INFORMATION OPERATIONS
Cyber Influence Operations: A Battle of Wits and Bits – Strategies and Capabilities of Major Players (Part II)
Over the last decade, strategic ramifications of Cyber Influence Operations (CIO) have been felt with increasing impact in various global conflict scenarios. The previous articles in this series on CIO have dwelt on conceptual aspects, bringing out that the emerging notion of CIO lies at the confluence of Cyber Operations and Influence Operations, and is essentially a manifestation of Information Operations in cyberspace. This piece in is continuation to “Strategies and Capabilities of Major Players – Part I”, wherein an insight was given into the doctrinal approach, operational employment, and organizational capabilities of Russia and China for conduct of CIO. This part does the same for China, and also touches upon Pakistan’s efforts to employ CIO stratagems against India. A brief look is also taken on how the differing political ideologies of democratic and autocratic regimes could play a role in influencing their CIO strategies.
Cyber Influence Operations: A Battle of Wits and Bits – Strategies and Capabilities of Major Players (Part I)
Over the last decade, strategic ramifications of Cyber Influence Operations (CIO) have been felt with increasing impact in various global conflict scenarios. Notable examples include the cyber operations conducted against Estonia (2007), Georgia (2008) and Ukraine (2015 onwards), and interference in the US presidential elections in 2016, all these purportedly at the behest of Russia. The United States and China, amongst other countries, have also developed strategies and doctrines and operationalized their CIO capabilities for achieving strategic cognitive effects. The previous articles in this series have dwelt on conceptual aspects, bringing out that the emerging notion of CIO lies at the confluence of Cyber Operations and Influence Operations, and is essentially a manifestation of Information Operations in cyberspace. This article (in two parts) provides an insight into the strategic employment of CIO by major players, primarily Russia, US and China, by giving an overview of their doctrinal approach and operational employment of CIO, as also organizational capabilities to support these operations. To a lesser extent, Pakistan’s efforts to employ CIO stratagems against India are touched upon. A brief look is also taken on how the differing political ideologies of democratic and autocratic regimes could play a role in influencing their CIO strategies.
Cyber Influence Operations: A Battle of Wits and Bits – Targets, Techniques and Stratagems
Cyber Influence Operations (CIO) are proving to be an increasingly potent capability in the armoury of nations for achieving strategic effects in global conflict scenarios. The current series on CIO is an endeavour to bring clarity to the concept and operational aspects of CIO and emphasize its emerging importance in 21st Century conflicts, with special reference to the Indian security scenario. The first article in this series dwelt on conceptual aspects, bringing out that the emerging notion of CIO lies at the confluence of Cyber Operations and Influence Operations, and is essentially a manifestation of Information Operations in cyberspace. This second article takes a step further and dwells on the multiple dimensions along which different flavours of CIO might unfold, the large variety of techniques which are available for conduct of CeSIO and CeTIO, and the manner in which these techniques may be synergistically employed to execute a multitude of creative influence stratagems in cyberspace.
Cyber Influence Operations: A Battle of Wits and Bits – The Cauldron of Concepts and Terminologies
The notion of Cyber Influence Operations (CIO) has invited tremendous attention over the last decade or so, more so after the alleged interference by Russia in the US presidential elections of 2016. A literal understanding of the term CIO would suggest any activity undertaken to influence a target audience through the medium of cyberspace. However, a formal conceptualisation of CIO, together with associated terminology, is still a work in progress, and is closely intertwined with the relatively more mature concepts of Information Operations (IO), Cyberspace Operations (CO) and Influence Operations. The current series on CIO is an endeavour to bring clarity to the concept and operational aspects of CIO and emphasize its emerging importance in 21st Century conflicts, with special reference to the Indian security scenario. In this first article of the series, an attempt is made to achieve a degree of coherence in the cauldron of concepts and terminologies associated with CIO.
Cyber Skill Development in the Indian Armed Forces: An Exploratory Overview
The emergence of cyberspace as a formidable new domain of warfare in a multi-dimensional battlespace is a comparatively recent phenomenon. In view of this development, major world players have evolved national cyber security strategies and restructured their cyber organisations in order to adequately secure their respective national cyberspaces. This work is based on the author’s conviction that cyber governance in India needs to undergo a transformative restructuring with our Armed Forces at the helm, and that a full-fledged Cyber Command must be raised at the earliest. Assuming that approval for this is granted, a long lead time would be needed for steering the Command to full operational status. This is because, unlike other warfighting skills, training of cyber warriors is a highly complex task which cannot be accomplished in a compressed time-frame. This work gives an exploratory insight into the important issue of cyber skill development in the Indian Armed Forces.
China’s Strategic Support Force and its Implications for India – Part III
With the raising of the PLA Strategic Support Force (SSF), China has taken a very significant step forward towards operationalising its military doctrine of fighting and winning informationized wars. Creation of the SSF demonstrates China’s firm conviction that the Information domain has emerged as a daunting new arena of military conflict. In the earlier two parts of this three part series, an insight was given into the concept and broad organizational structure of the SSF, and how its space and IW capabilities have been reorganized. In this concluding part, we discuss how the SSF will fulfil its twin objectives of providing strategic information support and executing strategic information operations, highlight the implications of the creation of SSF on the Indian security scenario and list out the resulting imperatives which need to be urgently addressed by us.
China’s Strategic Support Force and its Implications for India – Part II
The Strategic Support Forces (SSF) serves to integrate the PLA’s strategic space, cyber, electronic and psychological warfare capabilities under a single organisation. In doing so it also effectively operationalises its two well-known hybrid warfare concepts, namely, Integrated Network Electronic Warfare (INEW) and Three Warfares (comprising of psychological, media and legal warfare). This work studies the concept underlying the reorganisation of the PLA’s space and IW capabilities under the SSF and its implications for India. In the first part of this three part series, an insight was given into the concept and broad organizational structure of the SSF, as also how its space assets have been reorganized. In this part, a look is taken at how the IW capabilities have been restructured under the SSF. It also briefly reviews the closely related intelligence and information processing functions, and how the raising of the SSF has affected them.
China’s Strategic Support Force and its Implications for India – Part I
The Strategic Support Force (SSF) was created as part of the reforms which were initiated by the PLA in 2015. The integration of strategic space, cyber, electronic and psychological warfare capabilities under the single umbrella of the SSF gives an insight into how the PLA plans to fight informationized wars of the 21st Century. The creation of the SSF is expected to considerably enhance the combat potential of the PLA as a result of increased synergy amongst its space and Information Warfare (IW) capabilities. This work analyses the concept, organisation and operational capabilities of the SSF. It goes on to compare the IW structures of China, United States and India, leading to some noteworthy conclusions and recommendations. In this first part of a three part series, an insight is given into the concept and broad organizational structure of the SSF, as also how its space assets have been re-organized.
Cyberspace Governance in India: Transform or Perish – Part III
This three part series on cyberspace governance in India seeks to analyse whether our existing organisational structures are adequately optimised to address the new challenges emerging in cyberspace, which is fast proving to be a daunting new domain of conflict amongst nations. The first two parts analysed cyber threats and cyber defence strategies, reviewed our existing cyberspace governance architecture and studied global practices adopted by the more agile nations for protecting their respective national cyberspaces. This concluding part proposes several transformative changes to our cyberspace organisational structures as well as to our HRD policies. It is felt that these changes must be implemented on priority if we are to shield ourselves from strategic threats which are imminent in cyberspace in this era of modern warfare.
Cyberspace Governance in India: Transform or Perish – Part II
With cyberspace having emerged as a new arena of conflict between nations, the more agile nations have brought about transformative changes in their cyber defence organisations. This three-part series analyses the important issue of cyber governance in India. The first part identified different types of cyber threats from the perspective of organising for cyberspace defence and discussed several cyber defence strategies which are relevant in the Indian context. This part first takes a look at our existing cyberspace governance architecture and analyses its shortcomings. It then reviews global practices for protecting national cyberspaces with a view to proposing suitable modifications for best addressing the national security challenges which we are being confronted with as a consequence of ever increasing conflicts in cyberspace.