Image: Wikimedia Commons
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"'Net-centric warfare' is a catchall for 'cleverly using computers in a battlefield environment,' i.e., getting drone video down to troops in the field, using cell phone detectors to locate IEDs, etc.," said Ranum. "It's really 'IT applied to the military' in a general sense. The issue is that it's often conflated with 'cyberwar' or 'information operations' for budgetary reasons.Ranum calls net-centric warfare the "cloud computing of military IT"—it can be whatever people want it to be. The only necessary ingredients are computers, data, and above all, a budget. However, Ranum doesn't consider it a great innovation. "In reality, this stuff is all just battlefield intelligence," said Ranum. "It's just a faster point along the progression from messenger to carrier pigeon to telegraph to observation balloon to satellite."Subtle, net-centric information warfare instead of an all-out cyber attack (like Stuxnet) might actually be Russia's tactical approach in Ukraine. If Russia launched a full-scale, public cyber attack against Ukraine, it would be politically messy, and might trigger military retaliation. Ranum believes that this is something Putin wants to avoid. "It's the issue of retaliation that makes the 'big frame' cyberwar less likely and closer to impossible," he noted. "In order to do this stuff, you need the political top-cover to survive the fallout that would inevitably result."If Russia launched a full-scale, public cyber attack against Ukraine, it would be politically messy, and might trigger military retaliation.
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