Tuesday, May 08, 2018

GLOCs, SLOCs .... ILOCs?

Taking or securing your status as a land power requires robust and well defended Ground Lines of Communication (GLOC). Only a strong and effective navy can secure the Sea Lines of Communication (SLOC) that enable food, fuel, and economic trade to flow unimpeded.

At war, if you want to undermine a land power, you threaten its GLOC. If you want to strangle a maritime nation, disrupt its SLOC.

In an age like so other where simple data, the rapid and reliable exchange of 1s and 0s, are so important for trade, communication, social, and warfighting prowess of advanced nations - what is the status of our Information Lines of Communications (ILOC)?

We all know the Tiffany China Doll fragility of our satellites, but what about the real backbone of the Information Age?

Over at BusinessInsider, a little something to ponder; in peace they are good to spy on ... in war - in a modern age where data bandwidth is as valuable for many economies as oil, coal, and iron were in other ages - are they are target?

Cables are nothing new, but the degree of reliance on them is - as is the ability of technology to find them. We know we fiddle with them at peace, but you don't have to be all that imagitive to see what a target they will be at war.

With everyone thinking about autonomous systems and AI, finding and disrupting cables would seem to be one of the easier things to do in this advance in technology. Even for non-state actors looking to go after the "E" in D.I.M.E., this is attractive.

With each year it will be easier to find and attack these ILOC.

How do you wargame this? Ponder as you watch the below.

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