Like many forms of conflict there those who stridently gather cyber warfare into specifics, create silos, define, and differentiate until the term nears upon meaningless. Through the sifting though it appears the cyber warfare is just the expansion of conflict using new tools not unlike bullets and bombs. If the kinetic end is the same as with other tools what is the difference? A 1000 men slinging sledge hammers can destroy a building. A JDAM dropped by one man in a bomber can destroy a building. A computer network operation causing a furnace to blow up can destroy a building.

The tools of conflict all have their place. The Marine scout/sniper provides intelligence and reconnaissance of an adversary. A satellite can provide instant understanding of troop movements by visual observation of what is happening. A computer network attack can provide understanding of why a movement is happening and what is going to happen into the future.

Is cyber warfare the be-all-end-all of conflict? Absolutely not. Armor in deep swamps are an inappropriate implementation of a fine tactical tool. Air-cavalry in a sand storm is a poor use of helicopters. Every weapon, tactic, and strategy has a place in the spectrum of conflict and the terrain contested. In some ways the cyber terrain is also the weapon. A new paradigm in many ways for consideration of conflict.

While of course Clausewitz had no conception of cyber-warfare, the basic ideas of cyber-warfare — destroying the enemies ability to control his forces, sending him false information, etc., would all fall into general categories of deception and ruses and sowing of confusion that are as old as warfare itself.

The point for the expert on cyberwarfare to bear in mind (I am no such expert, so I merely speculate) may be that whatever the technical novelty of what he is doing, it ultimately meets the tangible world, and has real world effects. And those effects, by analogy, are akin to practices and events in the past. And that may in turn suggest places to look to better understand what cyberwarfare is and might be, how to wage it, and how to defend against it.

Or maybe not … .

I do not really know what cyberwarfare is … .

Very interesting Sam.

The United States had an exceptionally able ambassador in Joseph Grew who was fluent in Japanese and culture but his ability to explain the highly convoluted strategic decision-making process of the Japanese Imperial Cabinet, War Ministry, the Emperor and the Army high command to his superiors in Washington was exceedingly limited. It was simply not a POV that was easily comprehensible to an old Southerner and Progressive like Cordell Hull or even to FDR or Marshall. The Japanese were actively threatening American interests and violating diplomatic agreements regarding China going back to the adminitration of Teddy Roosevelt while being totally dependent upon American shipments of scrap metal and oil.

Such behavior must have seemed incredibly brazen to FDR -and it was but it was also a result of a dysfunctional dynamic on the Japanese side.