Cyber Warfare: An Imperilling Disaster

With the modernisation of the globe, advances the military science leading to the introduction of new types of weapons and new style of wars to the world. There is something which makes a state eligible and powerful to introduce a new warfare system and replace the existing one. That ‘something’ which is referred to is called power.

The most powerful state, once introduces the new military order then the whole globe is there to copy the same pattern with certain alterations. But some are there who are critical to get involved in this sheep- walk. These states tend to develop the introduced system and even introduce the next one in almost no time. When the time of change in the military world came in the last century, it was the USA which established dominance over the world. Though the new war violated the law of ancient philosophy of Battles i.e “Attack is the best defence” but it persisted due to its virtues of consuming less money and muscle power mainly. The name that was given to this US discovered modern system of battle without bloodshed by the defence experts was “Information Warfare.” Though it may appear simple in name but it has moved the roots of the strategic world and changed the world order. USA used this war in the establishment of dominance in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. This forms the basis of US foreign policy for third world & undeveloped states. The US is always keen to loan such countries but the amount of loan is so big that these poor countries can’t repay the amount as a result to which the states get compelled to provide the geographical spaces to the US in the form of military bases.

But cyber warfare is not about the US, it’s all about our neighbour China. CHINA AND CYBER SPACE China has been an unstable state since the reign of Communist Party of China but has been tackling the internal and external revolts with brutality. Since Xi Jinping has taken the charge of president, there has been a significant increase in defence expenditure and the Chinese expansionist ideology has taken pace. Following this ideology, China has developed “Information Warfare” to “Cyber Warfare”. China started paying attention to the American style of war in the late 80’s when it was called Information Warfare. Attracted by the benefits that the US got due to information warfare, China got greedy towards the dominance in the world rearing the ambition of being the next superpower of the planet. It studied how the US military had benefited from the application of technologies. China realised the significance of IT’s critical role in war that was and is to be fought in proxy wars with non- friendly states too early when planet had not even dreamt of it. China’s work in cyberspace has been strategic in nature. China saw vicissitudes in 2013. These were the activities that were done keeping strategy in the centre.

In 2015, China had its Kairos moment with the advent of PLA and Strategic Support Forces. The Strategic Support Forces of China is responsible for providing umbrella information for operations on land, water and air whereas PLA is the name of China’s army. These two forces combinely form the ‘New Combat Force’ of China. This force is responsible for providing leverage space, electromagnetic & network capabilities for threatening key nodes of the enemy’s combat system. There is a separate cyber unit in the PLA. The cyber unit of PLA is known as ‘Second Bureau of the Third Department Unit 61398. It’s main headquarters are located in Shanghai which mainly employs IT specialists, Electric engineers, mathematicians and linguistics, so there is a scope for the above professionals in China, if any traitor interested neighbour is waiting for you. The main work of this unit is to implement decisions by Chinese Communist Party in cyberspace- the country to be attacked. THE STATE OF INDIA

When it comes to India, we occupy a deplorable position in the cyber world. According to the reports of Fire Inc. (cyber security company), India is the 5th most targeted country by China as a consequence of which, are cyber attacks of 2007 and recently, cyber attacks in Mumbai and Chennai. We rank 12th in norms, 15th in intelligence, 19th in commercial parameters, 24th in defence, 26th in surveillance and 29th in control in cyberspace, which is not good. Every coin has two faces. The dominance of India is increasing in the continent, which is the first face. The second face is the eradicating power of the northern neighbour. The declining power is constantly concerning the dragon due to which it has launched and is planning to launch cyber attacks to destroy the command system, air defence system of Indian armed forces, which is a reflective situation and needs an immediate act. If put an eye over the last fraction of the last century, the fact which gets aroused is that till 80’s, India and China had common GDP and in early 90’s world saw India as a rising IT hub as trade policies were liberalised, the West started investing and IT was and is a thriving industry.

In the meantime, China was preparing the infrastructure for cyber warfare. In 2011, China occupied the position in the top 10 in the Cyber Power Index. It’s due to the untold fact that since the last decade of last century, it has been heavily investing in cyberspace as a result it has established its dominance in the field due to which the gap in capability of India and China has significantly widened. If we see GDP, while India only spends 0.65 % of its GDP in cyberspace, other countries spend 1.5 to 3 % in this field.
What Can Be Done ?
1)  Defence and civilian infrastructure should be separated so that an attack on civilian infrastructure may not affect the defence sector.
2) Establishment of Central cyber command.
3) Get ready for Unseen warfare

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