Friday, September 17, 2021

To defeat adversaries in cyberspace, America must go on offense

Recommendable! Is there a (secret) war going on and we don't know much about it? Quite possible! Is it only a matter of intensity? What is low-level cyberwar?

Are Russia and China jointly taking the West for a ride? It has the appearance!

"Following our humiliating Afghanistan retreat, America’s rivals will amplify their assaults on our credibility and defenses. China could attack Taiwan; Russia might further encroach against Ukraine; Iran or North Korea may seek more extortion over their nuclear programs. It’s also possible that adversaries will launch their first jabs where America is most vulnerable: cyberspace.

... This contradictory approach [by the demented and senile 78 old 46th President] fails to notice that Beijing and Moscow have exploited the international order by coopting key institutions in their low-intensity cyberwar against the United States. ...
To make good on his promise to curb cyberattacks, Biden should adopt a strategy of deterrence rather than of international cooperation. Today, the most effective path forward for the United States is retaliation. ...
Cybercrime costs the United States billions of dollars, generates funds for criminals and derails critical infrastructure. To protect the nation, the administration must strengthen, and even use, its offensive cyber capabilities. ...
While some in the defense community want to improve network security instead, defensive capabilities are expensive and imperfect. Offense, by contrast, comes cheaply and easily. ...
International law remains vague on cyberwarfare. Yes, diplomats and scholars have tried to adapt conventional laws of war to cyber conflict in a document known as the Tallinn Manual. But while these rules may dominate the discussion in academe, they don’t bind states — certainly not Russia and China. ...
And while Washington has signed the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime, an international agreement governing hacking and other cybercrimes, Russia, China, North Korea and Iran have refused to do so. NATO, for its part, seems content to simply declare that international law should apply in cyberspace without taking public measures to respond to foreign hacking.
Meanwhile, Russia and China are developing their own international legal schemes to regulate cyberspace. In recent years, Moscow and Beijing signed bilateral agreements on information-security cooperation, attempted to take over the United Nation’s International Telecommunications Union and extended a cooperation treaty with the goal of destroying the global free flow of online information.
With Chinese support, the Kremlin has also manipulated the United Nations so that Russia, a sponsor of cybercrimes, is leading efforts to draft a new international cyber treaty. Any cyber treaty developed by Moscow and Beijing would allow their hacker proxies to continue operating while granting political cover to authoritarians who repress online free speech. It’s as if Congress invited the Mafia to draft laws against racketeering and extortion. ..."

To defeat adversaries in cyberspace, America must go on offense | American Enterprise Institute - AEI

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