Jeremy Kofsky

Introduction

            Leaning over the parapet of the ship, Sergeant Parsons* watched the sunset over the Eastern Gulf of Africa. Somewhere over that horizon was a country, one not visible to Parsons but real nonetheless, even more real for the people of that country, who were in the early throws of a violent revolution. Parsons sighed since all the other members of the Marine Detachment (MARDET) aboard the ship were busy looking over analytical reports, reading Signals Intelligence (SIGINT), or interpreting maps/imagery for a potential small-scale operation to evacuate American citizens within the country. As a Civil Affairs Planner, she was limited in her ability to contribute to the analysis because she needed to interact with people in the affected country. The Indications and Warnings/understanding of the people in that country she could provide to the MARDET would be non-existent until she could get on the ground and start working with locals to develop her portion of the operational picture. Then, like a bolt, she stood. ‘Wait, the Ones and Zeroes also have eyes and ears!’ she exclaimed as she rushed back to her internet terminal.

            This incident, or at least the first part of it, has likely occurred countless times in the beginnings of an operation. Civil Preparation of the Battlespace (CPB) is a key part of the Expeditionary Advanced Basing Operations (EABO) construct, especially in its need for persistence, one of the hallmarks of the EABO sensor enterprise. Civil Affairs traditionally lacks the ability of other operational modalities to be persistent away from the actual area (on a ship or at a larger intelligence/operations center for example). Civil Affairs works as a great addition to the overall intelligence and operational picture and allows for a multi-layered approach to fulfilling the commander’s endstate and increasing their understanding of the operational area.

[*Sergeant Parsons is named after Judy Parsons, a US Navy’s WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) responsible for helping sink 95 German U-boats during WWII thanks to her codebreaking efforts.]

            The Marine Corps can and should better enable Sergeant Parsons to do her job and therefore better support EABO by providing her the means to engage with human beings through the internet well in advance of an operation. In order to do this, the Marine Corps needs to develop both the policy and tools for certain occupational fields to conduct cyber persistence AND it needs to enable those occupational fields to leverage the Cyber Persistence of other groups, namely Allies and Partners. This approach is best served by having the persistence needed to properly shape and understand the battlespace. To do this requires professionals who can engage people when not even physically in the country; they need to be able to use the internet to be their eyes and ears to talk with people who can save lives and understand the operational situation before we must cross that horizon and put people on deck.

Cyber Persistence

The role of a persistent intelligence and information presence is not a new one given the billions of dollars our nation spends on global satellite and listening stations capabilities. To add a more human dimension into this global ISR architecture, a new model illuminating the exploitive, rather than coercive, dynamics of cyber competition and a corresponding analytical framework needs to be explored. This framework, known as Cyber Persistence, provides an umbrella under which human centric operations can be an additive to the intelligence process and provide multi-layering effects in the cyber domain, that can be employed by CA personnel as well as other occupational specialties like COMMSTRAT and MISO. These effects will therein offer varied ways to achieve Information -> Decision -> Effective Dominance of a situation, which is the terminal objective of the EABO doctrine.

Cyber Persistence can be defined as “an actor discreetly maintaining long-term access to systems despite disruptions such as restarts or changed credentials to engage with entities via cyberspace whenever and wherever they are.” Cyber Persistence does not seek to be a deterrent, as deterrence cannot attrite a force or stop an action, merely defend in the exact moment. This provides a smart and evolving adversary the ability to work below the threshold of conflict, where modern state and non-state adversaries live and operate, as not to draw retaliation, at scale, from the United States. Cyber-persistence, much like EABO, is a strategic initiative wherein the ability to constantly and persistently initiate operations serves as the best offense and defense against an adversary seeking advantage of the ‘salami-slicing’ type as noted in the Marine Corps Tentative Manual for EABO (TM-EABO).

The cyberspace environment requires assertiveness, derived both from information and subsequent targeted actions. ‘Deterrence’ in the defensive sense is created by having security obtained through action while anticipating action, thereby reducing a majority of adversary activity to inconsequential effects, while simultaneously enhancing one’s own effects, due to a nuanced understanding of the operational, cyber and physical, wherein the effects will be manifested. As the United States military, and specifically the Marine Corps, is a forward based element of American policy and security, having a persistent engagement model not seen as offensive nor aggressive is another layered effect to create decision advantage for national and operational commanders. When combining the forward deployed nature and the corresponding physical persistence of the Marine Corps with the ability to persistently monitor and engage with personnel via cyberspace, these Marines have a much more reduced need to be physically present as a Stand-In Force. The internet provides the ability to obtain the same information as a physical meeting or telephone call and rolls into part of the overall cyber noise to deter adversary intentions

Cyber CoastWatcher

The Marine Corps is ideally suited to the persistent initiative dictums of the Cyber Persistence Model. The current era of peer-Competition and Competition setting creates the conditions for crisis and conflict. Having an ability to understand what our competitor’s desired crisis and war conditions are enables better decision advantage. This can be expanded to the more nascent crisis understanding and shaping as in the American citizen evacuation example above. While Marines cannot physically be everywhere in the world, through the digital landscape, they can interact with entities within those countries where Decision Advantage needs to be created or maintained.

            In the initial example, Sergeant Parsons, or her rear station watch floor, could potentially be talking to various civil and military liaison personnel, oftentimes with them never physically meeting, to openly understand the security and underlying issues within the nation, both at the governmental and local level. This process would start months prior to a crisis, wherein Sergeant Parsons would have a deck of topic areas for her region, be it governance, mass transportation, or water/sewage; she would then work to find who in her region can answer the questions or at least know who they are in case of crisis. If a crisis does arrive, these people are already inculcated to communicating with military personnel via digital means and are more able to, from a technical and behavior point of view, maintain that communication pattern. Having the ability to set up secure communications, in the form of commercial encryption and Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), techniques already commonly used in the digital ecosystem, allows for secure persistence and a digital footprint consistent with what the cyber-Marine is trying to emulate. 

            The ability to engage people online is a more and more daily and accepted engagement methodology today. There are several instances of people forming life-long friendships without ever physically meeting each other. These friendships can form out of online gaming communities, blog posts, social media, and a multitude of other online ‘digital commons’ activities. To create a relationship wholly out of the digital sphere is no longer an uncommon occurrence. This modern change allows for a tailored cyber persistence model to be used in furtherance of competition objectives and better understanding of crisis environments before they become crises. By acting and enhancing these relationships persistently, Marines can understand grievances, planned actions, and most importantly intentions of various groups that could cause issues or be allies to American actions/objectives in the competition environment. 

            This model of engagement is different from traditional Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) models of collection primarily due to the fact OSINT uses research tools to derive information, not a personal engagement model. The Cyber Persistent model of interfacing with people in key areas of the world brings to light topics and interactions not possible through OSINT data aggregation. In the hypothetical situation of Sergeant Parsons, she could know where, when and how services are being controlled or where and who is conducting riots or planning civil disturbances. This would provide a better planning factor to the commander in making their Civil Affairs Assessments and Operations Orders.

            People in the digital sphere also seek validation from others. Understanding this psychological imperative allows for enabled searches of blogs and forums, such as Reddit, wherein people can pontificate about any number of issues effecting their lives or communities. Using these posts as a centering mechanism can give a view into the zeitgeist of an area where the Marine Corps can potentially be employed. Similar to the above online relationship models discussed above, the cataloging of specific digital personas online can lead to greater connections and information/decision advantage in the future. Additionally, as the National Defense Strategy enumerates, our Allies and Partners throughout the world have similar abilities, some at a more advanced level, to conduct these kinds of persistent operations. They also have the ‘advantage’ of not being American and therefore can interact with people who are hesitant to based on historical, cultural, or other reasonings for not interacting with American military personnel.

Conclusion

The ability to nest persistence of collection within a collated sensor network supporting the Fleet Commander is a key factor in keeping competition at the competition level and to prevent crisis or conflict, meeting the terminal objective of EABO. The Marine Corps is fabled for its ability to operate in ‘any clime and place’ and the digital arena should be no different. By understanding and embracing the forward looking and persistent models of traditional Marine Corps operations, while simultaneously embracing the ability of the individual Marine to do the things they have grown up doing, namely forging online relationships, a symbiotic form can grow and mature. This persistent model can be conducted anywhere in the world as the physical connection has become singular with a digital connection. By embracing this understanding, the Marine Corps can make use of the Ones and Zeroes to expand the range of the Eyes and Ears of the commander.

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