On 22 June 2009, the Pentagon announced the creation of a new cyber command to confront hacker attacks and carry out operations in the cyberspace. The statement said that the new command would come into effect by October. The move signifies the relevance of the Internet in individuals' and nations' lives at times of peace and war and casts shadow over the possibilities for the cyberspace to be militarised one day.
A US cyber command
The Pentagon's statement said that establishment of the new cyber command aims to oversee the protection of US military networks. Meanwhile, claims that the militarization of the Internet is among the targets behind the move were totally dismissed. In fact, the US Secretary of Defence has some 15,000 networks and 7 million computers. Such huge information infrastructure faces incessant hacker attacks as intelligence agencies from all over the world struggle to intrude the Pentagon network. And however difficult and complicated the process is, these agencies never give up. Moreover, hackers could also be computer-obsessed teens or gangs working for foreign countries.
Realising the significance of the issue, President Barak Obama declared that he would appoint a coordinator for the White House network via cooperation with companies controlling financial and electric systems.
Cyber warfare
Cyber warfare signifies the attacks launched against computer networks for the sake of collecting data that would be used in different phases of conflict among nations. It is worthy of mentioning in this context that such practices are not restricted to moments of war or crisis. But even at times of peace, the process of intruding networks to gather information never stops as it represents an important mean for each country to boost its leverage vis-à-vis the others. Cyber-terrorism is categorised by US military academies as part of cyber processes. It is defined as the attacks launched against networks and it includes digital wars -whose purpose is to sabotage information systems.
Attacks could be carried out directly via military actions that destroy rivals' devices or access points. Yet stealing information from enemies' webs and damaging enemies' databases are effective tools to paralyse their ability to make decisions. Moreover, viruses could be very helpful in terms of slowing down networks, which in turn limits the sphere of action.
International networks or radio waves are the way through which attacks are usually launched. Despite the relevance of cyber warfare, it is yet to become an integral part of the military ideology adopted by advanced countries' armies. But cyber attacks are likely to gain further significance in future wars.
Cyber weapons
Over the history of humanity, knowledge and information have been among the assets of power. The drastic development in the realm of computer, however, led to a great transformation when it comes to the concept of power.
Mastery of the cyber domain is now pivotal if land, air or sea military operations are to prove successful. Cyber warfare capabilities have much to do with control systems. The presence of millions of computers the world over has constituted a new medium through which power could be displayed. Thus hackers could intrude networks to steal information and destroy devices. With the growing dependence on computers for civil and military purposes, the Internet has turned to be a synonym for artificial intelligence. This situation resulted in new threats as shown above.
We now have e-bombs whose function is to disrupt communications, wire-tap telephones and disseminate false information via networks and telephones. Strikingly, military commanders' voiceprints could be imitated for the sake of issuing orders harmful to troops on the battlefield. Wiping devices' memories, spreading viruses and sabotaging computer networks are among the tasks accomplished via e-bombs.
The invention of directed-energy weapons has much to do with the central role assigned to networks at times of war. This set includes high-power microwave weapons (HPM) whose functions is to damage electronics within the targets-which would disable air defence forces, radars, or communication devices or crash the memory of computers. These weapons are exceptionally accurate in terms of hitting the target. Nowadays there are some 120 countries embarking upon developing the use of the Internet as a weapon to target financial markets and governments' information systems.
A medium for hostile actions
The Internet is a useful medium in a host of areas: electronic government, digital economy, e-commerce, mass media, banking....etc. But the growing role of the internet implies that the damage caused by hacker attacks would result in catastrophic repercussions.
Armies of advanced countries are now using the Internet as a major communication medium linking their military as well as intelligence units. The fact that armies' networks operate within an international framework exposes military forces to intrusion and attacks with bad effects on processes of decision making. Over the past years, a computer virus named Sars managed to sabotage the information on 500,000 computers in less than four hours.
Cyber warfare was present in a host of disputes throughout the past decade: NATO resorted to this mean in Kosovo, and it was used in the war on Iraq and the Arab-Israel conflict. The US, Russia, China, and Australia employed cyber warfare against each other. It goes without saying that cyber warfare could function as a preliminary step before the outbreak of real wars. It is needless to say that terrorist groups use such medium against their enemies.
Cyber defence, for its part, is a process to protect cyberspace against enemies. It has become of strategic significance given the augmenting threats posed by hacker attacks.
Future wars
It is doubtless that cyberspace is as useful in civil domains as in military ones. The fact the terrorist networks are now using the Internet as a weapon in their wars necessitates the signing of an international convention to organise the way to deal with cyberspace and determine rights and duties of different parties sharing the network. Up to the moment, the absence of such convention has created a state of competition among nations, with each seeking to use the medium to further enhance its own interests. Since cyberspace has become a part of the infrastructure, (energy production stations, dams, nuclear plants and the like) it has become a matter of national security. Indeed, cyber wars are similar to real wars, where fighting nations target each other militarily, economically and politically. This fact pushed a plethora of states to spare no effort to protect the cyberspace even via promulgating laws to combat Internet crimes or establishing specific organisations to deal with urgent matters. The move by the US Secretary of Defence to establish a cyber command comes in this context.

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