Customer Reviews

Strategic Warfare in Cyberspace

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"Strategic Warfare in Cyberspace" (SWIC) takes discussions of information security policy to a new level. Lt Col Rattray is uniquely qualified to write this book, serving as commander of the 23rd Information Operations Squadron in the Air Force Information Warfare Center. While I was a captain in the Air Force Computer Emergency Response Team, he asked me if we were ready to defend against strategic information warfare attacks. His research into this issue forms the core of his excellent book.

SWIC is not written for technical staff. Rattray is a fellow Air Force Academy and Harvard University graduate, and I recognize his writing style and methodology as an effort to develop analytical frameworks. He takes an innovative approach, comparing American strategic information warfare efforts of the 1990's to development of the Army Air Corps' capability to wage strategic precision bombing. Rattray offers four enabling conditions for successful strategic warfare and five facilitating factors for establishing organization technological capabilities. He critiques strategic air war and strategic information war using these elements, drawing policy conclusions and making recommendations for future actions.

SWIC is highly original, very thorough, and well-documented. Rattray and I are both history/political science majors, so I found his discussion of Air Corps history enlightening. Readers more interested in conclusions may be tempted to skip this material. SWIC falls short in its descriptions of technical means to wage digital warfare. Someone with hands-on knowledge of specific attack and defense tools and techniques should have helped Rattray refine his understanding of the technical aspects of computer security. Nine years have passed since Farmer and Venema wrote the 'SATAN' assessment tool, yet contemporary writers still believe it exemplifies current threats. What about Nmap, which is five years old but actively maintained and used daily?

Overall, SWIC seems right on the money in its analysis and conclusions. Rattray correctly identifies that American information warfare defenses are far too crime-oriented, probably due to the FBI's role. He stresses the need to improve people and processes, not just products. He faults the government for omitting technology vendors from the protection of critical infrastructure, and criticizes federal policy mistakes regarding encryption. Government, military, and industry policymakers should read and heed Rattray's book before an adversary tests the United States' capability to wage strategic information warfare.

Rattray lays a framework for the analysis of a growing threat to U.S. national security in the twenty-first century, information warfare (IW). While the number of studies on IW have steadily increased over the past five years, Rattray's book is unique in its sober examination of the hurdles organizations face in dealing with new technologies, as well as in its reference to the history of strategic warfare. This volume contributes to the growing literature on information warfare. It differs from other books, such as Sofaer and Goodman's Transnational Dimension of Cyber Crime, Denning's Information Warfare and Security, and Schwartau's Information Warfare in its historical analysis of U.S. strategic thinking in the inter-war period. It should be recommended to graduate and advanced undergraduate students.----J. Granville, Stanford

Rattray lays a framework for the analysis of a growing threat to U.S. national security in the twenty-first century, information warfare (IW). While the number of studies on IW have steadily increased over the past five years, Rattray's book is unique in its sober examination of the hurdles organizations face in dealing with new technologies, as well as in its reference to the history of strategic warfare. This volume contributes to the growing literature on information warfare. It differs from other books, such as Sofaer and Goodman's Transnational Dimension of Cyber Crime, Denning's Information Warfare and Security, and Schwartau's Information Warfare in its historical analysis of U.S. strategic thinking in the inter-war period. It should be recommended to graduate and advanced undergraduate students.

When William Gibson coined the term `cyberspace' in his best selling 1984 novel, "Neuromancer" (Amazon.com), he was referring to an artificial state produced when computer processors execute multiple software applications. The use of this term in the title of this book is an excellent choice. The realm of information warfare (IW) is quite extensive and covers a host of activities. By focusing only on strategic information warfare as waged in cyberspace, Rattray is able to provide the reader with a thorough and accurate description of one of the most important aspects of IW: its use to defend and attack national level digital networks. In spite of its title, this book is highly accessible to the general reader. Let there be no mistake however, this book is technically competent and written for technical experts as well.

This book also provides a review of the development of the U.S. Air Force (USAF) Strategic Bombing Doctrine and then draws the parallel of the development of USAF doctrine for strategic information warfare in cyberspace. This adds a much needed historical dimension to the whole subject of information warfare. For those interested in more details about the USAF development of strategic bombing doctrine two books are useful: 1) "Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers"; and 2) "Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare", both of which are available on Amazon.com.

There is then much to recommend this book. Yet the author does slight two very important and relevant topics. The first topic is the very real existence of the Global Telecommunications Network, which in reality is a complex of independent carrier and service networks that have mutually chosen complex sets of standards that allow for inter-operability and inter connectivity making seamless worldwide telecommunications possible (such as the Internet). This Global Network is the gateway to IW. The second is the still viable doctrine of Network Centric Warfare which vitally concerned with the strategic IW issues raised in this book. Still this is by far one the best books available on a core area of IW.

In short, this a great book that introduces complex ideas in an approachable format. Reasonable detail without overkill. A must given the changing world of cyber-warfare.

Everyone and their brother is writing about security, but this book is different. The author is an expert and knows what he is taking about.

Excelling and rational book!

This is one of those book that make you understand why the MIT is one of the best university out there. The author give a real complete view of what is infowar and what are the possibilities of it. A bible for everyone interested on the subcjet.