"We Must Fight the Net" - Pentagon

[Echo In Light]

"We Must Fight the Net"
Information Operation Roadmap Part 3
Brent Jessop - Knowledge Driven Revolution.com
November 19, 2007

The Pentagon's Information Operations Roadmap is blunt about the fact that an internet, with the potential for free speech, is in direct opposition to their goals. The internet needs to be dealt with as if it were an enemy "weapons system".

The 2003 Pentagon document entitled the Information Operation Roadmap was released to the public after a Freedom of Information Request by the National Security Archive at George Washington University in 2006. A detailed explanation of the major thrust of this document and the significance of information operations or information warfare was described by me here.

Computer Network Attack

From the Information Operation Roadmap:

"When implemented the recommendations of this report will effectively jumpstart a rapid improvement of CNA capability." - 7

"Enhanced IO capabilities for the warfighter, including: ... A robust offensive suite of capabilities to include full-range electronic and computer network attack..." - 7
Would the Pentagon use its computer network attack capabilities on the Internet?

Fighting the Net

"We Must Fight the Net. DoD is building an information-centric force. Networks are increasingly the operational center of gravity, and the Department must be prepared to "fight the net." " - 6

"DoD's "Defense in Depth" strategy should operate on the premise that the Department will "fight the net" as it would a weapons system." - 13
It should come as no surprise that the Pentagon would aggressively attack the "information highway" in their attempt to achieve dominance in information warfare. Donald Rumsfeld's involvement in the Project for a New American Century sheds more light on the need and desire to control information.

PNAC Dominating Cyberspace

The Project for a New American Century (PNAC) was founded in 1997 with many members that later became the nucleus of the George W. Bush administration. The list includes: Jeb Bush, Dick Cheney, I. Lewis Libby, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz among many other powerful but less well know names. Their stated purpose was to use a hugely expanded U.S. military to project "American global leadership." In September of 2000, PNAC published a now infamous document entitled Rebuilding America's Defences. This document has a very similar theme as the Pentagon's Information Operations Roadmap which was signed by then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

From Rebuilding America's Defenses:

"It is now commonly understood that information and other new technologies... are creating a dynamic that may threaten America's ability to exercise its dominant military power." - 4

"Control of space and cyberspace. Much as control of the high seas - and the protection of international commerce - defined global powers in the past, so will control of the new "international commons" be a key to world power in the future. An America incapable of protecting its interests or that of its allies in space or the "infosphere" will find it difficult to exert global political leadership." - 51

"Although it may take several decades for the process of transformation to unfold, in time, the art of warfare on air, land, and sea will be vastly different than it is today, and "combat" likely will take place in new dimensions: in space, "cyber-space," and perhaps the world of microbes." - 60
For more on Rebuilding America's Defences read this.

http://www.knowledgedrivenrevolution.com/Articles/200711/20071119_IOR_3_Fight_Net.htm