Nowadays, information has become the lifeblood of a country's economy. How to occupy more information resources and control and restrict the information of other countries will become an important content of competition among countries in peacetime and an important means of warfare in wartime.
Information warfare has become the fourth front after the three-dimensional space war of land, sea and air. In this war without smoke, both warring parties should try their best to destroy or destroy the enemy's information system on the premise of protecting the security of their own information systems, so as to gain the initiative in the war.
The concept of information warfare is generally divided into three levels.
The first level: strengthen and change traditional tactics with electronic information equipment, and carry out military operations assisted by information equipment, including the application of information warfare electronic equipment such as microwave radar guidance, laser guidance, infrared imaging guidance and GPS guidance.
The second level: direct war in the information field. Today's monitoring technology, high-speed computer, powerful information system and high-precision guidance system will greatly change the form of war.
The third level: from the information war in the military battlefield to the information war in the whole society. With the increasing dependence of modern society on computers and information systems, network systems will be more and more vulnerable to information attacks, and information warfare has become a high-tech system for all combat operations, including command and control operations, terrorism and anti-terrorism activities, as well as defending the lifeline of the national economy.
The main means and weapons of information warfare include computer viruses, electromagnetic pulse weapons, electronic biological weapons and hackers. Among them, virus countermeasure is an important way of information warfare.
Professor Shen from the Communication Command College of the General Staff Department is the earliest expert engaged in the theoretical research of information warfare in China. A few days ago, the reporter interviewed Professor Shen on related issues in the field of information warfare.
Q: If expressed in the simplest terms, what is information warfare? When did this concept first appear? Who proposed it?
A: Information warfare is a struggle to seize and maintain the right to control information. It also refers to a series of combat activities carried out by hostile parties on the battlefield to gain the right to obtain, control and use information by using, destroying the enemy and protecting their own information systems.
The concept of information warfare first appeared after the Gulf War in 199 1 and was put forward by the US military. Information warfare is mentioned in 1992 "Department of Defense Directive" issued by the US Department of Defense.
Q: How should we understand the "information" in information warfare? What does it mainly contain?
A: Shen Nong, an American author of information theory, believes that information is used to eliminate random uncertainty.
Information has a broad meaning. Language, characters, numbers, symbols, figures and images, electromagnetic waves, sounds, colors, light, smells, the movement of everything in the world and even the universe, and human behavior and thinking trends can all be used to express information.
All wars are inseparable from information. Modern war is dominated by information, which plays a very important role in the war. The combination of information and combat weapon platform can produce information weapon, which can greatly improve the strike accuracy and operational efficiency of weapon platform; Commanders can use information and various information-based command means to command and adjust troops in time to win the battle.
Information warfare mainly includes information warfare, electronic warfare, network warfare, psychological warfare, precision warfare, information deception, and operational secrecy.
Q: So, when did the research on "information warfare" and its related theories begin?
A: 199 1 Before the Gulf War, there was no formulation and systematic theoretical research on information warfare. The research of information warfare theory is basically individual behavior, which is carried out by individual military theory experts in various countries. The content of the study is mainly the basic concepts and possible development direction. After the Gulf War, there was a worldwide upsurge of theoretical research on information warfare, and China and the United States were at the forefront of the armies of all countries in the world.
Q: Before the information war, what other forms of war were there? What is its main weapon?
A: Before information warfare, there were three forms of warfare:
Cold weapon war: the warring parties engage in brutal face-to-face fighting. Spears, knives, swords and shields are mainly used as offensive and defensive weapons.
Hot weapon war: the invention of gunpowder completely changed the form of war. The warring parties mainly use guns, guns, firepower and fortifications as offensive and defensive weapons.
Mechanized war: The development of steel, mechanical kinetic energy and firepower has brought about new changes in the form of war. The two sides of the war mainly use mechanical kinetic energy and firepower as offensive and defensive weapons, and invest aircraft, ships, tanks and artillery with strong mechanical force and firepower on the battlefield to determine the outcome of the war.
Q: What is the sign of the beginning of information warfare?
A: The beginning of information warfare is marked by extensive information offensive and defensive operations in the early stage of the war and throughout the whole war.
For example, in the Gulf War, the multinational forces led by the United States began an intelligence war five and a half months before the "Desert Storm" operation. They began to interfere with the strategic communication of the Iraqi army 23 hours before the war, and began to interfere with the radar early warning system and intelligence communication system of the Iraqi army five hours before the war, and distributed tens of millions of leaflets in Iraq and Kuwait to conduct psychological warfare.
After the war, precise combat weapons were used to launch fierce fire attacks on Iraq's command and control, communication systems, power plants and other information and energy facilities, and information warfare actions such as feint, deception, operational secrecy and cyber warfare were taken.
United States armed forces
Q: What is the biggest difference between information warfare and previous wars?
A: The essence of information warfare is to take information energy as the main means of combat, control energy flow and material flow with information flow, deprive the enemy of its information advantage, maintain its own information advantage, and then grasp the initiative in the battlefield, so as to achieve the operational effect of "defeating the enemy without fighting" or "defeating the enemy with less fighting" to a certain extent.
Information warfare is obviously different from mechanized warfare because it is a "combat style in which information plays a leading role".
First, the purpose of combat is different. The main task and focus of information warfare is to control the "information flow", attack the other party's command and control system, information network and seize the information advantage. Mechanized warfare with firepower as the main purpose is to destroy and annihilate the aircraft, tanks, artillery and ships of the other side.
Second, the combat forces are different. Information warfare is the overall operation of all the staff and the overall strength. Whoever knows information and network can become a "fighter" in the information war field. In mechanized warfare, the combat forces are mainly the army, navy, air force, missiles and special operations forces armed with steel and firepower.
Third, the operating environment is different. In addition to the traditional land, sea, air and outer space, the battlefield space of information warfare also includes electromagnetic, network and psychological space. The battlefield is "borderless". Mechanized warfare is mainly based on the tangible material battlefield environment such as land, sea, air and sky.
Fourth, the nature of combat is different. Information warfare is a battle characterized by attacking the enemy's cognitive ability, which ultimately affects the thinking of enemy personnel, especially war decision makers, and makes them give up confrontation and stop fighting. The essence of mechanized warfare is to destroy each other's effective strength and seize each other's territory and position.
Q: Professor Shen, many people think that in an information-based battle, soldiers only need to press a few buttons as long as they can operate the machine, and the requirements for physical fitness are not so high. Do you agree with this view?
A: This view is wrong. Even in the case of information warfare, soldiers must have good physical fitness.
In the information war, the scope of the battlefield is rapidly expanding, the troops are maneuvering at high speed, the combat time is shortened, the battlefield environment is extremely complicated, and the confrontation between the enemy and ourselves is extremely fierce. Without good physical fitness, it is difficult to adapt to the needs of information warfare.
In today's world, American officers are most afraid of being "fat" because the US military has strict regulations on the promotion of officers, in which physical fitness and weight are one of the key elements. The West Point Military Academy, which enjoys a high reputation in the world and is considered as the cradle of American officers, is also unique in physical training. The school offers 8 physical education class courses, 25 inter-school sports competitions and 26 inter-school sports events, requiring that "every student is an athlete". At the same time, the school also organizes even inhuman "animal training" for freshmen, and arranges them to go to the Arctic in winter and Africa in summer to train under harsh conditions. The total elimination rate of their students in four years is as high as 30%.
Q: What are the new requirements for army building under the conditions of informationization?
A: First, update the military theory, take the creation of information warfare theory to meet the needs of information warfare as the main direction of military theory research, and actively seize the "commanding heights" of the new military revolution in the world today.
The second is to reform the establishment system. Reducing the size of the army, building a digital army and an information battlefield, and establishing a "flat" and "networked" command and control system are important goals of the reform of the military establishment system.
The third is to develop new information warfare weapons. We will put the transformation of existing weapons and equipment with information technology and the development of information weapons and equipment in an important position in army building, and vigorously develop new electronic warfare systems, electromagnetic pulse bombs, graphite bombs, new psychological warfare systems, military information systems, and precision guided weapons systems. To carry out information transformation of the existing weapon system and improve the army's information combat capability.
The fourth is to change military education and training. The emergence of information war requires all countries in the world to promote the reform of military education and training methods, build an information training platform by using modern information technology, innovate training methods, and take the cultivation of compound talents who combine command with technology and meet the needs of information war as the focus of their own military education and training reform.