Ethics and information warfare

Abstract

War forms an integral part of the history of mankind, alternately driving civilization forward, then imperiling it. A natural ambivalence toward war has thus developed, with its acceptance as a necessary evil tempered by vigorous, sustained efforts to control its frequency and intensity. Thus, from the dawn of the recorded history of conflict, attempts have been made to craft an ethical approach to war. They break down into two categories: a set of guidelines regarding going to war at all and a set of strictures by which combatants, should they adhere to them, might fight during a war in a just manner. These dimensions of the ethical approach to war have received searching scrutiny. In this early period of the information age, the time has come to revisit these ethical concepts, as new forms of conflict are emerging to test existing understanding of just wars much as advanced information technologies are already requiring a rethinking of a wide range of commercial and criminal laws. Another reason to devote some attention to ethical issues and future conflict is that, in the mountainous sea of literature on information warfare, little attention has been given thus far to its ethical dimensions. Part of the problem is that information warfare is itself a multifaceted concept in Martin Libicki's phrase, a mosaic of forms. (Libicki, 1996, p. 6.) Information warfare is a concept that ranges from the use of cyberspace to attack communication nodes and infrastructures to the use of information media in the service of psychological influence techniques. Because it constitutes such a variety of conflict modes, information warfare poses problems for those who seek out ethical guidelines for its waging.

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