National Security Negligence

The Wall Street Journal has published an article titled “China Expands Cyberspying in U.S., Report Says.”  The piece is based on a Northrup Grumman report commissioned by Congress and published on 9 October.  The Executive Summary of this document reads, in part:

Chinese military strategists have come to view information dominance as the precursor for overall success in a conflict. The growing importance of Information Warfare to China’s People’s Liberation Army is also driving it to develop more comprehensive computer network exploitation  techniques to support strategic intelligence collection objectives and to lay the foundation for success in potential future conflicts.

The US information targeted to date could potentially benefit a nation-state defense industry, space program, selected civilian high technology industries, foreign policymakers interested in US leadership thinking on key China issues, and foreign military planners building an intelligence picture of US defense networks, logistics, and related military capabilities that could be exploited during a crisis.

If Chinese operators are, indeed, responsible for even some of the current exploitation efforts targeting US Government and commercial networks, then they may have already demonstrated that they possess a mature and operationally proficient computer network operations capability.

From a national security perspective, this study in an indictment of China’s already successful (though intentionally limited) cyber warfare capabilities and, more distressing, this administration’s negligence.

I’ve written about the significance of cybersecurity in two other occasions; “Welcome to World War 3” and “Swing and Miss.”  In each I tried to introduce the grave dangers – the real threat – that exists on the world’s digital information grid.  It’s a threat that goes far beyond computer viruses or hacking into college administration servers.  And it’s a threat that comes from many more sources than China.

Other than commissioning a “60 day cyberspace policy review” that took twice as long as it’s name implies and the creation of the new CyberCommand, the Obama administration has not just done nothing, it has neglected a critical national security need.

Even so, CyberCommand was supposed to be officially operational last month, but initial operating capability as it’s called has not yet been achieved.  Lt. Col. Eric Butterbaugh of the DoD’s Public Affairs Office provided me with this response when asked for a reason for the delay:

“The command has not yet reached initial operating capability (IOC). Significant progress has been made since Secretary Gates’ decision to stand up the command, and we expect to reach initial operating capability in the near future.”

I won’t attempt to put words in Lt. Col. Butterbaugh’s correspondence, but I know enough to understand the forced politeness.  Something is holding it up and it ain’t technical.  It’s political.

But it doesn’t have to be like this.  Mellssa Hathaway was the White House’s Cybersecurity chief on the National Security Council – OK, Cyber Czar.  She resigned in August, almost three months ago,  As reported in the Wall Street Journal at the time,

People familiar with the matter said Ms. Hathaway has been “spinning her wheels” in the White House, where the president’s economic advisers sought to marginalize her politically.

The president is – once again – negligent when it comes to a critical issue of national security.  He doesn’t care. He has paid only lip (or teleprompter) service to the subject and reverted to his socialist domestic agenda. He is – once again – allowing politics to intrude on a critical national security.  He is incapable of focusing on more than one topic at a time. He is encouraging his ECONOMIC advisers to intrude on an essential aspect of national defense.

What good is health care reform if the Chinese (or Russians, Iranians, North Koreans, Muslim extremists, international crime organizations, hackers, etc) can invade our digital information resources and damage, destroy or steal the medical records of millions of Americans?

What good are stimulus funds for giant banks and financial houses if their vaults can be ransacked by adversaries half a world away?

How useful will it be for us to “go green” or reduce petroleum consumption if a foreign power can shut down America’s power plants and industrial infrastructure with strategic and coordinated keystrokes?

There is also precedent for hacking into news organizations and election authorities.  The news gets distorted enough as it is, imagine if an adversary either altered online information or denied access to it.

A REAL president would command.

A REAL president would recognize a threat to the nation and implement procedures and practices to defend against those threats.

Barack Obama is doing none of this.

Barack Obama – Community Activist In Chief – is no REAL president.