Cyber Conflict: Competing National Perspectives

Chapter 4Digital Sparta: Information Operations and Cyber-warfare in Greece ¹

 

 

 

The intense scholarly debate about information operations and cyber-warfare tends to be dominated by the American experience. This is to some extent justified; but the reality is that national doctrines of information operations and cyber-warfare are as varied as human fingerprints. Countries do not enter the sphere of the information society in a vacuum. Instead, they carry their particular historical experiences and strategic concerns with them. These are instrumental in shaping national cyber-warfare doctrines with distinct features, reflecting the geopolitical identity of each nation.

Such varied doctrines combine the military and civilian dimensions of information operations. The formal origins of information operations are undoubtedly military [VEN 09]; yet it would be an error to limit our understanding of the broader concept of information operations to the context of war, or even to the military realm altogether. Although they include traditional military components, such as deception or psychological warfare, information operations extend to areas more closely associated with intelligence and network warfare — that is, offensive and defensive information operations implemented in times of peace [VEN 09]. Examples of such operations range from the 1982 explosion of the Urengoy-Surgut-Chelyabinsk natural gas pipeline in Siberia due to defective computer systems supplied by the United States ...