The Navy's activity in cyberspace already is showing promise in real-world operations—and it will play a major role in maintaining and promoting the strategic health of free nations as they conduct the international exchange of goods, services, and ideas.
At the dawn of the new millennium, information technology (IT) is hard to miss—from automated teller machines, cellular phones, and Palm Pilots to our own Navy initiatives, including Information Technology for the 21st Century (installed in six carrier battle groups and six amphibious ready groups), the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet (pushing for initial operational capability next year), Link 16, and a host of advanced information sensing and processing systems. Many of you will have read about these new ventures, but this article is not about the technology they exploit. It is about a new domain called "cyberspace" that is being created around that technology. And it is about the operational and strategic imperatives of that new domain.
A New Domain
Cyberspace is electronic computing and communications infrastructure combined with the mental capacities of all the people using it. It can be hard to grasp because it is not like our physical domains. Cyberspace is intangible; it is an information place. It is as real as the thoughts you are thinking, and although there are many physical manifestations—just like your brain and nervous system—it is impossible to pin down in purely physical terms, It is easier to characterize this new domain by its effects and dynamics, which can be seen in everyday activity.
The information capacity of cyberspace has enabled us to live, work, and fight better in the physical battle-space. Because this cyber dimension has shown itself to be so rich and more valuable than ever, it also has become its own battleground—where information warriors fight over access and utility. These basic facts have begun to shape some powerful relationships between cyberspace and naval strategy and operations.
First, it is important to recognize how quickly this new domain is expanding. As Figure 1 shows, new information technology is spreading at a rate more than twice that of the technologies associated with previous industrial era development. Worldwide appetite for the access to cyberspace provided by these technologies is phenomenal. But if you believe like most Americans that all people yearn to be free, and that basic human freedom is based in large degree on the free exchange of ideas and information, this global appetite is not surprising.
Our belief in free trade also is mirrored in this trend. Increasingly, cyberspace is the domain of choice for global business arrangements and financial transactions. Management expert Peter Drucker has stated that "e-commerce is to the information revolution what the railroad was to the industrial revolution." Just as the railroad mastered distance continentally, Drucker observes, e-commerce is mastering it globally. In fact, global economics, already complexly connected through seaborne trade and air transport, is becoming even more interdependent through cyberspace. Alan Greenspan, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, notes that "the remarkable coming together of ... information technologies has begun to alter, fundamentally, the manner in which we do business and create economic value, often in ways that were not readily foreseeable even a decade ago."' This is a profound statement of global strategic change. To illustrate this shift, Figure 2 shows the worldwide Internet population, Clearly this new domain of cyberspace is changing the global environment and, with it, altering strategic activity.
With a unique global span, space is a critical intersection of the physical and cyberspace domains. Portions of the networks that define the structure of cyberspace pass through satellites in earth orbit. Satellite communication systems such as Inmarsat provide direct access to cyberspace from locations that do not have sophisticated local telecommunications networks and are therefore especially valuable for highly mobile users such as navies at sea. In addition, both commercial and military satellites are becoming more and more capable in the remote sensing of terrain and providing vital information about activity on earth. These two reasons—access to spacebased communications and sensing on demand—make space an integral part of the U.S. Navy's strategy and operations.
New Operating Dynamics
To really appreciate the new dynamics of operations associated with cyberspace, we need to see what makes this new domain so useful and attractive at a personal level. Once we understand this personal dimension, we will be better able to apply cyberspace to the roles and activities of naval organizations and their people. The current form of cyberspace turns out to be very different from the standard communications network of telephones that we are used to. Traditional communication devices typically are point-to-point and accommodate one user at a time. Cyberspace, in contrast, is a many-to-many environment where multiple, simultaneous access is the standard. This changes fundamentally the way people operate.
Collaboration is the key behavior in networks such as this, and collaboration where distance is conquered on a global scale means that all of our Navy's intellectual resources can be brought to bear on any issue. Adaptability is created that was heretofore impossible, first in recognizing issues and then in developing innovative solutions. Wide-ranging participation is vital to this adaptability. The speed at which this happens also enables greater operational and strategic speed overall—a distinct advantage in any competition. Accuracy is another key characteristic in the digital transactions taking place in this environment. This results in better operational and tactical precision. These three characteristics—adaptability, speed, and precision—have a positive impact on naval operations.
Our Navy already is realizing benefits:
- Ships, afloat staffs, shore units, and shore headquarters around the Mediterranean region planned 1998's Allied Exercise Med Shark entirely via the Internet.
- During Operation Desert Fox--the strikes against Iraq-- two carrier battle groups concurrently coordinated their strike planning and launches almost exclusively over the Secure Internet Protocol Network (SIPRNET).
- During Operations Noble Anvil and Allied Force in Kosovo and Serbia, SIPRNET replaced standard naval message traffic as U.S. forces' primary means of communication.
- Using the collaborative capabilities of our networks, the Tomahawk land-attack missile targeting and engagement process has been significantly shortened.
- During Seventh Fleet's Fleet Battle Experiment Delta in 1998, a tenfold improvement in Counter-Special Operations Forces attacks was coordinated and executed via our new networks.
- For the John C. Stennis (CVN-74) battle group's 2000 deployment, web-based activity was conducted via their home page on the SIPRNET. This included instant messaging between ships' tactical action officers and engineers and pages for updates to the battle group commander's intentions and activity in the various warfare areas.
The most interesting indicator of change here is that when given the choice between doing business the old way through old communications structures and doing business the new way in a highly networked cyberspace environment, today's sailors are choosing the new way hands down.
New Organizational Challenges
We also have discovered new challenges in working this way. The flow of information is huge, and our systems and organizations have not kept pace. We are optimistic, however, because we have several excellent avenues toward improving the situation:
- We are working to design new information management techniques and to alter organizational processes to capture the information advantage and ensure naval forces are participating in an optimal way. The Third Fleet's NetworkCentric Innovation Center is just one example of the emphasis being put on new processes.
- We are paying close attention to the human-machine cognitive interface and the formats in which all this information is shared. The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command is providing several bridges from research to implementation of improved interfaces.
- Most important, we now see that the coin of the realm is knowledge rather than bits and bytes. Knowledge is the appreciation of all this information by the human users so that it can be put to good use. It focuses on understanding, and it focuses on sharing across the organization. These issues are counterintuitive in hierarchical organizations used to the rigid process of exchanging naval messages. This is a sweeping realization, relevant not just to processes and interfaces but to every other organizational element as well, from new personnel roles to training to culture, and from knowledge-generating tactics to organizational structure.
We are working on developments on all these fronts. In Global Wargame 2000 at the Naval War College, for example, several new concepts for knowledge management and effects coordination were examined that clearly implied new organizational structures and roles. These new methods, roles, and specific behaviors will continue to be developed, war gained, and evolved together with new information systems, and eventually will be introduced into fleet units and organizations.
New Strategic Imperatives
The relationship between cyberspace and high-level maritime strategy also is becoming clearer. In this increasingly connected world—where electronic commerce and communication flow so far and so freely, and where wide access and combined knowledge fuel the new behavioral advantages—our Navy will begin to see itself in two ways. We are participants in this domain of cyberspace, similar to all other participants, leveraging the new environment for competitive advantages across our entire organization, and we are at the same time guardians of this global activity. Free nations and their navies, to be engaged and relevant in this new age, need unimpeded access to cyberspace for sharing their lifeblood of knowledge. Thus, the U.S. Navy and its companion navies are confronted with a few strategic cyberspace imperatives:
- If our allied and coalition navies intend to increase mutual understanding with each other, with other potential partners such as humanitarian organizations, and even with potential adversaries, then we need to enhance our use of and access to cyberspace. It is the medium for creating and conveying the knowledge on which mutual understanding is based. Enhancing our access to this domain implies a tremendous interest in the global norms of behavior in cyberspace. As a matter of policy, we need to be engaged in the formulation of cyberspace law and custom. As a matter of operations, we need to appreciate the global, regional, and local norms that both enable and limit our naval use of cyberspace.
- Because navies routinely operate overseas, they must take the lead in exercising and guaranteeing interoperability with partners. This is achieved not just by use of similar equipment but also through access to local information exchange, procedures, protocols, and infrastructures. Most especially, because the new coin of the realm is knowledge, we must continually experience the local context and cultures that provide the basis for shared understanding.
- The use of cyberspace is tied closely to action in the physical domain. Concurrent local access to both cyberspace and physical domains will be vital when the time comes to make a difference at a crisis location or to protect global commerce. The ability of navies to operate relatively freely together at sea and in cyberspace gives us an advantage of access in both domains—and gives our Navy tremendous strategic influence in globally interdependent systems and worldwide events.
The Navy's Place
When you hear our proud talk about IT-21, the Navy-- Marine Corps Intranet, and new and expanded data links, satellites, command-and-control systems, and other networking tools, you should realize that the Navy's activity in cyberspace already has begun to show promise in real-world operations. In fact, it also bears several significant strategic imperatives. The U.S. Navy's presence and operations in the new domain of cyberspace fulfill a major role in maintaining and promoting the strategic health of free nations on a global scale, as those nations conduct international exchange of goods, services, and ideas. This is a role for which navies always have provided unique power, and one that has greatly increased significance in the Information Age.
All our domains are becoming more tightly entwined. From the sea ... into the littoral, across the shore, and into space and cyberspace. It's a brave new world and there is no turning back. We are ready and getting wiser and more capable every day.
Admiral Mayo is Director of Space, Information Warfare, and Command and Control. He and his staff coordinate CNO strategies, policies, and programs in information technology; information and knowledge management; Navy information infrastructures; command, control, communications, and computing systems (C4); tactical exploitation of national sensor systems; integration of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance with C4; and Navy use of space. This article is adapted from remarks delivered at the International Seapower Symposium in Newport, Rhode Island.