LTC Private RallyPoint Member 32090 <div class="images-v2-count-0"></div>I ask this as I&#39;m not a cyber-warrior, but someone trying to lean what I can of the next war. Lately we&#39;ve been hearing a lot about &quot;cyber&quot; this and &quot;cyber&quot; that. A lot has focused on how to defend the Nation and military formations from cyber attack. But would we be able to respond in kind?&amp;nbsp;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;As much as we like to think of the military network as secure, a good portion of our net traffic is on civilian infrastructure, to say nothing of our contractors&#39; networks or those of our enemies. We haven&#39;t really taken the fight to the civilian populations since maybe the bombing of Germany in WWII or Rolling Thunder, as precise munitions have made civilian casualties unacceptable. With a potential cyber component of war being waged on shared civil-military networks, I imagine civilian impacts would be unavoidable. Could we as a Nation accept the social and political ramifications of such a battlefield involving civilian targets?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;An example of a cyber attack I heard online from cyber expert Peter Singer was someone theoretically hacking KBR&#39;s barcode reader so they deliver toilet paper to the military where bullets are needed instead. Could we muster the will to pull off something like that, where we go after a civilian organization to achieve military goals? It seems to me the traditional lines blur here.&lt;/div&gt; 2014-01-03T19:44:20-05:00 LTC Private RallyPoint Member 32090

<div class="images-v2-count-0"></div>I ask this as I&#39;m not a cyber-warrior, but someone trying to lean what I can of the next war. Lately we&#39;ve been hearing a lot about &quot;cyber&quot; this and &quot;cyber&quot; that. A lot has focused on how to defend the Nation and military formations from cyber attack. But would we be able to respond in kind?&amp;nbsp;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;As much as we like to think of the military network as secure, a good portion of our net traffic is on civilian infrastructure, to say nothing of our contractors&#39; networks or those of our enemies. We haven&#39;t really taken the fight to the civilian populations since maybe the bombing of Germany in WWII or Rolling Thunder, as precise munitions have made civilian casualties unacceptable. With a potential cyber component of war being waged on shared civil-military networks, I imagine civilian impacts would be unavoidable. Could we as a Nation accept the social and political ramifications of such a battlefield involving civilian targets?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;An example of a cyber attack I heard online from cyber expert Peter Singer was someone theoretically hacking KBR&#39;s barcode reader so they deliver toilet paper to the military where bullets are needed instead. Could we muster the will to pull off something like that, where we go after a civilian organization to achieve military goals? It seems to me the traditional lines blur here.&lt;/div&gt;

2014-01-03T19:44:20-05:00 2014-01-03T19:44:20-05:00 SFC James Baber 32148

<div class="images-v2-count-0"></div><p>Sir,</p><p><br></p><p>This is nothing new, James Clapper former General, the Director of National Intelligence during his yearly analysis report to Congress has listed Cyber terrorism within his report and the 2013 report has Cyber as the number one priority for national security. We are very vulnerable from Russia and China being our number one threats, while Syria, Iran and North Korea have struck our infrastructure in the past whether it was financial, business, government or military it has been an increasing issue for quite few years,</p><p><br></p><p>We have military equipment with counterfeit Chinese chips in them that could be utilized to stop the equipment from properly functioning if we were to ever go to war with china or one of its interests. We are very vulnerable at this current stage.</p>

2014-01-03T21:28:56-05:00 2014-01-03T21:28:56-05:00 CW2 Joseph Evans 32988

<div class="images-v2-count-0"></div>Well, what are we really worried about? Nation on nation? domestic cyber terrorists? Non-state actors? Economic targets? Infrastructure? Military?<br>Cyber crime/terrorism is ultimately the purview of a relatively small group of criminals or a well funded agency (ref NSA budget).<br>

2014-01-05T03:33:28-05:00 2014-01-05T03:33:28-05:00 CPT Private RallyPoint Member 41730

<div class="images-v2-count-0"></div><p>Sir, I just saw your question and I am no "cyber warrior" either, but I do find the topic very interesting.  You ask if we as a nation could accept the ramifications of attacking civilian cyber targets, and my initial thought is yes.  I think it could be justified using the just war theory as long as it was done with some distinction of targets.  I am sure the majority of Americans would consider a blanket shutdown of the internet (as was done for a period of time in Egypt and Syria) to be unjust.  (Maybe in a total war situation that would be okay...) However, attacking contractor networks and their associated civilian infrastructure could be justified as a military necessity due to their direct/indirect support of armed forces.  I would equate it with the bombing of factories and the German military industrial complex during World War II.  I think we could muster the public support and political will to do this if we were involved in a large scale war between nation-states.  There is some evidence to support the theory that we have already done this to a certain extent with the Stuxnet and Duku viruses that collected information on the Iranian nuclear program and sabotaged their centerfuges.  I do think we are definitely in uncharted territory when it comes to the use of cyber weapons and cyber warfare and there are many posibilities that could have sigificant military, economic, and civil impacts.  Perhaps there may need to be another Geneva Convention or some sort of treaty to govern the acceptable use of cyber warfare...</p>

2014-01-21T13:42:22-05:00 2014-01-21T13:42:22-05:00 CPT Private RallyPoint Member 41795

<div class="images-v2-count-0"></div>What we as a nation can stomach is based on what we as a nation see on the evening news.  A cyber war would be a non-issue in my opinion because there would be no civilian bodies for the media to sensationalize.<br>

2014-01-21T15:46:08-05:00 2014-01-21T15:46:08-05:00 SSgt Private RallyPoint Member 41931

<div class="images-v2-count-0"></div>It is a potent reality and a lot of it stems from the PRC.   I am sure that redundant software is being implemented to lessen that threat.

2014-01-21T23:37:51-05:00 2014-01-21T23:37:51-05:00 Maj Walter Kilar 41952

<div class="images-v2-count-0"></div>Yes, the nation can stomach the consequences. We are always at war, but the phase of war is what turns our stomachs. Depending on your level of involvement with cyber, we are currently in phase 0 or phase 1 of cyber war. Offensive counter cyber, cyber attack, and cyber network attack would not be employed in isolation, but would be executed in parallel with warfare via sea, land, and air. Sure, there may be some crackpot general that might propose employing cyber attack without kinetic combat of any type, but the lessons of warfare would again prove that no single element of warfare can be successful without the other pieces of the puzzle. <div><br></div><div>If you are referring to conducting cyber-operational preparation of the environment and counter network exploitation--the stuff that looks rather sexy in movies, those kind of activities are heavily regulated by law and Title 50 of the US Code. I know that with the NSA making its way into the news that it appears as if C-OPE and CNE are abound and we should all be looking for white vans outside our bedroom windows, but this simply is not the case. The NSA, for the most part, is not reading your Facebook posts with pictures of what you ate for dinner last night any more than the Army is going around shooting harmless civilians in Afghanistan. Do not mistake the actions of a few as representative the whole organization. Even with one judge declaring NSA's actions illegal, there were other judges that disagreed. </div><div><br></div><div>Can America stomach the consequences? It has to this point. America will stomach "cyber war" less as the media improperly portrays it, and as much as the layman does not understand it. (Granted, the topic of "cyber" is confusing unless you have a lot of free time to read the doctrine.)</div>

2014-01-22T00:17:14-05:00 2014-01-22T00:17:14-05:00 2014-01-03T19:44:20-05:00