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information systems wend their way into everyones high-technology economicsectors. Yet, such a threat is easy to exaggerate in a culture grown dependenton machines that very few understand. With rare and uninteresting exceptions,there is no such thing as forced entry in cyberspace. Hackers do their damagebecause the systems they attack have forgone security that technology makespossible (whether such security is cost effective depends on the threat and thevalue of what is being protected). If the threat is grave enough, a system canadapt by making entry difficult or, in some cases, impossible. Such adaptationsare not free but are nevertheless trivial compared with defending nations againstconventional invasion or nuclear weapons.

Because the architecture of the security cyberspace cannot help butfavor some interests more than others, those left out may want to corrupt ordegrade the means by which the security cyberspace comes together. If adata-level attack is unproductive (e.g., viruses defeated because of computersecurity), perhaps an information-level attack (e.g., the insertion of ambiguouslymisleading bitstreams) may be more effective.

Conclusion

The application of information to military power has three fundamentalelements: perceiving reality and representing it in bits (intelligence), processingand distributing bits, and using bits to act on reality (operations). In air-combatterms, this parses to observing, orienting/deciding, and acting. As cyberspace(broadly defined) expands, the impact of geography on each segment declinesapace. Already, processing and distributing information is almost entirely liberatedfrom spatial concerns. The remaining geographical distinction in surveillance isbetween the information that can be acquired from beyond borders (e.g., fromspace or blue waters) and that which cannot be (and in a pinch, cheap,untraceable sensors such as UAVs may be used to augment properly collecteddata). Lastly, although the application of information to force is still bound bygeography, those who generate and deliver information (i.e., the United States)need not be the same as those who act on it (i.e., nations under threat).Any speculation on cyberspace must include the caution that theinevitable often takes longer than first thought, and institutions differ in theirappreciation of what is, in retrospect, obvious. Logistics (or at least tonnage)still matters, and so does being there. Colin Gray argues that media also matter,and hence geography does too. But the importance of both is rapidly fading.The race may not necessarily go to those who grasp the new pride ofplacelessness, but, in cyberspace, that is increasingly the way to bet.

A Rejoinder by Colin S Gray

Martin Libicki is always interesting, is frequently correct, but ultimately fails topersuade. The same difficulty attends appraisal of the writings of Robert Jervis;274 I Orbis

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he poses the right questions, often conducts brilliant analyses, but somehowgetsthebiggeranswerswrong. As Libicki piles plausible claim upon persuasivedetail, paragraph by paragraph, one might be misled into endorsing hisextravagant conclusions. Those conclusions have at their core his assertionconcerning the emergence of cyberspace as the arena of international security.The problem with Libickis argument is not that it is wrong-n thecontrary, most of his argument is correct-but rather that it does not yield theconclusions for national security that he claims. Unless I have misunderstoodhim comprehensively, which is possible but unlikely, I can accept most of hisanalytical points as being compatible with the arguments presented in my essay,while rejecting his conclusions.

My response to Martin Libicki is presented in six broad points, and Isuspect he will agree with much of it. To repeat: my differences with Libickilie much more with his strategic judgment than they do with his tactical oroperational analysis.First, the revolution in military affairs @MA) to which Libicki refers,whose cutting edge is information dominance, though probably real andimportant, is rather less than revolutionary in basic character and purpose. Thequest for, and even the achievement of, information dominance is not uniqueto the age of cyberspace. The system of systems would be useful, but thenso were spies, carrier pigeons, staff officers on horseback, submarine telegraphcables, and radio. All of warfare--and crime-at all times has had as an overlaythe struggle for information dominance.Secondly, one does not need to be unusually perceptive to notice thatLibickis analysis is pretty barren of obvious human content. He waxes lyricalabout sensing, emitting, communicating, redirecting, cuing, filtering, pinpointing,classifying, and creating target determinations, but who actually is going to dothe threatening, breaking, and killing that war requires? General Sir ArchibaldWavell once remarked that military history is a flesh-and-blood affair, not amatter of diagrams and formula or of rules; not a conflict of machines but ofmer~.~ ibicki knows this, but it does not feature in his argument. In Libickissecurity universe, wherein cyberspace is king, war has been elevated to aconveniently bloodless activity. Probably the most significant weakness in hisargument is that he neglects to emphasize, or usually even to mention, that thecomputer is just a tool, no more and no less. Tools certainly change the termsof tactical engagement and may affect operational choice, but equally certainlythey do not undermine fundamentally the distressingly, and inconveniently,human implications of physical geography.Thirdly, cyberspace-which may be understood as the sum of theglobes communications links and computational nodes, or placelessness,

1 See Robert Jervis, i e Illogic of American Nuclear Shategy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984);and idem, The Meaning of the Nuclear Remlution: Statecrajl and the Bv.pzct of Armageddon Ithaca, N.Y.:Cornell University Press, 1989).

2 General Sir Archibald Wave& Generalsand GeneralshQ New York: Macmillan, 1943), p. 24. Emphasisadded.

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may be increasingly the way to bet as winner of the security race, but justwhere is that? Geography is altered in its operational and tactical implicationsby technical developments---it has always been so-but it is not in the processof being cancelled by the RMA associated with the exploitation of cyberspace.Libicki argues that as cyberspace (broadly defmed) expands, the impact ofgeography on each segment [perceiving reality and representing it in bits(intelligence), processing and distributing bits, and using bits to act on reality(operations)] declines apace. Already, processing and distributing informationis almost entirely liberated from spatial concerns. Crude though this may sound,human beings and their lethal instruments operate on land, at sea, in the air.and in space. Cyberspace is a valuable, even invaluable, overlay in each ofthose four geographical environments. But cyberspace does not transcend.transform, or neutralize the significance of those environments. Carrier pigeons,horse-bound staff officers, or the terminals of cyberspace may each rendermilitary forces maximally effective at the decisive point. Human beings, unlikecyberspace, are not placeless-they act within geography.Fourthly, though Libicki allows more space in his text than is usualamong cyberwaniors for Red Team consideration, the strategic context underdiscussion still is suspiciously permissive for U.S. cyber-prowess. Anyone re-spectful of past experience with RMAs will be rightly wary of arguments thatassume a long national lead. Libicki is generally innocent on this front, thoughone retains a sneaking suspicion that advocacy as strong as his probably hasnot allowed as imaginatively as is needed for counter-cyberwar tactics, operations,and strategy.Fifthly, in company with Admiral William Owens, Libicki consigns spaceoperations to the status of upper tier in a system of systems.5 They may beright, but it seems to me that recognition, even over-recognition, of the significanceof cyberspace has blinded commentators to the unique features of the exploitationof space. Appreciation of cyberspace is in some respects intellectually morechallenging, certainly is individually more accessible, but may obscure the vitalimportance of control of the geographical fourth dimension of war-outer space.Lastly, just as Libickis argument is bereft of human content, so it ispresented all but shorn of historical experience. Is Libickis subject truly anRMA, or is it but the current manifestation of the perennial quest for informationdominance? To read Libicki is, in a sense, to read the texts of yesterdaysprophets for air power and armored and mechanized ground forces. The issueis not what can cyberspace (or airplanes, or tanks) do, but rather what does itmean? Inevitably, every theorist will fvld the past that suits him, butit would be a little reassuring if one could find in Libicki some systematicrespect for the lessons that might be drawn from historical experience.

3 Admiral Wiiliam A. Owens he merging System of Systems, S dval nStihltehCWdi?Zgs,fay1995 pp. 35-39.

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