By Bill Hagestad II.
Information warfare refers to information warfare, information-based and information-based weaponry as the main means of warfare and combat, with system integration and information control as the leading, in the full-dimensional space through precision strike, real-time control, information Defense and other means of paralysis and deterrence operations. Compared with the traditional forms of war, such as mechanized warfare, information warfare has the following six characteristics.
War Tools – Information Domination
War tools determine the form of war, what kind of war tools, there will be what kind of war. Information age of the main tools of war weapons and equipment information, information technology weapons and equipment is the main feature of the weapons and equipment to achieve the information, intelligence and integration.
Energy structure The energy structure and the energy release mode are the basic factors that determine the weapon killing mechanism. From the point of view of energy components, the war energy from the traditional physical, chemical energy, electrical energy, electromagnetic energy, mechanical energy, nuclear energy and other physical energy into intelligent. Intelligence is the dominant energy in the information warfare, which is produced by the control of other physical energy. In the information war, the power, platform and weapon of the mechanical age still play an important role, but the structure of energy release has changed, the electronic information equipment has been changed from auxiliary and support equipment to dominant equipment, and penetrated and integrated through system To the power, platform, weapons to the energy and energy release time, manner, quantity, proportion, etc. to achieve precise control, so as to achieve the minimum input, the highest efficiency of the purpose.
Performance standards Mechanized war mainly emphasizes the accumulation of the number and size, information warfare emphasizes the quality of the effectiveness of control. Traditional wars are mainly achieved through firepower destruction to achieve the purpose of destruction. In information warfare, information technology can effectively control the energy release efficiency in addition to the fusion of many different energy and weapon equipment. The result of control is more accurate and can obtain great operational effect through less energy release . Therefore, the effectiveness of the combat damage, no longer stressed how much the amount of charge, but to highlight the principle of precision and effective. Accurate and efficient metrics are cost-effective. Efficient cost ratio refers to less investment in the war, high efficiency, usually up to 1:10 or more. In order to achieve this goal, we must improve the accuracy of weapons hit.
The power of war – the whole cohesion
System combat information warfare, as the main weapon equipment C⁴ SRL system, information warfare equipment, precision-guided weapons and information warfare platform, through the global information grid for seamless connectivity, will form a full-dimensional, all-day, all-weather Integration, real-time combat system. In such a system of warfare, the notion of greed, perfection and pursuit of high in traditional warfare will not make any sense, since variety, size, and performance are no longer the key elements for improving operational effectiveness. System integration and horizontal integration become The most critical element. No matter how many types of weapons and equipment, large scale, performance, no matter how good, if not incorporated into the system, you can not play a role in the battlefield, not only can not form combat effectiveness, but will become a good fight. Information-based battlefield is one of the battlefield of system confrontation, with the perfect information-based combat system, one side can control the means of warfare, the flexibility to select the target and control the process and rhythm of war; there is no corresponding information-based combat system party, the rudderless, scattered, But no soul, and thus difficult to form combat effectiveness.
Power Cohesion Mechanized war, the main force of war for the material forces. In information warfare, intelligence and knowledge are at the core and leading position of power cohesion, and the cohesion of war forces relies on information control. From the point of view of the elements of power, information technology and equipment become the dominant factor, the traditional mechanized combat platform status declined. Strength of the cohesion, must be in control of the advantages of control, especially in the capture and control of information superiority and space advantage under the premise of the premise. Only in this way can we ensure that at the right time, the required power to accurately adjust and maneuver to the exact location and direction of the target precision strike. In the information war, command art and military strategy are still very important, but the emphasis is on two aspects: one is the strategic layout of the two sides of war, the battle of wits and strategic deception; the second is the tactical level of command and control automation .
War time and space – one dimension
Time to accelerate information warfare, the ballistic missile speed of Mach 15, tactical missile speed of Mach 3-5, however, faster than this speed of light and electromagnetic wave velocity, 300,000 kilometers per second, WYSIWYG. As long as the eye to see the target, this goal means that immediately destroyed.
Space fusion cold weapons war and war of hot weapons, are in a single-dimensional space within the plane of the war. Mechanized war, and constantly to the air, sea, underwater, space and electromagnetic space expansion. Information warfare still needs to be separately controlled. The branches of the armed forces can continue to dominate their traditional space of warfare. The difference is that standards, interconnection, interoperation and interoperability must be unified among the elements of time, space and power. The formation of a fusion of the system. After the establishment of such a horizontal integration network, the operational space separated from each other by land, sea, sky and sky will become a full-dimensional combat space. In this full-dimensional space, the battlefield is mobile, the information is real- Space and power and other elements are integrated, the use of force will be very flexible and adjustable, controllable.
Implementation of War – Precise Control
Full spectrum control Traditional wars, the implementation of the war mainly rely on operational command and means of combat use. In the information war, when the global information grid is established, the full-dimensional space presents an integrated mode. In this space, the traditional concept of battlefield will no longer exist, depending on the specific battlefield and specific arms and services. The way will naturally die. By then, the precise control will be the essence of information warfare. Precision control is mainly full spectrum control warfare, focusing on strategic information warfare and battlefield information warfare, the purpose is to full-dimensional space, full spectrum information, all combat forces and war resources for effective control. Control of the results of two: for one’s own, through the system integration to double the power, the combat effectiveness of the exponential increase; the enemy, by controlling it in paralysis, the troops lost command because of the mob, military weapons lost Space will not be mobile, lost time can only miss the opportunity, passive beaten. In this case, even with the power, has also been divided, disintegrated, it is difficult to play an effective role.
Precision Strike Accurate combat from quantitative to qualitative change has gone through more than half a century, across three historical stages. First, from the close fight to the fire damage. Second, from surface destruction to the point of destruction. The use of precision-guided weapons in war was raised from 0.2 per cent in the Vietnam War to 8 per cent in the Gulf War to 70 per cent of the war in Iraq. Third, from the precise destruction to the real-time combat. The use of precision-guided weapons in the Iraq war, already have three capabilities: First, self-attack capability. After launch regardless, automatically find and destroy the target. Second, real-time attack capability. From the discovery of targets to achieve the goal of integration, weapons, reaction time tends to real-time. Third, the ability to launch outside the area. Combat platform can be used away from the threat zone weapons, both accurate targets, but also to achieve self-protection.
War protection – multi-dimensional focus
Accurate protection from the security object point of view, the cold war of weapons is the main object of war protection. Thermal weapons and mechanized warfare, combat platforms and guns and ammunition and other weapons become the main object of protection. Information warfare focuses on the comprehensive protection of intelligence, knowledge, information and network. On this basis, it strengthens the integration and control of the guarantee elements. As information-based weaponry and mechanized weaponry are integrated, most of the elements of mechanized warfare will continue to exist, but must be transformed with information-based concepts, networks, and software so that all elements of security are integrated into the operational system To achieve the purpose of effective control and accurate protection.
Multi-dimensional protection In the traditional war, the battlefield construction and war mobilization is an important part of the forces of war. In the information warfare full-dimensional security situation, the battlefield construction will have more dual-use characteristics, and usually and wartime must achieve rapid conversion. With the rapid reduction of the duration of the war, the traditional mode of war mobilization must be changed, emphasizing rapid mobilization in time, focusing on information mobilization in the content, highlighting pre-stored pre-set method to meet the needs of war for fast security.
Strength of information-based war, more emphasis on quality performance, the quality of the performance of knowledge, performance for the control, the number of scale is still important, but there will be knowledge, can control the number and size. War is no longer a military patent, to the computer and network as the core of military equipment is no longer exclusive to the military, the most advanced technology may be the first to use in civilian equipment. Therefore, the protection of the performance of information security, this nature is difficult to distinguish between the protection of military or civilian use. Therefore, the military-specific security began to the development of social security, professional clear, clear division of labor began to mechanization of professional fuzzy, system integration of information security to promote the actual strength of the weapons used to combat less and less, more and more Fine, and software design, network control, information resources, equipment maintenance and other security forces increased significantly, “teeth” more and more sharp, “tail” more and more stout.
Winning the war – man – machine
Human-machine integrated information war, human intelligence and weapons performance integration, to give weapons to wisdom and spirituality. Information-based weapons are no longer silly black and thick machine components, but with artificial intelligence, will think, can determine, can automatically detect, identify and combat targets of the robot, “Tomahawk” cruise missiles, JDAM satellite guided bombs and so on Is such a robot weapon. People’s superb intelligence, command art can be integrated into the weapons system in advance, but also in the process of combat through the real-time control of weapons to improve its combat effectiveness. This kind of intelligent weapons and mechanized weapons and equipment of the biggest difference is the enhanced specificity. The future war needs higher quality talent, no knowledge, no culture of the army is stupid army, stupid army is unable to win the information war.
Automatic control of the global information grid is completed, the tactical level in the battle will be automated real-time command, manual intervention, while trying to dry side of the command pattern is less and less. Command art and military strategy in a large extent reflected in the pre-war operations and strategic battle of war, and even be integrated into the human-computer interaction system, expert knowledge base systems and weapons to the intelligent guidance system to go. Therefore, the command level is less and less, the command efficiency is higher and higher, showing real-time, flat, integrated features. Strategic commanders direct command to the individual, single-ship, stand-alone phenomenon is more and more common, strategic battle will become the main battle of information warfare style.
