Non-Kinetic Warfare : The New Game Changer in the Battle Space

Abstract

Cyber warfare, information warfare, electronic warfare, command and control warfare, spectrum warfare. Those are only some of the names by which researchers and military experts describe their offensive and defensive non-kinetic actions. The reason for the diversity of the non-kinetic environment is the evolution of the military Electromagnetic Spectrum (EMS) and digital environment over 100 years. With the arrival of radio in the early 20th century, the militarization of the electronic operating environment began. The latest expansion is the formation of the cyber space. Also, the definitions vary significantly. There are differences between USA, Russia, China and NATO. Western countries talk about cyber space, while Russia and China talk about the information environment/space. A recent development in superpowers defense networks has been the integration of Electronic Warfare (EW), Information Warfare (IW) and Cyber Warfare (CW) systems designed to generate non-kinetic effects on intruders in partnership with the traditional use of kinetic weapons. The new capacities of armed forces create new possibilities, both the kinetic and non-kinetic use of force in battlespace. This paper addresses the non-kinetic battlespace elements Electronic Warfare, Information Warfare and Cyber Warfare and the operations in those environments, and which constitute a complete non-kinetic warfare environment (NKW). These advanced and new capabilities form a whole new non-kinetic environment in which they become a game changer in battle space. This paper argues that, although there is an overlap between Cyber Warfare, Information Warfare and Electronic Warfare, these three concepts are not totally analogous. In this paper we focus on EW, IW, CW definitions in the new man made non-kinetic environment and create a Non-Kinetic Warfare environment description and describe EW, IW, CW in the levels of warfare.