War & Virtual War - 2004 Conference Programme Session 5

Session 5: Future Warfare and the Rise of Cyberwar
Chair: Agnes Maillot

Future Warfare Operations
Bill Doll
Pennsylvania, USA

No abstract is presently available

From Traditional Warfare to Cyberwar: Information War and Dissemination of Propaganda on the Internet in the Light of Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Markku Jokisipilä
Department of Contemporary History, University of Turku, Finland

The recent information revolution has given the concepts of netwar and cyberwar growing importance in discussions about war and warfare. Various activist and extremist groups have successfully used Internet and cellular phones to recruit, coordinate and disseminate propaganda .Together with network-style of organization new technologies allow non-state actors to challenge the state power in an unprecedented way.
Although new ethereal types of warfare are mostly nonmilitary, they have huge implications not only for the ways wars are fought but also for national sovereignty and international law. My presentation discusses these new developments by using the Israeli-Palestinian information war on the Internet as an example.
Israeli-Palestinian cyberwar started in September 2000 with attacks on the websites of Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian National Authority launched by Israeli hackers. Palestinians called for a cyber-Jihad and retaliated by attacking official Israeli websites including the parliament and the army. Hundreds of sites on both sides were attacked, straining the Internet infrastructure immensely. Creating global support network is essential in cyberwar. For a state computer hacking is an asymmetric threat, difficult to prevent and retaliate justifiably. This is partly why the Palestinians have waged the cyberwar so much more successfully than the real life conflict.
With its rapid horizontal escalation, internationalization and proliferating effects Israeli-Palestinian case highlights general patterns of cyberwar. The cost of escalation in cyberwar are small compared to traditional warfare. Thus also U.S., Iranian and Lebanese sites came under attack, and many foreign hackers joined in. The level and significance of ideology-based international participation in cyberwar could be compared to the Spanish Civil War.
Israeli-Palestinian cyberwar involves organizational conflict between traditional hierarchies and decentralized flexible networks. For example Hamas lacks both the hierarchical structure and a single leader and relies heavily on the Internet. Instead of conventional military power countering the threats presented by network opponents requires transnational and cross-jurisdictional cooperation, not easily accomplish by state hierarchies. Individual cyberwars have an inherent risk of spreading all over the internet in form of viruses and worms. They can also damage the real world for example by shutting down electronic grids or telephone systems, or, to paint even a more sinister picture, paralyse air control systems.