Tag Archive for: Warfare

DVIDS – News – Maryland Air Guard exercise skills to be ready for warfare

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The Maryland Air National Guard conducted a readiness exercise involving Airmen in a simulated deployed environment across Martin State Air National Guard Base from March 2-5.

The exercise, designated Operation Lucky Strike 2023, was built to test and demonstrate the 175th Wing’s ability to survive and operate in a near-peer conflict while executing unit-level critical tasks. All training activities were observed and monitored by unit subject matter experts and the inspector general’s office, which provided feedback to leaders and participants.

“Operation Lucky Strike is a full-scale readiness exercise designed to test our Airmen’s ability to ensure mission essential tasks are met in a contested, degraded, operationally limited environment including CBRN, chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear environments,” said Maryland Air National Guard Capt. Sara Nittinger, 175th Wing director of inspections. “Everything is driven by the new Air Force generation concept, AFFORGEN. It is how we prepare our Airmen for deployments, where they have to be able to demonstrate that they can accomplish their core mission essential tasks in a variety of threat levels.”

During the exercise, wing Airmen had to operate during simulated cyberattacks, power outages, hazardous material accidents, force protection events, and severe weather. The exercise also took place at multiple locations, including Aberdeen Proving Ground and Ft. Meade, testing the wing’s ability to demonstrate agile combat employment, known as ACE.

“In the future, we could be operating in a hostile combat environment that is contested or degraded against an adversary that has peer capabilities – in other words, as capable as us and in some cases maybe more capable,” said Maryland Air National Guard Col. Richard Hunt, 175th Wing vice commander. “They are going to threaten us as much as we threaten them. In order for us to survive, operate, and be effective in a high-risk combat scenario, we need to have the ability to forward deploy to conduct combat operations for a very limited…

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Russian-Ukraine: New form of warfare in the form of cyberattacks

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People hold Ukraine’s national flags and placards during a demonstration, as they line up to cast ballots in a mock referendum about on whether Poland should annex Russia’s embassy in Warsaw – Copyright AFP SAUL LOEB

The Russian invasion and occupation of Ukraine is not only market by military warfare and needless fatalities. Another feature of the campaign appears to be cyberwarfare, at least in terms of Russian activities directed towards Ukrainian services with the aim of causing additional disruption.

A phishing attack has taken place, hitting various Ukrainian government agencies and the state railway (Ukrzaliznytsia). Considering the implications of this event is Joe Gallop, Cyber Threat Intelligence Manager at Cofense.

According to Gallop the likely origin of the incident was Russia: “Though there is no confirmation yet, it is likely that DolphinCape is a Russian operation, designed to interrupt Ukraine’s railway systems while Russia loses ground in the war.”

In terms of the form of attack, this was aimed at addressing so-termed ‘human factors’, according to Gallop: “Phishing, as a threat vector, targets the habits, concerns, and interests of humans. Phishing attacks are common in Ukraine, accounting for about 70 percent of all cybercrimes. In the last year, the country has been hit with various phishing attacks from Russia, including one in April from the threat actor Armageddon that baited Ukrainian and Latvian government officials with information about the Ukraine-Russian war.”

The latest attack was relatively sophisticated, notes Gallop: “The unfortunate irony in this particular attack is that the phishing emails included warnings on how to identify a kamikaze drone while unsuspecting Ukrainians remained unassuming about the real attack that was taking place.”

In terms of how these attacks work, Gallop explains: “Lure design is one of the critical components of a phishing email. Threat actors like to play the fear factor in commonplace phishing campaigns, drawing on fears raised by unpaid invoices, account security notices, IRS inquiries, termination notices, etc.”

With the specific incident, Gallop adds: “In this campaign targeting Ukrainian…

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Cyber Warfare Is Getting Real

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In 2022, an American dressed in his pajamas took down North Korea’s internet from his living room. Fortunately, there was no reprisal against the United States. But Kim Jong Un and his generals must have weighed retaliation and asked themselves whether the so-called independent hacker was a front for a planned and official American attack.

In 2023, the world might not get so lucky. There will almost certainly be a major cyberattack. It could shut down Taiwan’s airports and trains, paralyze British military computers, or swing a US election. This is terrifying, because each time this happens, there is a small risk that the aggrieved side will respond aggressively, maybe at the wrong party, and (worst of all) even if it carries the risk of nuclear escalation. 

This is because cyber weapons are different from conventional ones. They are cheaper to design and wield. That means great powers, middle powers, and pariah states can all develop and use them.

More important, missiles come with a return address, but virtual attacks do not. Suppose in 2023, in the coldest weeks of winter, a virus shuts down American or European oil pipelines. It has all the markings of a Russian attack, but intelligence experts warn it could be a Chinese assault in disguise. Others see hints of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. No one knows for sure. Presidents Biden and Macron have to decide whether to retaliate at all, and if so, against whom—Russia? China? Iran? It’s a gamble, and they could get unlucky.

Neither country wants to start a conventional war with one another, let alone a nuclear one. Conflict is so ruinous that most enemies prefer to loathe one another in peace. During the Cold War, the prospect of mutual destruction was a huge deterrent to any great power war. There were almost no circumstances in which it made sense to initiate an attack. But cyber warfare changes that conventional strategic calculus. The attribution problem introduces an immense amount of uncertainty, complicating the decision our leaders have to make.

For example, if the US is attacked by an uncertain foe, you might think “well, better they don’t retaliate at all.” But this is a losing strategy. If President Biden…

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Internet of Military Things (IoMT) and the Future of Warfare

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In May 2, 2022 testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Scott D. Berrier and Director of National Intelligence Avril D. Haines identified China, Russia, and Iran, as well as terrorist organizations, as the greatest threats to U.S. national security. Both China and Russia are nuclear powers and both have significant intelligence, cyber, and information warfare capabilities.

Russia

Russia’s threat to the United States includes: direct military conflict, cyber attacks, supporting separatists, threats to freedom of navigation, and territorial expansion. On November 15, a missile blast killed two people in Poland, near the Ukraine border. Russia was the primary suspect. President Joe Biden later told the Poles that the missile was part of a Ukrainian defense system. Whether the missile actually came from Russia directly or was the indirect result of Russian shelling, the incident underscores the danger Russia poses. A perceived attack on a NATO member could cause NATO to invoke Article 5, which states that an armed attack against one member is considered an attack against the entire alliance.

Moscow has repeatedly accused the U.S. and NATO of wanting to destroy Russia. Since the end of the Cold War, 13 countries have been admitted to NATO: the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland (1999); Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia (2004); Albania and Croatia (2009); and, in 2017, Montenegro. Consequently, Russia has been focused on maintaining its influence and control in former Soviet republics, including Ukraine, Belarus, and the Central Asian states.

Defeating the U.S. or breaking from a U.S.-led world order was a primary goal of the USSR and has carried over to modern Russia. Opposing Europe and the U.K. are secondary objectives, seen as a proxy for defiance against the U.S. One of the concerns of the Department of Defense is that Putin often uses threats, including the threat of nuclear war, to get what he wants. If his threats continue to go unheeded, there is the danger that he will finally act, launching a strike, to show that he is serious.

Since the fall of…

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