Sunday, June 8, 2014

The United States is now at war with several countries

May 30, 2014

Starting at the end of the second World War, the United States Congress never "declares" wars. This makes it harder to count them all. For forty-five years following the end of World War II, we fought a "cold war," in which there were no military troops in combat. We had military forces - "kinetic" forces-  involved in Korea, Viet Nam, Serbia and Croatia, Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan.

But now, something new has happened. Cyberwar. According to Richard Clarke, the next war will be a Cyberwar. And, yesterday, former Secretary of State Leon Panetta declared that we are now engaged in a Cyberwar. Among those who have attacked us are the North Koreans, the Chinese, the Iranians, the Russians, the Saudis and the Israelis. And, according to sources including several whistle-blowers.

With such a widespread set of combatants, this can only be described as a "world war."

World War III. No shots fired, no prisoners taken. Money stolen, or, more accurately, data moved. Factories disabled, or, more accurately, bugs launched and viruses unleashed.

Both China and Russia have placed bugs within the electric grid of the United States. Whenever they want, our lights go out and the NSA is not able to track us. It's good enough to use as a plot line for a thriller, but without a power grid, I won't be able to sell it to Amazon.

Very recently, hackers have stolen the identities of well over half the population of the United States. There have been no kinetic casualties. No deaths.

Cyberwar has been a clean experience so far, so much so that we all seem to have missed the point. A good hacker can break through the defensive security in any computer system. The NSA has made certain of this. To "defend" us, our intelligence services have made every consumer and every corporation vulnerable to losing everything.

It's a war we cannot win unless we attack first. Unfortunately, this is something Russia and China have also very likely concluded.

What's your feeling about this?

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