Information Warfare
JAMES ADAMS, author of The Next World War: Computers are the Weapons and the Front Line is Everywhere, says old-fashioned troops are going to be needed to fight battles for the foreseeable future, and that money shifted to computer warfare may be needed just as badly elsewhere. At the same time, he says, the military may be underestimating the threat of information warfare aimed at the United States and overestimating its ability to conduct such warfare in other countries.
Adams also says that, for the first time since World War II, military technology now trails, rather than leads, civilian technology. Instead of military spending creating trickle-down benefits for consumers, consumer spending is creating trickle-down benefits for the military. He told Paul Schindler about his definition of information warfare (IW) and about a military exercise that exposed America's unpreparedness for IW.
Interviewed by Paul Schindler
August 5, 1998