Cyber operations: the new balance

Joint Force Quarterly, July, 2009 by Stephen W. Korns

Secretary Gates' call for a New Balance is strikingly reminiscent of the new normalcy experiences of the Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Bush administrations. For example, in his first inaugural address, Roosevelt called for a frank and honest discussion regarding the Nation's economic ills. Secretary Gates' New Balance similarly calls for a blunt assessment of the current U.S. defense posture. In line with this thinking, cyber new normalcy warrants a frank, realistic assessment of the New Balance needed in DOD cyber capabilities. A fundamental premise of cyber new normalcy is that a New Balance is required in culture, conduct, and capabilities in order to better operate and defend in and through cyberspace. A judicious cyber New Balance policy would reassess DOD-wide priorities in areas such as offense balanced with defense, personal use balanced with official use of military networks, compliance balanced with accountability in network usage, and permitting versus restricting unfettered Internet access from the global information grid. As Kuhn warned, these changes may be difficult to accept for those entrenched within the current paradigm. It may unfortunately take a Billy Mitchell moment--a "cyber Ostfriesland"--to truly convince skeptics of the reality of cyber new normalcy.

Secretary Gates' call for a renewed focus on U.S. deterrence policy evokes President Eisenhower's New Look emphasis on strategic deterrence. An enlightened cyber strategy would seek an appropriate balance between secrecy and openness. While working at RAND in the early 1960s, Paul Baran conceived the digital packet switching concept used to establish a survivable U.S. nuclear command and control system. Significantly, Baran openly published his work, with the U.S. Government's implied consent, under the premise that "deterrence only works if the other guy knows." (35) Harknett similarly argues that deterrence is contingent on the challenger and the deterrer possessing shared knowledge about each other. (36) A perceptive cyber New Balance protocol would openly communicate certain capabilities and intentions in order to strengthen cyber deterrence. Credible deterrence will also require balanced resourcing for identification and authentication; data hardening and network resiliency; cyber intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; and cyber early warning and response.

Mindful of the Bush New War, Secretary Gates' New Balance seeks solutions to hybrid conflict. Cyber new normalcy reflects Ralph Peters' notion of a "counter-revolution in military affairs." (37) In essence, an evolving "counter-revolution in cyber affairs" defines cyber new normalcy. An adroit New Balance cyber policy would encourage an honest assessment of the military means for engaging in cyber conflict and determine the relevancy to cyber new normalcy conditions. As witnessed in the cyber attacks on Estonia, Lithuania, and Georgia, non-mirror-imaging adversaries have a well-honed grasp of operating within the grey area of cyber, below the threshold of use of force. Deterritorialized attackers target territorialized infrastructure, frustrating border-based orthodoxy. These hybrid cyber militia-mobs clearly demonstrate that adversaries will not fight the U.S. military on its own terms in cyberspace. In fact, military-on-military in cyberspace may become the exception, rather than the norm, with relatively few "lawful combatants" in the traditional sense. An astute strategy would seek to refine the understanding of how "military affairs" fits within a cyber world where predominantly industry and noncombatant civilians establish and control the core operational theater of conflict. The counterrevolution in cyber affairs will necessitate development of alternative tactics against this global amalgam of state, state-sponsored, and nonstate actors.