What Modern Militaries Can Learn From Battlestar Galactica

An anonymous reader writes "Modern warfare these days is all about a 'networked environment.' But what happens when such things that make a modern military work breakdown? How would America's armed forces fight if their computers crashed, could not communicate, or were hit with massive viruses? What then? 'There's wisdom in science fiction. The conceit behind the reboot of the sci-fi epic Battlestar Galactica was that networking military forces exposes them to disaster unless commanders and weapons designers think ahead to the repercussions should an enemy exploit or break the network. The mechanical Cylons, arch foes of humanity, are able to crush the humans' battle fleet and bombard their home worlds with nukes by insinuating viruses into networked computers. They sever contact between capital ships and their fighter forces, and they shut down the fleet's and planets' defenses. Having lost the habit of fighting without networked systems, human crews make easy pickings for Cylon predators.'"

Comments

what?

[hypergreatthing]

wtf? get the frack out of here. Comparing battlestar galactica to the modern military.... might as well compare NCIS to police work or star trek to nasa. What can fiction tell us about anything? nothing, because it's not based on real life.
What does abraham lincoln vampire hunter tell us about colonial life? Lots apparently.

Re: what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. If they took down our networks we would... not care and keep working?

People have no idea how little actual military stuff is actually networked.

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I learned a lot of things from Sci-Fi before I learned them in real life.

  In Star Trek: TNG, for example, I (through the Klingons) learned that Blacks are violent. I also learned that Ferengi (Jews) are greedy. And that women who study Psychology (Counselor Troi) are all ditzy sluts who like to codify common sense through their cleavage. Then, through Voyager's Janeway, I learned that all women over thirty-five are nagging bitches who enjoy being difficult to their families.

Then, through Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and comic books, I learned that nerd humor is pretty much gay humor - excessively chatty with the only controversy being that all the men wear underwear on the outsides of their clothes.

Yep, Sci-Fi. I tossed it all in the trash or out the window. Then I got a skateboard and started playing football, then got a girlfriend; and have been a real man ever since.

-- Ethanol-fueled

Re: what?

[Shoten]

Exactly. If they took down our networks we would... not care and keep working?

People have no idea how little actual military stuff is actually networked.

This is less and less true every year. Without networking, forget about using Predator or Reaper drones, for one thing. Forget about chain of command as well, forget about intelligence...moving in either direction. Most importantly, forget about logistics too.

Re: what?

[F34nor]

There was a story in one of the Iraq books I read, Rise of the Vulcans or something like that where an amsemtrical warfare game sponsored by the US military was stopped when the Marine commander running the "bad guy team" used things like mopeds to move data rendering all the cool e-warfare shit we had useless. Basically the blue team guys thought they could disrupt and destroy a low tech enemy but it didn't work. Old age and treachery will over come youth and enthusiasm every time.

Re: what?

[ShanghaiBill]

People have no idea how little actual military stuff is actually networked.

I think they also have no idea how non-critical a lot of the technology is. When I was in the service, were were constantly training for "what if" scenarios. If our radios were jammed, we would communicate with flares, smoke grenades, semaphore flags, signal mirrors, etc. Once a month we would have a "vehicle appreciation day" where we would move every piece of gear in our battalion for twenty clicks (km) using only our LPCs (leather personnel carriers (boots)). Heck, we even trained for a lack of breathable air. There are few things more difficult than trying to sleep with a gas mask on. A "network failure" is not going to stop the US military.

Re: what?

[pixelpusher220]

The single biggest issue is GPS. How many 'smart' things simply stop working when our satellites are taken out (either by enemy...or just space junk cascading into the Kessler Syndrome/Effect)

Re: what?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're looking for USMC Lt. General Paul Van Riper and his unorthodox response to the 2002 Millennium Challenge wargame.

Re: what?

[Lumpy]

"The single biggest issue is GPS. How many 'smart' things simply stop working when our satellites are taken out "

Smart things? Our Pilots cant fly without GPS, they do not train them to navigate. Honestly it is mind blowing that the powers that be are that incompetent.

Re: what?

[TemporalBeing]

Exactly. If they took down our networks we would... not care and keep working?

People have no idea how little actual military stuff is actually networked.

This is less and less true every year. Without networking, forget about using Predator or Reaper drones, for one thing. Forget about chain of command as well, forget about intelligence...moving in either direction. Most importantly, forget about logistics too.

True, the drones and various functions would be disabled. However, the US Military is by design able to function without access to the chain of command - one thing that has been one of our greatest strengths throughout history.

So losing the network will have some issues, but will not cripple the US Military in any fashion.

Re: what?

[TemporalBeing]

I would agree with you, but sometimes the sum of the pieces is greater than the total. I.e. you can test widget/process A for all manner of failures and B, C, D as well. But testing ALL of them for simultaneous failures simply isn't possible. And while I also agree that it won't 'stop' the military, it will significantly degrade it's effectiveness.

Even complete failured it trained of equipment is trained for. The military is taught not to rely on equipment to get the job done. Multiple failures are expected, and can easily happen in any combat situation.

Re: what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even without all the geewiz toys the military trains to operate in a low tech environment. A classic example of which is the fact that we've had laser range finders for decades, and we still train our snipers to use the mil system and we give them the math necessary to figure out how to place rounds on targets at unknown distances. Pretty much every soldier learns in basic training how to read a map and use a compass, pilots use maps and terrain features to navigate aided by AWACS and air traffic control, even if the RADAR is being jammed, a good pilot will know where they're at by the terrain around them, and fighting over the ocean or a vast desert is the only places where there aren't enough terrain features to navigate by eye. So I say "meh" to the OP's "OMGsorzS the TOYZ are BROKESESSes",

Here's the bottom line, the toys are helpful when they work, and a hindrance when they don't, you use them in addition to your base proficiency skills. We had a unknown range cold bore fire exercise one year where the local authorities were allowed to participate, a couple of them came in with laser range finders and were heavily reliant upon them to do their jobs. The shoot was on a rainy day with stupid high humidity, they couldn't get solid numbers from their range finders due to refraction from the high moisture content and ended up missing all their targets. In their defense they said they train for tops a 200 meter shot with the average urban engagement being well under 50 meters so they never really mess with the scope much outside of zeroing it.

Re: what?

[Leggman]

I was in the Naval ROTC in college and they made us learn to navigate using a sextant...

Re: what?

[error 303]

A similar thing happened in Operation Millenium in 2002. The US commander, General van Riper, in charge of the "red" team (i.e. middle-eastern nation, i.e. Iran) opted to use non tradiational attacks. In effect he launched every available missle on day one at the "blue" fliceet, overwhelming US missle defense systems, and then proceeded to use skifs and speed boats in suicide attacks to avoid any head on engagements. The "blue" team was overwhelemed on the first day and on the second day US command ordered the war game restarted, with much more tight contraints on egagement and tactics. In effect, General van Riper showed that the US was not ready to engage in asymetric warfare in the middle east, and rather than conceding that, they changed and "rigged" the game to show that the US would achieve an easy an descive vicoty. General van Riper resigned in the middle of the game in protest.

Re:what?

[Guspaz]

Battlestar Galactica also posited that connecting two computers together with an ethernet cable instantly makes them completely vulnerable to long-distance wireless hacking because "now it's a network and the cylons can hack networks", so I'd take the whole thing with a grain of salt.

Re: what?

[kenwd0elq]

Yes, and I used to TEACH celestial navigation at the USAF navigator school. Which is now closed.

GPS is too easy, too inexpensive, and too accurate, so NOBODY actually uses celestial navigation any more. But cel nav requires practice, and it is a "Use It Or Lose It!" skill.

Re: what?

[kenwd0elq]

The original article's premise was "The US military may be vulnerable to a cyber-attack, perhaps vaguely similar to the one depicted in Battlestar:Galactica." I was replying to a comment saying, in effect, "we learned how to navigate by the stars at NROTC, so we don't really NEED our fancy GPS systems." I'm saying "Celestial navigation is a great fallback navigation method for when everything else goes to hell, but it takes continuous practice that I don't think people are getting these days."

DO they still teach cel nav any more? I don't know. But with the LORAN and OMEGA systems closed or closing, being able to find your way back to land might be a handy skill to know, if somebody manages to launch a few tons of 1" polycarbonate cubes into a reverse-trajectory low-Earth orbit.

The point is, we DO depend on our electronics, and our military would be crippled if somebody hacked or degraded our electronic communications and navigational systems. Is some knockout cyborg dame going to seduce our only scientist and sink our fleets with gremlins? No, B:G is a fictional and EXTREME case. The fact that science fiction is often extreme and overwrought doesn't mean that the crux of the problem is itself fictional.

Someone just discovered Battlestar Galactica I see

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone just discovered Battlestar Galactica I see. Old news, militaries already aware of this, nothing to see here, move along.

Aren't we the cylons?

[Lifix]

In Battlestar Galactica, the humans are facing the Cylons technologically superior force with advanced cyberweaponry. Doesn't that make us (the USA) the Cylons? Sure China is a threat, but I haven't heard of any damage from any Chinese 'attack.' I have, however, heard of Stuxnet, which had real economic, political and technological consequences.

Never RELY on any one point of failure

[TWiTfan]

Any one point of failure that can render your entire force useless is a problem. A network should be treated as an AID to military forces, not a necessity. Soldiers should, of course, know how to still function if it goes down.

Re:Never RELY on any one point of failure

[PolygamousRanchKid]

. Soldiers should, of course, know how to still function if it goes down.

. . . and more importantly, commanders. Von Clausewitz wrote the importance of not relying on information and command chain systems. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Clausewitz :

While Clausewitz was intensely aware of the value of intelligence at all levels, he was also very skeptical of the accuracy of much military intelligence: "Many intelligence reports in war are contradictory; even more are false, and most are uncertain.... In short, most intelligence is false." This circumstance is generally described as the fog of war. Such skeptical comments apply only to intelligence at the tactical and operational levels; at the strategic and political levels he constantly stressed the requirement for the best possible understanding of what today would be called strategic and political intelligence. His conclusions were influenced by his experiences in the Prussian Army, which was often in an intelligence fog due partly to the superior abilities of Napoleon's system but even more to the nature of war. Clausewitz acknowledges that friction creates enormous difficulties for the realization of any plan, and the fog of war hinders commanders from knowing what is happening. It is precisely in the context of this challenge that he develops the concept of military genius, whose capabilities are seen above all in the execution of operations.

So you need an army where units can function independently. Even if you have a great military plan: "No campaign plan survives first contact with the enemy".

Not really new thinking, at all.

Reciprocity.

[Shoten]

What's strange about the whole concept of Battlestar Galactica and the nature of the attack by the Cylons is how one-sided it was. The humans seemed to have an awareness of what cyber warfare is (they reference firewalls and viruses in the series), yet they never seemed to develop any more than a rudimentary defensive capability (CND, in military parlance) and no intelligence or attack capabilities (CNE and CNA) whatsoever. This, despite the fact that their adversary was entirely cybernetic in nature. Um...yeah, no, I don't buy it. Makes for a good story device, yes (and I loved the series), but I don't buy it as actually realistic. Think about the long-distance communication needed for resurrection, for example...WOW. Get access via that, and think of the incredible damage you could do to Cylons...heck, just a denial of service attack would drastically alter the priorities of an attacking Cylon force, since their losses would be magnified in significance.

Re:Reciprocity.

[l0ungeb0y]

Moreover, there was the episode where the Cylons were dying of an encephalitis virus which was incurable and had a 100% fatality rate and which was so virulent, that it would infect the resurrection ship if any victims resurrected since it would be carried over.

Lee Adama put 2 and 2 together and hatched a plan to commit genocide against the Cylons, but Helo "Goody-Twoshoes" Agathon killed the captive Cylon victims before they could carry out the plan.

What I want to know is why Agathon was not blown out an airlock for that piece of mutiny that resulted in casualties against the humans due to an aborted attack.

Re:Lesson one: don't re-reboot

[TWiTfan]

Sorry, but the Battlestar Galactica reboot was FAR superior to the original. And I say that as someone who was a huge fan of the original. It should be the textbook case for how to do a reboot right.

Ridiculous

[Grashnak]

Modern war - that is, every war the US has fought in the last decade, has been fought largely by infantrymen, light armor and close air support. All of which function just fine without a networked environment.

Maybe you learn the difference between sci fi and reality.

Re:Ridiculous

[Chris Mattern]

Infantry, and even light armor, perhaps. Close air support, not so much. The technical term for close air support that's not in proper communication with the ground troops is "friendly fire."

Re:Ridiculous

[bkmoore]

True, a lot of people on /. seem to be confusing StarCraft for real command and control. If the network all went down, it wouldn't make a huge difference, at least at the Battalion level or below. We'd all just pull out our laminated maps and grease markers and keep on executing the mission. Almost all communication is encrypted radio anyway. Most Computers in the military are used for doing inane things such as making PowerPoint slides. In that sense, loss of computing might be a tactical advantage.

Hard ware Network Kill switches

[gurps_npc]

When facing an enemy whose ability to infiltrate your IT network far exceeds yours to keep them out you should: 1) Only network equipment that actually needs to be networked together. As in targeting system with weapon. 2) Create no physical links at all between systems that don't need to be networked together. 3) Honeypot them into a virtual trap.. (Never understood why they never tried this in Galactica). You want them THINK they have compromised your system, especially whey they have not.

The argument suffers a bit for referencing fiction

[Karmashock]

I completely agree with the premise that you want to design weapons platforms from the ground up assuming a broad spectrum of threats. Be those direct physical attacks or more subtle network intrusions.

War.

What will one human mind do to overcome the machinations of another hostile human mind? Anything. Everything.

Be prepared for anything. Biological. Nuclear. Chemical. Hackers. Sexy honey pot assassins. Everything is on the table.

Let your guard down anywhere and you've told the enemy how to kill you.

Actually,

[Minwee]

Since the Cylons were able to dominate the colonial computer networks because they manufactured most of the key parts, wasn't the lesson of Battlestar Galactica more like "Hey, maybe it might not be such a good idea to outsource production of all of your really important defense stuff to the people you are going to use it to defend yourself against?"

Re:Lesson one: don't re-reboot

[hackula]

Speak for yourself. BSG was great, and DS9 was the best ST series.

Re:History also teaches

[Zedrick]

> Germany were sometimes tactically frozen is their rigid command system

Huh? Ever heard of kampfgruppe? Germany probably had the least rigid command system of all WW2 participants, unless you count various partisan groups.

Or did you mean Japan and the Soviets?

Squadron of F-22's Lost Crossing the Date Line

[Cassini2]

While attempting its first overseas deployment to the Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan, on 11 February 2007, six F-22s of 27th Fighter Squadron flying from Hickam AFB, Hawaii, experienced multiple system failures while crossing the International Date Line (or 180th meridian of longitude) caused by software errors.[230][231][232] The fighters were able to return to Hawaii by following tanker aircraft.

From wikipedia. The references are:
230 "F-22 Squadron Shot Down by the International Date Line." Defense Industry Daily, 1 March 2007. Retrieved: 31 August 2011.
231 "This Week at War". CNN, 24 February 2007.
232 Johnson, Maj. Dani. "Raptors arrive at Kadena." US Air Force, 19 February 2007. Retrieved: 9 May 2010.

Re:Squadron of F-22's Lost Crossing the Date Line

[YrWrstNtmr]

The tanker was there anyway. it also had to return to Hickam with the F-22's to tank them on the way.
The software glitch was a one time thing, in a brand new aircraft. Fixed within 36 hours.

But yes. Let's continue the theme that the pilots suck, the aircraft are useless, and up until recent times, each and every deployment (be it people or a new machine) went perfectly.

Re:Lesson one: don't re-reboot

[TWiTfan]

DS9 was the best ST series

I was beginning to think I was the only one who thought that. It was the only ST series, to me, that seemed even remotely realistic. All the others were set in some bullshit socialist utopia where no one needed or wanted money; the Federation was a bunch of flawless boy scouts; greed, lust, deceit, and religion were nonexistent; and no one thought it even remotely strange that crewmen were bringing their families aboard battleships. The characters on DS9 felt much more like real human beings (and aliens).

Re:Next up on Slashdot....

[VortexCortex]

What Congress can learn from Watching PokeMon Cartoons....

Always repeat your name as often as possible so you're more likely to get chosen.

NEXT!

Never Underestimate 'em

[Molochi]

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a fleet moped riders wearing backpacks full of flashdrives.

Back in my day it took tapes and stationwagons