Infowar

As computers and the Internet became increasingly important to modern societies, military strategy evolved to take them into account.

Advanced societies rely on telecommunications networks, electronics equipment and information for the coordination of critical industries and for warfare. Infowar, the disruption of these information channels, has become part of modern warfare.

"Infowar" evolved from the psychological operations and disinformation campaigns of the twentieth century. In addition to leafletting, broadcasting and other more established methods of information warfare, modern militaries now use computer viruses, network hacking, encryption cracking and frequency jamming to wreak havoc on the other side's military operations, financial institutions, media, transportation and other critical areas.

Such techniques will become more prominent as battlefield equipment advances in technology. Ever more commonly, soldiers will be wearing helmets that include microphones, earphones, night-vision goggles and a heads-up battlefield display. Defeating such gadgetry through jamming or disinformation will be a crucial component of infowar.

Infowar also includes battle simulations. Computer simulations may convince strategists whether to fight or not. Entire wars could be fought virtually, with the participants skipping to the peace treaty based on the probable outcome as predicted by computers.

Source: October 15, 1995, Times of London article "Dawn of the cyber soldiers;" Agence France-Presse article "Taiwan armed with 1,000 viruses."