Should Information Warfare techniques be viewed as weapons or as an instrument of foreign policy

You probably won't take the whole time necessary to read this but it'd be good if you at least skimmed it to get the gist of it.

www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil...

Here is the introduction to the very loooong article

IW Cyberlaw
The Legal Issues of Information Warfare
Maj David J. DiCenso, USAF, Retired

SHOULD INFORMATION-WARFARE techniques be viewed as weapons or as another instrument of foreign policy? This article briefly delves into the treaties and laws governing warfare from an information-war perspective. Do these treaties and criminal laws prohibit the bulk of the most technologically effective techniques from being used, particularly during peacetime?

By and large, many of the legal parameters of information warfare (IW) are, as yet, ambiguous. This uncertainty can only be resolved through open and frank discussion of just where information-warfare operations fit into foreign policy, international relations, and the international legal environment. The problem is that a nation or actor may well take advantage of the ambiguities that exist and force us to attempt to resolve these issues long before we are prepared to even address them. This article is a modest step to suggest a paradigm for analysis of these issues before we find ourselves backed into the proverbial corner and are forced to choose between no response and a vigilante-style response.

It seems as the US administration has answered this question and made the following clear.

Information Warfare is not a tool of foreign policy, but a weapon.

This weapon is aimed at the enemy and at the citizens of the USA.

From rock and roll blaring into Iraqi Resistance Occupied strongholds to false news broadcasted within the US and around the glober the USA has used information warfare as a Weapon first and for foreign policy second.


[edit on 30-3-2005 by 00PS]

thats why we call it information warfare, we pretty much can rock and roll the insurgents to craziness, they don't like infidel music. think of it as returning the favor for intentionally killing contractors, reporters, Iraqi police, Iraqi army and politicians and recording them to recruit more potential martyrs (and they need them badly) from Europe.

It seems to me that all forms of warfare are part of foriegn policy. It is just usually the last step of getting your ideas across.

Information Warfare is nothing new at all. Spys have been a tool for war since the very beginning, as well as disinformation, false flag ops, and psyops.

They are all in the bag of tricks.

"Knowledge is power"