Examining the Australian Army Adaptation to Cyber-enabled Warfare – Organisational and Cultural Challenges

Abstract

The Australian Army has lagged behind the best armies in the world when it comes to the uptake of cyber-technology. This paper aims to fill a gap in the discussion on the topic by examining why this is the case, in the context of organisational culture and the dilemmas of emerging technologies throughout history. Militaries, as a subset of organisational cultures, carry a unique set of considerations and attitudes towards innovation, born from the nature of their duties. Where there are no fundamental reasons for rejection of a technology or technique by a military force, then other factors such as organisational leadership and change management practices must be considered.

The Australian Defence Force (ADF), like dozens of other militaries across the world, has been profoundly affected by the so called Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). Adaptation to the effects of the information revolution has varied across the ADF. The Royal Australian Air Force and Navy both have histories rich with experience in Information Operations (IO)—ranging from early cryptographic endeavours to Electro-Magnetic Spectrum operations—and have been on the frontier of Computer Network Operations (CNO). Embracing widespread information-age capabilities has been a small and natural leap for these services whereas the Australian Army has faced a steeper learning curve. This article contributes to the discussion around the Australian Army’s adaptation to the information revolution. It will first outline the key indicators of performance by a service in pursuit of being functional and potent on the cyber-enabled battlefield and second, examine what organisational barriers exist for fundamental and useful adaptation to the modern operational environment.

The State of Play

The Australian Army has grappled with the complexities of the digital information environment for the last seventeen years.¹ The Army has been a low priority for the ADF to engage at a low level with cyber capabilities, possibly due to the lack of platforms at its disposal for dedicated cyber- operations. The adoption of cyber capabilities can be measured through proxies such as dedication to training, cyber-readiness of future platforms and the human resourcing schemes of the force.

The Australian Army does not dedicate any meaningful portion of its training resources to studying information on cyber-related activities. An Army officer attending the mandatory training continuum from Staff Cadet to Major undergoes 10,927 periods of professional instruction of which only two periods are solely dedicated to the study of information activities and dominance (All Corps Majors Course).² There are some components of this continuum which may incidentally include mention of information activities, such as the targeting process, but those topics are unlikely to provide a deep understanding of the growing importance of the information environment in tactical warfare. The procurement efforts of the Army are similarly sparse in detail about cyber-readiness. Armoured vehicles form the backbone of much of the land power that Australia can project. The user requirements for the development of Army’s future fleet of armoured vehicles (LAND 400) makes mention of being ‘networked at the lowest level’ for the purposes of coordinating fires and linking the Battle Management System.³ However, there is no stipulation about the platform’s ability to defend itself from cyber-attack or support Australian information operations. Finally, the Australian Army lacks a cogent plan for the workforce required to render effective cyber-enabled war. It is the author’s opinion that the Army currently views and treats cyber-operators as a ‘niche capability’. The personnel involved have little opportunity to demonstrate their abilities to the wider Army, a factor which will be discussed in more depth later in this paper. All of this amounts to an Army that relegates its informational power to a small group of technically skilled people, and the benefits of the information era have not penetrated the wider organisation with any great depth.

By contrast, the US Army appears more developed against the same measurements. Detailed information regarding the quantity of training time allocated to the topic is not readily available in the public domain however the US Military Academy (West Point) has a pronounced sentiment regarding integration of cyber capabilities; namely that there is an enunciated need for ‘understanding by every soldier’.⁴ Additionally, the establishment of numerous centres for cyber-education and training such as the Army Cyber Institute as part of West Point and the Army Cyber Center of Excellence represent a specific interest in the capabilities by the land force. The US Tank Automotive Research Development and Engineering Centre (TARDEC) is the standing body responsible for armoured vehicle development. One of its component teams, the Tactical Cybersecurity Engineering Team (TCET), is specifically dedicated to ‘directing and coordinating cybersecurity activities for tactical system development’.⁵ The US Army also has a well-established stream for recruiting and managing its cyber operations personnel, with streamed trades and structures integrated at the tactical level.^{6 7} The net result of these initiatives is a cyber-savvy and well enabled force across the spectrum of trades and operations, positioning it as a force that is well prepared for land combat in the information era.

The Australian Army is behind the trend in its ability to fight into the cyber- enabled wars of the post-information revolution world when compared with other developed countries’ national land forces. While elements of the Australian Army (Special Forces, for example) can be assumed to be already using relatively advanced cyber capabilities as part of their joint and interagency roles, the wider Army currently lags behind the pace of the training, procurement and human resourcing that can be observed in the US Army. Information on other prominent militaries such as China, Russia and the United Kingdom is less forthcoming than that of the United States, but it could be expected that they are equal to, or at least on the heels of, the United States.⁸ Given that Australian operations doctrine emphasises the requirement of the Army to generate momentum through superior decision making tempo, the Army has a vested interest in capitalising on the digital information environment at all levels.

Comparison with Allied forces serves as a useful tool in evaluating not only the degrees of uptake (as the above section has) but the inherent characteristics of the organisations that effectively allow, or disallow, innovation to occur.

Military Innovation and the Concept of Honourable War

One possible explanation for the Army’s lag in keeping pace with cyber- enabled warfare trends is that the key tenets of the information revolution (as the driving force behind cyber-enabled war) do not integrate well with the values of the Army and therefore the concept has been rejected on cultural grounds. One of the key determining factors in the success of a military undergoing innovative change is the independent culture of the target organisation.⁹ ‘Culture’ can be defined as:

A pattern of basic assumptions—invented, discovered, or developed by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration—that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to these problems^.10

One observer—Andrew Hill, in his paper ‘Military Innovation and Military Culture’—neatly sums up the underlying principle of the definition as ‘culture is a theory of what works’.¹¹ Shared and individual experiences are of primary importance in the shape of culture to specific organisations. For the current Australian Army, this is influenced heavily by operations in the Middle East since 2001, Timor-Leste, Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Relief (HADR) tasks and, to a lesser extent, the Vietnam War. The culture of a military and a transformative change can clash in a number of ways.

Hill posits that the notion of ‘honourable warfare’ is an ‘inextricable component of the military profession’ and that the cultural component of honourable warfare can be described by the dimensions of three beliefs: courage, justice and the prevention of violence against civilians.¹² Militaries are unlikely to adopt a change that sees the notions of the nature and use of physical courage change. There is a key link in this idea with the necessity of danger. Hill observes that altering the sense of courage derived from the danger of combat can be a basis for militaries to reject innovative concepts. One example in the modern era can be found in the segregation of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) operators from the traditional pilot community. For example, UAS pilots are not eligible for the many awards and decorations available to traditional pilots in Australia. In the United States, the UAS pilots are paid less than traditional pilots and their flight hours are not credited for career advancement purposes.¹³ While the battlefield effect of both roles is comparable, if not equal, UAS pilots conduct their duties from a position of relative safety and as such have not been readily accepted into the pilot fraternity.¹⁴

Hill also observes that modern militaries believe that a sense of justice should be maintained in battle, a concept that is antithetical to the common conception of the Army’s ‘ruthless will to win’.¹⁵ He notes that militaries deem unjust the innovations that see them or their opposing combatants placed in positions where they are completely unable to fight back or defend themselves against the new technologies and/or techniques. The development and emergence of submarines in naval warfare is a demonstration of this idea. In 1930, the act of a submarine attacking a surface vessel was deemed to be so unjust, due to the latter’s inability to defend itself against the threat, that the London Naval Treaty was struck which attempted to regulate the use of submarines in war. The agreement saw that the signatory nations (of which there were five) were required to ensure that the crews of merchant vessels were delivered to safety before their vessels were sunk by submarine.¹⁶ This requirement essentially rendered null the stealth advantage afforded by submarines in the first place. Hill notes that submarine warfare became less restricted as submarine countermeasures were developed, such as sonar, depth charges and aerial surveillance; the combatants had a better ability to defend themselves against the threat.¹⁷ Finally, Hill discusses the effects of an innovation in terms of the unintended effects against civilians. Technologies or techniques that increase the probability of violence against civilians are likely to be rejected by military forces.¹⁸ The beliefs of courage, justice and preservation of civilian safety in war, as a part of the military values of honourable war, are directly relevant to critical analysis of the Army’s uptake of fundamental cyber-technology.

Consider some plausible scenarios from a cyber-enabled land battle of the future. The way in which armoured vehicles will engage in combat is likely to change dramatically. For example, the engagement will commence well before the vehicles can see each other through attacking one another’s information environment. This could happen in a number of ways. For example, at the operational level, cyber-warriors could be acting upon the enemy’s command and control and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems. This could see the enemy communications disrupted, or even altered, to the Australian advantage. Such actions may be a part of a bold plan to change the actions of the enemy through manipulation (say, amending grid references in a distributed set of orders) or a more subtle effect of selecting key information to withhold from certain personnel in order to impose friction or reduce trust in their systems. Furthermore, key pieces of infrastructure could be targeted, such as flight radar systems, power grids or fuel delivery to impose further friction on enemy operations. These types of effects will be at the behest of the operational commander, probably a commanding officer of a unit or the brigade commander, to nest within the overall manoeuvre plan to undermine the enemy’s centre of gravity.

At the tactical level, armoured vehicle units will employ cyber-capabilities differently. Experts in cyber-based techniques will accompany commanders at the combat team level and below, with the skills and basic equipment to detect, disrupt and disable critical systems in enemy armoured vehicles. In much the same way that observation posts and sniper teams are used, the soldiers will be able to provide commentary on their observations and some precise targeting effects. For example, such a team could assist an Australian attack through isolating a forward vehicle from its support by disrupting its communications, reporting its location and manipulating key systems (eg engine electronics, gunnery or crew systems such as hatch locks/climate control) precisely at H-hour.

Well-trained and well-equipped teams could conduct these actions on groups of vehicles simultaneously, effectively meaning that the Australian assault is a matter of fighting through a series of neutralised vehicles without a shot being fired. Naturally, these teams would likely be engaged in defence against the same techniques as well. Scenarios such as those outlined above are some small demonstrations of a broad and flexible set of technologies and techniques involved in the cyber-enabled land battle. The cases outlined here are not a concoction of fiction as there are documented cases of the same techniques being used, albeit in different circumstances. The suspected Russian testing of GPS-spoofing techniques in the Black Sea demonstrates the immediacy of this reality, as an entire fleet of merchant ships was misled by disrupted GPS readings.¹⁹ The full extent of the capabilities are not widely understood across the Army, as discussed in the first part of this paper.

Evaluating the above scenario, and the adaptation of the same principles to war fighting activities of a lower intensity (eg counter insurgency and hybrid warfare), against the three beliefs of honourable warfare allows analysis of the Army’s cultural acceptance of cyber capabilities. First, the nature and use of physical courage remains largely unchanged; that is to say that battles will still be won and lost in the close fight. Although the operational focus has shifted to forms of war that are low intensity, such as counter insurgency, the character of physical courage has not. While the specific acts undertaken by soldiers on the counter insurgency battlefield are different to those during the Second World War, the need for daring and decisive actions in the face of adversity remains. The link between the courage of combat to the identity of Australian Army units has not been diminished by the advent of cyber-enabled war, and consequently it is not likely that the Army has or will find reason to reject the innovation on those grounds.

The justice of war however, is possibly a concern for Army. The Army has often been engaged in missions where the adversary is technologically inferior; for example, in the Timor and Afghanistan campaigns. While consideration of combat against near-peer enemies should be the highest concern for a military force, the culture of the Australian Army (that is ‘the theory of what works’) is imbued with lessons from the aforementioned campaigns. The perceived injustice of utilising advanced cyber-capabilities against actors with very rudimentary abilities to protect themselves may be a source of friction in the Army’s uptake. However, any resistance of this kind is not likely to be insurmountable. The Army has a well-honed sense of the need to remain prepared for the full spectrum of threat scenarios, including high intensity war against a near- peer enemy. This has been demonstrated systematically over the last decade of force generation cycles and major exercises such as ‘Exercise Hamel’ and ‘Talisman Sabre’ with campaign- specific training usually only being introduced as a part of Mission Readiness Exercises. Furthermore, the perceived injustice of using cyber-technologies and techniques against non-advanced adversaries is likely to be offset by the reciprocal injustices of technologies such as Improvised Explosive Devices and techniques such as insider attacks. Because of these reasons, the generalised uptake of cyber-enabled warfare is not likely to be inhibited by a lack of ‘justness’ in the technologies and techniques involved.

The ‘effect on civilians’ component of Hill’s model may be of the most concern in this discussion. With wars increasingly likely to be fought in urban areas, civilian infrastructure is likely to be used for military purposes.²⁰ Cyber-based effects on that infrastructure are highly unlikely to be able to determine the difference between civilian and military use for exclusive military disruption, therefore having unintended or undesirable effects on the local population. Such effects have been shown to be dramatic and dangerous for urban populations, having been linked, for example, to civilian suffering in countries such as Georgia, Estonia and the Ukraine during Russian military actions.²¹ At the lower end of the intensity spectrum, civilians are affected by the use of cyber-operations primarily in the use of the technologies and techniques of the targeting process.²² In a counterinsurgency campaign where adversaries live and operate under the guise of being members of the general population, it is impossible to collect only against legitimate targets due to the difficulty in determining the identity of those targets in the first place and their probable attempts to counter the techniques used. This means that collection against key family members and friends may be necessary, or incidental, to the gathering of important information on insurgents. This part of the discussion ties in closely with the justice argument, as a non-participant (say, an insurgent’s cousin) may be unaware of the need or process for proper security and may inadvertently compromise his or her relative. A scenario like this removes the individual’s choice in participation in the fight; an unintended effect on the civilian population that Hill says can be a serious barrier to innovation in militaries.²³ Furthermore, the nature of collection technologies is such that even if an individual is specifically collected against, the capture of unrelated data from key nodes is necessary to ensure that the intended information is not corrupted. This means that entirely unrelated people may have their information collected and stored without their knowledge or consent. This practice may clash with standing legal and ethical practices of the Army depending on the circumstance, which may in itself, prevent resistance to the change.

Many of the unintended effects against civilians brought about by the revolution of cyber-enabled war are manageable although sensitive. In high-end conflicts, the use of military force to disrupt the use of civilian installations by Australia’s enemies has been tolerated, in some cases (such as Second World War area bombing) in very extensive ways with a great deal of suffering by civilian populations.²⁴ Cyber-warriors provide land force planners greater fidelity in pursuing these effects and allow for far more flexibility in the recovery of the infrastructure after the military need to disrupt its use has concluded. On these grounds, a limited resistance to the concept would be expected. In lower intensity war activities, the effects of cyber-operations on unintended civilians are likely to be tolerated due to the non-lethal effects of the actions. Provided that data capture is conducted on a responsible/necessary scale, it is likely that the Australian Army would support the methodology, much as the Australian community supports the online collection of information to solve major crime.25

The degradation of the concept of honourable war has been a strong, historical reason for a military to reject innovation. The cultural dimensions of honourable war are the nature and use of physical courage, the sense of justness in combat and the consideration of the prevention of violence against civilians. The Australian Army does not face a dramatically negative shift from its history or conceptualisation of honourable war by the introduction of cyber-enabled warfare technologies and techniques.

Therefore, under this model, it can be said that the Australian Army’s lag behind the trend of cyber-enabled land power is not due to some fundamental or cultural disagreement with the principles and realities of the capabilities. Certain inhibitors do exist, particularly around the most recent individual and collective experiences of the force on operations, but in general there is no discernible, deep-seated reason for its rejection

Organisational Leadership and Implementing Change

Given that there is no compelling argument for the cultural rejection of cyber-enabled warfare techniques within the Australian Army, the reason for the lag in uptake must lie elsewhere. One alternative explanation could be that there is a lack of understanding of the need for change or that such change has not been implemented effectively. Transformation efforts within organisations can fail for a wide variety of reasons, most principally through inadequate or inappropriate implementation measures. Dr. John Kotter’s seminal work, Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail, offers a distilled list of poor change implementation practices by leaders.²⁶ The list serves as a useful tool in analysing the Australian Army’s lag in cyber uptake.

Dr. Kotter outlines the need for leadership to establish a ‘great sense of urgency’ in the transformation. He notes the need for honest discussion about performance relative to that of competitors.²⁷ Recent weak performances are useful talking points here but recent strong performances can make the proposed change seem unnecessary. The Army suffers from this effect as it has enjoyed significant operational success recently without the use of the proposed capabilities. As such, there is no strong impetus for the change and the purveyance of cyber-capabilities is viewed as the so called ‘solution without a problem’.

Dr. Kotter goes on to explain the importance of a ‘guiding coalition’ which creates a critical mass of support to develop a shared commitment to the renewal.²⁸ He notes that such a group needs to draw from a broad slice of the organisation’s demographic and be permitted to be active outside usual hierarchal rigidity and protocol. Such a group has not clearly emerged within the Australian Army senior leadership to champion cyber technology and direct the Fundamental Inputs to Capability. Building constituencies of users to engage in the development process is a key component of a coalition and the collective should include members of all ranks and trades.²⁹

The small core of cyber-trained personnel the Army does have are often (if not, always) posted into positions within organisations external to the conventional Army. The resultant message to the wider Army audience is that cyber-operations are not within the remit of the Army and the key people in the guiding coalition have very little contact or influence.

Furthermore, because the Army, as with most militaries, is reliant on its rigid structures, the precedent for activity outside of these bounds is limited by the nature of the organisation.

The need for a clear, simple and bold vision is the third component of Dr. Kotter’s list.³⁰ He makes note of the distinction between a vision and a strategy, and that an inappropriate vision will often devolve into a series of incompatible projects and directives that achieve short term gains but do not progress the organisation towards the desired end state.³¹ The Army is guided by numerous political and strategic concepts at ADF HQ and higher.

The Defence White Papers are an amalgamation of the government’s vision and strategy for the future of the ADF. The 2013 Defence White Paper made vague statements about the generation of cyber-power for our forces generally but showed little appreciation of the transformational nature of the information era.³² This paper is crucial in shaping the ADF’s, and therefore the Army’s, efforts towards being ready for cyber-enabled war. Interestingly, the Future Land Warfare Report 2014,³³ as a single-service document, demonstrates a relatively advanced appreciation of cyber-enabled war.³⁴ This may suggest that there is a lack of appropriate vision at a level higher than Army which is hindering the successful integration of the capabilities in question. In this case, the ADF runs the risk of producing multiple parallel, but incoherent, plans by its component Services, which will require significant rework and restructure in the future.

A continued lack of clear vision for the cyber-enabled land force will result in Army remaining behind the pace. Recent developments inside the ADF, such as the raising of the Information Warfare Division and Joint Cyber Unit, may represent some progress that will remedy the issues raised in this article. However, without a decisive and broad leadership effort the Australian Army will continue to fall further behind the best armies in the world, and eventually, its adversaries too.

Conclusion

The Australian Army’s lag in the adoption of cyber-enabled warfare capabilities is a critical detriment to the ability of the Army to win the land battle. The small but agile force relies on its superior decision-making abilities to generate tempo and defeat its enemies, yet has not taken full advantage of information age technologies to preserve that advantage on the battlefield. There are limited cultural barriers to effective integration of the capabilities—for example, the recent experiences of troops on operations— but none are fundamentally insurmountable. The nature of possible cyber- technologies and techniques are such that they should be expected to be supported by a modern and innovative Army like the Australian Army. Organisational leadership functions at many levels are a key area for improvement by both the government and the ADF, particularly in the need for a clear, simple and bold vision for the future; the effects of which are exacerbated by a lack of champions and constituencies in favour of the component parts of the capability. A strong focus on the vision and change management elements of the problem will allow commanders across the Army to align their education, human resourcing and procurement efforts, promoting an effective adaptation to cyber-enabled war.

Endnotes

1. Parliament of Australia, 2000, Defence 2000: Our Future Defence Force (2000 Defence White Paper), at: https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_ Departments/Parliamentar y_Library/pubs/rp/rp1516/DefendAust/2000
2. Figures are the result of data analysis from the Learning Management Packages (FOUO or lower): General Service Officer Commissioning Course, All Corps Captains Course, All Corps Majors Course, Available on DRN
3. Department of Defence, 2011, Army User Requirement - Land 400 Land Combat Vehicle System (Version 1), p 4
4. K Curthoys, 2017, ‘Two-star: Every soldier must be a cyber defender’, ArmyTimes, 22 Oct 17, at: https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2017/10/22/two-star- every- soldier-must-be-a-cyber-defender/
5. TARDEC, 2014, TARDEC Capabilities, at: https://www.army.mil/e2/c/ downloads/359119.pdf
6. US Go Army, 2017, Can You Make the Cut?: US Army Cyber Warrior, 27 Mar 17, at: https://www.goarmy.com/videos/play/can-you-make-the-cut-us-army-cyber- warrior. html
7. S Gallagher, 2017, ‘DOD needs cyberwarriors so badly it may let skilled recruits skip boot camp’, ARSTechnica, 5 Oct 17, at: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/05/dod-needs-cyberw…- boot-camp/
8. As a general overview of Russian uptake, see Connell and Vogler, 2017, Russia’s Approach to Cyber Warfare, Center for Naval Analyses, March
9. A Hill, 2015, ‘Military innovation and military culture’, Parameters, Vol 45, Issue 1, p 85
10. E Schein, 2010, Organizational Culture and Leadership, 4th edition, John Wiley & Sons, p 17
11. Hill, 2015
12. Hill, 2015
13. P Singer, 2009, Wired for war: The robotics revolution and conflict in the 21st century, Penguin, pp 363-364
14. Hill, 2015
15. Hill, 2015
16. International Committee of the Red Cross, 1930, Treaty for the Limitation and Reduction of Naval Armaments, (Part IV, Art. 22, relating to submarine warfare), 22 April 1930
17. Hill, 2015
18. Hill, 2015
19. D Hambling, 2017, ‘Ships fooled in GPS Spoofing Attack Suggest Russian Cyberweapon’, New Scientist, 10 Aug , at: https://www.newscientist.com/ article/2143499-ships-fooled-in-gps-spoofing-attack- suggest-russian-cyberweapon/
20. The Australian Army, 2014, Future Land Warfare Report 2014, April 2014, p 9
21. S Shackelford and R Andres, 2010, ‘State Responsibility for Cyber Attacks: Competing Standards for a Growing Problem’, GeoJournal International (L), Vol 42, p 971
22. This reference refers to artillery. The targeting process is similar across many functions. See Australian Army, LWD 3-4-1 Employment of Artillery, Section 3-4
23. Hill, 2015
24. R Schaffer, 1980, ‘American Military Ethics in World War II: The Bombing of German Civilians’, The Journal of American History, Vol 67, Issue 2, pp 318–334
25. Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, 2017, Australian Community Attitudes to Privacy Survey 2017, May, p ii
26. J Kotter, 1995, Leading change: Why transformation efforts fail, p 59-67
27. Kotter, 1995
28. Kotter, 1995
29. B Berkowitz, 2014, ‘Sea Power in the Robotic Age’, Issues in Science and Technology, Vol 30, Issue 2, pp 33-40
30. Kotter, 1995
31. Kotter, 1995
32. G Austin, 2014, ‘Australian Defence Policy in the Information Age’, Submission for the 2015 Australian Defence White Paper, 22 Sep, p 3
33. The Australian Army, 2014, Future Land Warfare Report, April, p 9
34. Austin, 2014