Hacking Defences

The United States launched its experimental USAF X37B space plane on April 24, which is capable of doing Mach 20 and has been described as the first step towards the militarisation of space. The Russians claim they have a similar programme. Simultaneously, the US is developing missiles that travel at Mach 5 and would be capable of reaching anywhere in the world in an hour with their conventional payload. This Prompt Global Strike programme has the Russians and the Chinese worried as the US prepares for dominance in a possible non-nuclear world. These are the big ticket items being designed by the US to protect itself in the future where the emphasis is on size and speed.

Miniaturisation is the other catchword in military technology. At today’s rate of progress, we will see doubling of progress every 10 years, which will be the equivalent of a century’s progress. American scientists like Ray Kurzweill predict that by the end of 2020, artificial intelligence would be indistinguishable from human intelligence. Given that there are no limits to human creativity, to the power of ideas and also to human depravity, the use of this power will have wide consequences for mankind. As Winston Churchill once said: “The empires of the future will be the empires of the mind”.

America’s defence department has begun to use technology that creates virtual-reality surroundings in which to train their soldiers. Cellphones are being introduced in clothing that project sound directly to the ears. Computers in a few years from now will become essentially invisible. They will be embedded in our furniture and environment.

Smarter weapons that “think” and are designed for precise missions to maximise damage and minimise own-side casualties is the trend. The state-of-the-art Predator-armed UAV could become rapidly out of date with this new minitiarised technology, where future UAVs would be the size of a bird and much more lethal. The Pentagon’s research has been towards Future Combat Systems — smaller, lighter, faster, more lethal and smarter. The US Army plans Brigade Combat Teams, with unmanned robotic systems where a battalion of 120 military robots is fitted with swarm intelligence software to enable it to mimic the organised behaviour of insects. They are even developing Smart Dust, which are devices smaller than birds and bumblebees, not bigger than a pinhead. Once developed and deployed, swarms of millions of these could be dropped in enemy zones to provide detailed surveillance intelligence and also support offensive military operations.

In another part of the world, in West Asia, the Al Qaeda began its new audio production which enables downloading jihadist propaganda to iPods for believers. A prospective jihadi no longer has to go to a remote madrasa in Balochistan or Fata (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) in Pakistan to imbibe this fervour. He can get it online. These two events — the X37B and iPods for jihad — only means that while the exponential growth of science and technology might make life comfortable for us, it does not necessarily make us more secure. Ironically it also means that the US spends billions to protect itself while the terrorist merely takes the low-cost spinoffs from this technology to harm the West. In turn, the West spends trillions more to develop techniques to protect itself against these attacks.

In March 2007, the CIA began working on a digital library of national intelligence information that would have everything from raw data to analytical information. This is expected to be even bigger than the Library of Congress, which today is the world’s largest, with 120 million books/journals stored on 850 km of shelves, with 10,000 books added daily. Besides, there is such tremendous information overload that agencies have difficulty keeping track of the electronic traffic that is out there. Sixteen US intelligence agencies employ 45,000 analysts to track and analyse this traffic. The first text message was sent in Britain in 1992, while more than four billion messages are sent daily now. This does not take into account Twitter and other social networking sites. There are 1.6 billion people online today, and 60 per cent of the world’s population of 6.6 billion uses cellphones, up from 12 per cent in 2000. Huge amounts of this work has been outsourced in the United States to private companies who collect and transmit the data to produce the finished product of intelligence. A new intelligence-industrial complex, similar to the earlier military-industrial complex, operates in the US.

Intelligence and surveillance will also increasingly be electronic. It is no longer necessary to use “plumbers” to break into opponents’ headquarters as Richard Nixon did in 1972; all this can be done online, without any legalistic rigmarole. However, so can the terrorist access computers through WAN (wide area network). Technology makes this possible. Cyber espionage has become the new game. The Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto detailed how a China-based operation, which it called the Shadow Network, pilfered documents from the highest levels of the Indian defence ministry, National Security Council secretariat, diplomatic missions and think tanks such as the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. The attacks were all over India, targeting Indian military formations and Air Force bases. The base of operations was Chengdu, in the heart of China.

China began developing its cyberspace doctrine and capabilities since the late 1990s as part of its military modernisation programme. This doctrine of active defence, under which China should be ready to respond to aggression immediately, emphasises the development of cyberwarfare capabilities. The focus of this strategy of asymmetric warfare requires developing capabilities that circumvent US superiority in command-and-control warfare. The idea is to weaken the critical importance of the cyber domain to America’s military and economic power. Chinese hackers succeeded in high-level penetration of target computer systems, data has been stolen from foreign governments, financial and commercial institutions. Non-governmental organisations like the Falun Gong and Tibetan groups in India were not spared either.
Pakistan too had begun to develop its cyberwarfare capabilities in 2000 with a project interestingly named Operation Badr. The idea was to raise 313 “Java Mujahideen architects” across the world and 10,000 developers. Whether this is just an obsession that Pakistan’s military rulers have with religious symbolism or it signifies battles of another kind is difficult to say, but it is also difficult to ignore — considering the contribution the Pakistani state has made to terror in India and globally.

The future, with all its possibilities and dangers, is upon us. One wonders if we are ready to handle this.

Source : Asian Age , 29th April 2010 , Vikram Sood ( Former Head of RA&W)

All Together Now

A Multi-prolonged approach , not just brute firepower , is needed to root out the maoist Insurgency

One hundred and eighty uniformed personnel of the central and state governments have been killed by Left-wing extremists in the past one year, of which 76 were killed on April 6. In terms of cold statistics, this is nothing compared to starvation deaths and deaths due to diseases in India; the former is a threat to the State, although it loses considerable legitimacy by allowing the other two kinds of deaths to continue. Death by the bullet is more dramatic, however.

Inevitably, the April 6 massacre close to Chiltanar village in the dense forests of Dantewada has raised allegations about yet another intelligence failure. It was partly that but it was also insider support for the extremists, who tipped off the Maoists about the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) deployment. It was also a failure of a system that refuses to learn from past mistakes. When all systems break down, it is difficult to expect the intelligence systems to perform any better.

The CRPF is not a local force; it has no knowledge about the local area, intelligence, terrain and social norms. It has very little reason to mix with the local population; on the other hand, a well-equipped and well-trained local police force would be able to handle this problem far better.

If the local force is not adequately trained or equipped and the outside force is without any local expertise, then both are headed towards disaster. By repeatedly sending central forces to slaughter, we are undermining the morale of the force, the image of the force and that of its owner, in this case, the Government of India. On the other hand, the insurgents seem to have won the day.

In moments like this, there are demands that the Army be called in and the Air Force deployed to ‘crush’ the enemy. Nothing could be a bigger disaster than this. This tendency to be seen to be doing something dramatic must be resisted. We need to remember that the armed forces are professional forces trained and equipped to fight an external enemy — they are not trained to shoot in the air. They lack local knowledge and there will be overkill. This will create more acrimony. Deployment of the Army for local insurgencies takes away its prime USP — defending the external borders. Moreover, troops would need to be reoriented after extensive deployment on internal security duties. Its training would suffer and, therefore, its core competence.

The Army can ensure battle victories but cannot ensure victory in the war against terror. Recent experiences of the US and that of the Soviets in Afghanistan are examples of this. Our own experience too has been mixed. What may have worked partially in the North-east and Jammu and Kashmir would not work in states that are now affected by Naxal violence. Tackling insurgencies is a hard grind that requires physical stamina on the part of the counter-terrorist and political will to stay on course, which is not co-terminus with the life span of any particular government. Counter-insurgency is also a battle of and for minds.

If this war has to be won we must first acknowledge that this will be a long-drawn affair that is unglamorous and as dirty as the insurgent who ceases to be a Robin Hood soon enough in his career. It is not enough to destroy, it is necessary to build. Thus the five main ingredients of any counter-insurgency campaign would be to detect, deter, destroy, develop and dialogue. A sound and effective local intelligence network backed by quick response mechanisms would be needed to detect and deter. Otherwise, the state will keep shooting in the dark and creating more insurgents than it destroys. Central forces may be drafted for the destruction phase if required, but there is no substitute for a well-trained and a well-equipped police force.

First, we need to reinvent our police forces, one of the most neglected, underpaid, overworked and maligned forces in the country. Its faith and pride in itself has to be restored and when its ability to interact with the population is recreated, intelligence will flow. For decades this country has talked of police reforms but nothing seems to move.

Second, the police must be equipped and trained in the latest techniques, an aspect that gets neglected due to shortage of manpower, funds and political indifference. It is possible that in some cases and some states there would be need to incorporate expertise from the armed forces for training police in counter-insurgency techniques.

Third, mere deterrence and destruction of the insurgent force is not enough. It is the rebuilding of the destroyed lives and shattered economy and the end of exploitation which will be key. This must happen more or less simultaneously with the overpowering of the insurgency. If this does not happen, the insurgency will resurrect. What is needed is a multifaceted approach that involves all arms of the government, especially the infrastructure and economic agencies of education, health, agriculture and communications that extend beyond just the law and order aspect.

Fourth, since the insurgents say they are fighting a peoples’ war, we should take this to them by involving the people on the side of the government — the media being the most important component in this battle. Media coverage is oxygen to the terrorists, whether or not a particular operation succeeds. Creation of fear is also terrorist/insurgent victory; reports of massive deployment massages the insurgents’ ego and they will seek to replicate their acts. Media management is, therefore, important for they must report but not reveal.

Fifth, what is needed is a functioning National Counter Terrorism Centre to coordinate the anti-insurgency operations.

Finally, it is a long hard battle — and there are no quick fixes. There is no slash and burn.

Source : Hindustan Times , 9th April 2010 , Former Chief of R&AW