U.S. Debated Cyberwarfare in Attack Plan on Libya

[alp227]

Source: NYT

Just before the American-led strikes against Libya in March, the Obama administration intensely debated whether to open the mission with a new kind of warfare: a cyberoffensive to disrupt and even disable the Qaddafi government’s air-defense system, which threatened allied warplanes.

While the exact techniques under consideration remain classified, the goal would have been to break through the firewalls of the Libyan government’s computer networks to sever military communications links and prevent the early-warning radars from gathering information and relaying it to missile batteries aiming at NATO warplanes.

But administration officials and even some military officers balked, citing the precedent it might set for other nations, in particular Russia or China, to carry out cyberraids of their own, and questioning whether the attack could be mounted on such short notice. They were also unable to resolve whether the president had the power to proceed with such an attack without informing Congress.

In the end, American officials rejected the cyberattacks and used conventional aircraft, cruise missiles and drones to strike the Libyan air-defense missiles and radars used in Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s government.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/world/africa/cyber-warfare-against-libya-was-debated-by-us.html

[Name removed]

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[TheWraith]

2. We have no troops in Libya.

Also, we're out of Iraq at the end of the year, and drawdown is starting in Afghanistan. In case you were unaware.

[FreeBillClinton]

3. Odd story... now we worry about setting precedent?

I think we are already doing this kind of stuff. See: the attack on Iranian nuclear sites.

And if we are worried about setting precedent, killing people from flying drones might have been one to avoid.