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Strategic Warfare in Cyberspace. By Gregory Rattray. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2001. 517 pages. $49.95. Reviewed by Lieutenant Colonel Michael H. Hoffman, USAR Ret., an attorney specializing in the law of war.
This book is essential reading for anyone (like the reviewer) who needs to follow developments in information warfare but lacks more than yeoman's knowledge of information technology. Lieutenant Colonel Rattray's lucid text offers a valuable walkthrough guide to the national digital infrastructure and its vulnerabilities. Information technology professionals will look elsewhere for technical manuals. However, they may also benefit from a thoughtful reading of the author's skeptical, systematic examination of current assumptions associated with information warfare.
Colonel Rattray sets out his focus early in the book. "Most of the attention surrounding strategic information attacks deals with possible threats from intrusion and disruption of computer systems and networks that underpin advanced information infrastructures .... [T]his book focuses on digital attacks." Rattray covers a lot of ground in five lengthy chapters treating key concepts in digital warfare: delineating strategic information warfare, understanding the conduct of information warfare, the requirements to establish technological capacity for such operations,...