Book Review - Stray Voltage: War in the Information Age

Stray Voltage: War in the Information Age

Written by: Wayne Michael Hall,

Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, 2003,

ISBN: 9781591143505, 219pp.

Reviewed by: Michael Evans, Head of the Land Warfare Studies Centre and coeditor of the AAJ.

In this interesting and stimulating study, author Wayne Michael Hall—a retired American brigadier general who directed the US Army’s Intelligence XXI study—argues that, because of the ascent of the digital age, the face of battle is rapidly changing. Increasingly, the future of war lies in a transformation from conflict involving narrow, kinetic warfare of attrition to the broader, systemic competition of ‘knowledge war’ based on digital nuance and mastery of information operations. Hall defines the phenomenon of knowledge war as:

an intense competition for valuable information and knowledge that both sides need for making better decisions faster than their adversary. The goal in this type of conflict is... decision dominance, which leads to an overall advantage ... and results in a triumph of will by one side or the other.

According to the author, while conventional war is not yet anachronistic, asymmetric warfare represents the wave of the future. Brigadier General Hall argues that the US military must prepare for two types of armed conflict: kinetic, conventional, force-on-force warfare, and shadowy, nuance-laden, sometimes digital and largely invisible asymmetric warfare. Increasingly, the kinetic and the cyber will merge. Future military operations will involve urban warfare and swarming alongside automation, digital manoeuvring and the use of electronic software. While the tools of kinetic, force-on-force conflict will continue, Hall believes that information operations will eventually dominate the character of 21st-century conflict. He writes:

The pendulum is swinging from the kinetic to an emphasis on more nonkinetic forms of conflict... the asymmetric tool of information operations will supplant the heavy reliance on traditional, kinetic, and atomistic perspectives of conflict in the twentieth century. Military services must prepare for future conflicts and the inevitable transformation of war having a more invisible, intangible, cerebral nature.

Future asymmetric information operations will be borderless and devoid of sanctuaries or homeland safety. Defending infrastructure will become as important as fighting for geographical terrain. As the ‘tyranny of distance’ dissipates, decisionmaking will become more important, rendering future war a struggle in which social, political, military, economic, financial and informational systems are woven together to the point that none can experience perturbation without affecting the others. Asymmetric information operations will involve fibre-optics, databases, software codes and satellite frequencies. Eventually, asymmetric enemies of the West will develop ‘cyberbots’—software programs that can collect intelligence, attack computer servers and deceive at light speed. In these conditions, ‘manoeuvre of knowledge’ (collaboration) and the manipulation of psyches (both individual and aggregate) will become vital in future war.

Waging successful knowledge war will require mastery of four types of information: scanning, problem-solving, learning and advantaging. Future ‘cyberstrategists’ will have to become experts in such areas as knowledge management and perception management. They will need advanced information warfare doctrine and an understanding of ‘aggregation theory’ in order to study politico-military interactions and to be able to deliver effects-based operations. An understanding of aggregation, integration and of the ‘man–machine symbiosis’ will be essential in waging successful knowledge warfare.

In the US context, the author outlines four pathways to knowledge warfare. These pathways are the creation of Knowledge Advantage Centres; the development of a joint asymmetric opposing force (OPFOR); the setting up of a Joint Information Operations Proving Ground; and developing an Internet replicator for training, experimentation and doctrine development. Knowledge Advantage Centres are envisaged as part of a national system of collaborative networks of civilian–military computing aimed at integrating information. In terms of homeland security, Knowledge Advantage Centres would operate at the operational and tactical levels of war and at national, state and local level, and would include chemical, biological and nuclear warfare specialists.

The second pathway involves creating a joint asymmetric OPFOR. A standing, capable and representational joint asymmetric OPFOR using foreign languages and global threat scenarios would test commanders and their subordinates, and is regarded as vital to realistic training in the future. The third pathway is the design of a Joint Information Operations Proving Ground for realistic training for the art of battle command, knowledge management and effects-based operations. Brigadier General Hall argues that, because the terrain of cyberspace is digital—based on fibre-optic cable, hard-disk drives and databases—it represents an arena of conflict that cannot be replicated in the physical world. A Joint Information Operations Proving Ground would prepare for digital conflict by simulating the conditions of cyberspace and virtual reality.

Finally, the author recommends the creation of an Internet replicator in order to simulate a realistic ‘red team’ opponent. An Internet replicator would train military forces in the art of defending infrastructure from weapons of mass effect, kinetic or otherwise. Hall proposes that an Internet replicator should be part of every training course for future joint warfare—developing cyberbots and counter-deception strategies. While a replicator would be costly and hard to keep up to date, such an initiative is important and could become the responsibility of US Joint Forces Command or North American Command.

Hall concludes his study by identifying the main obstacles to a mastery of knowledge warfare. He claims that these obstacles lie in the realm of education. Because the cyber-warrior will need different skills from the traditional kinetic warrior, the current industrial-age American military system must be reformed. The US military system’s present weaknesses include rigid processes, a hierarchical leadership structure and a tendency to equate rank with intellect—all of which work to inhibit developing 21st-century knowledge warriors.

In contrast to today’s kinetic warriors, tomorrow’s cyber-warriors must possess intuitive minds and be comfortable with intellectual creativity. Future cyber-strategists must be persons of ‘Aristotelian whole’—at once masters of technology and philosophers of the Hegelian dialectic. As Hall puts it:

Knowledge war is different than traditional, attrition-based warfare because it requires far greater intellectual skills, a broader understanding of the social, political, economic, financial, informational and military spheres of human intercourse, and the existence of a far greater symbiotic relationship between man and machine.