Computer Science 39K: IT (Information Technology) Goes to War!
Professor Randy H. Katz
Computer Science Division
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, California 94720-1776
Course Description
Necessity drives invention. In this seminar, we will examine the interwined historical
development of information technology, broadly defined as computing, communications,
and signal processing, in the 20th Century within the context of modern warfare and
national defense. Topics include: cryptography/cryptanalysis and the development of the
computer; command and control systems and the development of the Internet; the war of
attrition and the development of the mathematics of operations research; military
communications and the development of the cellular telephone system; precision
munitions and the development of the Global Positioning System. While we will
endeavor to explain these developments in technical terms at a tutorial level, our main
focus is to engage the students in the historical sweep of technical development and
innovation as driven by national needs, and whether this represents a continuing
framework for the 21st Century. No scientific or technical background is assumed for this
course.
"Only the dead have seen the end of war." Plato
"It is well that war is so terrible--we should grow too fond of it." Robert E. Lee
"You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you." Trotsky
"War: first, one hopes to win; then one expects the enemy to lose; then, one is satisfied
that he too is suffering; in the end, one is surprised that everyone has lost." Karl Kraus
"He who does not remember history is condemned to repeat it." Santayana
"I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and
philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural
history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give
their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and
porcelain." John Adams
Course Location and Grading
Room 310 Soda Hall, Wednesday, 4-6 PM
2 Units, Pass/Fail based on attendance, seminar participation, one group paper and
presentation (analyzing a world insurgency) plus one individual research paper (on a
topic of the student's choice to be negotiated with the instructor).
Discussions will be augmented with selected video presentations to provide context for
the technologies and events being discussed.
In addition, we make extensive use of group "games" to emerse the participants into the
issues being discussed.
Students really enjoy these, but your active participation is essential; you get out of this
course what you put in.
Please join the Course Google Group! [I have to approve your membership, which will
be limited to the class participants.]
Tentative Course Agenda
19 January 11
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Seminar Introduction, Course Mechanics, and Getting Acquainted
Discussion of Students' Background and Experience
Why Study Warfare?
The Horror of Modern Warfare: Screening of "Saving Private
Ryan", opening Omaha Beach sequence
Discussion of Universal Conscription vs. the All-Volunteer Army
Brief Introduction to next week's Naval Game: Early 20th Century
Strategic Decision Making
Four Wars at the Turn of the 19th-20th Century that you may never
of heard of:
○ Spanish-American War, April-August 1898.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish-American_War.
○ Reconquest of the Sudan/Battle of Omdurman, 1898.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Omdurman.
○ Boer War, 1898-1902.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War.
○ Russo-Japanese War, 1904-1905.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War.
Seminar Introduction [pdf]
Read for Next Week: Notes on the Naval War Game [pdf]
WARNING 16 MByte file/34 pages long!
26 January 11
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Theme: Naval Warfare, Military Planning, (Naval) Arms Race, and
the Role of Technological Surprise
Historical Example: Late 19th/Early 20th Century
○ German and British Naval Policy: the First Arms Race
○ Naval Strategies at the Outbreak of WWI
○ Threat of the Submarine: Cheap Total War
○ Lessons of Jutland for Large-scale Ship-to-Ship engagements
in the 20th Century
Discussion Questions
How Should Germany Build its Fleet, and What Should
Britain Do?
○ What can be Learned from 1914-1918, particularly Jutland?
IT Issues
○ Communications, Coordination, Intelligence, Tracking
Afghanistan Project Description, Due 9 March
Brief introduction to next week's Radio Game: coordinating teams
via radio communications
Background briefing: The Challenge of Naval Gunnery [pdf]
Background briefing: UK vs. Germany at the turn of the 20th
Century [pdf]
Readings: The Dreadnought Project
Readings: Battle of Jutland
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2 February 11
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Theme: Tactical Communications
Minilecture on radio communications, discipline, limitations,
jamming, etc.
○ Physics of Radio: LW, SW, HF, VHF, atmospheric skip vs.
line of sight, shared channels
Group exercise: the Radio Game
Discussion Questions:
○ Is hearing as good as seeing?
○ Is radio communications as good as face-to-face
communications?
○ What is the effect of adversarial intermediaries in the middle
of communications?
Brief Screening from the film "A Bridge Too Far"--The Problems of
the Radios (@6:00)
Brief introduction to air warfare
Brief introduction to the concept of radar and air interception
Background briefing: Development of radio and background on the
radio game [pdf]
Readings: Radio, Electronic Warfare
9 February 11
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Theme: Strategic Bombing Offense
Minilecture on Radar and Strategic Air Warfare in WWII
○ Radar: Radio Detection and Ranging
○ Bombing (circa 1940)
○ Engaging aircraft circa 1940
○ The Battle of the Beams: Electronic Warfare and Counter
Measures
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Brief screening from the film "Battle of Britain" --German Offensive and
the Role of Radar
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Discussion Questions
○ What does bombing do?
○ Is it effective?
○ Is it cost-effective?
○ What are the IT issues involved in bombing?
○ What strategies might be appropriate for addressing these
issues?
The Air Warfare Game (Battle of Britain Version) [pdf]
Readings: Radar, Electronic Navigation Systems, Strategic Air
Offensive, Thousand Bomber Raids, Blitz, Fighters and Bombers
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16 February 11
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Theme: Strategic Air Defense
Brief Screening of WWII newsreels depicting a 1000 bomber raid-Allied Offensive and the German Response
Group Exercise: The Air Warfare Game
○ Defense: plan an air defense system; Offense: overwhelm air
defenses
○ Initial planning
○ Initial engagement/defense
○ Determine outcomes and repeat
Brief Screening of "The Memphis Belle" (@15:15)
The Air Warfare Game (Strategic Bomber Offensive Version) [pdf]
Read ahead for next week: Battle of the Atlantic, Battle of
Midway, Signals Intelligence, (Naval)
Convoys, Destroyer, Submarine,Torpedo, Ultra, Magic
23 February 11
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Theme: Battle of the Atlantic and Cryptography
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Brief Screening from the film "Enigma"--the Ultra Secret and the
Cracking of the German Codes
Discussion
○ Naval War of Attrition: Submarines, Convoys, and Finding
the Needle in the Haystack
○ Tactical, strategic significance of decrypts
○ How encryption works
○ How decryption works
○ German Enigma Machine
○ Turing's Decryption Machine (@4:09)
○ Codebreaking
Group Exercise: Breaking a coded message [pdf]
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Brief Screening from the film "Das Boot"--The Hunter Becomes the
Hunted
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Brief introduction to the Red Dragon Rising Game (based on the
Cuban Missile Crisis)
Read the following web sites on missile technology and the Cuba
Missile Crisis:
○ Ballistic Missile
Defense: http://www.missilethreat.com/overview/
○ Cuban Missile
Crisis: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/
○ 14 Days in October Web
Site: http://library.thinkquest.org/11046/
2 March 11
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Theme: ICBMs and Ballistic Missle Offense and Defense
Minilectures [pdf]:
○ Historical background: the German V-1 and V-2 weapons
○ The Post-WWII World: The Cold War and Mutually Assured
Destruction
○ The Physics of Ballistic Missile Interception and Destruction,
e.g., Kinetic Energy Interceptors
○ Global Ballistic Missile Defense Planning 2017
Group Exercise: Red Dragon Rising
○ Escalating Tensions Modeled on a fictionalized invasion of
Taiwan by the People's Republic of China
(I may decide to change this to a N. Korea vs. S.
Korea/Japan/USA scenario this semester)
9 March 11
Class cancelled, students meet in groups to work on their
Afghanistan projects.
16 March 11
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Theme: Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency
Brief Screening of the film "The Battle of Algiers"--Algerian
Insurgency and French Counter-Insurgency:
Guerrilla Warfare, Counter-Insurgency Strategy
Minilectures [pdf]:
○ Historical Background on the Theory of Small Wars
(Peninsular War, Boer War, Philippines War)
○ Strategies for Counter-Insurgency
Student reports on Afghanistan
○ Group 1: Afghanistan from the Assassination of King
Habibullah in 1919 to the assassination of Prime Minister
Daoud in 1978;
○ Group 2: The founding of the Democratic Republic of
Afghanistan, the Soviet Incursion into Afghanistan, and the
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U.S. supported insurgency against the communist government
and the Soviet Army that supported it (also known as "Charlie
Wilson's War"), 1978-1992;
○ Group 3: The Fall of President Najibullah, the Rise of the
Taliban, and the creation of the Islamic Emirate of
Afghanistan, 1992-2001;
○ Group 4: U.S. support for the anti-Taliban insurgency, the
U.S. Invasion after 9/11, the "democratically" elected Karzi
government, and the on-going Taliban Insurgency, 2001Present;
Brief introduction to the Islandia Game
30 March 11
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Theme: Counter-Insurgency Tactics/Peacemaking and Peacekeeping
Brief screening of the film "Black Hawk Down" --High tech vs. low
tech in peacekeeping operations
Group Exercise: The Islandia Game
○ American forces vs. a popular uprising in a Third World
country
Questions for Discussion
○ Rules of engagement in modern conflict
○ How effective is America's high technology arsenal?
Readings: U. S. Army Counterinsurgency Manual
Theme: International Terrorism
Final essay (done individually), due 27 April: Specification.
6 April 11
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International Terrorism
○ Minilecture: Distinction between terrorism and insurgency
○ Examples:
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IRA bombing campaign, campaign against Israeli
state,
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ANC non-military campaign, RAF, Japanese RAF?, ...
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Money
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Arms
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Skills
○ Readings: The Anarchist's Cookbook, Book Text (pdf)
Counter-terrorism
○ Discuss why convoys are so powerful (active defense)
○ Is an active defense against terrorism possible?
○ What offensive strategies are available?
○ How significant is intelligence?
○ Discussion: Assessing US vulnerabilities to terrorism-PBS Nova Episode: The Spy Factory
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CNN Cyber Shockwave: Simulated Attack Against US
Infrastructure
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From the view of an attacker who wishes to do damage
to US infrastructure
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From the view of a defender who wants to defend
America from attack
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What is the role of Information Technology?
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Discuss September 11 and speculate on why there
have been so few serious terrorist attacks on US soil
Readings: International Terrorism and the War on Terrorism
○ What is Terrorism?: http://cfrterrorism.org/terrorism/
○ Patterns of Global
Terrorism: http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/websites/www.us
is.usemb.se/terror/rptxxxx/ where xxxx is 1995-2002
○ CIA War on Terrorism: Annual Report of the US Intelligence
Community [pdf]
○ FBI
Counterterrorism: http://www.fbi.gov/terrorinfo/counterroris
m/waronterrorhome.htm
13 April 11
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Theme: Surveillance and Remote Sensing
Minilectures
○ Technology of Spy Planes and Spy Satellites
○ Space Imaging, SAR (Synthetic Aperature Radar), iSAR
(Inverse SAR), and MTI (Moving Terminal Indicator)
○ Information Technology and the War in Afganistan and the
Second Iraqi War
○ Successes and Failures of the American High Technology
Arsenal
Readings: Satellite Imagery
○ The New American Way of
War: http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20030701faessay15404/m
ax-boot/the-new-american-way-of-war.html
○ Afghanistan and the Future of
Warfare: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ssi/afghan.pdf
○ Keyhole
Satellites: http://science.howstuffworks.com/question529.htm
○ How Imaging Radar
Works: http://southport.jpl.nasa.gov/desc/imagingradarv3.htm
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○ Digital Globe: http://www.digitalglobe.com/
○ TerraServer: http://terraserver.microsoft.com/
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North Korea
Images: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/dprk/ry
ongchon-imagery.htm
San Francisco
Images: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/radar/sircxsar/sanfr.html
20 April 11
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Theme: Precision Targeting plus Special Forces
Minilectures
○ Global Positioning Systems
○ Standoff Weaponry and UAVs
○ Challenge: Missle Defense and Hunting the SCUDs
○ Information Technology and the First Iraqi War: the Triumph
of Smart Precision Weapons
Readings: Precision Targeting plus Special Forces
○ Tutorial on
GPS: http://www.colorado.edu/geography/gcraft/notes/gps/gp
s_f.html
○ Articles on Smart Bombs and
UAVs: http://www.fas.org/man/dod101/index.html, http://www.fas.org/man/dod101/sys/smart/index.html, http://www.fas.org/irp/program/col
lect/uav.htm
○ Articles on Scud Hunting and Special
Forces: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/weapo
ns/scud.html,http://www.specialoperations.com/Army/Delta_
Force/scuds.html,http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1
408/MR1408.ch3.pdf
○ Articles on the Patriot Missile and Theatre Missile
Defence: http://science.howstuffworks.com/patriotmissile1.htm,http://www.cdi.org/issues/bmd/Patriot.html, http
://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/gao/im92026.htm,http://www.fas
.org/spp/starwars/program/patriot.htm
27 April 11
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Presentation and Discussion of Student Course Projects
Course Wrap-up, Summary, and Evaluation
End of Semester Celebration