Pentagon seeks new war games to combat cyber threats
The Pentagon think tank that has funded studies into whether Russian President Vladimir Putin has Asperger's syndrome is expanding its research to futuristic war games and investigating the effects of embargoes and trade restrictions, newly released military documents show.
The Office of Net Assessment wants to research the effects of trade interruptions, including those caused by blockades and trade embargoes, and "the economic dimension of military crises and warfare, including the character of economic warfare in a range of contexts and the implications for the United States, allies and adversaries."
Economic sanctions, including those targeting the Russian oil industry, are a critical component of the allied response to Russia's annexation of Crimea last year from Ukraine and the continuing Russian support of separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Along with economic research, ONA is seeking "innovative approaches to implement war games to explore the competition between peer and near-peer competitors," said the research request posted online Thursday. The office seeks "new gaming formats enabling expansion of understanding of, and interactions between, modern and emerging warfare areas such as information, cyber, and space combat operations."
ONA is an internal Pentagon think tank that looks toward the future and attempts to identify future conflict areas. Its research is considered responsible for much of the United States' "pivot to Asia," which has seen military policy focus on ways to cope with China's rising influence.
On Wednesday, USA TODAY published two documents commissioned by the think tank that examined Putin and his protégé, Dimitry Medvedev, the current Russian prime minister and former president.
Russia's use of non-military weapons to destabilize Ukraine and other nations, such as neighboring Georgia and Estonia, has drawn the attention of U.S. policy makers.
"Moscow is showing a clear preference for 'non-traditional' ways and means when it comes to expanding its influence across Eastern Europe, including energy blackmail, the use of undercover assets (the so-called 'little green men'), financial penetration, cyber-attacks, and information warfare," said a paper by Luis Simon of the Free University of Brussels in the fall 2014 issue of Parameters, a journal of the Army's Strategic Studies Institute.
Russia has been blamed for cyber attacks on Georgia and Estonia in 2008 and Ukraine last year. Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk last month blamed Russia for cyber attacks on German government sites.