Tag Archives: Department of Defense

U.S. preparing for cyber wars

WASHINGTON – As the U.S. military prepares its cyber rules of engagement, Congress wants to help identify computer-borne threats by making it legal for companies to share personal data that they collect with the government.

Cyber intrusions are distinct from cyber warfare, which has the larger purpose of crippling key physical or technological infrastructure. Cyber attacks waged as acts of aggression or war could infiltrate computer systems or technological infrastructure, crippling government entities or economies by attacking energy sources or transportation systems.

Cyber warfare could take on different forms. In a Wall Street Journal piece in April, two officials at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington D.C, wrote about how an “electronic curtain” in Iran allows the government to engage in electronic repression by controlling what kinds of information the public can send and receive over the Internet. This is just one example of how cyber warfare tactics have the potential to impact hundreds of thousands of citizens, succinctly and swiftly, without inflicting more traditional forms of violent aggression.

Congress has to balance protecting the nation’s infrastructure and citizens with the potential for violating personal rights and privacy in the proposed Cybersecurity Act of 2012. Congress’s aim is to help the U.S government investigate cyber threats and ensure the security of networks against attacks.

Meanwhile, the military is expected to release its rules of engagement for wars fought via the Internet. The rules will outline how the U.S. will define a cyber attack as an act of war or aggression against the state, and the appropriate response.

In addressing what a military response to cyber warfare could look like, the military is navigating uncharted territory. The rules will also define when the military can engage in defensive activities against online adversaries. Can U.S. forces “shoot’’ back with weapons when an attacker sends a massive computer virus or can troops only respond with a similar use of force? What if you can’t definitively identify the enemy? These are some of the complications of identifying and defending against vague threats online.

The potential outcomes and impacts of cyber warfare could look different than those seen in traditional warfare. Most citizens, save for the extraordinarily security conscious, leave a data footprint of their lives that, under the proposal, might be made available to the government for the purposes of identifying, preparing for and containing threats.

Citizen Watchdog organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union and The American Association of Practicing Psychiatrists said in a recent letter that the act would allow too much sharing of individual data, and the groups have proposed amendments to the bill that they say would help to protect civil liberties—things like giving customers effective legal recourse for violations of what little privacy protections the bill offers.

It seems inevitable that American citizens will lose some personal freedoms relating to rights to their e-information, the question is how much personal information does the government need to protect the nation from online warfare.

Tagged cyber, cyber security, Department of Defense, military cyber commander

A new National Guard role

As U.S. military forces have been called on to increasingly lend a hand during crises unrelated to war, the Department of Defense has created a new designation for National Guard members: Homeland Response Forces. These teams of about 600 guard soldiers and airmen will specialize in responding to domestic attacks and disasters. The first such units, in Washington and Ohio, will be on-line by the end of next month, with an additional eight regional units to be up and running in 2012, according to the DoD.

The biggest change the special units will bring about is the speed with which guard members will be able to respond, a Defense Department spokesman wrote in an e-mail. Military leaders expect the Homeland Response Forces to be able to respond to 90 percent of the country within 12 hours, according to DoD.

The units will specialize in responding to situations including domestic attacks using explosives, chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons; providing emergency medical care and crisis management functions. The members will also provide emergency medical help, specializing in decontamination, rescue and evacuation and fill communication and logistics roles.

About a fourth of the members of every homeland response guard unit will be full-time, in comparison with about 9 percent of existing guard members, according to the DoD. The majority of National Guard members train two days a month along with a two-week annual training, but most guard units have a few full-time staff. Homeland response units will also have more training time allotted and access to more vehicles, including aircraft.

The military has been asked to intervene in the fallout following Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana and Mississippi in 2005; the earthquake in Haiti, response to the ongoing oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico – Chicago Alderman have even floated the idea of using National Guard troops to keep order in the city’s crime-ridden neighborhoods.

The Department of Defense established the U.S. Northern Command, or NORTHCOM, in 2002 as a home for homeland defense operations after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks in New York and Washington, D.C.

Tagged Department of Defense, Homeland Response Force, National Guard

Civil War battlefields serve modern military efforts

GETTYSBURG, PA. — When the Union and Confederacy waged war against one another, the term “national security” did not exist. While politicians and generals always sought to protect the country’s borders, there was no convenient phrase to sum up initiatives designed to keep the United States safe. In fact, before the National Security Act of 1947, all we had to go on was the Constitution’s pledge to “provide for the common defense.”

Even though Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee never thought of national security as we conceive of it today, and the Civil War has been over for 150 years, today’s military can glean important insights from the war’s iconic battles. But with expanded development threatening battlefields in Gettysburg, Pa., Spotsylvania County, Va., and Pickett’s Mill, Ga., the chance to study what happened in these places in the current context, and to understand both good and bad leadership displayed there, is also in danger.

The tactics may not apply to modern warfare, but Civil War battlefields provide “valuable lessons we can learn about military leadership,” according to Dr. Conrad Crane, director of the U.S. Army Military History Institute at Carlisle Barracks, Pa.

It’s the mission of the Civil War Preservation Trust to ensure that opportunity is not stripped away.

“We subscribe to the theory that if you destroy where history happened, you start the process of destroying that history,” said Jim Lighthizer, president of the trust. “If you destroy that history, you very possibly might repeat the same mistakes you made in that period.”

The trust recently released its list of the 10 most endangered battlefields for 2010, and legendary Gettysburg made the cut. David LeVan, a former CEO of Conrail Corp and a local motorcycle dealer, wants to build a 5,000 square foot casino on the outskirts of town.

Crane said the preservation of Civil War battlefields, especially ones like Gettysburg where the leaders had to make improvised decisions directly affecting the outcome, is invaluable in teaching today’s military how to lead a force.

“From a military standpoint, the battlefields were initially preserved for staff rides for soldiers so they could get out and see the ground the way it was and work through the decision-making processes of the combatants at the time,” Crane said. “It’s a lot more useful to do a staff ride where you can actually see the ground than if you’re walking through a housing area.

“It goes back to being able to really go back in the past, to stand in position and say ‘This is where Robert E. Lee was when he made this decision.’”

The Wilderness in Spotsylvania County, Va., about 55 miles south of Washington, saw both the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863 and the Battle of The Wilderness in 1864. Chancellorsville holds special importance because it’s where Stonewall Jackson lost an arm in a friendly fire incident while searching in darkness for a way to continue the battle with the Army of the Potomac reeling. Eight days later, Jackson was dead, a victim of pneumonia. Two months later, the Confederates lost at Gettysburg, a battle in which Jackson’s leadership could have made a dramatic difference.

Now, the battlefield is threatened by a major shopping center with a Wal-Mart and four other retail outlets. Encroachment by commercial properties jeopardizes the site where Lee took the initiative and divided his forces, a controversial leadership decision that had allowed Jackson, who would eventually fall in a friendly fire incident that led to his pneumonia, to roll up the Union’s right flank and rout a force that doubled his own.

“The experience of walking in those footsteps will be irreparably changed,” said author Jeff Shaara, who has written multiple novels about the Civil War, including “Gods and Generals.”

With counterinsurgency playing such a large role in military operations, the Army and Marines could learn a lot from the ways the Union fought John Singleton Mosby, William Quantrill and Bloody Bill Anderson, partisans who engaged the Federal Army from the Atlantic all the way to Kansas. But with battlefields across the country succumbing to urban sprawl, those lessons may fade away into the past.

Tagged civil war, Department of Defense, military history, national security