Recent global geopolitical events have highlighted the pivotal role that information and cyber operations play as part of orchestrated strategic, operational and tactical campaigns. The ability to deny, disrupt and dislocate the understanding and decision making of nation states, their defense organizations, and the broader global interconnected communities enables the Freedom of Action required by military organizations to isolate and prosecute their strategic aims on the battlefield. It is of note that there is nothing unexpected in this approach.
A plethora of defense and academic papers and publications, and both current and previous confrontations, have continued to emphasize how states have been adapting their force structures and approaches to fully embrace and apply cyber and informational capabilities. As evidenced in past and ongoing conflicts, we see today’s strategic context as a continuous struggle in which non-military and military instruments are used unconstrained by any distinction between peace and war: there is an increasing focus on the contest to disrupt, paralyze, or destroy the strategic and operational capability and engagement of the adversary‘s operational system, described variously as Information Confrontation, Systems Confrontation and System Destruction Warfare.