War Play

by Corey Mead

  The Pentagon is slowly beginning to adjust itself to this changing landscape. According to the Washington Post, DARPA is reaching out to private enterprise, academia, and video gamers in an effort to upgrade its cyberwarfare capabilities. Among the aims of this new project, named Plan X, is “the creation of an advanced map that details [and ‘continuously updates’] the entirety of cyberspace.” Military commanders would use this map to pinpoint and disable enemy targets via computer code. Plan X also seeks “the creation of a new, robust operating system capable of both launching attacks and surviving counterattacks.” Unlike the cyberattacks launched by the intelligence community, the military’s attacks would focus on “achieving a physical effect,” such as “shutting down or disrupting a computer.” According to cyberexpert Herbert S. Lin of the National Academy of Sciences, “If they can do it, it’s a really big deal . . . They’re talking about being able to dominate the digital battlefield just like they do the traditional battlefield.”

  On a broader level, the Pentagon’s new United States Cyber Command is charged with centralizing and coordinating the various cyberspace resources that exist throughout the military. Headed by National Security Agency director General Keith Alexander, Cyber Command is responsible both for protecting the Defense Department’s information infrastructure and for developing new offensive and defensive cyberwar capacities across the services as a whole. In a time of across-the-board Pentagon budget cuts, cybersecurity is one of the few areas that will see an actual increase in its budget in the years ahead. What hasn’t been decided is the extent to which Cyber Command will be able to respond to enemy attacks and how its duties will or will not overlap with those of the National Security Agency.

  Critics of Cyber Command argue that its centralized, hierarchical structure is evidence of politics triumphing over effective policy. Cyberwarfare is by nature a decentralized, flattened, networked phenomenon; it therefore stands to reason that an organization like Cyber Command is the worst possible way of approaching it. The Pentagon could more sensibly follow the example of Russia and China and harness the power of independent hackers, whose expertise often far outshines that of government employees. Thus far, however, the Obama administration has taken the opposite tack, seeking to prosecute hackers wherever possible.

  Every technological change implies a new way of waging battles. The rise of cyberwarfare precipitates what John Arquilla, a professor of defense analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School, terms the movement “from blitzkrieg to bitskrieg.” One of the country’s leading cyberwar experts, Arquilla believes the hallmark of the next century of conflict will be “the increasing ability to move from the virtual world to have effects in the physical world,” and vice versa. This is where the questions arise. If cyberwar itself is a form of virtual reality, Arquilla asks, “how will it manifest concrete effects in the real world? Will taking out an enemy’s power grid via a worm be considered an act of war?” By the same token, how will real-world military strategies and tactics manifest themselves in the virtual realm? The cross-pollination between the virtual and the real may well be, Arquilla says, the most important development in the realm of conflict over the next several decades.

  To prepare for this future, the U.S. Air Force has started training officers to defend its electronic networks, pursue online hackers, and launch cyberattacks. In 2012 the air force’s prestigious Weapons School, located at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, graduated its first class of cyberwarriors. According to Colonel Robert Garland, the Weapons School’s commandant, “While cyber may not look or smell exactly like a fighter aircraft or a bomber aircraft, the relevancy in any potential conflict [today] is much the same . . . We have to be able to succeed against an enemy that wants to attack us in any way.”

  The handful of officers who made up the inaugural class of the Cyber Weapons Instructor Course at Nellis were drawn primarily from the 67th Network Warfare Wing and the 688th Information Operations Wing at San Antonio’s Lackland Air Force Base. Before arriving at the Weapons School, they underwent three months of undergraduate cyber training at Keesler Air Force Base and an additional two months of intermediate network warfare training at Hurlburt Field, Florida. Once at Nellis, the officers embarked on a grueling six-month curriculum of ten- to twelve-hour days.

  The curriculum in Nellis’s cyberweapons course is based on real-world scenarios. “We pick a region of the world where there would be increasing tensions and an adversary who doesn’t want U.S. involvement in that area,” says the lieutenant colonel in charge of the course. “And then we play out the computer side of that war in the virtual space and challenge our students with what they could expect to see from an adversary in that area.” An enemy, for example, may try to penetrate the air force’s systems in order to steal information about future operations; it may also deliver corrupt information into the system in order to disrupt those operations. The range of potential targets is wide: attackers may target an entire command system, or they may focus on a single airplane.

  The students in the course are charged with building electronic defenses against this potential intrusion. “Aggressor squadron” teams at Nellis play as their opponents. “The Air Force aggressor acts as a hacker coming against us and we see how our defensive plans measured up,” says Lieutenant Colonel Steven Lindquist, one of the eight initial students. The students learn offensive cyberattack capabilities as well, such as jamming enemy air and sea defenses, as Israel did during its 2007 airstrike on a Syrian nuclear reactor.

  According to Lieutenant Colonel Bob Reeves, who directs the cyber course, the new cybercurriculum “is based on attack, exploit, and defense of the cyber domain.” When graduates complete the course, they will go on to work for Cyber Command, where they will act as instructors and advisers for senior officials. They will be joined by members from other services, including the navy, which is overhauling cyber training at its Center for Information Dominance, where upward of 24,000 people train every year.

  In some ways the rise of cyberwarfare would seem preferable to bloody on-the-ground combat, and yet the choice is not so simple. “If the bitskrieg world is one in which war is not as terrible,” John Arquilla says, “then maybe war is not unthinkable.” We see this issue playing out already with drone warfare in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. If war is made less violent, less disruptive to society, will we be more inclined to wage it? “All but war is simulation,” reads PEO STRI’s former motto. But what happens when that equation changes—when war itself becomes simulation? We are several decades into the information age, but we have still not fully grappled with what that means for the American, and the global, way of war.

  Nor have we fully confronted the fact that the United States has no monopoly on the innovative uses of virtual weapons and video games in war. A number of other countries, including China, South Korea, and the United Kingdom, have recently followed the Pentagon’s lead and created their own cyberwarfare commands. Groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, meanwhile, have produced their own first-person shooter military video games. In Hezbollah’s Special Force series, players take on the role of combatants against the Israeli Defense Forces. The game box declares that the action “embodies objectively the defeat of the Israeli enemy and the heroic actions taken by heroes in Lebanon.” Similarly, Syria’s Under Siege features Palestinian fighters battling Israeli invading forces. And in Iran’s Special Operation 85: Hostage Rescue, players must free a husband-and-wife team of nuclear scientists who have been kidnapped by the American military.

  Perhaps most tellingly, the Chinese army recently announced the development of its own first-person shooter game, reportedly modeled on America’s Army. Titled Glorious Mission, the game, like America’s Army, requires players to complete basic training before advancing to online team combat. Unlike America’s Army, after players complete training and combat, they move into a third stage, which re-creates what a Chinese news report calls “the fiery political atmosphere of camp life.”

&n
bsp; Another key difference between Glorious Mission and America’s Army: the bad guys aren’t unspecified Middle Eastern, Eastern European, or Central Asian terrorists. In Glorious Mission, there is one enemy only: the United States military.

  Notes

  All quotations that are not specifically cited are drawn from the author’s interviews with the persons quoted.

  Introduction

  [>] At the time, military psychologists: Driskell and Olmstead, “Psychology and the Military.”

  [>] “Games are the future of learning”: Quoted in Singer, “Meet the Sims.”

  [>] Moreover, although commercial interests: Li, “The Potential of America’s Army the Video Game.”

  [>] The entire game industry: Prensky, Digital Game-Based Learning.

  [>] This exchange has led scholars: The phrase “military-entertainment complex” comes from Bruce Sterling and is used by, among others, Timothy Lenoir and McKenzie Wark.

  [>] According to the Defense Intelligence Agency: Defense Intelligence Agency, “Informational Brief.”

  [>] The 2012 Department of Defense budget: U.S. Department of Defense, FY2012 Defense Budget, A4, A11–12.

  [>] the research firm Frost & Sullivan predicts: National Training and Simulation Association, “Training 2015.”

  [>] “game-based training can be tailored:” Singer, “Meet the Sims.”

  1. The Rise of the Military-Entertainment Complex

  For this chapter, I would like to acknowledge the groundbreaking work of Ed Halter, Paul Edwards, Timothy Lenoir, Henry Lowood, J. C. Herz, Stephen Kline, Nick Dyer-Witheford, Greig de Peuter, Heather Chaplin, Aaron Ruby, and Sharon Ghamari-Tabrizi.

  [>] “The technologies that shape our culture:” Halter, From Sun Tzu to Xbox, 187.

  [>] While private industry may eventually have developed: Edwards, Closed World, 43.

  [>] Though ENIAC wasn’t completed: Halter, From Sun Tzu to Xbox, 89.

  [>]“the proving ground for initial concepts”: Edwards, Closed World, 43.

  [>] In fact, computers were for many years: Halter, From Sun Tzu to Xbox, 90.

  [>] The other major beneficiary: Kline, Dyer-Witheford, and de Peuter, Digital Play, 85.

  [>] the “military-industrial-academic complex”: Ibid.

  [>] Advanced computing systems, computer graphics: Ibid., 99.

  [>] The game was invented in 1962: Brand, “Spacewar.”

  [>] “the size of about three refrigerators”: Halter, From Sun Tzu to Xbox, 74–75.

  [>] The PDP-1’s manufacturer had shipped: Herz, Joystick Nation, 5.

  [>] Russell’s main influence in programming Spacewar!: Brand, “Spacewar.”

  [>] “Beams, rods, and lances of energy”: Edward Smith, Triplanetary, quoted in ibid.

  [>] “picking a world”: Ibid.

  [>] “radical innovation”: Kline, Dyer-Witheford, and de Peuter, Digital Play, 87.

  [>] Within a year, the game had: Halter, From Sun Tzu to Xbox, 75.

  [>] By the mid-1960s: Herz, Joystick Nation, 7.

  [>] Nuclear mobilization, ballistics, missilery, space defense: Kline, Dyer-Witheford, and de Peuter, Digital Play, 85.

  [>] “were not created directly for military purposes”: Halter, From Sun Tzu to Xbox, 82–83.

  [>] The military’s specific interest in computer-based war gaming: Lenoir and Lowood, “Theaters of War,” 6.

  [>] Not only did Battlezone evoke a three-dimensional world: Halter, From Sun Tzu to Xbox, 119.

  [>] “[Today’s soldiers have] learned”: Ibid., 136–37.

  [>] Each of these systems cost: Lenoir and Lowood, “Theaters of War,” 10.

  [>] “Group interactions are the most complicated”: Quoted in Hapgood, “Simnet.”

  [>] “William Gibson didn’t invent cyberspace”: Ibid.

  [>] By January 1990, the first SIMNET units: Lenoir and Lowood, “Theaters of War,” 16.

  [>] “graphics and networking technology”: Ibid., 30.

  [>] Around the same time that Doom: Riddell, “Doom Goes to War.”

  [>] According to Barnett, Marines would plead: Chaplin and Ruby, Smartbomb, 202.

  [>] “part-task training; mission rehearsal”: Ghamari-Tabrizi, “Convergence of the Pentagon and Hollywood,” 153.

  [>] By contrast, Marine Doom : Chaplin and Ruby, Smartbomb, 206.

  [>] Two new declarations of military doctrine: Ghamari-Tabrizi, “Convergence of the Pentagon and Hollywood,” 155–56.

  [>] “As [ Internal Look ] got under way”: Quoted in Lenoir and Lowood, “Theaters of War,” 10.

  [>] “sharing research results, coordinating research agendas”: National Research Council, Modeling and Simulation, n.p.

  2. Building the Classroom Arsenal: The Military’s Influence on American Education

  [>] “The emphasis on science and mathematics education”: Noble, Classroom Arsenal, 14.

  [>] the “vocationalism” movement: Grubb and Lazerson, Education Gospel, vii.

  [>] Even today the military continues to boast: Zwick, Fair Game?, 2.

  [>] “a collateral investment”: Brandt, “Drafting U.S. Literacy,” 495.

  [>] The vast majority of these new recruits: Driskell and Olmstead, “Psychology and the Military,” 46.

  [>] For example, over a two-year period in World War I: Ibid.

  [>] The results of the Alpha led: Resnick and Resnick, “The Nature of Literacy,” 381.

  [>] gave rise to three “facts”: Gould, Mismeasure of Man, 226–27.

  [>] “produced a way of thinking”: Sticht, Military Experience and Workplace Literacy, 21.

  [>] World War I also marked the first time: Driskell and Olmstead, “Psychology and the Military,” 48.

  [>] By World War I, however: Sticht, Military Experience and Workplace Literacy, 16.

  [>] Comprehension, not just decoding: Duffy, “Literacy Instruction in the Military,” 441.

  [>] “to develop arrested mentality”: Egardner, “Adult Education in the Army,” 258.

  [>] After World War I, the attention generated: Resnick and Resnick, “Nature of Literacy,” 381.

  [>] “A certain division contains 5,000 artillery”: Quoted in Zwick, Fair Game?, 2.

  [>] Although intended as an examination of general learning ability: Eitelberg, Laurence, Waters, and Perelman, Screening for Service, 15.

  [>] Between 1941 and 1945, the years of U.S. involvement: Lemann, Big Test, 54.

  [>] This in turn focused attention: Zwick, Fair Game?, 3.

  [>]Though unintended by its creators, the G.I. Bill: Kime and Anderson, “Contributions of the Military,” 475.

  [>] From this examination came a newfound: Driskell and Olmstead, “Psychology and the Military,” 48.

  [>] This program established permanently: Anderson, “Historical Profile,” 59.

  [>] It also made education relevant: Kime and Anderson, “Contributions of the Military,” 465.

  [>] Between 1941 and 1945, the minimum standards for enlistment: Brandt, “Drafting U.S. Literacy,” 486–87.

  [>] Initially designed by the staff: Kime and Anderson, “Contributions of the Military,” 468.

  [>] Study by correspondence was viewed: Anderson, “Historical Profile,” 110.

  [>] “mediate technologies”: Brandt, “Drafting U.S. Literacy,” 485, 495.

  [>] “Computers would probably have found”: Noble, Classroom Arsenal, 3.

  [>] “Which are the strong points”: Quoted in ibid.

  [>] Funded by the air force, army, and navy, PLATO was: Fletcher, “Education and Training Technology in the Military.”

  [>] For years PLATO was the world’s: Noble, Classroom Arsenal, 98.

  [>] The SAGE system also pioneered: Ibid., 73–81.

  [>] “The Knowledge Revolution”: Grubb and Lazerson, Education Gospel, 1–2.

  [>] the “major determinant”: Quoted in Noble,Classroom Arsenal,12.

  [>] “information theory, systems analysis, nuclear energy”: Ibid.,
191.

  3. “Everybody Must Think”: The Military’s Post-9/11 Turn to Video Games

  [>] A 2001 Army Science Board study laid out: Army Science Board, “Manpower and Personnel.”

  [>] To do so would require “jointness”: Halter, From Sun Tzu to Xbox, xxi.

  “decided that it needed to think less”: Quoted in Silberman, “War Room.”

  [>]“the cognitive demands”: Ibid.

  [>] “speed, degree, and duration”: Ibid.

  [>] “where are the opposing forces”: Nieborg, “Changing the Rules of Engagement,” 117.

  [>] “Our military information tends to arrive”: Quoted in Li, “Potential of America’s Army,” 42–43.

  [>] “People have been using simulations”: Quoted in Silberman, “War Room.”

  [>] “is critical to learning”: Quoted in Chaplin and Ruby, Smartbomb, 207.

  [>] Macedonia says that the book was a major influence: Harmon, “U.S. Military Embraces Video Games.”

  [>] What military training tries to do: Halter, From Sun Tzu to Xbox, 198–99.

  [>] “Somebody throws a ball at you”: Ibid.

  [>] “It does get really weird”: Quoted in Chaplin and Ruby, Smartbomb, 201, 195.

  [>]a growing number of education scholars: Scholars who make this argument include James Gee, Kurt Squire, Constance Steinkuehler, Alice Daer, Henry Jenkins, Gail Hawisher, and Cindy Selfe.