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U.S. Navy leaders, past and present, say the military branch lags behind China’s advances in cyberspace operations, and if action is not taken, the branch will ” a very bad day” at the start of a cyber war in 2026, according to reports. .
In an article written for the February 2024 issue of Proceedings, a publication of the U.S. Naval Institute, Vice Adm. TJ White, Rear Adm. Danelle Barrett, U.S. Navy (ret.), and Naval Cmdr. Jake Bebber, wrote that the Navy was not ready for information warfare as it had not “properly planned” for a time when the cyber and maritime domains of warfare intersect.
“The Russian invasion of Ukraine and Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel underscore that operational planners must prepare for information attacks by state actors, as well as non-state and civilian organizations,” the authors wrote, heeding a warning that The United States is not prepared. for any cyber war that breaks out, hypothetically, in 2026.
The reason, they explain, is that the Navy has not “fully accepted” the benefits of space operations that support maritime operations, nor has it accepted that it has access advantages to support both cyber and space operations, adding that leaders will need to accept these things to defeat cognitive warfare campaigns.
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“The Navy lacks an agreed upon strategic, operational and tactical vision for what it believes warfare in the maritime domain will look like over the next five to ten years, as advanced capabilities generated by accelerating technologies such as hypersonic weapons, artificial intelligence, “Autonomous systems, quantum computing, and free-space optics complicate an already challenging environment,” the authors wrote. “China, on the other hand, has been planning and carrying out a global information campaign since the mid-1990s.
“Today, China can employ its growing control over the technological ecosystem of cyberspace – from undersea cable systems to satellite constellations – along with its control over software platforms and information supply chains and its growing dominance in algorithm-driven media and consumer platforms to change the character of war decidedly in their favor.”
The writers based their information on the War of 2026 scenario published in December 2023, which suggested it could go badly or very badly for the United States.
In the “very bad” scenario, the Navy was never fully committed to participating in an informational “cold war” that had gone on for years and was therefore unprepared.
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The preparation it lacked was investment in people, processes and systems, or it was not employing them at scale because it lacked a vision for how information warfare should be integrated into its current operations and strategies.
“In this scenario, China was able to attack sources of American naval power with cognitive warfare capabilities that it had been investing in, deploying globally, and employing against the American public for more than a decade,” the authors wrote. “Naval leaders were cognitively overwhelmed: they were unprepared because fundamental assumptions were wrong.”
They also wrote that the sailors were avid social media users under the influence of China and were manipulated to the point that they “refused to fight for a cause they questioned and a country they no longer believed in.”
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In the second scenario, or “bad” day, the Navy’s investment was not enough to adapt and reorient itself after an attack that caused huge casualties.
Although the Navy may have avoided defeat at the beginning of the conflict, the authors said the branch was unsure whether it could adapt quickly enough during a multi-year global war and bring it to a successful conclusion.
The authors of the article said that although the Chief Naval Officer proposed creating cyber teams in 2019, they were not implemented in 2023. They also said that the Navy “lacks a coherent vision of information warfare at sea and operational concepts, tactics , and capabilities necessary to carry it out.”
At the end, the writers talked about former CNO Admiral Jonathan Greenert, who in 2012 wrote: “(The) EM cyber environment is now so fundamental to military operations and so critical to our national interests that we must begin treating it as a war scene.” dominion on par with – or perhaps even more important than – land, sea, air and space.”
They said other CNOs have since made similar statements, which have resulted in “some” changes and restructuring, although the United States is still not on par with China in cyber terms.
“In the realm of information warfare, China is not an advancing threat, it is the threat being pursued,” the authors wrote. “Too much time has been wasted and too little has been invested so that the Navy does not have a bad day at the beginning of the war in 2026. The question is whether the Navy will take the necessary measures to at least not have a bad day.”
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