Nov. 15, 2019

The Friction Points, Operational Goals, and Research Opportunities of Electronic Warfare and Cyber Convergence

With Electronic Warfare joining the Cyber Branch in October 2018, numerous opportunities and challenges that affect warfighters are surfacing. To capture and consolidate some of these observations, the Electronic Warfare Cyber Convergence (EWC2) workshop, held in conjunction with the 2018 Cyberspace Electromagnetic Activities (CEMA) conference,

Nov. 15, 2019

Artificial Intelligence in Digital Warfare: Introducing the Concept of the Cyberteammate

Technology changes our world at such a rapid pace that our natural, human intelligence has a hard time coping with its brutally disruptive evolution. The transformations of digital technologies have made deep and lasting impacts on our societies. Information, which is at the heart of the last century’s technological developments, has become such an

Nov. 15, 2019

The Post-GIG Era: From Network Security to Mission Assurance

The shortcomings of the Global Information Grid (GIG) may be traced to a discon­nect between cyber policy and technology, and an illusion that cyber defense contributes somehow to mission assurance. Therefore, it is necessary to look past the GIG to a future of affordable access and mission assurance. Prescriptive cyber policies have impeded the

Nov. 15, 2019

Future Geospatial Disinformation Campaigns

Social media is increasingly used as a source of data to provide situational awareness and decision support tools for world events including sporting events, democratic elections, and natural disasters. As this data is increasingly used in these scenarios, it also becomes vulnerable to manipulation. This manipulation can take several forms which

Nov. 14, 2019

Book Review: Dawn of the Code War

With this final sentence in the Epilogue, John Carlin, former Assistant Attorney General for National Security, summarizes the central thrust of his book— telling the story of how “criminals, terrorists, and spies made themselves at home on a global network that was never designed with safety and security in mind” and detailing the ways in which

June 19, 2019

Extension of the machine’s realm: a brief insight into Artificial Intelligence and Cyberspace

“Study the past if you would define the future” ~Confucius     Somewhere during the Pleistocene Era, an Australopithecus picks up a humerus and discovers it can use it for a decisive advantage over its rivals in conquering a waterhole. It then proceeds on celebrating its triumph, raising its newfound weapon to thrust upwards into space where it transforms into a space station. This famous scene from the film “2001: A Space Odyssey” by Stanley Kubrick magisterially captures how the story of humanity is intimately linked to technical progress, and with warfare as its primary driver.

June 11, 2019

Four Reasons eSports is a Strategic Opportunity for Service Academies

In Martin Scorsese’s 1986 film, The Color of Money, pool hustler Fast Eddie Felson (Paul Newman) asks Vincent Lauria (Tom Cruise) if he can make money playing a video game called Stalker. Vincent smirks and replies, “I’ll tell you what I can do off Stalker. Years from now, I can go to West Point. It’s all coming down to video-game reflexes. Computerized tanks. Star Wars. In years, a heavy score on Stalker is a shoo-in at the Point.” Today, more than 3,000 student-athletes from over 130 schools across the nation participate at the collegiate level in organized video game competitions known as eSports. These institutions are at the tip of the spear in an exciting new environment that provides opportunities for learning, external collaboration, and research.

April 30, 2019

The Challenge and Opportunities of Standing on Cloud – Finding our Warfighting Advantage

The Navy is dealing with the challenges of a world where exponentially accelerating and converging technologies impact the way we operate at unprecedented speeds. We must quickly leverage the operational advantages emerging technologies bring to warfighting and be forward-leaning in disrupting their use by adversaries. Similarly to how cloud technologies and Smartphones have fundamentally changed the way we live by accessing and using information in revolutionary ways, victory in warfighting will go to those forces with similar information supremacy. Cloud technologies provide an opportunity to achieve that supremacy, enabling extraordinary benefits through scalable services which support Big Data analytics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and machine learning. Transition away from stove-piped capabilities and sources of data to a cloud environment where authoritative data can be exposed, discovered, and shared for improved situational awareness and decision making is the future. However, the move to the cloud does not come without risks and challenges.

April 30, 2019

Tactical Employment Considerations of HF Radios in the Cavalry Squadron

There are a few misconceptions about the use of High Frequency (HF) communications in the U.S. Army today, especially in a Decisive Action Training Environment (DATE). Based on the US military’s experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan with theater provided equipment, leaders assume that HF will provide the means to conduct a one-for-one exchange of a unit’s typical slate of FM nets to include Command, O&I, A&L and Fires that are each operated on a separate radio. Others assume that since putting an HF radio into operation is relatively easy, units should be able to put an HF network into operation with ease. The truth is that units only have enough HF radios to establish communications between key leaders. To put them into operation in an effective HF network requires a higher level of training and understanding than units currently have. The network is what is needed for effective Mission Command. This article records the observations of Cavalry Squadron’s HF use at the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC), illuminate why units struggle, and convey recommendations and resources for HF training at home station so units can take maximize their HF capabilities for employment in a DATE scenario and prepare for potential large-scale combat operations.

April 30, 2019

Tackling Disinformation, Online Terrorism, and Cyber Risks into the 2020s

Over the past decade, social media has become an abusive component of the general media that we consume daily. In many cases, social media precedes and precludes traditional news mediums, by getting information out early or by providing detailed accounts of what is happening on the ground across the world. What started out as social media users, influencers, and netizens capturing everyday happenings and reporting them in real-time (from 2007 to the present), evolved to include complex and organized propaganda systems by 2009. [1] Early propaganda systems involved state-sponsored propaganda sites presented as independent social media handles. State-sponsored disinformation began with Russian troll activism in Finland in the early 2000s. Infowar expert Dr. Saara Jantunen’s book “Infosota”, published in 2015, details the complicated networks of troll houses and blogs that constitute the concerted Russian infowar effort. [2]