Russian Federation military policy for provision of international information security.

At the present day, in consequence of the unarrested technological revolution in the IT domain, the pervasive quality changes are taking place in the weapons and military equipment trends of foreign states. Orientation to the designing of multifarious information onslaught means against the opposing force is one of the main tendencies in this process. Appertaining to them, first and foremost, are the constantly improving electronic countermeasure devices and psychological operation weapons. Along with that, the attention of foreign military experts has recently been riveted to the advanced tools for the so-called cybernetic attacks in the information network systems.

Incidentally, the U.S. national military strategy has been the first to apply the new politico-military term, namely, "the weapons of mass effect." (1) Crucially important in the proposed concept definition, first, is that the given type of weapon has been brought into line with the traditional weapons of mass destruction: chemical, biological and nuclear. Second, such kinds of weapon as electromagnetic pulse, high powered microwave, and also other "asymmetric" weapons have been defined as the varieties of the weapons of mass effect. Cited as the example of such asymmetry is the fact that cyber attacks against the U.S. commercial information systems or against the national transport networks can have more serious effects economically or psychologically than any other traditional kinds of weapon, if used against them. Information infrastructure and the psyche of the enemy military personnel will be the principal objects of destruction.

There are contextually akin provisions contained in the U.S. Intelligence Community Report: "In the recent 15 years, the growing spectrum of threat sources, including terrorists, can make actual assaults and cyber attacks feasible, being aimed at the destruction of the control mechanisms in the information infrastructure world-wide webs, among them, the Internet, the telecommunication networks and the computer systems, which control the sensitive industrial processes such as the electric power supply networks, oil refineries, etc." (2)

All this is the logical wind-up of the certain stage in the apprehension by the politico-military leadership of the developed countries of the fact that at the turn of millenniums, information space has rightfully come into own along with land, maritime, air and outer space (spheres) for waging military activity. Such elements as the states' information infrastructures, media, communications, space navigation, Internet-type computer networks and others constitute the material base of information space. Assigning high priority to the role of the global information network in solving politico-military tasks, the U.S. leadership strives in every way to retain and strengthen its control of the Internet. So, in late October 2005, reacting to the international proposal concerning the transfer of the Internet control to the U.N. structures, the American congress reiterated that it was and will remain in the hands of the U.S., and it recommended President Bush to stick to this viewpoint.

Foreign military experts hold that, despite the virtuality of information space, the seizure and retention of information advantage (similar to land, sea, air and space supremacy) will yield gross dividends to those, who possess it. Gen. Richard Myers, former U.S. Air Force JCS Chairman, has estimated the IT role in the following way: "Scaling back the edge of the enemy's air defense, by manipulating with ones and zeros, can be an elegant solution indeed, as compared with the same result achieved by dropping 2,000-pound bombs on its radar stations." (3)

In modern warfare, victory is ensured by the pre-emptive achievement of information dominancy followed by the dominancy in the sphere, where military actions are conducted. Moreover, the latter may not be needed at all. Everything depends on the degree of the effective achievement of dominance in the information sphere. The fact is that victory over the enemy is essentially the psychology-oriented act. More than 2,500 years ago, Sun Tzu, ancient Chinese philosopher, military thinker and strategian wrote in The Military Art Tractate: "To win hundred victories in hundred battles is not the utmost warcraft. To war down the enemy without a battle is the crown of military art." (4) Capitulation takes place first in the minds of the military leaders, and only then capitulation materializes itself. Given the apt deployment of "the weapons of mass effect," the above result can be achieved without the uncivilized and physical destruction of the economy, finance, transport and other infrastructure components of the national economy of the opponent.

Undoubtedly, such an outcome in wars and military conflicts had been achieved before. But the situation, which has formed itself at the present time, is quite different from the past. Hundreds of millions of people (whole countries and continents) have never been harnessed by the uniform world-wide electronic information space rendering them unprotected against the "mass effect weapon" attack. Moreover, most of the critically important infrastructure systems are also drawn in this space, which is conducive to the triggering of production-induced, energy-oriented and financial catastrophes, creating chaos and panic aimed at bringing the indomitable enemy, after all, to its knees, in the final analysis.

To realize such doctrinal ideas, a number of foreign states conduct large-scale organizational and international legal operations.

Incidentally, the system of the guideline papers, which govern the procedure for preparation and holding of information operations, (5) was worked out and became operational in the U.S. Armed Forces. In addition to the available powerful forces and means of reconnaissance, electromagnetic warfare and psychological operations, special subdivisions are set up for conducting massed computer attacks against the world-wide electronic systems. According to foreign sources, this task was assigned to the U.S. Armed Forces Strategic Command Headquarters at the Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha (Nebraska). The Network Attack Support Staff, located in Maryland, is the Strategic Command core structure for the implementation of the tasks to affect foreign electronic systems. (6)

In the international and legal context, American diplomacy, on the one hand, in every way obstructs the promotion of the Russian initiative, which was proposed in the U.N. (1988) by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, for the prevention of the use of information space for the aims incompatible with the strengthening of world stability and universal peace. Russia's Resolution in the U.N. was adopted by the consensus of opinion for six years running. At the U.N. General Assembly 60th Session, which took place on 8 December 2005, 177 states spoke out in favor of our Resolution, with only the U.S. speaking against it. (7) On the other hand, international and legal conditions are created for conducting aggressive unpunished acts in information space. In February 2003, the Critical Infrastructure Protection Commission, under the U.S. President, made known "The National Cyberspace Protection Strategy," whereby the U.S. reserves the right to preventive actions in cyberspace with relation to the public enemies, if their policy threatens or can threaten, in the foreseeable future, the U.S. national interests. (8)

One may state that at the present time, emerging and gathering momentum is the new politico-military threat to world peace and international stability. It consists in the fact that a number of the states, possessing considerable technological advantage, develop and include in the arsenal of the politico-military means the fundamentally novel types of "weapons of mass effect," which are comparable in their aftermath to the mass destruction weapons. In so doing, these states, for the purpose of the foreign policy support of their hegemonistic aspirations, strain after the creation of favorable international and legal conditions for ruling out any restrictions established on the development of new types of "weapons of mass effect" and for legitimizing their covert deployment in respect of any world state both in peace, and in wartime.

Today, the opinion prevails in the U.S. and in a number of western countries that the threat of "information wars" and, above all, the immensity and the consequences of "information weapons" used against states, which are declared by the experts of Russia, China, Brazil and other countries at various international forums, are strongly exaggerated. In the early 20th century, the danger of the research work associated with nuclear weapons was also rejected, but the experience of Hiroshima and Nagasaki demonstrated to the whole world the monstrous power of this weapon. Today, the time has come for the world community to set about discussing this problem extensively, without tarring for similar demonstrations of force (only this time with "information weapons" being deployed). At the present time, the United Nations Organization figures as the most effective tool for organizing such discussions.

Under these conditions, becoming apparent is the need for the stepping-up of the military policy of the Russian Federation in the domain of ensuring international information security directed at achieving the international and legal regulation of the international relations arising from the development, manufacture, introduction, preparation and deployment of "information weapons"; the prevention of "information wars"; the elimination of the destabilization of world consistency and of endangering the military security of individual states and of the world community on the whole in the information sphere; the promotion of international politico-military cooperation in the domain of ensuring information security.

The major tasks of military policy in the sphere of ensuring international information security will be: the restraining of foreign states from possible deployment against Russia of the means and methods of "information war"; the promotion and development of partnership relations in the domain of ensuring international information security of the friendly states, above all, in the framework of the U.N., of the union with the Republic of Belarus, of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, of the regional organizations, including the EU, NATO and others, and also in the bilateral meeting format; the arrangement of conditions for equitable and reliable international information exchange based on the universally acknowledged norms and principles of international law; the arrangement of cross-border conditions for the unencumbered circulation of information security systems and means, also in the context of the public policy of military and military-and-technical cooperation.

The military policy in the sphere of ensuring international information security is governed by the foreign-policy principles (consistency, predictability, mutually beneficial utilitarianism, balanceness), and by the special principles (purposefulness, offensive-oriented stance and orientation toward forestalling), which are used for the preparation and implementation of foreign-policy operations.

The subjects of the military policy in the domain of ensuring international information security, namely, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Russian Federation, use, to achieve their aims, the diplomatic, juridical, economic, informational, technological and educational methods and means. The object of the military policy in this domain is represented by the international relations, arising with regard to the development, manufacture, introduction, preparation and deployment of information weapons, and also to the members of the international community entering into those relations.

It is proposed to interpret the implementation arrangements for the military policy of the Russian Federation in the domain of ensuring international information security as the activity of the public authorities of the Russian Federation aimed at the prognostication and evaluation of threats to international information security, and also to Russia's information security; the working out and implementation of the system of measures for ensuring international security; the elaboration and improvement of the regulatory and legal framework, of the conceptual provisions and main directions for ensuring international information security; the preparation and implementation of the foreign-policy support action plan; the consolidation of international and domestic experience in ensuring international information security; the prevention, identification and suppression of offenses in the world-wide information sphere, and also in effecting the legal proceedings concerning penal cases in this domain; the development of the domestic information infrastructure, the telecommunication and information manufacturing industry, the enhancement of their competitiveness in the domestic and external markets; the promotion of fundamental, explorative and applied research in the domain of ensuring international information security; the pursuance of international cooperation in the sphere of trans-border information security; the representation of politico-military interests of the Russian Federation in the appropriate international organizations.

The military policy in the domain of ensuring trans-border information security must be carried out in the context of the public system of the information security of the Russian Federation.

The substantive part of the military policy in the area of trans-border information security must incorporate the broad and long-term program of practical measures for the implementation of its major provisions, oriented toward the development and adoption of mutually-acceptable juridical procedures for ensuring trans-border information security, whereby states and other public law entities would be liable internationally for the activities in information space, carried out by them directly, or by separate physical (legal) persons operating from the territories (facilities) under their jurisdiction and control.

The military policy of the Russian Federation in the area of ensuring trans-border information security must envisage, as one of its implementation venues, the promotion of the international law system. The appropriate action plan can include: the international labeling of "information aggression" and "information weapon," as well as the segregation of the allowable methods and prohibited methods and of the means of "information warfare"; the development and adoption of the comprehensive convention for ensuring trans-border information security (or the treaty concerning the demilitarization of world-wide information space, or as the Supplementary Protocol to the Geneva Conventions), which would determine the norms of the international humanitarian law applicable to the armed conflicts; the improvement of the collective security system of states on the universal and regional basis, and the implementation by states of the collective measures for the prevention of information aggression, among them, the confidence-building measures; the development of the institutions and norms for trans-border juridical responsibility concerning the infractions in the sphere of international information security in the context of the U.N. International Court of Justice and of the International Criminal Court.

The program of legislation in the sphere of the public law of the Russian Federation must focus on the promotion of the politico-legal concept of the public policy covering, on the whole, the military, criminous and terrorist aspects of ensuring trans-border information security.

In conclusion, it should be emphasized that the military policy of the Russian Federation concerning the provision for trans-border information security is the part of Russia's foreign policy, which is to be realized through the unprejudiced involvement of all the Federal executive authorities concerned, as well as by the participation of the business community and social action organizations.

NOTES:

1. The National Military Strategy of the United States of America. A Strategy for Today; A Vision for Tomorrow, 2004.

2. Mapping the Global Future. Report of the National Intelligence Council's: 2020 Project, December 2004.

3. "U.S. Plots Cyberwarfare Strategy": www.metimes/com/2K/issue2000-2/net/us_plotscyberwarfare.htm.

4. N. Conrad, Sun-Tzu, Traktat o voyennom iskusstve, Voenizdat Publishers, Moscow, 1950, p. 39.

5. Department of Defense Directive (DODD) S-3600.1, "Information Operations," 21.12.1992; Joint Pub 3-13 "Joint Doctrine for Information Operations," 9 October 1998; FM 3-13 "Information operations: Doctrine, Tactics, Techniques and Procedures." 28 Nov 2003. SS FM 100-6.

6. U.S. Special Unit to Suppress Foreign Media. NEWS ru. com 23. 11. 2005.

7. U.N. GA document A/RES/60/45 10 6. 01. 2006.

8. WWW.Whitehouse.gov/pcipb.

* The article was jointly prepared by: I.N. Dylevskii, S.A. Komov, S.V. Korotkov, S.N. Rodionov, and A.V. Fyodorov.