AUSTRALIA REARMED! Future Needs for CyberEnabled Warfare

Australia’s response to the emerging centrality of cyber space in the conduct of future war has been slow and fragmented. The Australian play-book is not blank but it looks very different from those of pace-setter countries: key chapters in their play books do not yet appear in ours. The dilatory tempo of Australian policy is true in different ways for various actors: the government, the armed forces, the private sector, and the strategic studies community. This 2016 paper describes a number of international benchmarks which might provide guideposts for a rapid catch-up in Australian capabilities for military security in the information age (for cyber-enabled war).

The paper will be relevant to other middle powers, many of which are even more disadvantaged than Australia in national military policy for cyber space. On the one hand, the paper looks at the future international policy environment. It calls out major trends in the policy settings of two countries of strategic interest to Australia: China and the United States. Both regard military dominance in cyber space as one of the primary determinants of success in war. The Australian government has not been prepared to canvas in public the centrality of cyber-enabled warfare nor craft policies and doctrines accordingly. The discussion of how Australian policy compares with that of China and the United States for cyberenabled war lays the foundation the paper’s review of international trends in war avoidance (preventive diplomacy) and Australia’s need to shape those developments. On the other hand, the paper previews trends in the technologies and characteristics of cyber-enabled war (attack technologies and defensive systems) and complex cyber-enabled war scenarios. The United States and China have taken decisions in 2015 that reveal their determination to race ahead to the next stage of the development of cyber arsenals. They seek to create conditions in cyber space that in war time could undermine the effectiveness of the weapons systems, deployed units and military-related civil infrastructure of an enemy as quickly as possible. The two major powers are placing considerable attention on disabling enemy cyber systems in the early stages of hostilities, or even on a pre-emptive basis. Trends in the technologies of cyber attack and defence are moving in a direction that will present almost insurmountable challenges to the security of many small and middle powers. Australia will need to develop complex responsive systems of decisionmaking for medium intensity war that address multi-vector, multi-front and multitheatre attacks in cyber space,