War in the Third Domain The maneuver space is the electromagnetic spectrum, where forces range globally at the speed of light.

By Hampton Stephens

hen the Air Force Nearly a quarter of a century later, already is providing combat capabilities formed Air Force Space though, it’s deja vu all over again. The in cyberspace to the unified US Strategic Command in 1982, it Air Force has come to recognize cyber- Command and combatant commanders, Wmarked formal recognition that space space, like “regular” space, as an arena according to Air Force officials. was a distinct operating arena. The first of human activity—including armed Cyber Command has in place systems commander, Gen. James V. Hartinger, activity. It is, to reprise Hartinger, a and capabilities for integrating cyber op- said, “Space is a place. ... It is a theater theater of operations. erations into other Air Force global strike of operations, and it was just a matter of The Air Force took a first big organi- options. All that is lacking, according to time until we treated it as such.” zational step along those lines last fall. one top official, are the “organizational Meanwhile, around that same time, Air Force Secretary Michael W. Wynne and operational constructs” to integrate sci-fi author William Gibson published and Gen. T. Michael Moseley, Chief of cyber ops with those of air and space a novel entitled Neuromancer, a work Staff, announced a plan to form a new operations. that gave the world a strange new Cyber Command to be established by The Air Force believes it must be able term—“cyberspace.” The book didn’t Lt. Gen. Robert J. Elder Jr., head of 8th to control cyberspace, when need be, as call cyberspace “a place” but a “con- Air Force. Its purpose: Organize, train, it at times controls the air. The goal is sensual hallucination” of billions of and equip forces for cyber-war. to make cyberspace capabilities fully humans. Few military men gave it much Though Cyber Command has not yet available to commanders. thought. reached full major command status, it “Almost everything I do is either on

58 AIR FORCE Magazine / April 2007 ics and the electromagnetic spectrum Why is the Air Force only now to store, modify, and exchange data demarcating and defining cyberspace via networked systems and associated as an operational domain? In the past physical infrastructures.” several years, it has been made critically Thus, said Kass, the virtual world important by the emergence of two inter- is “like air, space, land, and sea”—all related factors. The confluence of these places in which US forces operate. The developments has created a worrisome, whole electromagnetic spectrum consti- if not explosive, situation. tutes the maneuver space, where forces Rise of the cyber badlands. Simply range globally at the speed of light. put, cyberspace has become major bad-guy This is a startlingly expansive con- territory. Air Force officials say it never cept. Moseley, in fact, has quipped that has been easier for adversaries—whether cyberspace today includes everything terrorists, criminals, or nation-states—to “from DC to daylight”—that is, direct operate with cunning and sophistication current to visible light waves. in the cyber domain. Kass said there is “recognition by our We Fight There leadership that ... cyberspace is a domain Kass added that the cyber world in which our enemies are operating, and comprises not just computer networks operating extremely effectively because but also any physical system using any they’re operating unconstrained.” of various kinds of electromagnetic When it comes to cost and skill, the energy—“infrared waves, radio waves, barriers to entry are indeed low. “You microwave, gamma rays,” she said, “and don’t have to be a rocket scientist,” rays we have not thought about.” said Kass. The ubiquity of low-cost By this definition, someone who uses off-the-shelf cyber technology means a computer to crash a Web site used by would-be cyber-warriors don’t need terrorists has carried out a cyber opera- governmental financing or even backing tion. The same can be said of someone of a well-organized criminal or terrorist who jams local cell phone traffic to keep network. the enemy from detonating a remotely “One has to have concern about a controlled bomb. Using a space-based range of potential adversaries, includ- satellite to collect infrared imagery? ing other nation-states, including terror That, too, is a cyber operation. networks and ... transnational criminal “You could actually say that opera- enterprises,” says John Arquilla, author tions in cyberspace preceded operations of Networks and Netwars and a profes- in the air,” Kass maintained. After all, sor at the Naval Postgraduate School in the telegraph—“the Victorian Inter- Monterey, Calif.

Staff illustration by Zaur Eylanbekov net”—ran on electricity and was a tool Arquilla also worries about a “wild- of military operations. It was a cyber card” threat: “individual hackers of very an Internet, an intranet, or some type weapon, she said. great skill.” of network—terrestrial, airborne, or The Air Force’s goal is plain: to be He believes 21st century warfare is spaceborne,” said Gen. Ronald E. Keys, able to operate in and, if necessary, a new animal, one in which nonstate head of Air Combat Command, Langley dominate this nebulous, artificial “place” actors have more prominence than ever AFB, Va. “We’re already at war in cy- in which humans interact over networks before. The cyber domain is tailor-made berspace—have been for many years.” without regard to physical geography. It for this new kind of warfare, he added, The creation of Cyber Command is USAF’s third domain of combat. and traditional militaries neglect it at the received not only lots of attention but Wynne and Moseley on Dec. 7, 2005 peril of the states they are defending. also produced lots of confusion. What, published a new mission statement for “As opposed to traditional physical actually, does its establishment mean for the service. In it, cyberspace joined “air” warfare where you tend to focus on the the Air Force? For the US military? and “space” in the catalog of Air Force major militaries of the time, here you In answering the questions, definitions domains. They said that the Air Force, have to give equal attention to a great are surprisingly important. Lani Kass, from now on, would “fly and fight in nation as well as to a particular network,” special assistant to the Chief of Staff air, space, and cyberspace.” said Arquilla. “And of course there may and director of the Chief’s Cyberspace Kass and her colleagues on the Cyber- be ties between nations and networks, Task Force, is at pains to declare that space Task Force see this development like the link between a Hezbollah and cyberspace is not a mission, not an as a historic step. In Kass’ office hangs an Iran.” operational method or technique, and a painting that depicts two World War Growth of US vulnerability. Cyber- not just about computers. I biplanes—one American, one Ger- space has become a potentially great US “Cyberspace is a warfighting domain,” man—in a swirling dogfight. Kass said military Achilles heel. The Air Force Kass said flatly. it reminds her that today’s airpower, so has never been so heavily dependent The National Military Strategy for supremely advanced and sophisticated, on cyberspace as a medium supporting Cyberspace Operations, adopted in had humble origins and that cyber critical systems. 2006, defines cyberspace as “a domain power stands at a comparable stage in “Military activities in all domains— characterized by the use of electron- its development. air, land, sea, space—and our way of

AIR FORCE Magazine / April 2007 59 life increasingly depend on our ability Al Qaeda has focused heavily on using in 1999. Later, the then-Chairman of to operate in the cyber domain,” Kass the Internet for recruiting, fund-raising, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. noted. and propaganda-spreading. However, Henry H. Shelton, said, “We only used It follows that the loss or compromise it also has trained its operatives “in our capability to a very limited degree,” of these systems would bring catastro- computer network attack techniques,” but with apparent success. phe. American adversaries cannot con- Arquilla said. USAF’s dive into the cyber world front the world’s most powerful military As for nations, China and Russia brings not only gains but also certain head on, so they look to exploit chinks generally are viewed as the greatest risks. in the US armor. Cyberspace contains potential threats. For civil libertarians, cyber opera- many such chinks because the nation’s “China is one of the more active tions cause jitters, which Kass insisted military power is more dependent than countries in thinking through the whole are overblown and are, in any event, ever on systems based on the electro- business of cyberspace-based opera- offset by the benefits of US power in magnetic spectrum. tions,” said Arquilla. Beijing’s cyber- this area. space thrust comports with the Chinese What’s Important military’s well-documented practice Early Cases “The Air Force in particular has some of using asymmetric tactics against its Keys, for his part, noted the potential very highly automated systems upon superpower military rival. for confusion in defining which service which it’s reliant,” said Arquilla. He Evidence of Chinese interest comes entity does what. “There’s more to noted, for example, the development in the form of statements of Chinese cyber than just computers. I mean, it’s of an air tasking order, or ATO. Today, officials, as well as past incidents. the ether that all this stuff flies through, it is virtually a fully automated system Example: Beginning in 2003 and so people start talking about electronic and is vulnerable to enemy disruption or for several years thereafter, a cyber es- warfare. Well, is electronic warfare cyber destruction. “It’s not even clear that the pionage ring code-named “Titan Rain” warfare or not? I don’t know.” Air Force could [produce] an air tasking stole information from various US Marine Corps Gen. James E. Cart- order manually anymore,” said Arquilla, government computers, including DOD wright, head of US Strategic Com- “and so the security of the information networks. In their origin and style, the mand and thus the nation’s top cyber system over which it’s transmitted attacks “seemed to suggest a Chinese warfighter, sees dangers in spreading and through which it is undertaken is connection,” Arquilla said. such expertise. extremely important.” Writing in a People’s Liberation “When you train a person to be good He went on, “Whether you are slowing Army publication, a Chinese general in in this environment it’s not unlike the down a bombing campaign, or slowing 1996 touted Chinese plans to move into Manhattan Project,” said Cartwright. down the movement of troops to some cyberspace as a combat arena. The CIA “You’ve given them the keys to the theater, we’re talking about a ... great quoted the general as saying, “We can kingdom.” difference.” make the enemy’s command centers not The Air Force doesn’t have much Wynne said the American “informa- work by changing their data system. We choice in the matter, though. Cyber- tion mosaic”—the sum of data from can cause the enemy’s headquarters to space, nebulous as it is, has moved front all sensors that can be “collected and make incorrect judgments by sending and center in the military’s order of downloaded and cross-loaded for use disinformation.” battle. “Without cyber dominance,” said by all in the fight”—is the key target of And that was more than a decade Wynne, “operations in all of the other Air Force adversaries and a key cyber ago. domains are in fact placed at risk.” vulnerability. Kass said Chinese officials have Like Kass, Arquilla sees parallels with “All the information flow moves in published “strategic documents” outlin- the 20th century development of military the cyber domain, meaning the entire ing “unrestricted warfare” against the aviation. In a long 2003 interview with flow can be vulnerable to a cyberspace American information constellation. the PBS news program “Frontline,” he attack,” Wynne said in a Nov. 2 speech They “understand how reliant the United put it this way: in suburban Washington. States is on the ability to conduct global “The real meaning of cyber warfare In cyberspace, the United States is command and control,” she added. is on the battlefield. Much as aircraft lagging behind competitors, according Moreover, said Arquilla, “the Rus- ... transformed 20th century warfare, I to Kass. She declined to specify states sians are quite good” at cyber work. think cyber-attacks will transform 21st or nonstate actors outpacing the United Indeed, it is only too apparent that century warfare. Militaries which are States. However, US enemies or com- Moscow takes cyberspace operations highly dependent on secure information petitors are known to be working hard very seriously. At least one Russian systems will be absolutely crippled [if to build their capabilities. official has said that a cyber-attack on they are destroyed], just as if they didn’t The list of national and subnational Russia’s critical transportation or power have aircraft above to protect them in cyber threats is long. Arquilla reported infrastructure would warrant a nuclear the 20th century.” ■ that he hasn’t seen “anything quite like response. a cyber arms race going on just yet,” but “This is probably the only warfighting “leading countries are all involved” in domain in which we have peer competi- Hampton Stephens is the former man- cyberspace operations. tors,” said Keys of ACC. “We have to aging editor of Inside the Air Force and is now a freelance writer and editor The list of potential cyberspace threats stay ahead of them.” of the online news site World Politics starts with al Qaeda. The militant group USAF is not exactly a fledgling. It Watch in Washington, D.C. His most “has focused extensively on developing electronically jabbed Serbian air defense recent article for Air Force Magazine, a capacity for cyberspace-based opera- computer networks during the 78-day “Toward a New Laser Era,” appeared in tions,” said Arquilla. NATO bombing campaign over Kosovo the June 2006 issue.

60 AIR FORCE Magazine / April 2007