On the military geography of cyberspace

Abstract

Military operations have traditionally been conducted in four domains: on land, at sea, in the air, and in space. Over the past few years, a number of nations have added cyberspace as a fifth domain of military operations. However, opinions vary widely on whether or not cyberspace is the same kind of domain. The four traditional domains are continuous, three-dimensional spaces, contain physical objects with inertia, and support kinetic action. By contrast, cyberspace is a discrete, multi- dimensional space, contains virtual, inertia-free objects, and supports cyber actions. This paper reports on research aimed at unifying the representations of geographically-related concepts in the five domains. The approach taken is to develop a layered ontology, ultimately intended to be the basis for developing software for simulating or supporting the military Command & Control process. The paper outlines the geographer’s tasks of exploration, surveying, and cartography, applying them to cyberspace. It identifies the geographical concepts used in the military operations planning process. The core of the paper is a description of the informal semantics of a layered ontology incorporating these concepts. Finally, the paper identifies further research.