In some respects, the atomic bomb should have ended war as we know it. Weaponry gradually become more and more powerful and destructive, until this ultimate show of power ended the Second World War. However, wars in Vietnam, former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq have shown that brute power is not sufficient – guerrilla warfare can incapacitate even the best of forces. Strategy and persistence can outlast raw strength.
The pentagon’s awesomely named CyberCom will be a major player in the wars of the future: wars which take place largely through digital means, whether it entails directly attacking opponent’s weaponry or disrupting larger systems such as their electrical grid or civilian communications infrastructure.
Small skirmishes have already been fought. The ineffectiveness of threats and sanctions to deter Iran’s nuclear ambitions has been a stain on the reputation of advanced militaries to curb international threats. However, the Stux-net virus, developed by the Israeli military and released in December 2010, was able to push back the Iranian military program by an estimated two years. Essentially, all computers used or even associated with the development were attacked and debilitated by the virus, meaning controls and designs for nuclear facilities must be re-started from scratch.
Sometimes, the infrastructure we all trust turns out to be rather vulnerable. Though not discovered until November, China Telecom was able to re-direct up to 15% of the world’s total internet traffic through its own servers. BGP routing is mostly based on the honour system-trusting that networks lay claim to only those networks over which they have authentic ownership. Large companies such as China Telecom, with its Autonomous System number 4134 are able to lay spurious claims to other networks, and, if left unchecked, these claims can propagate, effectively giving the organization some control over the information sent through their network. It is not implausible to see how this tool could be used to intercept, disrupt and alter private information from other countries and organizations.
The recent feud between Wikileaks and various authorities is another example of an online battlefield. While the Anonymous Network’s DDoS attacks were not quite powerful enough to seriously destabilize the intended targets, they certainly caused a headache for corporations such as Amazon, PayPal, Visa and Mastercard. Similar to the arms race of the Cold War, countries, large corporations, or even powerful informal networks such as the Anonymous group could be capable of making a sizable impact on one another, and engage in an inexorably proliferating struggle to build more destructive offenses and more impenetrable defenses.
Finally, hacking will continue to play an even larger role in real-world affairs. The United States and China, among others, are actively recruiting and training the next generation of soldiers – digital agents capable of attacking and defending systems through the internet. Though the United States is rightfully cautious, frequently decoupling sensitive information from the internet, the interconnectedness of different systems leave sub-systems exposed to attack.
With an increasing number of our interactions, from communications, to financial transactions to automated control systems becoming a part of the digital realm, it follows that the next generation’s battlefield, with its armies currently undergoing covert training by various governments around the world, will take place online.
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