Information warfare (IW) is the battlespace use and management of information and communication technology (ICT) in pursuit of a competitive advantage over an opponent. It is different from cyberwarfare that attacks computers, software, and command control systems. 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 or disinformation to demoralize or manipulate 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.

Overview

Information warfare has been described as "the use of information to achieve our national objectives." According to NATO, "Information war is an operation conducted in order to gain an information advantage over the opponent." The term has existed at least since 1970, when Dale Minor, a reporter, published The Information War a book about propaganda and news manipulation during the Vietnam War era., although its current usage as a military capability dates from 1976, when Thomas P. Rona, than a Boeing Company engineer, referred to "information war" in a company monograph prepared for the Office of Net Assessment.

Information warfare can take many forms:

  • Television, internet and radio transmission(s) can be jammed to disrupt communications, or hijacked for a disinformation campaign.
  • Logistics networks can be disabled.
  • Enemy communications networks can be disabled or spoofed, especially online social communities in modern days.
  • Stock exchange transactions can be sabotaged, either with electronic intervention, by leaking sensitive information or by placing disinformation.
  • The use of drones and other surveillance robots or webcams.
  • Communication management
  • Synthetic media
  • The organized use of social media and other online content-generation platforms can be used to influence public perceptions.

The United States Air Force 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.

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), 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.

Some militaries are now employing the use of iPhones to upload data and information gathered by drones in the same area.

Notable examples

Chinese information warfare

Russo-Ukrainian War

thumb|An office used by [[Russian web brigades captured by the Armed Forces of Ukraine during the Russian invasion of Ukraine]]

In 2022, the Armed Forces of Ukraine took 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.

To build support before it invaded 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.

Russian interference in foreign elections

Russian interference in foreign elections, most notably the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, has been described as information warfare. According to Microsoft, Russia also interfered in the 2024 US presidential elections. NBC also reported Russia conducting disinformation campaigns in the 2024 US elections against then US president, Joe Biden. NBC reported that Russia was using different tools to cause division within the US, by delegitimizing US police operations against Pro Palestinian protests and by pivoting public conversation from the Russian invasion in Ukraine to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Russian media activity increased by 400% in the weeks after Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel. The campaign was described as "payback" for COVID-19 disinformation by China directed against the U.S. The campaign ran from 2020 to mid-2021, primarily targeting people in the Philippines and used a social media hashtag for "China is the virus" in Tagalog. The primary contractor for the U.S. military on the project was General Dynamics IT, which received $493 million for its role.

  1. 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.
  2. 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.

See also

  • Active measures
  • Black propaganda
  • Character assassination
  • Cyberwarfare
  • Communications security
  • Command and control warfare
  • Disinformation
  • Electronic warfare
  • Historical revisionism
  • Historical negationism
  • Fake news
  • Fifth Dimension Operations
  • Gatekeeper (politics)
  • Industrial espionage
  • Information assurance
  • Information operations
  • Internet manipulation
  • Irregular warfare
  • iWar
  • Kompromat
  • List of cyber warfare forces
  • Memetic warfare
  • Network-centric warfare
  • New generation warfare
  • Political warfare
  • Propaganda
  • Psychological warfare
  • Public affairs (military)
  • Public relations
  • Storm botnet
  • Transparency

Group specific:

  • Chinese information operations and information warfare
  • Cyberwarfare in Russia
  • Taliban propaganda
  • White Paper on El Salvador

US specific:

  • Active Measures Working Group
  • CIA
  • COINTELPRO
  • Edward Bernays
  • Enemy Image, a documentary about the Pentagon's approach to news coverage of war
  • Information Operations Roadmap
  • Information Operations (United States)
  • Pentagon military analyst program
  • State-sponsored Internet propaganda
  • Titan Rain

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 (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, RAND (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).

Resources

  • Hacktivism and Politically Motivated Computer Crime (PDF)
  • 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
  • Information Warfare, I-War, IW, C4I, Cyberwar
  • Federation of American Scientists - IW Resources
  • Association of Old Crows http://www.crows.org The Electronic Warfare and Information Operations Association.
  • C4I.org - Computer Security & Intelligence
  • Information Warfare, Information Operations and Electronic Attack Capabilities 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 (PDF)
  • Information Warfare in Biology 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).
  • CSE468 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.), What is Information Warfare? Aerospace Power Chronicles (1999).
  • Dr Carlo Kopp, A Fundamental Paradigm of Infowar (February 2000).
  • Research & Theory Links , Cyberspace and Information Operations Study Center, Air War College, Air University, U.S. Air Force.
  • Lachlan Brumley et al., Cutting Through the Tangled Web: An Information-Theoretic Perspective on Information Warfare (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 (Also Here (Doc file) from this page - working link added 31 May 2024)

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

  • Information Operations Roadmap (DOD 2003)
  • Information Operations (JP 3-13 2006)
  • Operations Security (JP 3-13.3) (PDF)
  • Military Deception (JP 3-13.4) (PDF)
  • Joint Doctrine for PSYOP (JP 3-53 2003)
  • Joint Doctrine for Public Affairs (JP 3-61 2005)
  • 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, Seeking Symmetry on the Information Front: Confronting Global Jihad on the Internet, 16 National Strategy F. Rev. 14 (Summer 2007).