The vigorous development of science and technology, especially information technology has made a marked impact on the military arts, which has led to the introduction of new types of warfare, including cyber warfare.

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The concept of cyber ​​warfare has emerged since the late 90s of the last century, but there has not been a unified concept yet. Some people argue that although cyber attacks have occurred, they were at a low level and could not be seen as acts of war. They did not directly result in specific loss of life and property for any parties. However, most people believe that when the attacks are directed at government agencies and cause a massive loss of property, politics, spirit, management, and administration, they can be termed acts of war – a new type of war, the wars of the future.

Research on some recent wars (since the Iraq war in 2003 to the present day) in the world, the majority  of military scholars and strategists have agreed that “network-centric warfare” or “network warfare” is officially considered as a type of modern warfare. In fact, developed countries have been concentrating on cyber warfare. They regard it as a new war theory in the information age and as one of the strategic goals that would transform  military thinking and organization and equipment of armies and armed forces in the 21^st century. In particular, big powers,  with their superiority in technology and techniques, have taken advantage of the media, especially the Internet to conduct comprehensive sabotages. Their acts of sabotage focused on undermining cultural values, cultural traditions, creating suspicion, discontent within nations which do not share “the same orbit”. Their ultimate goal was to gather the opposition forces for an easier intervention.

Currently, the network is being used intensively as a formidable weapon in military conflicts such as the U.S. and NATO intervention in Libya in 2011. They infiltrated into the Libyan telecommunication network and TV programs to broadcast distorted contents to the local population. That made a tremendous impact on and rapidly disordered social spirit, inciting and gathering a large number of opposition forces, particularly young people to take the streets to protest against the government. During Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region, two factions - pro-Western and pro-Russian - utilized information technology to launch attacks on the media of each other. On 4 March, 2014, information of a Ukraine’s telecommunications company was stolen. On March 6^th, the websites of Life News, Central Bank of Russia, the Russian newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta, and even Russian President Putin’s website were under attack. On March 15, 2014, the “Technology Warriors” infiltrated into and attacked the NATO’s website. Recently, the U.S. and the West have focused on using cyber warfare to intervene in Venezuela’s internal affairs, providing their support for the opposition forces to organize anti-government demonstrations and riots to overthrow  President Nicolas Manduro’s government.

In Vietnam, to carry out the strategy of “Peaceful Evolution”, the internal and external hostile forces have coordinated with each other to step up their sabotage against our revolutionary cause in many forms, including the use of the Internet. Network warfare has become one of the major tools which is widely employed by the hostile forces. In terms of politics, they release false information; defame the leaders; instigate people to undermine the great national unity bloc; sow the division between the Party and the people, etc., making part of the masses, especially young people and people from ethnic minorities worried and vacillant; creating suspicion and discontent with the regime; and making international friends misconstrue the truth. Economically, they disseminate information to cause market disruptions, leading to speculation and commodity scarcity. In the field of national defense and security, they assemble opposition forces and propagandize to make a reputation for the opposition leaders and reactionary organizations. Technically, they attempt to infiltrate into the intra-organizational networks, especially highly confidential ones to steal information, disrupt and damage websites, paralyze the command and control systems, and so on. Therefore, in order to prevent and minimize the consequences of cyber warfare, we need to properly take a number of measures as follows:

Firstly, it is necessary to strictly censor the Internet, particularly social networking sites. It can be affirmed that Internet development has brought about many advantages to human life. However, its downsides  are also very complex, profoundly affecting the life, economy,  politics and spirit of the whole community. If there is not tough censorship and strong sanctions, it will create gaps for the hostile forces to take advantage, manipulate and exert control over netizens, especially qualified young people to serve their evil plots. It has been proved that the emergence of an unstable netizen community in the society will stifle development and threaten political stability of the country.

To strictly censor the Internet and to limit bad and harmful content online remain a pressing issue today. Having been aware of the problem, the Government issued Decree No. 72/2013/ND-CP on the management, provision and use of Internet services and online information to enhance measures for the management and handling of violations, on July 15^th, 2013. However, the censorship of blogs and social networks is extremely difficult and complicated. To increase the effectiveness of Decree No. 72, it requires a synchronous management from sectors and industries in order to ensure the rational development while taking the initiative to control and censor websites closely and effectively.

Secondly, it is essential to organize counter-forces on the network and on the media (newspapers, radio, television); to propagandize and educate officials, soldiers and people, especially pupils and students to improve their political spirit and ideological orientation. Over the past few years, taking advantage of our Party and State’s “open door” policy and international integration, the hostile forces have thoroughly utilized websites to spread false information and defame leaders of the Party and State, particularly before, during and after the 11^th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam. Their tricks have been more and more sophisticated and foxy: some true evidence blended with false information has become “weapons” to incite the people and slander the leaders, resulting in misunderstanding, doubt, confusion, and vacillation among party members, cadres and people. They even employed hackers to infiltrate and attack websites of government agencies to post unhealthy contents; used websites to falsely accuse our State of religious repression, breach of democracy and human rights, and so on. Hence, a logical organization of forces to refute propaganda that distorts the Party’s guidelines and the State’s policies and law on the media, especially on the Internet to protect the Party, the socialist regime is an urgent task today.

Thirdly, the cyber forces need to be organized into three components –  politics, technology, operations – aimed at ensuring network security and launching cyber attack when needed. Ensuring information security and network security in the world and in the country is facing a series of difficulties. The risks of cyber attacks, infiltration, information incidents, and network security are on the rise. Meanwhile, information technology is being widely applied in all aspects of the social life. Therefore, it is necessary to establish dedicated cyber warfare forces capable of defending our national network sovereignty.

Lieutenant-General, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Vo Tien Trung

Member of the Party Central Committee, Director of the National Defense Academy