THE ROLE OF THE GLOBAL MILITARY ALLIANCES

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The following discussion highlights what actually constitutes global military alliances with regard to information operations. Three terms are examined: military, information, and operations).

Military

A look into the future of information warfare environment indicates an increasing role for information operations and the emergence of IW as a new paradigm of warfare. Global military planners must, therefore, prepare to develop information skills and strategies as part of their immediate capabilities and, ultimately, they must prepare their force for involvement in full-scale information wars through alliances with other countries. These global planners must also remember that IW is emerging as a paradigm of warfare, not a paradigm of information. Regardless of the extent that the IW paradigm influences the future warfare environment, war will still be war, and thus will still involve the human factors that have been associated with conflict since the dawn of time. Although there may be less bloodshed in an information war, human suffering will, in all likelihood, result. The legal and diplomatic consequences of war will also remain much the same. Information technology does not make war any more acceptable to a civilized society. Therefore, although the information systems, tools, techniques, and strategies of the military and civilian information warriors may be common, and, indeed, complementary, a nation as a whole, and the military profession in particular, must not forget the significance of the military.

Global Information

Although seemingly self-explanatory, understanding the nature of global information alliances is important. Information is the product of the processing of data, whereas data is simply the product of some observation. The processing of data into information involves placing the data into some form of context. This context can be the formation of a sentence or other human-readable form, a machine-readable sequence, or the classification of the data against some known measurement, such as time, height, weight, and the like. The result is information and this is created and manipulated to enable decisions to be made. Although most decisions are made by a human, increasingly decisions are being made by rules-based or knowledge-based systems, and, although currently limited in application, some artificial intelligence systems.

Information, or any developed form of the information, is only one part of an information technology system. An information technology system consists of data (both as an initial input and as stored in various parts of the information technology systems in the form of information), hardware, software, communications, people, and procedures. Any one of the individual elements of the information technology system, as well as the information technology system processes that convert the raw data into various forms of information, may provide a suitable target on which influence may be exerted. The information technology system as a whole, therefore, is the target of information operations, and not just the information itself or its associated technology.

Global Operations

Global information operations seek to influence the decision-making process. Global Military Information Operations (MIOs) alliances are not information technology support activities, such as system management and system administration. They are activities directly focused on warfare and include offensive and defensive activities aimed at all levels of the decision-making process. In the modern warfare environment, attacking and defending information technology systems is a vital combat task, and strategies must be considered in conjunction with the wider global military alliance plan. When correctly applied, offensive global information operations alliances can be just as lethal as the employment of conventional weapons. As an example, certain aircraft flight control systems may be shut down using MIO techniques. The resultant crash will destroy the aircraft, and generally kill the pilot and crew, just as effectively as the best air-to-air missile.

Note 

An MIO, therefore, is any activity that consciously targets or protects the elements of an information technology system in pursuit of global military alliances objectives.



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Computer Forensics. Computer Crime Scene Investigation
Computer Forensics: Computer Crime Scene Investigation (With CD-ROM) (Networking Series)
ISBN: 1584500182
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2002
Pages: 263
Authors: John R. Vacca

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