LIBICKI

information systems wend their way into everyones high-technology economic

sectors. Yet, such a threat is easy to exaggerate in a culture grown dependent
on machines that very few understand. With rare and uninteresting exceptions,
there is no such thing as forced entry in cyberspace. Hackers do their damage
because the systems they attack have forgone security that technology makes
possible (whether such security is cost effective depends on the threat and the
value of what is being protected). If the threat is grave enough, a system can
adapt by making entry difficult or, in some cases, impossible. Such adaptations
are not free but are nevertheless trivial compared with defending nations against
conventional invasion or nuclear weapons.
Because the architecture of the security cyberspace cannot help but
favor some interests more than others, those left out may want to corrupt or
degrade the means by which the security cyberspace comes together. If a
data-level attack is unproductive (e.g., viruses defeated because of computer
security), perhaps an information-level attack (e.g., the insertion of ambiguously
misleading bitstreams) may be more effective.
Conclusion
The application of information to military power has three fundamental
elements: perceiving reality and representing it in bits (intelligence), processing
and distributing bits, and using bits to act on reality (operations). In air-combat
terms, this parses to observing, orienting/ deciding, and acting. As cyberspace
(broadly defined) expands, the impact of geography on each segment declines
apace. Already, processing and distributing information is almost entirely liberated
from spatial concerns. The remaining geographical distinction in surveillance is
between the information that can be acquired from beyond borders (e.g., from
space or blue waters) and that which cannot be (and in a pinch, cheap,
untraceable sensors such as UAVs may be used to augment properly collected
data). Lastly, although the application of information to force is still bound by
geography, those who generate and deliver information (i.e., the United States)
need not be the same as those who act on it (i.e., nations under threat).
Any speculation on cyberspace must include the caution that the
inevitable often takes longer than first thought, and institutions differ in their
appreciation of what is, in retrospect, obvious. Logistics (or at least tonnage)
still matters, and so does being there. Colin Gray argues that media also matter,
and hence geography does too. But the importance of both is rapidly fading.
The race may not necessarily go to those who grasp the new pride of
placelessness, but, in cyberspace, that is increasingly the way to bet.
A Rejoinder by Colin S. Gray
Martin Libicki is always interesting, is frequently correct, but ultimately fails to
persuade. The same difficulty attends appraisal of the writings of Robert Jervis;
274 I Orbis
Information and Security
he poses the right questions, often conducts brilliant analyses, but somehow
getsthebiggeranswerswrong. As Libicki piles plausible claim upon persuasive
detail, paragraph by paragraph, one might be misled into endorsing his
extravagant conclusions. Those conclusions have at their core his assertion
concerning the emergence of cyberspace as the arena of international security.
The problem with Libickis argument is not that it is wrong-n the
contrary, most of his argument is correct-but rather that it does not yield the
conclusions for national security that he claims. Unless I have misunderstood
him comprehensively, which is possible but unlikely, I can accept most of his
analytical points as being compatible with the arguments presented in my essay,
while rejecting his conclusions.
My response to Martin Libicki is presented in six broad points, and I
suspect he will agree with much of it. To repeat: my differences with Libicki
lie much more with his strategic judgment than they do with his tactical or
operational analysis.
First, the revolution in military affairs @MA) to which Libicki refers,
whose cutting edge is information dominance, though probably real and
important, is rather less than revolutionary in basic character and purpose. The
quest for, and even the achievement of, information dominance is not unique
to the age of cyberspace. The system of systems would be useful, but then
so were spies, carrier pigeons, staff officers on horseback, submarine telegraph
cables, and radio. All of warfare--and crime-at all times has had as an overlay
the struggle for information dominance.
Secondly, one does not need to be unusually perceptive to notice that
Libickis analysis is pretty barren of obvious human content. He waxes lyrical
about sensing, emitting, communicating, redirecting, cuing, filtering, pinpointing,
classifying, and creating target determinations, but who actually is going to do
the threatening, breaking, and killing that war requires? General Sir Archibald
Wavell once remarked that military history is a flesh-and-blood affair, not a
matter of diagrams and formula or of rules; not a conflict of machines but of
mer~.~ Libicki knows this, but it does not feature in his argument. In Libickis
security universe, wherein cyberspace is king, war has been elevated to a
conveniently bloodless activity. Probably the most significant weakness in his
argument is that he neglects to emphasize, or usually even to mention, that the
computer is just a tool, no more and no less. Tools certainly change the terms
of tactical engagement and may affect operational choice, but equally certainly
they do not undermine fundamentally the distressingly, and inconveniently,
human implications of physical geography.
Thirdly, cyberspace-which may be understood as the sum of the
globes communications links and computational nodes, or placelessness,
1 See Robert Jervis, i%e Illogic of American Nuclear Shategy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984);
and idem, The Meaning of the Nuclear Remlution: Statecrajl and the Bv.pzct of Armageddon (Ithaca, N.Y.:
Cornell University Press, 1989).
2 General Sir Archibald Wave& Generals and GeneralshQ (New York: Macmillan, 1943), p. 24. Emphasis
added.
Spring 1996 I 275
GRAY
may be increasingly the way to bet as winner of the security race, but just
where is that? Geography is altered in its operational and tactical implications
by technical developments---it has always been so-but it is not in the process
of being cancelled by the RMA associated with the exploitation of cyberspace.
Libicki argues that as cyberspace (broadly defmed) expands, the impact of
geography on each segment [perceiving reality and representing it in bits
(intelligence), processing and distributing bits, and using bits to act on reality
(operations)] declines apace. Already, processing and distributing information
is almost entirely liberated from spatial concerns. Crude though this may sound,
human beings and their lethal instruments operate on land, at sea, in the air.
and in space. Cyberspace is a valuable, even invaluable, overlay in each of
those four geographical environments. But cyberspace does not transcend.
transform, or neutralize the significance of those environments. Carrier pigeons,
horse-bound staff officers, or the terminals of cyberspace may each render
military forces maximally effective at the decisive point. Human beings, unlike
cyberspace, are not placeless-they act within geography.
Fourthly, though Libicki allows more space in his text than is usual
among cyberwaniors for Red Team consideration, the strategic context under
discussion still is suspiciously permissive for U.S. cyber-prowess. Anyone re-
spectful of past experience with RMAs will be rightly wary of arguments that
assume a long national lead. Libicki is generally innocent on this front, though
one retains a sneaking suspicion that advocacy as strong as his probably has
not allowed as imaginatively as is needed for counter-cyberwar tactics, operations,
and strategy.
Fifthly, in company with Admiral William Owens, Libicki consigns space
operations to the status of upper tier in a system of systems.5 They may be
right, but it seems to me that recognition, even over-recognition, of the significance
of cyberspace has blinded commentators to the unique features of the exploitation
of space. Appreciation of cyberspace is in some respects intellectually more
challenging, certainly is individually more accessible, but may obscure the vital
importance of control of the geographical fourth dimension of war-outer space.
Lastly, just as Libickis argument is bereft of human content, so it is
presented all but shorn of historical experience. Is Libickis subject truly an
RMA, or is it but the current manifestation of the perennial quest for information
dominance? To read Libicki is, in a sense, to read the texts of yesterdays
prophets for air power and armored and mechanized ground forces. The issue
is not what can cyberspace (or airplanes, or tanks) do, but rather what does it
mean? Inevitably, every theorist will fvld the past that suits him, but
it would be a little reassuring if one could find in Libicki some systematic
respect for the lessons that might be drawn from historical experience.
3 Admiral Wiiliam A. Owens, The Emerging System of Systems," U.S. Ndval InStihlte hCWdi?Zgs, hfay
1995, pp. 35-39.
276 I Orbis