Here is a link to a Powerpoint presentation saved by John Donovan that accompanied a lecture given by Rear Admiral Bill Sullivan, the Vice Director for Strategic Plans & Policy on The Joint Staff (the J5). The venue was the Executive Lecture Forum, Radvanyi Chair in International Security Studies, Mississippi State University, entitled “Fighting the Long War--Military Strategy for the War on Terrorism”.

Go check out John's take here.

My initial response is WOW. The military seem to actually get what is at stake in Iraq. Admiral Sullivan discusses the long-term goal of Salaafism as the restoration of the Caliphate and the al Qaeda strategy of turning Iraq into the central base of operations for the future Islamic empire.

The military also seems to get that two of the main tools used by terrorist networks are the media and internet. However, I see nothing in the presentation on how those two tools of the enemies can be removed.

My own personal view is that the internet jihad needs to be counterattacked. Up to now, there has been virtually no real effort made to treat the terror presence on the internet as a military matter.

Many law enforcement arrests have been made (not nearly enough), but if this is a war we are in then we must treat the internet as an instrument of war. You do not fight a war with indictments. It is precisely the fact that there is no due process in war that differentiates it from normal police work.

So, how does the military fight the internet jihad? It can't.

We must understand our enemies as non-hierarchically organized networks of like minded individuals. There are literally thousands of websites, chat rooms, and forums which spread the jihadi doctrine. Law enforcement cannot hope to close down all of these websites and the military is simply not designed to fight it. A centralized command structure cannot fight such a network since each cell is not connected to the others.

So, is there a way to fight the internet jihad? Yes, there is. Cyber-privateering.

Fight fire, with fire. The only way to win the cyber-war is by removing the propaganda outlets of the enemy. State actors, though, are limited in what they can get away with on this front. However, there are millions of hackers out there who do have the tools necessary to take down these websites. They could actually be more effective if a) government resources and programs were added to their arsenals b) like privateers of old they were shielded from the retribution of the laws of foreign countries.

Privateers of old were private citizens given free reign to wreak havoc on enemies. Unlike privateers on the high-seas, there is no financial gain to be had from shutting down an enemy website. That is why cyber-privateers ought to be given a bounty for each terrorist website they take down. In addition to bounties, cyber-privateers could be given immunity from prosecution both abroad and at home. Expect to hear more about cyber-privateering from me in the future.

Along with taking the long-war seriously, we must also take the cyber-war seriously. Winning both will require new ways of dealing with threats.

Posted by: Rusty at 03:34 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 548 words, total size 4 kb.

1 Heh. How Chinese of you, Rusty. Peoples War. You are espousing the exact approach the Chinese propound. And are executing, every day.

Posted by: John of Argghhh! at March 17, 2006 04:26 PM (rBMZ5)

2 Cyber-Privateer, that appeals to me both professionally, and personally on so many levels!

Posted by: davec at March 17, 2006 04:53 PM (CcXvt)

3 That's is fricken brillant. CYBER PRIVATEERS, HELL, I even like the name. And Congress could grant "Internet Letters of Marque." That is a suggestion outside the box, BIG TIME. Kudos for thinking of it, and kudos for having the savvy to conjure up the whole idea. I'm going to call some Congressmen on Monday and refer them to your website, and your suggestion. I also suggest that you email this post to Thomas P. Barnett, who can be contacted through his website. I don't agree with everything that Barnett says, especially his idea of accepting the mullahs getting nukes, but the guy is connected, and he definitely has an eye for ideas that are outside the box. So contact him.

Posted by: Dan at March 18, 2006 12:50 AM (GAtBS)

4 Fantastic idea.... Run with it.

Posted by: blert at March 18, 2006 02:17 AM (zqIhB)

5 Rusty, this is an interesting idea, and normally, I agree with you, but in this case, I think you make a few incorrect assumptions. You said, "Up to now, there has been virtually no real effort made to treat the terror presence on the internet as a military matter." Do you know this for sure? I think it is being very much treated as a military matter, and in fact, the military is both trained and equipped to fight a cyber war, and they exercise their capability quite often. Simple ideas espoused on foreign websites are not the danger, and even though some sites traffic in the exchange of jihad videos or executions and beheadings, it is still open expression of ideas. Really cruddy ideas, but thats all. Jihadists, like liberalism is better if it is exposed and in the open. Leave it to people to judge it for themselves and reject it. Also, launching attacks and taking down websites would likely be very counter-productive. They are free open sources of intelligence, and the US intelligence agencies are paying attention and using them to gather intel. Shutting down the sites would eliminate those sources. All this said, there are real cyber dangers posed by jihadists, and I'm not talking about defacements of pro-Israeli websites or sabre-rattling on a message board. The real dangers are the same that face us every day- Using the internet to launch denial of service attacks or intrusions against the national critical infrastructure that may be connected to the internet, including the banking system, SCADA systems and others. Also, there are dangers posed by jihadists using phishing and other techniques to steal the identities and ultimately, cash from Americans and then using the stolen loot to finance real world attacks against Americans and their allies. These are attacks that you cannot see happening very well. And unfortunately, there is not much that average citizens can do to privateer against this- except to deny hackers the use of your own PC as a participant in a botnet, and you do this by patching and keeping your system clean.

Posted by: Pat at March 18, 2006 11:33 AM (3LGfC)

6 hackers do not create botnets.

Posted by: davec at March 18, 2006 04:54 PM (CcXvt)

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