Cold War offspring One byproduct of the planning for Armageddon was the Internet, a network for routing voice and data around areas hypothetically eliminated in a nuclear exchange. The idea has permeated even popular culture. He says it seriously, but sometimes I think he's pulling my leg. Still, the need to jam an enemy's radar and attack his command, control, communications, computers and intelligence assets is a doctrine already established. The United States demonstrated its capabilities in this area as early as the Gulf War, unmasking weaknesses in what appeared to be the significant strengths of Iraq's army.
War is a dirty business.
If strikes on an enemy's IT bring victory with fewer casualties, then we can't afford not to do it. But there is a huge difference between the use of cyberwar techniques to cripple an enemy's military assets, and letting loose a computer virus strain that is likely to also rampage through the civilian portions of the enemy's infrastructure. The first difficulty is defining what is military. It becomes difficult to discern whether an asset is civilian when the same assets are used for both civilian and military purposes. For this reason, the Baghdad phone exchange deserved military treatment.