Information Warfare: A Chinese View

INFORMATION WARFARE
A Conceptual Understanding
By Sun Yujun

Sun Yujun is a young researcher at the China Defense Science & Technology Information Center in Beijing. This paper was given at a workshop in Beijing in November 1998, and is presented here with only minor editing changes.

Information technology and command and control warfare show us great promise during the Gulf War. IW is drawing increasing attention everywhere in the world. The governments of many countries are studying the theory of information warfare, some of them, such as America, are constructing information warfare power. In China, there are some military analysts and technicians who are studying information warfare and its roles in the military revolution.
As one of those people, I have been studying information warfare for three years. I define IW as the actions taken to protect one’s own information infrastructures, meanwhile to destroy the enemy’s information infrastructures.
The aim of this speech is to explain some concepts related to information warfare. My speech is divided into six sections. In each section I will compare some concepts with information warfare and explain their differences and relations with information warfare.

1. Chinese IW and American IW

Due to the difference between the two country’s culture and background, the meaning of “warfare” is also different. In my opinion, in English, warfare just refers to activities of warfighting. However, in Chinese, the meaning of warfare is more extensive. Not only the activities of warfighting are involved, but also many other kinds of activities, including rivalries. So we use the term “warfare” more times, such as commercial warfare,
price warfare and so on. So, the Chinese meaning of information warfare is equal to the American meaning of information operations.
Next I want to show some concepts of IW and differences between them. I will use the Chinese meaning of information warfare.

2. Information-Based War and Information Warfare

When talking about the role of IW in future war, some analysts say that war in the 21st century will be information warfare. Meanwhile, I hold another opinion, that war in the future will be information-based war. Just like the famous Chinese scientist Qian Xuesin said, “The war in 21st century will be the information-based war under nuclear deterrence.”
I think that information-based war will be the basic form of war in the next century, and information warfare will be one of the modes under the future’s information-based war. In other words, there will be many other modes of warfare under information-based warfare, such as land warfare, air warfare and so on. We may also say that information warfare is one of the realms of information-based war, such as land and air warfare in today’s war.
The difference between them is this: The one aim of information warfare is to get information superiority; whereas in information-based war, in which IW is a mode, the aim is also to get land superiority, air superiority, etc. The relationship between them is that information warfare is the key mode of warfare under information-based war.
Why do I say this? The next part of my speech will give you the answer.

3. Information Superiority and Information Warfare

The ancient and famous Chinese militarist Sun Tzu reminds us: “Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril.” His timeless wisdom is about information superiority. In the last part I said information warfare is the key mode of warfare under information-based war, because the goal of IW is to gain information superiority. And due to hellping to win other modes of warfare under information-based war, to gain information superiority is the most important factor to winning. But information warfare is not the only way to gain information superiority. There are other means we can use, such as developing information technologies and information systems to improve C4ISR capabilities.

4. National Information Warfare, Military Information Warfare, and Field Information Warfare

As differentiated by its targets, information warfare is divided into three levels: national information warfare, military information warfare, and field information warfare. In national information warfare the targets are information infrastructures of the whole nation, including civil information infrastructures and military information infrastructures. The military information warfare’s target only includes the military (defense) information infrastructures. In field information warfare, the target is to attack the enemy’s C3I systems and protect your own.

5. Information Warfare in Peacetime and Information Warfare in Wartime

Sun Tzu reminds us: “Conquest your enemy without warfighting is the best way to win.” We may say that is the first aim of information warfare in peacetime. In other words, in peacetime we use information warfare tools combined with diplomatic operations to affect the thoughts of leaders and people in enemy countries, and let them give up resisting with out bloodletting. After those efforts fail, we drop into crisis or wartime, and we use information warfare to gain information superiority and to defeat our enemy and destroy him with the minimal bloodletting to ourselves.

6. Information Systems and Information Warfare

Information systems and information warfare are the two main tools to gain information superiority. And they also support each other: information warfare is to protect our information systems while destroying the enemy’s information systems; on the other side, with information systems, warfighters can get C4ISR capabilities, and those capabilities are key in conducting information warfare.

Last modified on Monday, February 08, 1999