Cyber Warfare – A critical summary of the Blog and an overview

My opening blog argued that cyberwarfare has been affecting the World for some time and is here to stay.  It is evolving and history in the making, forever updating itself … not unlike one’s apple products.  Writing this blog on Cyberwarfare has been an enjoyable surprise, although some of my conclusions are profoundly worrying.  It has been enjoyable because it has been interesting; my early thoughts have been confirmed.  The surprise was threefold:  the amount of regular reporting by the media about cyberwarfare related matters; that inter-state cyberwarfare has been going on longer than I realised; and the unexpected directions some of my research took me.

My blog’s focus was intended to be on ‘state organised or sponsored cyberwarfare’.  It is not melodramatic to state that the world is now at war because, without doubt, nations are now waging silent, seemingly bloodless wars on one another (on one’s ‘allies’ even) via the medium of the internet and cyberspace.  Crucially there is an unstated ‘Cold War’ ongoing between the major nations of the world and, with it, a digital arms race seeking to exploit data.  My blogs have covered cyber incidents involving Russia, China, the USA and surprisingly, yet unsurprisingly, Britain.  In October alone the US had nine significant cyber incidents (which we know about), some of which I covered in my blogs, the list of which I have provided below along with a link for the whole list dating back to 2006.  NATO is currently operating its biggest ‘cyber warfare exercise’ in Estonia (one of Russia’s many neighbours) after a year of attacks on ‘sports bodies, the U.S. Democratic Party and the world chemical weapons watchdog in the Netherlands’, by the Kremlin or Russian linked hacking groups.

https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/181101_Significant_Cyber_Events_List.pdf?hsZtm10X2Ery9_CD.a2FYbE6ti..tQuu

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2018/12/01/nato-tests-electronic-defenses-cyber-threat-grows.html

 

I put forward a definition and model of cyberwarfare, postulating that cyberwarfare encompasses both non-kinetic and kinetic warfare (without doubt it does).  I stand by my definition (Cyberwarfare is non-kinetic and kinetic warfare in cyberspace) and I would not make any significant change to the model as I believe it explains cyberwarfare well conceptually.  However, if I were to tackle the subject in more depth, the simplicity of this model would be too basic and it would need to include more sub-branches

Cyberwarfare – a simple model

 

As cyberwarfare evolves and the human race changes (declines in some respects), cyberwarfare using artificial intelligence and robotics will change the nature of kinetic warfare profoundly by potentially removing the human element from direct face-to-face combat.  Cyberwarfare is already the central, unifying means of conducting war and in the Clausewitzian sense is absolutely a means for the major world states to conduct war in order to achieve their political aims.  This ‘cyber fighting’ is unseen and ungoverned by the ethical rules of war as we know them.  If ‘all out’ war breaks out, attacks on Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) could make life a misery for large swathes of the human population, done in pursuit of political aims.  All of this took me to my most worrying conclusion, which is that liberal democracy as we know it and hold dear is threatened and could be a shell of itself in less than fifty years.  This could be the outcome of a cultural clash between China and the West.  China will use all means, including making full use of cyberspace, to achieve its strategic aim of political, social, economic and military dominance.

 

China’s intentions are outside the scope of this report, but cyber ethics are not.  The world is at a crossroads regarding cyberspace and thus cyber warfare.  Traditional warfare has the Geneva Convention to at least give the impression that warfare adheres to a set of basic rules.  Currently there is little to no internet oversight, with every attempt at regulation failing.  This means that nations can operate in cyberspace with almost no restrictions, allowing them to perpetrate attacks they could not necessarily commit if they were fighting a conventional, ‘old fashioned’, war.  Furthermore this detaches and desensitises humans conducting such wars, potentially making them less morally conscious about their cyber attacks.  Retaliating is not easy where there is no direct physical presence and electronic tracks can be covered.  Moreover it is significantly cheaper to use a computer to launch an attack than to use, say, an F-35 jet; the destructive impact of the jet could be less than that of a cyber attack on CNI.

 

A French official commented “The internet is a space currently managed by a technical community of private players.  But it’s not governed.  So now that half of humanity is online, we need to find new ways to organize the internet … Otherwise, the internet as we know it today — free, open and secure — will be damaged by the new threats.”  That is the conundrum: how to retain a free and open internet (a good thing) yet how to police attacks going on unseen in cyberspace?   More and more people (and more significantly, businesses, governments and their armies) are dependent on the internet to the point of no return to old ways of working and living lives, with scope for cyberattacks to become more ‘frequent, complex, destructive and coercive’.  I cannot see the World’s leaders talking about governing cyberwarfare, although over the past couple of months there have been several calls for internet reform or tighter cyber security.  The most notable calls both came in November 2018, coming from France and China, motivated by completely different reasons and neither gaining support from major powers such as the US or Russia.  Nothing is therefore likely to come of these proposals in the short term, but we have to hope that this will change in the long term.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-cyber/chinas-xi-calls-for-global-cooperation-to-create-fairer-internet-idUSKCN1NC0CG

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/11/12/us-russia-china-refuse-back-french-cybersecurity-initiative/

 

I therefore conclude that cyberwarfare as a means of conducting non-kinetic asymmetric warfare is now the norm and here to stay.  It is also changing the nature of kinetic warfare profoundly, possibly to the extent that kinetic warfare will become a sub-set of cyberwarfare.  Cyberwarfare’s legitimacy as a means of war has however yet to be established.

 

Webography:

 

Centre for Strategic & International Studies, Significant Cyber Incidents (2018),<https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/181101_Significant_Cyber_Events_List.pdf?hsZtm10X2Ery9_CD.a2FYbE6ti..tQuu> [accessed 03/12/2018]

Damon Wake, NATO Tests Electronic Defenses as Cyber Warfare Threat Grows (2018),<https://www.military.com/daily-news/2018/12/01/nato-tests-electronic-defenses-cyber-threat-grows.html> [accessed 03/12/2018]

Cate Cadell, China’s Xi calls for global cooperation to create ‘fairer’ internet (2018),<https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-cyber/chinas-xi-calls-for-global-cooperation-to-create-fairer-internet-idUSKCN1NC0CG> [accessed 03/12/2018]

Joseph Archer, US, Russia and China refuse to back French cybersecurity initiative (2018),<https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/11/12/us-russia-china-refuse-back-french-cybersecurity-initiative/> [accessed 03/12/2018]

 

 

 

 

 

Cyber Warfare – the end of Western democracy?

Were you aware that 2049 will be the Centenary of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China?  It had not occurred to me until now, but it is obvious when you think about it.  The reason for me asking the question will become clear.

On Saturday I read a brief report that the U.S. is asking its allies to stop using equipment made by Chinese technology giant Huawei.  I was not surprised given what I have learnt in preparing my recent blogs, immediately thinking that it follows a predictable pattern, but then my research took me into deeper and more worrying strategic geo-political territory.  My conclusion is that, potentially, Western democracy as we know it might be confined and restricted to a small number of countries, and Cyber Warfare will have played a part in creating this situation.  Let me take you through what I found out.

 

The Huawei saga

On 23^rd November the Wall Street Journal published an article under the headline ‘Washington Asks Allies to Drop Huawei – U.S. worried about potential Chinese meddling in 5G networks’ and reporting that ‘The U.S. government has initiated an extraordinary outreach campaign to foreign allies, trying to persuade wireless and internet providers in these countries to avoid telecommunications equipment from China’s Huawei Technologies Co.’   https://www.wsj.com/articles/washington-asks-allies-to-drop-huawei-1542965105?tesla=y&ns=prod/accounts-wsj

A wide range of other agencies picked up the report and this one by ITPro reported that this action by the U.S. government is ‘part of a broader “technological cold war” between US allies and China for control of an increasingly digitalised future, set to be vulnerable to over-surveillance and cyber attacks’.

https://www.itpro.co.uk/security/32433/us-gov-presses-allies-to-ditch-huawei

This report states ‘Huawei has long said it is an employee-owned company and isn’t beholden to any government, and has never used its equipment to spy on or sabotage other countries. It said its equipment is as safe as that of Western competitors, such as Finland’s Nokia Corp. and Sweden’s Ericsson, because all manufacturers share common supply lines. Huawei representatives didn’t provide comment on the U.S. government’s overseas outreach.’  https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/us-asks-allies-to-shun-china-s-huawei-due-to-cybersecurity-threats-118112300086_1.html

Well, that all made sense – superficially – but then I dug further.

 

Is this U.S. economic protectionism?

I found this CNBC article from 25^th February 2018.  In it Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei’s consumer business, ‘called the developments in the U.S. “ridiculous” and said that its rivals are playing politics.  “Our competitors are using some political way … to try to kick us out from the U.S. market but we have no issue at all. We are transparent … we are a leading high-tech, innovative company,” Yu said on Sunday. “But they cannot compete with us on product, on technology, on innovation, so they compete with us [using] politics.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/25/huawei-us-issues-rivals-using-politics-to-kick-it-out-of-us-richard-yu.html

Well, that makes sense too.  I would expect the Americans to behave that way to protect their own technological giants, indeed Huawei ‘…was banned from bidding for government contracts in 2014, after being labelled a national security threat in a congressional report two years earlier‘. Although it must also be noted that this has not stopped Huawei growing into the world’s second biggest smartphone supplier (surpassing Apple).

https://www.forbes.com/sites/marcochiappetta/2018/11/25/u-s-advises-allies-to-shun-huawei-telecom-equipment-citing-potential-cyberthreats/#43f987438aa8

This Forbes article from 11^th September 2018 reinforces my thinking that the U.S.’s recent action against Huawei is in fact not to do with security but economics.  The headline reads ‘The U.S.-China Trade War And Global Economic Dominance’.  Part of the article states this ‘Consequently, Trump’s trade war with China is really about blocking, or at least slowing down, China’s technology upgrade and its expanding global economic influence. Chinese investment in the tech sector in the U.S. has come under tougher scrutiny, and American government agencies are put on high alert against Chinese efforts in industrial espionage. The clause of protecting national security in the U.S. Trade Act of 1974 is increasingly invoked to impose new tariffs on Chinese imports and to curtail China’s business mergers and acquisitions in the U.S.’  https://www.forbes.com/sites/yuwahedrickwong/2018/09/11/the-u-s-china-trade-war-and-global-economic-dominance/#368cfbb7256a

This later article from Forbes on 18^th October 2018 opens with this point:  ‘Fears of China seem to grow every day – as an economic and technological rival as well as for its military prowess. One poll, sponsored by the firm Axios, found that almost two-thirds of Americans fear China’s growing economic power and that an only slightly smaller proportion fear its technological success. A recent gathering of prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalists expressed concern that by 2020 China will overtake the United States in the development of super computers and artificial intelligence, especially self-driving vehicles. Though there can be little doubt of China’s high ambitions and rapid progress, it would be a mistake, with apologies to George Patton, “to take council from our fears.” Realism requires more perspective.’  It is a measured article going on to say ‘It also helps to question if not doubt the motives of groups who warn of China’s technological prowess.’ and ‘It is not even apparent that Chinese technological gains would necessarily threaten the United States or its industry.’

https://www.forbes.com/sites/miltonezrati/2018/10/18/weighing-the-nations-fear-of-china/#4567a2854446

 

China’s strategic intentions

Well, what to make of that?  What is the truth about U.S. action against Huawei?  Security or economics?

I then stumbled across a long article published on 3^rd October 2018 by Bradley A. Thayer, Professor, University of Texas and  John  Friend, Visiting Scholar, University of Hawai’i, authors of ‘How China Sees the World: Han-Centrism and the Balance of Power in International Politics’.  Well, when I had finished reading it I was alarmed.  It predicts that ‘The world by 2049 will be defined by the realization of Chinese power’, that ‘By 2049, Western-led institutions will remain, but their liberal principles will be diluted by reforms required by Beijing’ and ‘If Xi’s “Dream” is realized, we can envision a world where by the mid-21st century, democratic governments survive in the West, but Beijing’s political model will have the upper hand in the international system. As with the Cold War, the struggle is material — economic and military power matter — but will also and ineluctably be ideological’.  https://thediplomat.com/2018/10/the-world-according-to-china/

Gulp!  This is my world.  In 2049 I will be 53 years old.  I really do hope the world does not turn out as the Thayer/Friend article predicts.

If you look at it from this, admittedly western, perspective, asking allies not to use Huawei products makes sense.

I should admit that I have an Apple iPhone.  It is made in China.  However, I will continue to use it.

Cyber Warfare – the end of human BOG?

This week’s blog connects a series of random news reports, my proposition being that whilst Cyber warfare will not end kinetic warfare, it may end direct human versus human combat.  Over the past couple of decades Western politicians have been fond of saying that a western intervention cannot be completed until there are ‘boots on the ground’ or BOG.  Well:

• Will we have the humans to put the BOG?
• Is it even necessary to have human BOG? Will future wars be fought by humans in Cyber armies at a distance with robot soldiers as the BOG?

There is an ever increasing amount of pessimistic reporting that the human race is declining physically, so let me start with Obesity.  If you were to google ‘Obesity is a national epidemic’, you would find reports stretching back at least a decade.  Look at this compelling and watchable TED talk by US Lieutenant General Mark Hertling from 2012, in which he convincingly argues why obesity is a national security issue:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWN13pKVp9s

Directly related to our ever increasing Obesity is our increasingly sedentary lifestyle.  Late last month Dr. Paul Clayton, of the Institute of Food, Brain and Behaviour at Oxford University, warned that Homo Sapiens had become Homo Sedensis, a species that no longer does enough exercise and physical activity to justify the number of calories humans need to support themselves nutritionally.  I could not help being amused by the description Homo Sedensis but, setting aside that the point of the article is that he is announcing the development of a super-supplement to tackle the problem, the sobering thought is that I get the point he is making.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2018/10/27/home-sapiens-have-become-homo-sedensis-warns-oxford-academic/ and https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6327415/Brits-homo-sedens-inactivity-claims-Oxford-University-academic.html

(I will now pause this blog to go out for a swim…!).

Compounding the problem is recruiting for the armed forces.  For over a year there has been a steady drip of reports that the UK’s armed forces are under-strength and struggling to recruit.  This article below by the Independent sums up the challenge:  “Nevertheless, that Britain is no longer able to fulfil its recruitment needs for the regular forces is symbolic of the country’s situation. With an ageing population – and, it should be said, relatively high employment levels – a career in the military is an attractive option for fewer people than it was in the past. Controversy over the UK’s involvement in recent conflicts in the Middle East may have made some potential recruits think twice too.”  https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/british-army-recruitment-brexit-foreign-commonwealth-military-defence-nhs-a8617911.html

Those conditions may change and recruiting may improve, but I cannot help thinking that this is a long-term trend when linked to obesity (unsuitable recruits), its side effects (diabetes and asthma-like respiratory problems) and Homo Sedensis (too unfit to undergo military training).

It is not just a UK problem.  More worrying is that America, the country we rely on to protect the democratic values we treasure, is suffering from the same problem, indeed only two US states had an obese adult  population under 25% in 2017, which is a shocking statistic – https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/prevalence-maps.html. Consequently the Americans are also lowering recruiting standards.  This New York Times article makes this worrying point:  “On top of having to compete with a robust economy, with an unemployment rate below 4 percent, the Army must pick from what it says is a shrinking pool of eligible recruits.  More than two-thirds of young adults do not qualify for military service because of poor physical fitness or other issues such as drug use, according to the Army.”  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/21/us/army-recruiting-shortage.html

So, what to do about it?  Given that the human race is unlikely to become slim and super fit, a solution may be forced on our Government and armed forces, indeed it may already be happening.  A short piece in the Sunday Telegraph on 28^th October 2018 reported a prediction by Ben Nimmo of The Atlantic Institute “I think we are going to see more and more troll armies.  The perception has gone out that Russia threw the US election… It’s a lot cheaper than having a [real] army”.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/10/27/democracies-face-misinformation-arms-raceled-state-sponsored/

Which is why Prof Paul Theron, a member of NATO’s cybersecurity research group, recently said that the UK needs a 50,000 strong Cyber Army to defend it against Cyber attacks.  https://www.cybersecurity-insiders.com/britain-is-vulnerable-to-cyber-attacks-due-to-the-shortage-of-50k-cyber-security-specialists/   (Also see https://sputniknews.com/politics/201706301055129492-pentagon-on-russian-troll-power/ )

Dare I say that this is an ideal job for Homo Sedensis and predict that recruiting will be much easier?

The British Army’s new Chief of the General Staff (who does not read this blog) would disagree with my proposition.  The following text is taken from an interview for the Daily Telegraph on 23^rd November 2018,

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/11/23/army-chiefmark-carleton-smith-robots-will-never-replace-troops/ with the headline, ‘Robots will never replace troops on the battlefield’:

Nor is Gen Carleton-Smith persuaded that the development of autonomous war-fighting technology, such as drones and robots, will diminish the need for soldiers.“Warfare is fundamentally a contest of human will,” he said. “Robotics are the next horizon in terms of being the new arrow in the quiver. But fundamentally I believe you are never going to remove the visceral human aspect to it, particularly if you believe that warfare is conducted to shape a particular political condition. “The nature of warfare therefore will remain unchanged. But the means by which it is waged will embrace new systems.”The development of new technologies does, though, mean that the Army now faces an era of unprecedented change, one the energetic Gen Carleton-Smith is eager to embrace.“The challenge is to cater for all conventional military responses but also the less conventional areas, such as cyber. That will require different thinking and skills.”

I hope you can now see how I have joined the dots up in my mind.  When Obesity, Homo Sedensis, armed forces recruiting problems and Troll Armies are linked to the terminator-style robot soldiers mentioned in my last blog, is it too far-fetched to predict that at some time in the future we will no longer see human BOG?

The Future?

(Russian Military Army Soldier Troll for sale on Ebay)

Cyber Warfare – An unethical 21st Century Arms Race

I am far too modest to think that the UK MoD’s Chief Scientific Adviser (Simon Cholerton) reads my blog, but…

A few weeks ago I mused about the ethics of Cyber Warfare.  Then a week later the Daily Telegraph carried a report of an interview with Simon Cholerton in which he states that terminator-style robot soldiers and weapon systems that kill without human command are “absolutely unethical” and will not be developed by the UK.  You may question whether this scenario fits into Cyber Warfare.  I argue that it does because in the broadest sense I envisage such weapons receiving their launching orders via cyberspace.

In the report Simon Cholerton recognises that “There is a certain amount of asymmetry around this, and there always is when you face an enemy who doesn’t share you values”.  He would say that, wouldn’t he?  After all we British do like to hold the moral high ground in such matters, but already in my previous blog I was worrying about how the civilised global community can control and police those rogue nations and non-nation groups that have no ethical principles.  A conundrum I have no answer for, other than we must fight in cyber space to defend our values.

The Telegraph’s Editorial seizes on the fact that “there is no doubt that a 21st-century arms race is under way – one in which data, not bullets and nuclear megatons, are the guarantors of supremacy.”  That is of course now obvious, although I had not given this much thought until I read it.  This is history as it is happening.  It is being written about as we speak, thus there is much speculation into this unknown and complex arena, because it is an arena in the violent fighting sense of Roman gladiatorial combat.  For those reasons I agree with the editorial’s assessment because it makes sense.

The article is pictured below:

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Cyber Warfare … Can it / should it be ethical?

This week’s blog was inspired by two recent and seemingly unconnected pieces.  They however provoked thoughts in my mind.

The first was the report in various sources on 24^th October about Tim Cook of Apple saying that people’s personal data is being “weaponised with military efficiency” by tech companies.  Initially my mind boggled, yet it did not take too much imagination to see how this could be exploited by Governments to conduct non-kinetic warfare, either directly or by proxy.  My thoughts were reinforced through my previous research for my recent blog titled ‘Information Warfare – Cyber Warfare by another name’, which noted “The Justice Department said it had received “exceptional cooperation” in its probe from Facebook, Twitter and other “private sector companies” in unmasking Project Lakhta.  Well!  You can see why Tim Cook “warned about governments abusing users’ data and their trust”.  (There are numerous reports on this topic.  Here is one: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/apple-tim-cook-data-privacy-gdpr-security-facebook-instagram-google-a8599351.html)

Then, on 26^th October, the Daily Telegraph published this article:  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/10/26/uncle-sam-wants-big-tech-side-10bn-deal/ .  The unexpected angle is that whilst the big US technology giants (Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Oracle and IBM) are interested in bidding for the Pentagon’s $10Bn Joint Enterprise Defence Infrastructure (JEDI), many (apparently) of their liberal employees are opposed to what they develop and build being used to wage war, with Google and Microsoft employees writing open letters to this effect.  The Google letter was written as far back as April 2018. It states that Google has a moral and ethical responsibility and therefore requested to the CEO that Google nor its contractors should ever build warfare technology. (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/technology/google-letter-ceo-pentagon-project.html )  The Microsoft letter was more recent (October 2018) and states ‘Many Microsoft employees don’t believe that what we build should be used for waging war.’  (https://medium.com/s/story/an-open-letter-to-microsoft-dont-bid-on-the-us-military-s-project-jedi-7279338b7132 )

So what?  Two thoughts.  First, my imagination is having humorous thoughts about how US Generals reacted to this development.  Second, and more seriously, it has started to make me contemplate whether ethical controls can and should be placed on Cyber Warfare.  After all the international community has generally long signed up to the Laws of War (Geneva and Hague Conventions) which forbid certain practices and set other conditions.  Taking non-kinetic cyber warfare to its potential extreme, it could bring great misery to entire populations, for example, if all power is lost, hospitals cannot function (you might recognise the featured image from the 2017 NHS hack) and the population has no heat and light.

Can such elements of Cyber Warfare be banned?  In theory yes, but in practice can anonymous and unattributed cyber attacks be policed effectively?  This will need deeper thinking.  I may follow up in a later post as I learn more.

 

Works referenced:

Scott Shane and Daisuke Wakabayashi ‘The Business of War’: Google Employees Protest Work for the Pentagon (2018),<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/technology/google-letter-ceo-pentagon-project.html> [accessed 06/11/2018].

View this collection on Medium.com

Margi Murphy, Uncle Sam wants big tech on its side with $10bn deal (2018), <https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/10/26/uncle-sam-wants-big-tech-side-10bn-deal/> [accessed 06/11/2018].

Andrew Griffin, Apple boss Tim Cook says people’s Data is being ‘Weaponised with military efficiency’ by Tech companies (2018),<https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/apple-tim-cook-data-privacy-gdpr-security-facebook-instagram-google-a8599351.html> [accessed 06/11/2018].

Employees of Microsoft, An Open Letter to Microsoft: Don’t Bid on the US Military’s Project JEDI (2018),<https://medium.com/s/story/an-open-letter-to-microsoft-dont-bid-on-the-us-military-s-project-jedi-7279338b7132> [accessed 06/11/2018].

 

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On Cyber Warfare – developing a model to understand it.

In my first blog earlier this week, I described my interest in state organised or sponsored Cyber Warfare as well as also expressing caution in trying to define the boundaries around what it constitutes.  Since publishing that blog I have been attempting to clear my own mind about it and how it relates to older forms of warfare.

As a consequence of this train of thought I sketched out a simple model.  This model is a work in progress and since making it I am unsure if it accurately shows how Cyber Warfare fits in, but I believe it does begin to show that placing aspects of it in clearly defined boundaries is not straightforward.

In particular, is the act of deliberately attacking computer systems Non-Kinetic or Kinetic?  On the surface you can very logically say it is non-kinetic. Attacking a computer system does not generate the obvious violent effects of an air bombing campaign, such as the US ‘Shock and Awe’ campaign which destroyed Iraq’s power networks. Yet, once you dig a little deeper into cyber warfare the previously straightforward answer becomes far more complex. The physical effects of a cyber attack and bombing campaign can be the same, i.e. a cyber attack can in theory bring power stations to a halt and stop a nation’s power supply.  Is this result not kinetic?  I argue it is, so my conclusion is that Cyber Warfare straddles both Non-Kinetic and Kinetic warfare.

However, upon drawing this conclusion and re-reading my previous blog, I quickly realised that the model did not fit in with the definition of cyber warfare put forward by Richard A. Clarke and Robert K. Knake in their book Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About It. It was this definition that I presented in my first blog.  The issue with this definition is that it is too narrow and technical, limiting its focus to computers and systems, whereas my model attempts to show that deliberate cyber warfare can also be used to attack the human mind, albeit in an unconventional manner.  As a result I personally would define Cyber Warfare as:  Non-Kinetic and Kinetic Warfare in Cyber space.  Perhaps I have done the opposite of Clarke and Knake’s narrow definition, and made this definition too broad?  I hope to find out in my future studies.

Those are my early thoughts.  To support my model and definition I will try to give examples in future blogs. Indeed it will be interesting to see how the model evolves during the course of my studies.

Works referenced:

Clarke, R. A. and Knake, R. A., Cyberwar, (New York: Ecco Press., 2010).

 

On Cyber Warfare – a view from Swansea (and not Moscow or Washington)

Hello and welcome to my new blog on Cyber Warfare. This inaugural post introduces me and gives an overview of what interests me about Cyber Warfare and therefore what I may comment on in the coming months.

My name is Angus Urquhart and I am a 22 year old Brit studying for a Masters degree in War and Society at Swansea University.  I have a broad interest in history, warfare and international affairs.  The connection between my Masters’ studies and Cyber Warfare is, I hope, obvious; current affairs are living history and, I would argue, the World’s societies are and have been experiencing Cyber Warfare for some time.  This is worrying for our futures because it is destabilising, so we need to understand more about it – quickly

Some of those attacks are perpetrated by criminals against individuals, but I discount those in this blog, unpleasant and unsettling for Society as they are.  Instead what really interests me is state organised or sponsored Cyber Warfare because that, it seems clear to me, is what we are experiencing now.  I hope you do not think it too much of a cliché to mention Clausewitz, because his famous dictum is apposite and completely applicable: Cyber Warfare is now clearly part of the range of means that can be used in inter-state conflict.

Are we now in a new Cold War?  It looks like it; and it seems to have caught western governments out, at least that is the impression they give. Indeed the UK has only recently begun preparations ‘…to launch a new cyber warfare unit to counter the increasingly hostile online actions of adversaries including Russia, North Korea and Iran.’

It is the imaginative and variable use of Cyber Warfare that is so interesting.  On the one hand there are the direct assaults that disrupt and destroy state networks, unsettling governments and their populations.  On the other hand there are, if the news is to be believed, sophisticated manipulation of social media and dissemination of fake news to influence national elections.  Are the latter forms of Cyber Warfare?  Intuitively I think so, hence in this my first blog I do not want to lay down strict boundaries on what constitutes Cyber Warfare.

Cyber Warfare is undoubtedly here to stay as the world is so reliant on digital technology to run almost every aspect of our daily lives.  It would be safe and reasonable to predict that the next major conflict between developed nations will feature Cyber Warfare.  It may change the nature of kinetic warfare, given the reliance on technology for command and control systems, smart weapons etc.  If Cyber defences are breached, might it paralyse the ability to conduct kinetic warfare?  Could it be that Cyber Warfare as a legitimate means of non-kinetic asymmetric warfare is now the norm?

Some phrases explained:

‘Cyberwarfare is the unauthorized penetration by, on behalf of, or in support of, a government in another nation’s computer or network. Or any other activity affecting a computer system, in which the purpose is to add, alter or falsify data, or cause the disruption of or damage to a computer, or network device, or the objects a computer system controls’ – Richard A. Clarke

Kinetic warfare focuses on defeating enemy forces through the application of physical effects (i.e. traditional mean of fighting)

Non-Kinetic warfare uses non physical means, such as psychological and cyber warfare, to defeat the enemy.

Works referenced:

Bond, David, ‘Britain preparing to launch new cyber warfare unit’, Financial Times, 21 September 2018.  <https://www.ft.com/stream/14e2aafc-b4fc-431f-847b-be2742e5c6f9>  [accessed 14/10/2018].

Clarke, R. A. and Knake, R. A., Cyberwar, (New York: Ecco Press., 2010).

Clausewitz, C. V., On War,  trans. by J.J. Graham (Ware: Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1997).