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Feature
Computers Are Weapons of War
Consequently, cyber attacks should be construed as acts of war. Are we prepared to respond accordingly?
(Page 2 of 4)
War in the age of technological integration and globalization has eliminated the right of weapons to label war and, with regard to the new starting point, has realigned the relationship of weapons to war, while the appearance of weapons of new concepts, and particularly new concepts of weapons, has gradually blurred the face of war. Does a single “hacker” attack count as a hostile act or not?…
[Technological progress and globalization] means that all weapons and technology can be superimposed at will, it means that all the boundaries lying between the two worlds of war and non-war, of military and non-military, will be totally destroyed, and it also means that many of the current principles of combat will be modified, and even the rules of war may need to be rewritten…
The battlefield is everywhere.…As we see it, a single man-made stock market crash, a single computer virus invasion or a single rumor or scandal that exposes the leaders of an enemy country on the Internet, all can be included in the ranks of new-concept weapons.
Liang and Xiangsui aren’t just theorists. Their book was semi-official, endorsed by high-ranking Chinese generals. And they have an eminently realistic view of modern war and one of its means, cyber war. One part of China’s military strategy is sha shou jian: the “assassin’s mace” strategy of unconventional warfare. A 2006 Pentagon report on the Chinese military said that Chinese leaders, recognizing their apparent disadvantages in conventional war, have invested heavily in asymmetric warfare to create the ability to attack and knock out an enemy quickly by unconventional means:
We assess that this conclusion might have given rise to a priority emphasis on asymmetric programs and systems to leverage China’s advantages while exploiting the perceived vulnerabilities of potential opponents—the so-called Assassin’s Mace (sha shou jian) programs.
China isn’t alone in investing in cyberwar. India, Russia, the U.S., and Iran are also heavily invested in it. Some, like America, are investing in defense. Others, especially China and Russia, are also heavily invested in offensive cyberwar.
The only conclusion we can reach is that a computer is as much a weapon as a rifle, a cyber attack as much an act of war as dropping a bomb in the middle of a city. In the West, and in the law of warfare, those concepts have not yet taken root.
THE CHINESE COLONELS’ ideas have already been put into action by Putin’s Russia and by an anonymous cyber warrior who planted a computer worm in Iran’s nuclear program computers. Those actions were not labeled acts of war only because Estonia and Georgia didn’t want open war with Russia and because the law of war doesn’t label them as such.
The most famous malware was the “Stuxnet” program which someone (or, more likely, some nation’s computer warriors) slipped into the computers that run the Iranian nuclear weapons project. It caused significant damage that may still be unfolding.
Stuxnet is a computer “worm”: a highly sophisticated piece of software that, properly designed and placed, can cause machinery controlled by the computers it infects to run destructively. Worms disable security software, duplicate themselves, and spread to other computers networked with the one infected. Some can add “bot” software that will reach out and capture other networks to spread themselves further.
According to several news reports, the Stuxnet worm made the Iranian nuclear centrifuges spin wildly out of control while causing the Iranians running the centrifuges to see—on their gauges and computers—that all was running normally. Some reports, which may be apocryphal, indicate that Stuxnet was capable of mutating: changing itself to continue damaging the nuclear centrifuges even after it was detected and Iranian computer scientists believed it had been neutralized.
Cyberwar isn’t confined to Eastern Europe and Iran. In June 2007, the Chinese PLA cyberwarriors hacked into the Army’s Pentagon e-mail system, causing it to shut down briefly. The Chinese have the most active cyber-espionage effort in the world. (Spyware—software which reveals restricted data stored on computers—is one of the most common forms of malware.)
One ring of Chinese hackers, code-named “Titan Rain” by U.S. investigators, was responsible for years of cyber espionage targeting U.S. military computer networks. And although the “Titan Rain” group may or may not still be operating, U.S. experts estimate that Chinese cyber espionage is responsible for hundreds of attempts to penetrate U.S. military, intelligence, and commercial networks every day.
WERE THE RUSSIAN cyber attacks on Estonia and Georgia acts of war? Was the Stuxnet virus one? Not according to U.S. law or the Geneva Conventions.
Title 18 of the U.S. Code defines acts that comprise federal crimes. But in Section 2331 of Title 18, we find the only definition of an act of war under U.S. law. Section 2331 defines it as, “…any act occurring in the course of: (A) declared war; (B) armed conflict, whether or not war has been declared, between two or more nations; or (C) armed conflict between military forces of any origin….” Nothing in that definition would include a cyber attack. The Geneva Conventions, too, speak only of armed conflict.
About the Author
Jed Babbin served as a Deputy Undersecretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush. He is the author of several bestselling books including Inside the Asylum and In the Words of Our Enemies. You can follow him on Twitter @jedbabbin.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (41) | Leave a comment
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Darin| 7.20.11 @ 6:42AM
All good points, but you still have to figure out who is actually perpetrating the attack, ensure someone's machine or network wasn't hijacked and used as a step-off point, figure out if it was sanctioned by a particular government or is the work on a rogue individual or organization (e.g., Al Qaeda), and so forth. Television and movies make it look easy. It's not. Anyone who says otherwise is uninformed or trying to sell you something.
Ole_Sarge| 7.20.11 @ 11:11AM
Ahem, we DO KNOW WHO. The problem is our elected political leadership over several administrations. It is not a Democrat or Republican Administration problem.
Alan Brooks| 7.20.11 @ 9:24PM
Who pays for the equipment and personnel to counteract cyber-warfare? private donations? no. You want taxpayers to pay.
Pecos Pete| 7.20.11 @ 7:57AM
If cyber attacks are not "war" then is an EMP pulse an act of war?
TexasEngineer| 7.20.11 @ 10:03AM
EMP = ElectroMagnetic Pulse
Department of Redundancy Department?
Ole_Sarge| 7.20.11 @ 11:17AM
An EMP is a use of a nuclear device (fissionable verses "dirty bomb) at high altitudes. NO damages to infrastructure (like buildings, road ways) little damage to people (flash-blindness mostly), little to no fall-out (think Fukushima) but total annihilation of the electrical power grid, and all electrical devices no hardened against EMP.
Use of nuclear weapons (fissionable) = WMD.
Ed| 7.20.11 @ 11:55AM
Actually, according to several popular science magazines, we are supposed to have conventional e-bombs. An e-bomb would be an extended coil of superconducting wire that is charged with a megawatt or so of electrical power. The coil is extended in length (like a stretched Slinky toy) and is wrapped around an iron or steel core. An explosive shaped charge collapses the wire coil and a huge burst of EM energy is released. According to the reports, it has an effective radius of 1,000 yards.
As to computer security, we are nuts to use Windows PCs in critical military and financial applications. Unix machines are not very user friendly, but they are much more secure.
donserge| 7.20.11 @ 8:31AM
I seem to remember an original Star Trek episode (in the 60's) that had two "distant worlds" fighting each other via computers and relying on the results (victor-vanquished, etc.). At the time I can recall thinking: "How stupid!" It seems the episode writer had tremendous foresight.
Dystopic| 7.20.11 @ 8:37AM
Goodness! If the U.S. had the capability for offensive cyber-war, would it be a good idea to advertise the fact? Deterrance theory suggests not.
richard ryan| 7.20.11 @ 9:57AM
Don't worry, we are not pursuing an offensive capability. This concept is completely foreign to the current commander in chief, unless it is an offensive campaign against free markets, corporate production, and the traditional American way of life.
Steve B | 7.20.11 @ 8:44AM
"Sources say that a “cyber criminal,” not a national entity, made successive—and partially successful—attacks on the Brazilian power grid in November 2009."
Hmm, it would seem that a hostile nation developing ways to cyber-attack us might test the Beta-version of the weapon on another large reasonably well-developed country before launching an attack on us.
Ole_Sarge| 7.20.11 @ 11:18AM
Don't forget Estonia 2007
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 7.20.11 @ 9:16AM
http://news.yahoo.com/taliban-.....20376.html
The Taliban in Afghanistan insisted Wednesday that their leader Mullah Mohammed Omar was alive, saying a text message and Internet posting announcing his death were fake.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told The Associated Press that the early morning announcement about Mullah Omar was the result of a hack.
"He is overseeing operations in the country," Mujahid told The Associated Press. "Outsiders must have hacked into Taliban phones and the website." Mujahid blamed U.S. intelligence agencies, saying they were trying "to demoralize the Taliban."
Mullah Omar has led the decade-long insurgency against the U.S.-led military coalition and the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai. He ruled most of Afghanistan as leader of its Taliban government before the United States and its allies invaded on Oct. 7, 2001, in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.
David W| 7.20.11 @ 9:30AM
Though we are a nation based upon freedom of speech, I am curious why there are so many "radical islam" web sites out there that appear to be untouched. If I were in government (especially in Israel) I would be giving my "computer experts" carte blanche to wipe out those sites. However, given that Iran is sending weapons, explosives, and trainers (if not fighters) to Iraq and Afghanistan without any response by our government (as far as we know) I doubt that we have the stomach to fight an offensive cyber war. I could be wrong and I hope that I am.
PolishKnight| 7.20.11 @ 9:49AM
Hello David.
The problem with such an offensive is that it would go after many civilian websites in countries that are "friendly" to us (such as Pakistan) and as the author points out, such an action is an act of war.
If the hackers were ever traced back to the CIA or a military operation, the political fallout would be devastating. In addition, it's doubtful such an attack would be useful since the civilian website would fix itself up, patch holes, and then go on. It's like like stuxnet that helped destroy centrifuges. In cyberwarfare, once the system is purged and rebooted and patched, it's as good (or better) than new.
Dave| 7.20.11 @ 9:36AM
I consider China's efforts to poison Americans as an act of war, but no one seems to mind eating tainted food or buying lead-tainted toys. Ever since I found out that seafood from the region of China or near it has been grown on sewage fields and sold exclusively to US markets, and the fiasco with the toys containing lead coming from China, I have viewed all this as their way to declare war on the American people.
Sadly, not enough of us care enough to stop buying their poison.
Melvin| 7.20.11 @ 10:45AM
The majority of whom you speak of, neither care where they're food comes from, but do not take a seconds glance of where it comes from.
Just pick it up and chunk it into the buggy. I have dealt with the Chinese on numerous occasions and my wife sadly admits she used to work for a number of Chinese employers.
Americans are under a self imposed delusion that Chinese can be cajoled to think and act like Americans. Not true. As you have noted the Chinese will keep the most edible for themselves and sell of the, "Crap," to the American market. I have been to China and that Country is the most filthy, disgusting, polluted Country on this Earth. Victoria Harbor was so filled with pollution and garbage a person could walk across it without getting their feet wet. Kowloon apartments were so filthy that a dog kennel here was cleaner.
The Chinese are absolutely the most vile, rude, disgusting, and treacherous human beings on this earth, and they under no circumstances should be trusted whatsoever.
Chinese make Wahhabi Muslims look honest.
That little show that they put on for the Olympics was that exactly a show to deceive the West. All I kept hearing after the Olympics of how nice and cordial the Chinese were. Yea right, so was Adolph Hitler during the 1936 Nazi Olympics.
Ole_Sarge| 7.20.11 @ 11:22AM
Remember "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
The Chinese (communist or not) are not "friends" of Islam, but they are helping some, and when the Islamist terrorists start (actually I think they have) attacking Chinese assets, watch the "hammer" come down, (if they allow the media to tell the tale).
C Smith| 7.20.11 @ 10:09AM
Computers are nothing more than rarified Silicon. Their essence consists of bits and bytes, and the words they form. Nothing has really changed. The pen has and will always be "mightier than the sword":
"... we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is THE WORD OF GOD"
(Ephesians 6:12 -17).
John| 7.20.11 @ 10:37AM
The top of the list of countries engaged in cyber warfare are isreal & USA. Cyber attacks against Iran are unrelenting (: this includes the assisnation of Iranian scientists). The kettle calling the pot black. On a side note: strange all those radical sites still up and running. Wander who is behind them . Probably 90% are honey traps to catch the gullible. Not Increase the debt limit is national sucide (: repubicide). Don't do it.
Aces and Eights| 7.20.11 @ 12:48PM
I see our dhimm-bulb "friend" Johnny Jihad is still with us. Take your violent and oppressive religion and and your bald-faced lies and buzz off.
JShizzle| 7.20.11 @ 3:00PM
Wow....this guy is as sharp as a marble.
Occam's Tool| 7.20.11 @ 4:38PM
Dear John:
I beats unleashing the Kraken, which is what Israel may need to do in the future to your little baby killing fiends.
John| 7.20.11 @ 8:21PM
Baby killings. Why are you always on about the drone holocaust. is your contention that the CIa and Mossad are not involved in massive cyberwarfare against perceived enemies? The problem is double standards. You want people to respect your sovereignty while you trash theirs.
Alan Brooks| 7.20.11 @ 9:26PM
True. America doesn't understand blowback.
simon templar| 7.21.11 @ 12:48PM
Yeah, we are monsters. We open trade with communist nations, trade our technology and manufacturing with them, give billions of our treasury for foreign aid, fight wars to free other nations from tyranny, reopen trade and relations with former enemies, construct massive rebuilding projects for nations that attacked us, open our job market to foreigners on work visas...yeah we have a double standard here..blame America first, pat our enemies on the back. Alan, you need to make a decision. If this country is so disgusting to you, then seriously why not consider emigrating?
Nick| 7.20.11 @ 11:24PM
Come, join our American-Zionist love-fest, John.
You can bring the latkes!
simon templar| 7.21.11 @ 12:50PM
Oh, I see your back. John, the jew hater.
Anthony| 7.20.11 @ 11:17AM
Obozo could give a rat's behind about Cyber attacks on America, but hack the site that contains his golf handicap and raise it 5 strokes, now that's an act of war!!!!
Inventor| 7.20.11 @ 2:17PM
Why don't we disconnect from China, Russia, Yemen etc for 6 months and instruct their governments we will not reconnect till the hacker nuts have been arrested.
John Navratil| 7.20.11 @ 4:40PM
Inventor,
It's a web, not a pipe.
simon templar| 7.20.11 @ 3:21PM
Are we prepared? You are kidding right? Well, let us see..hmmm...we have brought hundreds of thousands of chinese, indians, and muslims into the country on work visas to take jobs in the computer industry (to bust any possibility of unions and bolster layoffs of higher paying Americans) and place them into IT departments in corporations. IBM has sold its laptop manufacturing to Communist China. Security measures to protect intellectual property failing and databases containing personal information being hacked every day here in the US. Left wing hackers hacking into Government agencies and releasing classified information to the press. I would say, No.
Walking Horse| 7.21.11 @ 12:26PM
In other circles our behavior is called "leading with the chin."
LindaF | 7.20.11 @ 7:09PM
I've always thought the stock market melt-down was a cyber-war attack.
Tony in Central PA| 7.20.11 @ 9:34PM
I feel so safe after reading this knowing Obama is in charge.
POST American| 7.20.11 @ 10:19PM
----Rockefeller FAKE 'right' front op
soft programming at the service of the
'censorship and control agenda' ALERT!----
FACT IS the important infra-structure like utilities,
and certainly the military, are not even
on the web that we use.
MEANWHILE, borders, culture, demographic
and political TREASON is underway on every level
---from the top down.
Are we getting the point yet about revoking the
TAX FREE status for the 'benny violent',
subversion programming, foundations?
-----------ARE WE? ---or are we up for a few
more rounds of destruction?
PCC| 7.21.11 @ 6:28AM
This could have been a thought-provoking article but it quickly descended into unjustified certitudes. What a pity.
Specifically, here's where Mr. Babbin lost me:
"The only conclusion we can reach is that a computer is as much a weapon as a rifle, a cyber attack as much an act of war as dropping a bomb in the middle of a city."
Is he equating a stock market crash with the loss of life of, say, the 9/11 attacks? Economic disruption with the deaths of thousands?
I'm not saying Mr. Babbin's basic premise is incorrect, but the arguments he marshals in support of it are polemical and unconvincing, to say the least.
A less sympathetic auditor would call them complete rubbish.
Walking Horse| 7.21.11 @ 10:54AM
"Active Countermeasures"
Computers have been weapons of war since the days of Alan Turing and Vanevar Bush. People just started noticing lately.
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Stuart Koehl| 7.21.11 @ 10:46PM
Babbin seems to have skipped the chapter in Vom Krieg about limited war--a situation much more common in the 18th and 19th century than the so-called "total wars" of the early-through-mid 20th centuries.