Section 9: Conclusion and References

Information warfare is a broad concept. It includes things from well-established warfare specialties to Buck Rogers-like technologies. At its core, it isn't really about technology at all. Rather, it's a different approach to conflict that uses information (rather than bullets or bombs) as resources, weapons, and targets. This approach is now making tremendous demands upon the services as they struggle to adapt to this new warfare arena. We're incrementally changing things as our understanding of this new concept improves. To make the most of information warfare, however, an entirely different way of thinking, planning, and operating is needed. Only by considering information as its own realm, and encompassing all its different aspects, can we grow in our capabilities.

One of the current misconceptions is that information warfare is a highly classified topic that can only be discussed by those with strict need-to-know. In reality, IW affects all of us. While it is true that specific capabilities and vulnerabilities must be tightly guarded, there is much more that can (and should) be openly debated. We need to answer all the questions raised here and many more. These answers can only come about through active discussion by the people most affected.

In the industrial age, the most powerful industrial nations achieved supremacy. Those who couldn't, or didn't, adjust either died out or became backwater countries. The same will be true in the information age. If we do not become the pre-eminent information power, then all the carriers and all the submarines and all the aircraft will not do us any good. Information warfare, like it or not, is our future.

REFERENCES
1. Arquilla, John, and David Ronfeldt. Cyberwar is Coming! Bristol, PA: Taylor & Francis, 1993. Originally published in the Journal of Comparative Strategy, Volume 12, no. 2, pp 141-165.
2. Campen, Alan D., ed. The First Information War. AFCEA, 1992.
3. Denning, Peter J. Computers Under Attack. , 1990.
4. Schwartau, Winn. Information Warfare: Chaos on the Electronic Superhighway. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1994.
5. Stoll, Clifford. The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage. New York: Doubleday, 1989.
6. Toffler, Alvin and Heidi. War and Anti-War: Survival at the Dawn of the 21st Century. Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1993.
7. Wiener, Lauren Ruth. Digital Woes: Why We Should Not Depend On Software. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1993

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