Unconstrained Cyberspace Domain

Published February 12, 2010

Back in 2007, U.S. Air Force officials openly stated that cyberspace as a war-fighting domain. At that time the statement attracted little attention. Today, cyberspace has rapidly evolved into a key domain similar context to land, air, and sea for military conflict. This evolution has occurred at a pace few had anticipated. The US Department of Defense defines cyberspace as a “domain characterized by the use of electronics and the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) to store, modify, and exchange data via networked systems and associated physical infrastructures.”

Given the metrics listed to the left, it is hard to consider cyber space as anything but an unconstrained domain. The question for U.S. military and government leaders is: How to update current operational policies and doctrine? Because the implications will be profound. There are many shades of gray when it comes to act of cyber aggression when you consider law enforcement, homeland security and national defense and intelligence.

Operations and warfare in cyberspace encompass a substantial number of elements in technology and society as well as in the government and private sector. What we must do in a timely fashion is close the gaps in policies, regulations and definitions that currently exist between military, law enforcement, the federal government, civilian authorities and private organizations. The unique modalities of operations in cyber space make this the most difficult domain in which to resolve international disputes and conflict. The big policy questions are, when do cyber attacks, cyber spying and espionage cross the line into the war-fighting realm and who is in charge of a cyber event until attribution can occur?

The prominent research path seems to look at the impact of a cyber attack and the amount of cyber force used to as the primary factor in determining if the act or acts rise to the level of an act of war. Given the nature of the Internet, an international doctrine vetting process must be employed so that a common understanding and decision framework covering what it means to conduct war in cyber space. Finally there is a tendency to evaluate and create cyber warfare doctrine in isolation.

The cyber space domain enables military action in the other domains of land, sea, air and space and therefore the doctrines must be fully integrated. Offensive cyber space operations can be conducted at all levels of conflict and across the conflict spectrum including counter terrorism operations to achieve established objectives. A few years ago U. S. Strategic Command began to develop tactics, techniques, and procedures as well as other operational concepts designed to integrate offensive, defensive and intelligence cyber space capabilities into cross-mission strike plans. The development and integration of cyber warfare doctrine should be considered as an opportunity to drive tactics, processes and procedures to coordinate the employment of cyber weapons as a mechanism of support across all domains of conflict.

We don’t have much time for research on this topic. There are already tension between military objectives, intelligence-gathering requirements and law enforcement efforts. A formal doctrine must be in place given the increase in cyber attack frequency, complexity and impact that we have seen over the last few months.

Internet Metrics