Building a Deterrence Policy Against Strategic Information Warfare

As the United States continues as the sole nation with a vested interest in every region of the world, it is increasingly sensitive to asymmetric threats that neutralize or circumvent its ability to defend against or respond to hostile activity. One of these areas is broadly described as information warfare. One specific aspect of this refers to strategic information warfare (SIW) attack against the information technology base of the nation's critical infrastructures. Defending those infrastructures is problematic for the U.S. government. Although the military relies on the civilian infrastructure, it does not control it. Neither is the civilian government in a position to dictate to the private infrastructure organizations. Any attempts to defend the national information infrastructure may be based largely, therefore, on deterring an attack, rather than detecting and thwarting it. Although deterrence may be most commonly associated with nuclear warfare, the United States still relies to a large extent on deterring aggressive foreign activity to protect its interests worldwide. This paper assesses the threat from SIW attacks and reviews the theories of deterrence, focusing on deterrence in the post-Cold War era. It then describes some strategies the United States can build to deter SIW most effectively.
Presented at the 7th Command and Control Research and Technology Symposium (CCRTS 2002) held in Monterey, CA on 11-13 Jun 2002.