Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Nelson, Napoleon, Alexander, etc. When I was very young I studied Julius Caesar in
Latin and although I do not exactly remember the facts, I am quite sure that if we ask an
historian explaining in NATO circles what was the strategy of information of a previous
commander, we can discover in fact what is strategy concerning information. I am from
the Air Force and at its creation there were many discussions of strategies. It was at one
point decided to study the strategy of the cavalry, because in fact cavalry aviation is the
cavalry of the air and the difference and perhaps the only difference is speed. It became
a way for staff colleges or institutes in thinking about strategy, to go back to the past.
Perhaps for a future meeting we should add some history. This is not a technical remark,
but we were speaking about cultural awareness and valuable information. If you study
the past, the strategy of information of this time, you can find control awareness; perhaps
not values, but how in the past false information was treated badly, without effectiveness
and success. I have some examples of the past which I think could be useful for some
analysis even if the technology is not the same.
To be precise, there is always a problem of control awareness, control knowledge of
the enemy, etc. Generally speaking, the culture of another is like a mirror of your own
culture; when you study the culture of another you see more clearly your own mistakes
and all that is not well; not necessarily bad things, but maybe what is lacking in your
culture. It is absolutely necessary for asymmetric threats but it is the reason why it is not
done or not well done in all institutions because if you want to go deeply into the reality
you are obliged to say that your own organisation is perhaps not so good. And if the
hierarchy perhaps has to change, it is not so good to hear, so it may be best not to speak
about the culture of others.
Handy : In the US we actually have laws which forbid our intelligence activities to do
any type of surveillance or spying on US citizens, and you know there are good reasons
for that. Unfortunately there is nothing to prevent adversaries from doing all kinds of
vulnerability assessment and analyses on, probably, our culture. So they can exploit
certain areas and turn them into weaknesses and I submit that, right now, through the
Internet, through other types of media, sometimes our adversaries have been able to find
out what our tacit knowledge areas are and turn those into weaknesses and
vulnerabilities. They have studied us long enough to know what will make us jump and
what will just make us gloss over something. To look at one's own weaknesses in some
cases is forbidden, but it is not forbidden for someone else, outside of our society, to look
at those and exploit them.
Search WWH ::




Custom Search