Military Review English Edition July-August 2014 | Page 84
The cyberthreat now facing the United States is
equally compelling and risks both the effectiveness of
U.S. forces on the battlefield and the safety of private
and government systems throughout the United
States. Recent Joint Chiefs of Staff-directed cyberwarfare exercises like Eligible Receiver and Zenith Star
showed how vulnerable command and control networks are to cyberattacks, a prime asymmetric target
given the U.S. military’s continued reliance on information technology. Moreover, there are now approximately 30 nations that have developed “aggressive
computer-warfare programs.”14
Again, there is a relevant Indian
war complement to today’s challenges. Indians of the Southern
Plains disrupted American efforts
in the West through unconventional means. “The telegraph line, which
once had commanded their awe,
no longer was mysterious. By 1882,
the Apache had learned its function
and its method of operation. When
they jumped the reservation, they
would cut the lines and remove
long sections of wire, or they would
remove a short piece of wire and
replace it with a thin strip of raw
hide, so cleverly splicing the two
together that the line would appear
intact and the location of the break
could take days of careful checking
to discover.”15 This disruption foreshadows the potentially far greater
problems from cyberattacks if we
do not design strategy and tactics
for dealing with this as part of an
asymmetric campaign.
as well—Yugoslav partisans fighting the occupying
Nazis or Afghans against the Russians and Serbs in the
recent NATO operation in Kosovo. Military commanders must study history. Modern, technologically
sophisticated warfare—with the asymmetric challenges that accompany it—makes that requirement more
true, not less.
Our forces must also be adaptive. Just as our
adversaries will continuously change tactics and
approaches to seek our weaknesses, so must we be
able to counter them through continuous adaptation.
Preparing for
Asymmetric Attacks
The first step in preparing to
better meet tomorrow’s challenges
is to learn from the past. As the
examples drawn here indicate,
there is a rich history to be tapped
in the early American experience.
But there are many other examples
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American Horse (wearing western clothing) and Red Cloud (wearing headdress), shaking
hands in front of a tipi about 1891. (Photo by John C.H. Grabill)
July-August 2014 MILITARY REVIEW