Cyber Warriors At War

Dr. Berg P. Hyacinthe (PhD, Florida State University; LLD Candidate, Assas School of Law, CERSA-CNRS, La Sorbonne) is internationally recognized as an eminent and multidisciplinary scientific investigator. A U.S. patent holder featured in Harvard’s Smithsonian/NASA Astrophysics Data System, Dr. Hyacinthe recently served as Assistant Professor and Scientific Advisor to Taibah University’s Strategic Science & Advanced Technology Unit. Dr. Hyacinthe held several positions at County and State levels of the U.S Government in the Information Technology arena. He has been featured in conferences held at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey (author); Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, Shrivenham (invited session Chair); and National Defence College, Helsinki (session Chair). In CYBER WARRIORS AT WAR, he draws on the triangular relationship between technology, law, and Information Age warfare to propose solutions against potential charges of having committed Information Operations (IO) war crimes and/or IO crimes against humanity. According to Dr. Hyacinthe, the success of pre-emptive strikes and decisive military operations depends profoundly upon both reliable human intelligence and the versatile skills of 21st century “cyber warriors” whose IO activities are conducted through modern warfare’s pentagonal synchrony – land, sea, air, cyberspace, and outer space. Unfortunately, these operations are commonly effectuated under a legal reasoning that is ambiguous in important ways: a threat to the national security of the United States of America and to the entire international community. Hence, as this Essay argues, the evolution of modern computer systems as weapons of war compels wary jurists to turn to the laws that should govern development and use of lethal information technologies. Further, this Essay examines how certain military operations within Information Warfare (IW) require new legal framework, and recounts specific events involving various types of IW conduct and cyber attack: an interesting exposé to jurists, military personnel, policymakers, and the growing and diverse body of information professionals around the world.