Teaching Next-Generation Cyber Warfare

Abstract

Cyberspace plays a unique and crucial role in an era of a new geopolitical competition between the major powers. Cyber warfare has the flexibility of being launched either below or above the threshold of armed conflict in supporting the achievement of strategic goals and political aims. Meanwhile, cyber maneuvers are also inalienable to maneuvers in other warfighting domains such as land, maritime, air, and space. How can cyber capabilities be harnessed and integrated into joint warfighting? How can these new capabilities be taught to the joint force in a new way? These are the questions that the joint professional military education (JPME) programs should address. In the current JPME curricula, cyber capabilities are taught either in silo or in a way that is loosely connected to conventional military maneuvers. In a sense, they are not seamlessly integrated into the JPME programs. This paper addresses the issues of the current approach as well as their consequences. It intends to explore a new way of teaching next-generation cyber warfare, in which cyber capabilities are not only built into joint warfighting but also used to support the employment of relevant instruments of national power as well as the collaboration with allies and partners. This multi-level integrated approach is enabled by disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI). In so doing can cyber capabilities, especially AI-enabled cyber capabilities, be well integrated into the joint warfighting curricula, thus enabling joint force to obtain strategic advantage in the geopolitical competition.