Cyberwar and Information Warfare

Chapter 3

Intelligence, the First Defense? Information Warfare and Strategic Surprise ¹

One of the most spectacular aspects of mobilization in the military domain of information warfare over these last 20 years has affected the evolution of either civilian or military intelligence services. Often seen as a “first line of defense”, these services may be considered as the guarantors of the impossibility of a State being the victim of a strategic surprise.

Increasingly more present in literature (yet nonetheless still hardly defined), strategic surprise amounts to a diplomatic or military surprise which could radically bring into question the security of the political organization subjected to it¹.

This assertion of intelligence able to guarantee that a strategic surprise will not take place, albeit through intelligence as the first defense which is often seen in literature on the revolution in military affairs (RMA), may come across in varied forms of political and doctrinal crystallization.

The most spectacular form is undoubtedly the link between the new strategic function of “intelligence/anticipation” and strategic surprise from the last French White Paper on Defense and National Security [GOU 08].

As the fundamental material for intelligence services, information is becoming one of the supporting pillars of the French security system². However, the link between information and intelligence services, and the prevention of a surprise attack deserves to be questioned. This is not ...