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Modern warfare can be distinguished from previous modes and methods of warfare through the flow of information. The force that wields the most advantage is one that can rapidly understand the changing character of the conflict, mitigate adversary capabilities and advancements, and iterate to rapidly field and develop capabilities that take advantage of an adversary’s gaps in understanding and capability. Air Force Colonel John Boyd characterized this rapidly iterative cycle as the OODA loop broken down into Observe, Orient, Decide, Act; the force that can iterate through this cycle most rapidly will retain informational and decision advantage.1 Modern Chinese doctrine has adapted this concept into the concepts of “informationized” warfare, where the primary goal is to induce information paralysis in their adversary by attacking the means of controlling the flow of information. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is working towards the following goal: “intelligentized” warfare, where much of the sensing, targeting, and attacking is automated, integrated, and resilient.2 A lynchpin in both of these strategies is information control and information protection – ensuring that the PLA has secure and reliable communication across its widely dispersed forces during war. China has made significant investments in quantum research in order to provide unparalleled information security and to mitigate perceived US strengths, such as stealth technology specifically.3 Chinese priorities as they relate to quantum technology research in quantum computing and quantum communication can allow China to leverage and exploit interdependencies present within the space and cyber domains and bypass them to provide China with an unparalleled information advantage.4
There are many interpretations of China’s overall military strategy because what the general public can glean about China is information it has released for public consumption, which could be a means of attempting to condition the global community towards a specific response. However, public statements from President Xi Jinping have clearly indicated a few things: 1) It is the goal of the Chinese to be able to become a Regional Hegemon and defeat an adversary like the US in a regional war. 2) The Chinese believe in a policy of winning without fighting. 3) The Chinese have a stated strategy of pursuing “the three warfares,” which include political warfare, psychological warfare, and legal warfare.5 4) The PLA has learned lessons from the wars in Ukraine and Israel.6 Chinese concepts of information warfare have two general and five specific elements. The goal of Information warfare is information dominance, which means controlling the flow of information on the battlefield by protecting your own information and denying the adversary the ability to use information effectively.7 Denying an adversary information can occur through command and control (C2) nodes or critical elements for information transmission, such as adversary space constellations. The Chinese conduct information defense and offense through “substantive destruction” of information nodes, electronic warfare, military deception, cyber warfare, operational secrecy, and psychological warfare.8
The United States military and the Intelligence Community have a tendency to focus on parochial interests and mitigating specific capabilities rather than stratagems.9 In order to properly defend against Chinese “informatized” and “intelligentized” warfare, the US needs to understand how the Chinese plan to choose their targets and why. Certainly, there are many strategies and theories in different stages of development to ensure that the US military is more resilient, mobile, and independent. Some of those changes require a shift in overall organizational culture, such as the Air Force’s Agile Combat Employment strategy.10 Some of those changes represent the knitting of disparate technologies and capabilities to emulate China’s “kill web,” such as Joint All Domain Command and Control.11 While there is an allure to centralizing information, adversary manipulation could then pose a greater risk. What would we have accomplished if our new technologies were secured with encryption that was made obsolete by Chinese quantum computing?12 Holistically, the US has not developed a cogent information strategy that can compete with the highly centralized control and execution present in autocratic countries like Russia and China. This portfolio examines some of the critical structural gaps and seams within the IC that perpetuate that failure. Specifically, this portfolio explores adversary strategies for information control, the lack of a US information strategy, and emerging technologies such as Quantum Information Services, which countries like China are developing to cement their information advantage, and how the US can begin to understand and mitigate those capabilities.
1 “Conceptualizing Information Advantage,” accessed October 11, 2024, https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/November-December-2022/Kean/.
2 “China’s Strategy of ‘Informationised and Intelligent’ Warfare,” accessed October 11, 2024, https://www.spsnavalforces.com/story/?id=802&h=Chinas-Strategy-of-Informationised-and-Intelligent-Warfare.
3 “Quantum Leap (Part 2): The Strategic Implications of Quantum Technologies,” accessed November 14, 2024, https://jamestown.org/program/quantum-leap-part-2-strategic-implications-quantum-technologies/.
4 Wilson Beaver, “The Urgency of the Quantum Computing Race With China,” The Heritage Foundation, accessed October 11, 2024, https://www.heritage.org/technology/commentary/the-urgency-the-quantum-computing-race-china.
5 Cosmina Neculcea, “CHINA’S THREE WARFARE STRATEGY. ORIGINS, EVOLUTION, APPLICABILITY” 14, no. 1 (n.d.).
6 Christopher H Chin et al., “When Dragons Watch Bears: Information Warfare Trends and Implications for the Joint Force,” 2023.
7 “Chinese Concepts and Capabilities of Information Warfare | Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses,” accessed October 11, 2024, https://www.idsa.in/strategicanalysis/ChineseConceptsandCapabilitiesofInformationWarfare_vanand_1006.
8 “Chinese Concepts and Capabilities of Information Warfare | Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses.”
9 “Surprise and Suspense: How the Intelligence Community Forgot the Future: The International Journal of Intelligence, Security, and Public Affairs: Vol 23, No 3,” accessed November 14, 2024, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23800992.2021.2006954.
10 “Air Force Doctrine Note 1-21 Agile Combat Employment” (Curtis E. LeMay Center for Doctrine Development and Education, August 23, 2022), https://www.doctrine.af.mil/Portals/61/documents/AFDN_1-21/AFDN%201-21%20ACE.pdf.
11 B A Friedman, “Finding the Right Model: The Joint Force, the People’s Liberation Army, and Information Warfare,” n.d.
12 “Chinese Researchers Break RSA Encryption with a Quantum Computer | CSO Online,” accessed October 16, 2024, https://www.csoonline.com/article/3562701/chinese-researchers-break-rsa-encryption-with-a-quantum-computer.html.
This presentation explored North Korea’s use of cyber warfare and the likely linkages that exist between North Korea’s Cyber Program and China’s tacit, if not explicit, approval.
This short-answer midterm answers two questions about Counter Intelligence: What is the history of CI, what major events have formed the CI community, and what does a modern insider threat look like compared to historic insider threats?
This final essay discusses the future of SOF. It suggests how SOF should optimize its support with the intelligence community in order to shift operations from having expertise in high-value targeting in a permissive environment to prosecuting operations against an adversary with robust cyber and space capabilities.
This midterm assignment explores how Russia, China, and the US all leverage information power differently in order to achieve their respective aims.
My contribution to the final group research paper (not linked due to classification) focuses on the structure and vulnerabilities of cross-border payment systems.
This essay explores different quantum information science capabilities, the current efforts in research and development, and their potential application as instruments of national security.
This short answer midterm answers three questions about Denial and Deception, ranging from questions about the major ideas underpinning denial and deception, namely simulation and dissimulation, to different types of collection capabilities as described in Lowenthal’s textbook on Intelligence Collection.
My final paper for CAC-603 analyzes how OSINT can aid in the collection of the Chinese Quantum Industry’s Plans and Capabilities. The paper explores topics in emerging technology research, OSINT exploitation opportunities in the scientific and academic fields, and difficulties accessing potentially open-source information in closed societies.
A.F. Sosa MSTI Portfolio 