computer Network Defense, which is located in DISA's Global
Security Operations Center. In addition, the newly prescribed doctrine
may pave the way for use of the reserves in a homeland cyberdefense role,
the source said.
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- Lt. Col. Kathleen Harrison, director
of the Command and Control Branch of the Doctrine Division at the Marine
Corps' Combat Development Command, Quantico, Va., said no great policy
changes have taken place yet in light of the new doctrine guidance. However,
Harrison said the Navy and Marine Corps plan to issue in the summer a Naval
Command and Control Warfare Doctrine publication, which will consider the
new guidance published by the JCS.
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- Copyright 1998 FCW Government Technology
Group http://www.fcw.com:80/pubs/fcw/1998/1207/fcw-newscyber-12-7-98.html
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