More than 300 years ago, Thomas Hobbes wrote that mankind has a perpetual and restless desire for power after power that ends only in death. History proves Hobbes’ dark vision right: Man’s natural condition is not peace but war. Throughout history, the evolution of war — and the tools with which it is waged — has far outpaced the advancement of the peaceful sciences.
From the time a cave man first hit another with a rock, we thought we knew what war was. It was an armed conflict by which one nation or group sought to impose its will on another. But by the beginning of the 20th century, the concept of armed conflict became blurred.
Insurgencies birthed the “unconventional war” concept and terrorism taught us that there are no front lines behind which anyone is safe. The battlefield is everywhere: Every aircraft or restaurant or town square into which someone can smuggle a knife or a bomb is a part of it. Now war has taken another evolutionary leap, this time into the electronic sinews of our society.
We depend on computers to manage our electric power grid, to operate satellites for communications and for entertainment. Our military and intelligence agencies rely on computers — and satellites — for everything from controlling aircraft and ships to navigation, reconnaissance and espionage.
As Estonia and Georgia discovered in the last decade and as the Iranians learned more recently, a computer program is as much a weapon as a rifle or bomb. Thus, the most important battles of the 21st century may well be fought in orbit or in cyberspace.
Shortly after the Russians launched the first Sputnik in 1957, arms control agreements have blocked the weaponization of space. Satellites have been endangered only by accidental collision with others or the space junk left in orbit.
Congress has, for decades, refused our Air Force the ability to create anti-satellite weapon systems, though both we and Russia had tested such weapons in the 1980s.
In January 2007, China shocked the world by launching a missile that destroyed one of its weather satellites in space. It was an escalation of the anti-satellite arms race to which we have not responded.
Some reports say that China is also developing a “directed-energy” anti-satellite weapon intended to destroy our satellites at the beginning of a war.
According to unclassified information, we have several large “constellations” of military satellites in orbit, ranging from the Milstar communications satellites (five total) to the Global Positioning System navigation satellites (about 30 in number).
The CIA and other agencies have constellations of classified satellites for reconnaissance and space-based espionage. They are supposed to be protected from cyberattack but are vulnerable to kinetic weapons.
If we were to lose some or all of these satellites to enemy action, our military and intelligence communities would be — literally and figuratively — flying blind.
President Obama is reportedly readying an executive order which would tie us to a European “code of conduct” for space activity and severely limit — or stop entirely — our ability to develop anti-satellite weapons.
In next year’s campaign, Obama should be compelled to explain why that would benefit us when nations which are building those weapons, such as China, won’t be bound by the agreement.
Cyberwar is not — under U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions — even defined as war. But the Russian cyberattacks on Estonia and Georgia nearly brought those governments down, and the Stuxnet computer worm damaged and disrupted the Iranian nuclear weapons program.
Cyber Command’s boss, Gen. Keith Alexander, told Congress in March that his organization lacked sufficient resources to protect our military and intelligence cyber networks. That must be remedied and in the proper way.
It appears that Cyber Command is operating only defensively, and it has its hands full. U.S. military, intelligence and defense industry networks are attacked many times every day.
And it’s not only China that is heavily investing in cyberwar: so are Israel, North Korea, Russia and Iran. Our defenses must be the best, but why don’t we have an offensive cyberwar capability?
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., is trying to fix that problem by seeking legislation to establish an offensive Cyber Command operational doctrine.
Cyberwar capability may well be the decisive factor in the next major war. And, as the attack on the Iranian nuclear program demonstrates, it may be the way to keep the nuclear war genie confined to his bottle.
Examiner contributor Jed Babbin was appointed deputy undersecretary of defense by President George H.W. Bush. He is the author of such best-selling books as “Inside the Asylum” and “In the Words of Our Enemies.”
