Inside Cyber Warfare - Jeffrey Carr [120]
IPB, Intelligent Preparation of the Battlefield, was the former DoD acronym for knowing the lay of the land upon which a battle will be fought (it has since been changed to Joint Intelligence Preparation of the Environment).[42] Eventually, cyberspace will be incorporated into that doctrine; however, based on current thinking (as evidenced by a web search on the subject), it’s being bolted onto warfare in a three-dimensional world that should no longer be defined in three dimensions. A perfect example of this mindset is described in the article “Rise of a Cybered Westphalian Age”[43]:
First, the technology of cyberspace is man-made. It is not, as described by the early “cyber prophets” of the 1990s, an entirely new environment which operates outside human control, like tides or gravity. Rather, as its base, the grid is a vast complex system of machines, software code and services, cables, accepted protocols for compatibility, graphical pictures for human eyes, input/output connections, and electrical supports. It operates precisely across narrow electronic bands but with such an amalgamation of redundancies, substitutions, workarounds, and quick go-to fixes that disruptions can be handled relatively well as long as everyone wants the system to work as planned.
In the earliest days of the Internet, otherwise known as Web 1.0 (the Read-Only Web), this was certainly true. As we moved to Web 2.0 (the Read-Write Web), it became less true. The more integrated our physical and virtual lives become (Web 3.0), the further away from that definition we land. The fact that the authors of the paper still believe that cyberspace is nothing more than a man-made piece of hardware says volumes about how the domain is misunderstood at the highest levels of the DoD, which is obvious with the miscategorization of cyberspace as a fifth domain:[44]
Though the networks and systems that make up cyberspace are man-made, often privately owned, and primarily civilian in use, treating cyberspace as a domain is a critical organizing concept for DoD’s national security missions. This allows DoD to organize, train, and equip for cyberspace as we do in air, land, maritime, and space to support national security interests.
Theoretical physicist Basarab Nicolescu argues that cyber-space-time (CST)—a more accurate name than “cyberspace”—is both artificial and natural at the same time:[45]:
The information that circulates in CST is every bit as material as a chair, a car, or a quantum particle. Electromagnetic waves are just as material as the earth from which the calculi were made: it is simply that their degrees of materiality are different. In modern physics matter is associated with the complex relationship: substance-energy-information-space-time. The semantic shift from material to immaterial is not merely naive, for it can lead to dangerous fantasies.
One of Nicolescu’s influences was Nobel Laureate Wolfgang Pauli.[46] Pauli, in turn, was intrigued by Carl Jung’s theory of synchronicity. In fact, Pauli and Jung spent a great deal of time together because Pauli believed there was a relationship between Jung’s acausal connecting principle and quantum physics—specifically, a conundrum known as “quantum indeterminacy.”[47] In a kind of ironic twist, Carl Jung’s theory of synchronicity has its genesis in his fascination with an ancient Chinese oracle, The Book of Changes, or Yijing. Dating back to the Qin dynasty, this divinatory oracle teaches that the universe is composed of parts that are interconnected. The coins or yarrow stalks[48] used in the