How to Enhance the United States' Electronic Defenses

Wesley K. Clark and Peter L. Levin | Foreign Affairs | November/December 2009, Vol 88, No 6

Authors: WESLEY K. CLARK, a retired four-star General, was Supreme Commander of NATO from 1997 to 2000, led the alliance of military forces in the 1999 Kosovo War, and is a Senior Fellow at the Ron Burkle Center for International Relations at UCLA. PETER L. LEVIN was the founding CEO of the cybersecurity company DAFCA and is now Chief Technology Officer and Senior Adviser to the Secretary at the Department of Veterans Affairs. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. government.

During the July 4 holiday weekend, the latest in a series of cyberattacks was launched against popular government Web sites in the United States and South Korea, effectively shutting them down for several hours. It is unlikely that the real culprits will ever be identified or caught. Most disturbing, their limited success may embolden future hackers to attack critical infrastructure, such as power generators or air-traffic-control systems, with devastating consequences for the U.S. economy and national security.

As Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrote earlier this year in these pages, "The United States cannot kill or capture its way to victory" in the conflicts of the future. When it comes to cybersecurity, Washington faces an uphill battle. And as a recent Center for Strategic and International Studies report put it, "It is a battle we are losing."

There is no form of military combat more irregular than an electronic attack: it is extremely cheap, is very fast, can be carried out anonymously, and can disrupt or deny critical services precisely at the moment of maximum peril. Everything about the subtlety, complexity, and effectiveness of the assaults already inflicted on the United States' electronic defenses indicates that other nations have thought carefully about this form of combat. Disturbingly, they seem to understand the vulnerabilities of the United States' network infrastructure better than many Americans do.

It is tempting for policymakers to view cyberwarfare as an abstract future threat. After all, the national security establishment understands traditional military threats much better than it does virtual enemies. The problem is that an electronic attack can be large, widespread, and sudden -- far beyond the capabilities of conventional predictive models to anticipate. The United States is already engaged in low-intensity cyberconflicts, characterized by aggressive enemy efforts to collect intelligence on the country's weapons, electrical grid, traffic-control system, and even its financial markets. Fortunately, the Obama administration recognizes that the United States is utterly dependent on Internet-based systems and that its information assets are therefore precariously exposed. Accordingly, it has made electronic network security a crucial defense priority.

But networks are only the tip of the iceberg. Not only does Washington have a limited ability to detect when data has been pilfered, but the physical hardware components that undergird the United States' information highway are becoming increasingly insecure.

Obama Must Learn from Vietnam

BY WESLEY CLARK | New York Daily News | Monday, August 17th 2009

Much has been done in six months to deal with the ongoing war in Afghanistan. We have restated that our aim is to eliminate the threat of Al Qaeda; built a new leadership team, including Special Representative Richard Holbrooke; reinforced our troop strength and adjusted our tactics; and have begun augmenting our force with synchronized diplomatic, political and economic efforts.

But can we explain how all of this adds up to an effective strategy that will sustain American engagement in one of the world's least accessible regions?

The American people are growing increasingly wary. In a new CNN/Opinion research poll, fully 54% of respondents now say they oppose the U.S.-led fight against the Taliban and their Al Qaeda allies. Those are striking numbers, and a serious warning to the Obama administration.

The difficulty here lies less in PowerPoint presentations and more in the complexities of the war itself. Our real enemy, Al Qaeda, may now be more entrenched in Pakistan than in Afghanistan. Taking the fight directly into Pakistan with ground forces risks expanding the conflict and undercutting a fragile Pakistani civilian government.

The similarities to Vietnam are ominous. There, too, an insurgency was led and supported from outside the borders of the state in which our troops were fighting. There, too, sanctuaries across international borders stymied U.S. military efforts. There, too, broader political-strategic considerations weighed against military expansion of the conflict and forecast further struggles in the region.

And there, too, American public support slid away over time as our engagement ratcheted up and casualties mounted.

Our Vietnam experiences provide powerful lessons in how to explain strategy and retain public support, so we can ultimately succeed.

More at the New York Daily News

Wesley Clark: State's energy future is biofuels

Wesley K. Clark | April 20, 2009 | Orlando Sentinel

It's precisely during times of crisis that the best of America emerges. I have found, through my travels all over the globe, that it is the resiliency of the American people during hard times that is our defining characteristic. As we face the challenges of high unemployment, a warming climate and unstable regimes on whom we depend for oil, I believe we can meet these challenges by remaining undaunted in the face of adversity and applying American ingenuity to find solutions.

Last month, a group I'm part of, Growth Energy, proposed one such solution by submitting a green jobs waiver to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which would increase the blend of ethanol in our fuel supply up to 15 percent — creating jobs, boosting our energy independence and reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. Right now, ethanol is capped at 10 percent of the fuel supply.

When the Florida Legislature passed the comprehensive energy bill unanimously last year requiring 10 percent of Florida's fuel to come from ethanol, it unleashed the imagination of Florida's entrepreneurs. Companies have proposed making ethanol from everything from sugar cane, switchgrass, sorghum and even orange peels that would, otherwise, be wasted.

Click here to read General Clark's article in the New York Times.

New York Times | November 16, 2008

What's Good for G.M. Is Good for the Army

The following is an excerpt from Wes Clark's Op-Ed in the New York Times called "What's Good for G.M. Is Good for the Army.":

In a little more than a year, the Army has procured and fielded in Iraq more than a thousand so-called mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles. The lives of hundreds of soldiers and marines have been saved, and their tasks made more achievable, by the efforts of the American automotive industry. And unlike in World War II, America didn't have to divert much civilian capacity to meet these military needs. Without a vigorous automotive sector, those needs could not have been quickly met.

More challenges lie ahead for our military, and to meet them we need a strong industrial base. For years the military has sought better sources of electric power in its vehicles -- necessary to allow troops to monitor their radios with diesel engines off, to support increasingly high-powered communications technology, and eventually to support electric propulsion and innovative armaments like directed-energy weapons. In sum, this greater use of electricity will increase combat power while reducing our footprint. Much research and development spending has gone into these programs over the years, but nothing on the manufacturing scale we really need.

Now, though, as Detroit moves to plug-in hybrids and electric-drive technology, the scale problem can be remedied. Automakers are developing innovative electric motors, many with permanent magnet technology, that will have immediate military use. And only the auto industry, with its vast purchasing power, is able to establish a domestic advanced battery industry. Likewise, domestic fuel cell production -- which will undoubtedly have many critical military applications -- depends on a vibrant car industry.

[...]

This should be no giveaway. Instead, it is a historic opportunity to get it right in Detroit for the good of the country. But Americans must bear in mind that any federal assistance plan would not be just an economic measure. This is, fundamentally, about national security.

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