August 2nd, 2009
US cyberwarriors a reluctant crew
The Obama Administration will one day have a whole slate of cybersecurity and cyberwar experts, but that doesn’t mean the Defense community will be ready to let loose offensive cyber attacks.
According to a report in Sunday’s New York Times, planning for such attacks has been in the works since a 2003 proposal to attack Saddam Hussein’s bank accounts and the Iraqi financial system. At that time the Administration backed off the plan due to fears of unintentional consequences on the entire Mideast.
Indeed, such fears have frozen military planners from seriously planning offensive action.
“We are deeply concerned about the second- and third-order effects of certain types of computer network operations, as well as about laws of war that require attacks be proportional to the threat,” said one senior officer.
On the other hand, the damage concerns may be overstated.
“Policy makers are tremendously sensitive to collateral damage by virtual weapons, but not nearly sensitive enough to damage by kinetic” — conventional — “weapons,” said John Arquilla, an expert in military strategy at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. “The cyberwarriors are held back by extremely restrictive rules of engagement.”
Well, eventually there will be some political/policy consensus on how much risk to accept, but legally it will always be a problem, says Harvard Law prof Jack Goldsmith.
“The U.N. Charter basically says that a nation cannot use force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any other nation. But what kinds of cyberattacks count as force is a hard question, because force is not clearly defined.”
