Strategic Appraisal: The Changing Role of Information in Warfare [Paperback]

Zalmay M. Khalilzad (Editor), John P. White (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0833026631 | ISBN-13: 978-0833026637 | Publication Date: May 21, 1999

Advanced information technologies will have a profound effect on our national security. Driven by the need to understand this revolution and to take steps towards defending against information attack, the editors provided this thorough examination of information warfare, with implications for the U.S. and other countries.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The ancient Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu once wrote about the "acme of skill" allowing generals to win wars without fighting. Perhaps he was referring to the 21st century: technological advances have made recent conflicts in the Persian Gulf and the Balkans almost bloodless for the United States, if not its enemies. Yet many of the authors contributing chapters to The Changing Role of Information in Warfare are far from sanguine about technology forever insulating Americans from war. Technology, in fact, may become a kind of Achilles heel. "The United States may become increasingly vulnerable to disruption--perhaps catastrophically so--because of its heavy reliance on advanced information systems in both the civilian and military sectors," write editors Zalmay M. Khalilzad and John P. White in their introduction.

Adversaries are likely to rely on modern information operations, such as computer hacking or network attacks--in addition to traditional means, such as communication jamming and physical attacks--as an asymmetric strategy to compensate for their own weaknesses and for conventional U.S. military preeminence. They may value information attacks as a new type of guerilla warfare against U.S. conventional weaponry--but one with a very long reach.

There are other problems, too. In the past, for example, the Pentagon often initiated technological change; in the future, it will struggle to keep up with advances in the private sector. This probing book is written chiefly for policymakers, but its clean prose makes it accessible to anyone interested in the future of war. --John J. Miller

Review

The editors shrewdly chose the title of this work to be information in warfare, not information warfare. This volume in RAND's annual Strategic Appraisal series is one of the better efforts...Francis Fukuyama and Abram Shulsky, for example, offer a trenchant and skeptical analysis of the lessons the military can and should learn from business organizations wrestling with the information revolution...Taken together, the articles remind us--some by insight, others by their very lack of it--of just how hard it is to figure out what the information revolution does to international security.
Foreign Affairs


The Changing Role of Information in Warfare is part of RAND's Strategic Appraisal series, and it primarily addresses the effects of information technology on American military planning and operations. The fifteen chapters provide a useful review of the dangers and opportunities that information technology presents to U.S. military forces. While originally intended for the Air force, the work should interest a wider professional audience, especially because it includes a broad spectrum of views, ranging from techno-optimists to info-war pessimists.
Naval War College Review


Brings together work by 20 experts in information technnology and defense policy to tackle issues of the U.S.' vulnerability due to its heavy reliance on advanced information systems. Examines vulnerability to information attacks on vital domestic systems as transportation, communications, finance, and utilities, and shows how the same techniques that can be used to disrupt and manipulate civilian targets can be used to degrade performance of U.S. military forces.
Reference & Research Book News


The 15 essays in this collection deal with real and perceived impacts on US national security resulting from continuing changes in the capabilities of advanced information technologies and their use by friendly and hostile forces...This text is highly recommended for the target audience of senior national security decision makers. It is also recommended to information technology professionals interested in the fundamental changes to national defense realities brought about by today's computer and information systems and their ever-more-capable successors. This collection also seems to have some value for military and national policy historians.
Computing Reviews

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Product Details

• Paperback: 452 pages
• Publisher: Rand Corporation (May 21, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0833026631
• ISBN-13: 978-0833026637
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,478,626 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hi level RAND study for those in the right position, October 13, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Strategic Appraisal: The Changing Role of Information in Warfare (Paperback)

This book should not be read by those who only have a low-level interest in information warfare, and more specifically, information in warfare. This is an academic document for policy makers and the defense establishment, as commissioned by the Air Force. The focus is on the information-based processes and weapons and their interaction. I found valuable concepts and ideas throughout the book, especially in one of last chapters about lessons the DOD can learn from business. For those in defense with a need to discover the wide aspects of IIW, this is for you. But only if you are in a mid- to high-level position or thirst for knowledge of greater concepts.