IO place a premium on the conduct of preparatory activities, inherently involving covert operations in peacetime. It is a process quite different to the planning and logistics preparations that are involved in conventional operations; it is more akin to the craft of the cryptanalyst.

Information Supremacy requires intimate familiarity with the intricacies of an adversary’s C2 structure, public media, defence communications systems, sensor systems, and cyber-networks. It requires the maintenance of comprehensive, accurate and completely up-to-date EOB data for the design of ESM and ECM EW systems and application tactics. It requires detailed knowledge of the antenna systems and electronic equipment aboard adversary combatants (such as the avionics in aircraft) and installed in hardened command centres, in order to design EW, ‘front-door’, ‘in-band’ high-power microwave (HPM), and cyber-penetration techniques. Cyber-warriors must explore offensive cyber-warfare, in which software is developed for penetrating the firewalls in designated sectors (such as air traffic control and air defence networks); worms, viruses and ‘Trojan horses’ are developed, and plans are prepared and tested, for the corruption or disablement of websites and databases; and ‘back-door’ programs are installed in designated computer networks enabling data to be copied from files without detection, or the cyber-warfare centre to take control of the infected computers.

Much of this would be done in the Australian Cyber-warfare Centre itself, using airborne connectivity with the adversary’s networks. However, the process would be greatly advantaged by the prior emplacement of various sorts of devices on adversary C3I systems—such as telephone exchanges, microwave relay towers, radar equipment, and even SATCOM ground control stations.

There are questions about Australia’s willingness and capacity for engaging in ante-bellum activities, especially those involving identifiable penetrations of cyber-networks or physical implants of technical devices.