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Panel: Cyber Warfare: Are We Really Taking a Joint Approach? Why Your Intuition About Cyber Warfare is Probably Wrong. Since the dawn of time, when one caveman first struck another, humans have relied on a natural understanding of their physical environment to conduct warfare.
We have an inborn ability to understand the laws of the physical world. In order to shoot an artillery round farther, just add more powder; to provide cover for protection against bullets, hide behind a rock. A private might accidentally shoot the wrong target, but the potential damage is limited by the maximum range of his or her rifle. The laws of physics, however, are counterintuitive in cyberspace. In cyberspace, our understanding of the “laws of physics” is turned on its head. The Attacker has the Advantage over the Defender In classic military doctrine, the defender has a distinct advantage over the attacker.
Figure 1: In cyber warfare, adversary tactics evolve on a daily basis, unlike the notional Krasnovian Army formerly used in training exercises. We aren’t Fighting the Krasnovian Army A Computer Can Be Turned into a Brick. Victory On The Potomac: The Goldwater-nichols Act Unifies The Pentagon - James R. Locher, III. The World Wide Military Command and Control System evolution and effectiveness. Cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA448647. Face it, Goldwater-Nichols hasn’t worked. By Col.
Gary Anderson (USMC, Ret.) Best Defense department of defense de-organization Three decades ago, when the military reform movement was beating the drum for what became the Goldwater-Nichols legislation, a number of us in uniform and out, were trying to sound a cautionary note. We got outvoted and the legislation passed. "Jointness" became the new mantra, and arguing against it became heresy, if not hate speak. The proponents of the elevation of jointness to absolute military supremacy claimed that it would prevent long open ended wars such as Korea and Vietnam by giving the President and Secretary of Defense better military advice than they got in such conflicts. Instead of fast and clean conflicts, we got Afghanistan and Iraq. Many of those who argued for Goldwater-Nichols used the German General Staff as a model to aspire to. This can be fixed. A smaller, more elite joint staff corps would allow us to concentrate on creating real strategic expertise.
Wikimedia Commons. Files/media/csis/pubs/bgnannotatedbrief.pdf. Www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/occasional_papers/2010/RAND_OP308.pdf. Goldwater-Nichols II: It’s Not What You Think. “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.
Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” George Bernard Shaw Irish dramatist & socialist (1856 - 1950) For the past decade, as a result of failures in interagency policy, planning, and execution in conducting military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, a call for interagency reform has resonated inside and outside government, to include a list of “who’s who” within governmental, military, and think-tank circles. Experiencing the perils and pitfalls first-hand of attempting to adapt military planning and operations to an outdated interagency system, proponents for reform seek formal change to the current ad-hoc interagency system, changes that would span the Executive and Legislative Branches of the Federal government.
Strategic Environment Interagency Policy Coordination and Planning Shortfalls Organizational Constructs Way Ahead Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4.