Today I have a slightly older article for you all (found right here), but one that is all the more relevant since its date of publishing since technology continues to be a prolific element of modern combat. Essentially it concerns itself with how the digital battlefield is beginning to mimic the real battlefield, how the next generation of the armed forces are being created to cope with digital threats and how much of a priority reliable, computer-savvy individuals are to the military.
As you can see, the dogma that follows soldiers in non-combat roles is being erased at an alarming pace, to such an extent that digital 'maneuvers' and 'live-fire' exercises are being carried out regularly. What does this indicate about the focus of our military? News of cyber-warfare is so rare, yet it seems to be the most relevant item on the military agenda, what is the potential for the concept of cyber-warfare? Can anybody foresee a world in which military prowess is dictated by the strength of a computer system? Are we already at that point?
I think we're already nearing the point where military prowess will be dictated moreso by computational power and hacking abilities than ability to fight in reality. A huge number of cyber attacks recently have come out of China, and many of those have been against government or government-related entities (DoD contractors, mostly). If China can take any information they want from us, will our ability to fight on the ground really matter?
ReplyDeleteLike Roneil said, China has been behind a number of cyber attacks to the point that the military has a group of people that specifically look for holes in its system to patch up. Unless we go back to hard copies of documents and give up the rapid rate of communication and extremely convenient data storage that comes with networking and computers, cyberwarfare will remain a very important part of warfare. To put it in perspective I recently read (and posted about) cyberattacks being able to cause power plant meltdowns and various other forms of infrastructure damage. This suggests that cyberwarfare can be used to take over a city from the inside without having to step foot within to risk lives.
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