Arquilla, John / Ronfeldt, David (1997): In Athena's Camp. Preparing
for Conflict in Information Age, Rand Corporation, p. 30, ISBN
0-8330-2514-7
"Cyberwar refers to conducting military operations according
to information-related principles. It means disrupting or destroying
information and communications systems. It means trying to know
everything about an adversary while keeping the adversary from
knowing much about oneself. It means turning the "balance
of information and knowledge" in one's favor, especially
if the balance of forces is not. It means using knowledge so that
less capital and labor may have to be expended.
This form of warfare may involve diverse technologies, notably
for command and control, for intelligence collection, processing
and distribution, for tactical communications, positioning, identifying
friend-or-foe, and for "smart" weapons systems, to give
but a few examples. It may also involve electronically blinding,
jamming, deceiving, overloading and intruding into an adversary's
information and communications circuits."
The testfield for real-time communication, which is an indispensible
basis for any Cyberwar applications, has been the command and
control system for strategic nuclear weapons. The gulf war 1991
of the U.S. and her allies was the first 'theater,' where such
principles were tested. To enable a broader understanding of the
U.S. attempt of achieving military superiority in all areas of
possible and 'virtual' warfare, we would like to draw attention
on new aspects in strategic and tactical nuclear weapons doctrine
and planning, as well as in research and development in nuclear
testing simulation. Discussing Cyber- and Information Warfare
seems to be embedded in a more general concept about overall changes
of U.S. military startegies. This is why we offer here links,
materials, literature, comments and quotations to what may be
called an 'arms race without an enemy.'
Since the end of the Cold War the importance of nuclear weapons
for strategic stability seems to have been diminshed. In 1995,
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation-Treaty (NPT) has been extended with
no timelimit and in 1996 the CTBT, the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty prohibiting nuclear test explosions, has been signed. As
of today, two nuclear powers, France and Great Britain have ratified
the CTBT, the U.S., Russia and China have not. Beside the U.S.,
NATO still holds an integrated nuclear force in Europe with free
falling bombs (B61) and tactical aircraft fighter wings, operated
by seven NATO countries in Europe. On the Web you may have a look
at BASIC's (British American Security Information Council)
Homepage http://www.basicint.org
to get latest information
on NATO's nuclear stockpiles in Europe and the transformation
form the U.S. and NATO doctrine of using nuclear weapons as a
deterrent to a counter-proliferation strategy.
"Belgium's Nuclear Bomber Force: Targeting Iraq?
Following a sea-change in Europe's security structure, NATO nuclear
doctrine has begun a dramatic shift away from countering the Russian
threat and toward countering the threat of proliferation of weapons
of mass destruction. European sources reliably state that NATO's
latest military strategy, approved in June 1996 in a classified
document called MC400/1, retains 'first use' of nuclear weapons
as a option in an offensive counterproliferation mission outside
the Alliance area.
In early January 1998, NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana inspected
US nuclear weapons stored at Kleine Brogel Air Force Base in Belgium.
As revealed in BASIC work in 1996, Kleine Brogel is one of 15
bases in six European countries installing new storage vaults
for nuclear weapons for use by NATO. The nuclear weapons are under
the control of U.S. 52nd Munitions Support Squadron, whose mission
is 'to positively control, reliably maintain, flawlessly account
for, and promptly release U.S. munitions to the Belgian Air Force's
10th Wing Tactical in support of it's NATO strike mission.'
Kleine Brogel is the home of Belgian's 10th Wing Tactical, which
includes a squadron of F-16 fighter aircraft trained to use nuclear
weapons. The 10th Wing routinely runs exercises involving mock
loading, deployment and use of nuclear weapons. As Secretary of
State Madeline Albright recently stated, '[T]here is widespread
participation by European NATO allies in collective defense planning,
in basing nuclear forces, and in consultation arrangements.'
It is highly unlikely that the Belgian Air Force will be involved
in a strike against Iraq. However, NATO nuclear doctrine increasingly
focuses on counterproliferation. The doctrine states that nuclear
weapons may be used to deter the use of weapons of mass destruction
and their means of delivery in crisis areas. New 'adaptive target
capability' is designed to enhance freedom of action for NATO
forces so they can fulfill their out-of-area mission."
Like this short quotation a of lot of recent studies concerning
U.S. and NATO's nuclear strategy and doctrine can be found at
BASIC's Web-site. Some of them will be mentioned here again. Two
recent German language publications deal with the role of nuclear
arms in Europe
Schöfbänker, Georg (1998): Atomwaffen im neuen Europa.
In: Mader, Gerald; Eberwein, Wolf-Dieter; Vogt, Wolfgang R.: (Ed):
Europäische Friedensordnung. Konturen einer Sicherheitsarchitektur.
Studien für europäische Friedenspolitik, Bd. 3, Münster:
agenda-Verlag, 280-309. ISBN 3-89688-020-9.
and with the transformation of the U.S. nuclear strategy at the
end of the Cold War.
Meier, Oliver (1998): Wettlauf ohne Gegner? Die amerikanische
Atomwaffenpolitik nach dem Ende des Ost-West-Konfliktes. Münster:
agenda-Verlag. ISBN 3-89688-024-1.
Despite the end of the Cold War in 1990 the global nuclear stockpile
is still enormous:
"Global Nuclear Stockpiles: 19451997
The five acknowledged nuclear powers possess about 36,000 nuclear
warheads. Many thousands of these warheads, especially in Russia,
await dismantlement or are non-operational, but the number still
active and operational - an estimated 22,000 - is higher than
one might expect. Future plans for new warheads are not clear
in every case."
Get the full article under:
http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/nukenotes/nd97nukenote.html
It is known that the strategic nuclear arms of the U.S. and Russia
still operate under the so called 'launch on attack-formula'.
"Taking Nuclear Weapons off Hair-Trigger Alert" would
be an important confidence building goal, as a recent investigation
by Bruce G. Blair, Harold A. Feiveson and Frank N. von Hippel
published in the Nov. 1997 number of Scientific American
shows. "It is time to end the practice of keeping nuclear
missiles constantly ready to fire. This change would greatly reduce
the possibility of a mistaken launch". This article revealed
an almost unkown nuclear incident in the Moscow based command-
and control chain of the Russian strategic nuclear forces in 1995:
"On January 25, 1995, military technicians at a handful of
radar stations across northern Russia saw a troubling blip suddenly
appear on their screens. A rocket, launched from somewhere off
the coast of Norway, was rising rapidly through the night sky.
Well aware that a single missile from a U.S. submarine plying
those waters could scatter eight nuclear bombs over Moscow within
15 minutes, the radar operators immediately alerted their superiors.
The message passed swiftly from Russian military authorities to
President Boris Yeltsin, who, holding the electronic case that
could order the firing of nuclear missiles in response, hurriedly
conferred by telephone with his top advisers. For the first time
ever, that 'nuclear briefcase' was activated for emergency use.
For a few tense minutes, the trajectory of the mysterious rocket
remained unknown to the worried Russian officials. Anxiety mounted
when the separation of multiple rocket stages created an impression
of a possible attack by several missiles. But the radar crews
continued to track their targets, and after about eight minutes
(just a few minutes short of the procedural deadline to respond
to an impending nuclear attack), senior military officers determined
that the rocket was headed far out to sea and posed no threat
to Russia. The unidentified rocket in this case turned out to
be a U.S. scientific probe, sent up to investigate the northern
lights. Weeks earlier the Norwegians had duly informed Russian
authorities of the planned launch from the offshore island of
Andoya, but somehow word of the high-altitude experiment had not
reached the right ears."
For the full story surf to the the Scientific American
under:
http://www.sciam.com/1197issue/1197vonhippel.html
This use of real time command-, control- and communications systems
(C3) for strategic nuclear weapons is certainly 'one layer' below
the use in case of (tactical) Cyberwar-applications or more than
two levels below of waging information war. But all the
more, this threat of having a serious accident with nuclear weapon
systems is not a 'virtual' one, it is a 'real' one.
At the end of the Cold War U.S. nuclear planning included mostly
targets in the Soviet Union and in the Peoples Republic of China
and a lot of 'friendly targets' in case of a conventional attack
of the Red Army against NATO. The variety of potential strikes
the military planned, were the simplified choices the political
leadership (the Presidents) might have had to decide upon in case
of emergency or attack. Until the final end of the Cuban missile
crisis in 1961 - then the world was at the brink of a nuclear
armageddon - military planning was prepared only for one shot,
one single integrated operation plan (SIOP) against the enemy's
nuclear arms. In the aftermaths of the Cuban crisis U.S. nuclear
planning diversified to what became later official NATO doctrine
for the use of nuclear weapons, the 'flexible response'.
One might think that the U.S. nuclear targeting list should have
been decreased at the end of the Cold War. The opposite happened.
Instead, the list of targets was enlarged.
Leave no Stone unburned.
Independant U.S. investigations by William Arkin from the
NRDC's (Natural Resources Defense Council
http://www.nrdc.org)
under the Freedom Of Information Act revealed about 450.000
targets for U.S. nuclear weapons, a lot of them in friendly nations
or on the territory of allies:
"Best of all is the exhaustive list of two-letter country
codes in the Defense Intelligence Agency's Target Intelligence
Handbook. AY is Antartica, MX is Mexico, CA is Canada, and
EA - you didn't guess it, did you? is Earth's moon. By not calling
it the moon, other moons can be added to future target
lists without screwing up the lettering convention."
[Gutenberg quotation, no WEB-link available: Arkin, William M.
(1997): Leave no stone unburned. In: Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists, Vol. 53, No. 4, July/August 1997, 64.]
Despite diplomatic pledges of the U.S. administration in 1995
not to threat or not attack Non Nuclear Weapon States, parties
to the NPT (Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty), this so called
'negative security assurances' have been completely reversed on
the technical and doctrinal level.
New bomb, no mission.
"The government says it is no longer building new bombs.
So why is it deploying a new version of the B61 nuclear bomb?
The cold war may be over, but the nuclear arms race has not quite
ended. The United States is fielding a new nuclear weapon--a bomb
that was used to threaten Libya, a non-nuclear nation, even before
it was deployed. The B61 'mod-11' gravity bomb is the first new
nuclear capability added to the U.S. arsenal since 1989. It was
developed and deployed secretly, without public or congressional
debate, and in apparent contradiction to official domestic and
international assurances that no new nuclear weapons were being
developed in the United States. The B61-11's unique earth-penetrating
characteristics and wide range of yields allow it to threaten
otherwise indestructible targets from the air--or, in Pentagonese,
to hold such targets 'at risk.' That makes the B61-11 a uniquely
useful warfighting tool."
For the full article of Greg Mello have a look at:
http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/1997/mj97/mj97mello.html
The B61-11, subtype of all U.S. owned and by NATO operated nuclear
weapons in Europe, B61-different subtypes, was in 1997 clandestinly
introduced into the U.S. arsenal. One year before, on 9the Feb.
1996, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staffs, published their recent
doctrine on tactical nuclear arms use. It is an official public
document: Joint Pub 3-12.1., Doctrine for Joint Theater Nuclear
Operations which may be obtained in pdf-format under:
http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/new_pubs/jp3_12_1.pdf
The central message of this document is, as Greg Mello has pointed
on:
- "belligerent response", a term used by the Clinton
White House to mean nuclear reprisals against non-nuclear states
who use weapons of mass destruction.
- "agent defeat". The incineration of chemical and
biological agents on the ground and in flight.
- the destruction of "facilities and operation centers"
in the hands of "non-state actors" who possess weapons
of mass destruction (WMD).
and last, but not least,
- preemptive strikes against nuclear, chemical, and biological
installations and command and control centers.
- As Joint Pub 3-12.1., p. III-8 states:
"Operations must be planned and executed to destroy or eliminate
enemy WMD delivery systems and supporting infrastructure before
they can be employed against friendly forces. For these reasons,
offensive operations against enemy WMD and delivery systems should
be undertaken once hostilities become inevitable or commence"
But this documents goes far beyond of what has been 'deterrence'
in the Cold War or what was intended to counter attacks of perceived
superior conventional forces in an over-all block confrontation
on the battlefield. Under the title:
"Desired Results from the Use of Nuclear Weapons"
(p. I-2, emphasis added)
the following five goals are average goals of general
war-fighting doctrine:
- "Decisively change the perception of enemy leaders about
their ability to win.
- Demonstrate to enemy leaders that, should the conflict continue
or escalate, the certain loss outweighs the potential gain.
- Promptly resolve the conflict on terms favorable to the United
States and our allies.
- Preclude the enemy from achieving its objectives.
- Ensure the success of the effort by US and/or multinational
forces."
Despite all rhetorics of nuclear disarmament, despite all unilateral
disarmaments of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, the U.S.,
as the only country which ever used nuclear weapons (in WW II
against Japan) and chemical weapons (against Vietnam) is preparing
the use of nuclear weapons for new contingencies.
"In November 1997, President Clinton issued a highly classified
Presidential Decision Directive (PDD), giving new guidelines to
the military on targeting nuclear weapons. According to reports,
the new PDD allows for the use of nuclear weapons against 'rogue”
states - those suspected of having access to weapons of mass destruction.
The use of nuclear weapons to deter attack by weapons of mass
destruction, other than nuclear weapons, remains controversial.
General Lee Butler, former Commander-in-Chief of US Strategic
Command, now describes using nuclear weapons as a solution to
chemical or biological attack as an 'out-moded idea.” Conventional
retaliation would be far more proportionate, less damaging to
neighboring states and less horrific for innocent civilians, he
says. 'There are no rogue nations, only rogue leaders.”
[...]
The concept of targeting Third World proliferators is relatively
new to US uclear doctrine. However, since the end of the Cold
War the US military has seen 'increasingly capable Third World
threats” as a new justification for maintaining US strategic
and non-strategic nuclear weapons.
The extensive focus on proliferation of weapons of mass destruction
has resulted in 'fewer but more widespread targets” for the
remaining US nuclear weapons. The US nuclear arsenal is in the
middle of a multi-billion dollar upgrade that will make it capable
of quickly shifting between a greater number of limited contingencies
all over the world."
Kristensen, Hans M. (1998): Nuclear Futures. Proliferation of
Weapons of Mass Destruction. BASIC Research Report 98.2. Get the
full report under:
http://www.basicint.org.
