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Redefining the Role of Information Warfare in Chinese Strategy
(USMA, 2003) Sobiesk, Edward
Information warfare is generally understood as “actions taken to affect adversary information and information systems, while defending one’s own information and information systems.” In this paper, a theory is introduced that China is currently executing a patient and deceptive form of information warfare that redefines the boundaries of Western definitions of the concept. China’s efforts are designed to advance its economic state, maintain its national unity, significantly improve its technological and military capabilities, and increase its regional and global influence -- all with minimal or no fighting and without alarming the West. This theory is supported by diverse sources that relate directly to China’s grand strategy and strategic heritage. China is emerging as the United States’ primary rival in the 21st Century. In spite of this formidable competitor, American comprehension of China’s strategic heritage, grand strategy, and the role of information warfare in support of that strategy is gravely insufficient. This work presents summaries of China’s strategic heritage and grand strategy, and then proposes how China is currently using information warfare based on its strategic heritage to achieve its national interests. China’s view of America as an adversary and appropriate comparisons to America’s strategic heritage and America’s information warfare doctrine are also included. It is stressed throughout the paper that American analysis does not fully comprehend the strong impact that Eastern strategic heritage is having on China’s actions.
Transformation Under Fire: A Historical Case Study with Modern Parallels
(United States Army War College Press, 2007) Kimball, Raymond A.
Rarely have an army’s fortunes shifted so much in such a short period. At the end of 1917, the Imperial Russian Army, bled dry and exhausted from the twin blows of tsarist incompetence and prolonged modern warfare, essentially ceased to exist. The military situation in 1920 could scarcely have been more different. The Red Army’s military supremacy over the territory of the soon-to-be Soviet Union was unchallenged and acknowledged by the world’s major powers. All of this made what happened next even more shocking. Later that same year, the Soviets would find themselves utterly defeated and thrown back by the Polish Army, an organization nearly one-tenth the size of the Red Army fielded by a state that had been obliterated from existence for 120 years and reconstituted only 2 years prior. This paper illustrates the hazards inherent in transforming a military under fire, and provides some cautionary lessons for the current U.S. efforts at military transformation. The outbreak of civil war in June 1918 galvanized the creation of the fledgling Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army, authorized by the Congress of Soviets only 6 months before. Specific focus areas for the Supreme Military Council, the chief military body of the new force, included leader development, new organizations and doctrine for the force, and a logistical system capable of supporting warfare across the vast distances of Russia. All of these were shaped by the pressures of transformation under fire, and those transformations would have great impact later. The most significant outcome of these pressures was the permanency of supposedly temporary institutions like the commissars and the limited role of the noncommissioned officer (NCO) corps. Although the Bolsheviks showed real innovation and a healthy pragmatism in constructing their new force, their transformational efforts were ultimately doomed by a stubborn refusal to recognize their own limitations. Flush with victory, the Soviets drove west to settle old scores with the Poles, only to discover that their force was overmatched and incapable of adjusting to the new terrain and enemy. In a very real sense, the Red Army never really knew who it was fighting in Poland, and thus could not bring any of its strengths to bear. Additionally, its methods of logistics and command and control were all shaped by the long fight with the Whites and were wholly unsuitable for battle against a very different enemy...
Preventing a Digital Pearl Harbor
(USMA, 2012) Conti, Gregory; Raymond, David
It is 11 p.m. on a Saturday in April 2011, and Thayer Hall is dark except for a well-lit computer lab in a corner of the second floor. While most of their classmates are on pass, a handful of firsties toil into the night putting finishing touches on a computer network that, in a little over 48 hours, will be put to the test by some of the National Security Agency's (NSA) top computer network attack specialists.
Can You See Me Now?: Toward Reasonable Standards for Law Enforcement Access to Location Data that Congress Could Enact
(SSRN Electronic Journal, 2012) Pell, Stephanie K.; Soghoian, Christopher
The use of location information by law enforcement agencies is common and becoming more so as technological improvements enable collection of more accurate, precise location data. The legal mystery surrounding the proper law enforcement access standard for prospective location data remains unsolved. This mystery, along with conflicting rulings over the appropriate law enforcement access standards for both prospective and historical location data, has created a messy, inconsistent legal landscape where even judges in the same district may require law enforcement to meet different standards to compel location data. As courts struggle with these intertwined technology, privacy, and legal issues, some judges are expressing concern over the scope of the harms, from specific and personal to general and social, presented by unfettered government collection and use of location data and how to respond to them. Judges have sought to communicate the scope and gravity of these concerns through direct references to Orwell’s dystopia in 1984, as well as suggestive allusions to the “panoptic effect” observed by Jeremy Bentham and his later interpreters like Michel Foucault. Some have gone on to suggest that privacy issues raised by law enforcement access to location data might be addressed more effectively by the legislature. This Article proposes a legislative model for law enforcement access standards and downstream privacy protections for location information. This proposal attempts to (1) articulate clear rules for courts to apply and law enforcement agents and industry to follow; and (2) strike a reasonable balance among the interests of law enforcement, privacy, and industry with the ultimate goal of improving the position of all concerned when measured against the current state of the law.
The Leader Challenge as Cognitive Tool
(USMA, 2013) Kimball, Raymond A.
As resources dwindle in the wake of the current drawdowns, the United States Army is challenged to find new and effective means of preserving hard-won institutional knowledge. One highly successful means of doing so is the Leader Challenge, which puts novice leaders in the shoes of experienced professionals and forces them to make decisions. Participants are then allowed to access the reflections of other leaders who have taken the challenge, and revise their approach if desired. This paper uses Kim and Reeves’ Joint Learning System framework to assess the Leader Challenge and identify future challenges in its wider use.
Cyber Actions by State Actors: Motivation and Utility
(International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, 2014) Brantly, Aaron F.
Covert action is as old as political man. The subversive manipulation of others is nothing new. It has been written about since Sun Tzu and Kautilya. People and nations have always sought the use of shadowy means to influence situations and events. Covert action is and has been a staple of the state system. A dark and nefarious tool often banished to philosophical and intellectual exile, covert action is in truth an oft-used method of achieving utility that is frequently overlooked by academics. Modern scholars contend that, for utility to be achieved, activities such as war and diplomacy must be conducted transparently. Examined here is the construction of utility for a subset of covert action: cyber attacks.
Walking in the Woods: A Phenomenological Study of Online Communities of Practice and Army Mentoring
(Pepperdine University, 2015) Kimball, Raymond A.
Recent changes in written Army leader doctrine have reaffirmed the informal practice of mentorship as a component of subordinate leader development. At the same time, the use of Professional Forums in the Army has the potential to alter commonly accepted norms, policies, and practices of mentoring. This dissertation conducted a phenomenological study of how lived experience in the Forums complemented or detracted from the practice of Army mentoring. The study found that the lived experience closely corresponded to Kram’s mentoring functions, with additional documented experiences in the areas of peer and computer-mediated communications mentoring. The participants’ practices of mentoring within the chain of command and crossgender mentoring were significantly impacted by unique aspects of Army culture. The researcher found that the Professional Forums were supportive of mentoring practice, but were not mentoring spaces themselves. Participants credited the Forums with helping them identify viable mentoring partners and refining their own mentoring practices. Forum participants believed that their engagement in those spaces gave them a positive outlook on Army mentoring. The study’s findings suggest best practices for informal Army mentoring while illuminating new directions for quantitative research in cross-gender and CMC-based mentoring.
Assessing India’s Cyber Resilience: Institutional Stability Matters
(Strategic Analysis, 2015) Kallberg, Jan
In this commentary, I will use strategic cyberwar theory to explain why India has a higher level of cyber resilience than several of its potential adversaries. Even if India has challenges in its government-led cyber defense, there are cyber resilience benefits to be drawn from the way Indian society operates, functions and is constitutionally designed and accepted by its constituents, independently of any cyber defense efforts. First, the concept of strategic cyberwar. A strategic cyberwar is a major conflict relying on heavy utilization of digital means, a form of conflict that we have not yet seen but that is likely to be a potential threat a few decades into the future. Even if technological breakthroughs, adaptations and software development are accelerating at an increasingly high rate, the delay is not a technical issue. Technical evolutions in the software and services sphere are single lines of development. The complexity of cyber war increases with the time factor when cyber conflicts are likely thought at computational speeds. This require an acceptance of cyber as a form of war by itself because it operates in a battle space untangled from other forms of war fighting. Therefore, cyber cannot be seen as only an enabler in traditional defense.
A Modeling Framework for Studying Quantum Key Distribution System Implementation Nonidealities
(IEEE Access, 2015) Mailloux, Logan O.; Morris, Jeffrey D.; Grimaila, Michael R.; Hodson, Douglas D.; Jacques, David R.; Colombi, John M.; Mclaughlin, Colin V.; Holes, Jennifer A.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) is an innovative technology that exploits the laws of quantum mechanics to generate and distribute unconditionally secure shared key for use in cryptographic applications. However, QKD is a relatively nascent technology where real-world system implementations differ significantly from their ideal theoretical representations. In this paper, we introduce a modeling framework built upon the OMNeT++ discrete event simulation framework to study the impact of implementation nonidealities on QKD system performance and security. Specifically, we demonstrate the capability to study the device imperfections and practical engineering limitations through the modeling and simulation of a polarization-based, prepare and measure BB84 QKD reference architecture. The reference architecture allows users to model and study complex interactions between physical phenomenon and system-level behaviors representative of real-world design and implementation tradeoffs. Our results demonstrate the flexibility of the framework to simulate and evaluate current, future, and notional QKD protocols and components.
Aesop’s wolves: the deceptive appearance of espionage and attacks in cyberspace
(Intelligence and National Security, 2015) Brantly, Aaron F.
Appearances in cyberspace are deceptive and problematic. Deception in the cyber domain poses an immensely difficult challenge for states to differentiate between espionage activities in cyberspace and cyber attacks. The inability to distinguish between cyber activities places US cyber infrastructure in a perilous position and increases the possibility of a disproportionate or inadequate response to cyber incidents. This paper uses case analysis to examine the characteristics associated with the tools and decisions related to cyber espionage and cyber attacks to develop a framework for distinction leveraging epidemiological models for combating disease.
Bringing Fear to the Perpetrators: Humanitarian Cyber Operations as Evidence Gathering and Deterrence
(Strategic Analysis, 2015) Kallberg, Jan
Humanitarian cyber operations would allow democratic states to utilize cyber operations as a humanitarian intervention to capture information and create a foundation for decision making for collective international action supported by humanitarian international law. This follows the legal doctrine of responsibility to protect, which relies first on the nation state itself but when the state fails to protect its citizens, then the international community can act, ignoring the repressive or failed state’s national sovereignty.
A Celebration of West Point Authors: July- December 2016
(USMA Library, 2016) Seminelli, Heather
Today, we celebrate the more than 100 works of scholarship produced at the Academy between July and December 2016. In addition, we will hear four short excerpts of publications or presentations around the topic of security.
A Widening Attack Plain
(Army Cyber Institute, 2016) Johnson, Brian David
The Army Cyber Institute at West Point is the Army’s and the nation’s think tank for cyber warfare and the cyber domain. The ACI creates knowledge, builds public and private sector partnerships, and creates an entrepreneurial and innovation laboratory to focus investments. Positioned to establish and maintain relationships with the nation’s economic center of gravity in New York City, the ACI directs and synchronizes efforts across the U.S. Military Academy in the cyber domain. The ACI collaborates with the U.S. Army Cyber Command and U.S. Army Cyber Center of Excellence to prevent strategic surprise and ensure the Army’s dominance of the cyber domain.
A Celebration of West Point Authors: January-June 2017
(USMA Library, 2017) Seminelli, Heather
Today we celebrate the more than 200 works of scholarship produced at the Academy between January and June 2017. Our featured work is “Intolerance: Political Animals and Their Prey,” a book which grew from a year-long multidisciplinary collaboration between faculty members of Bard College and West Point.
Envisioning the Future to Empower Action
(IEEE, 2017) Vanatta, Natalie
A single tweet brings about the end of the world as we know it. It sounds highly implausible, but in 2027, it could be our reality.
The New Dogs of War: The Future of Weaponized Artificial Intelligence
(Arizona State University, 2017) Johnson, Brian David; Vanatta, Natalie; Draudt, Alida; West, Julia R.
In May 2017, Arizona State University (ASU) hosted Threatcasting West, a workshop run by the Threatcasting Lab, a joint endeavor between ASU and the Army Cyber Institute. The event brought together individuals from across the military, government, academia and private industry to envision possible threats ten years in the future and what actions can be taken to identify, track, disrupt, mitigate, and recover from possible threats.
Information Disorder Machines
(Arizona State University, 2017) Johnson, Brian David
In the coming decade, advances in technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), quantum computing, the internet of things (IoT), smart cities, and autonomous vehicles in land, sea and air will enable adversaries of the United States to mechanize information disorder to influence, manipulate, and harm organizations and individuals. These coming information disorder machines (IDMs) will be targeted broadly at groups and geographies. AI and ML will allow for increased if not complete automation, allowing IDMs to adapt in real-time down to the individual level, creating personalized attacks while operating at a mass scale. The emerging threat of IDMs lie in the unique pairing of their real-time microtargeting and the macro effects that can have at scale. This is a direct threat to national and global security as well as a threat to the future of the United States of America.
An Account of Interference in Associative Memory: Learning the Fan Effect
(Topics in Cognitive Science, 2017) Thomson, Robert; Harrison, Anthony M.; Trafton, J. Gregory; Hiatt, Laura M.
Associative learning is an essential feature of human cognition, accounting for the influence of priming and interference effects on memory recall. Here, we extend our account of associative learning that learns asymmetric item‐to‐item associations over time via experience (Thomson, Pyke, Trafton, & Hiatt, 2015) by including link maturation to balance associations between longer‐term stability while still accounting for short‐term variability. This account, combined with an existing account of activation strengthening and decay, predicts both human response times and error rates for the fan effect (Anderson, 1974; Anderson & Reder, 1999) for both target and foil stimuli.
The Feminist Library: “History is Herstory, Too”
(University of Southern Mississippi, 2018) Dodd, Lauren B.
The Feminist Library is not a typical public library; it is an organization with roots in the historical revolution. Its history, services, and classification system are unique; its collection is irreplaceable. The purpose of this study is to document the history, resources, and organization of the Feminist Library in London, England.
A Celebration of West Point Authors: July- December 2017
(USMA Library, 2018) Seminelli, Heather
Today we celebrate the more than 200 works of scholarship produced at the Academy between July and December 2017. The theme of this event is the intersection of civilian and military technology, policy, and innovation.

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