psCargile wrote:The best time to attack is when your opponent least expects it and is unprepared to retalitate in kind.
That's what the ancient Chinese said, and the Chinese leadership is still paying attention to the ancients today.
SUN TZU ON THE ART OF WAR
THE OLDEST MILITARY TREATISE IN THE WORLD
Translated from the Chinese
By LIONEL GILES, M.A. (1910)
16. All warfare is based on deception.
17. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.
22. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/artofwar.htm
June 07, 2006
Flunking the Art of War
Master Sun-Tzu, President Hu and Bush
by JOHN WALSH
At the very least China’s President Hu displayed a sense of humor in presenting a book, of all things, to George W. Bush on his recent visit to the United States. And the choice of Sun-Tzu’s fifth century B.C. classic, "The Art of War" was tantalizing. Since Dubya certainly will not penetrate too far into it, I decided to have a look, so that at least one American would honor the Chinese gift by actually reading it.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2006/06/07/ ... -and-bush/
About 18 months ago, we had this debate about whether China would attack. Lily said they would attack soon and I thought not yet for many of the reasons given in this thread. I believe over the past 18 months the US has reached a tipping point of having a population too dependent on electronic printed money transfers. This population has marginal productive skills, essentially no survival skills, is racially divided, is heavily armed, and is tired of being screwed around with by the top 1%. There's no patriotic feeling. Meanwhile, the politicians and the country in general are distracted by the "fiscal cliff" and "debt ceiling" debates. They have only recently become vaguely aware of the closeness of the looming threat to the bond market and the looming cyber threat. The 30 year US Treasury bond has lost about 8 points recently as interest rates have backed up.
In 2013, I believe the Chinese will launch a financial attack and a cyber attack on the United States and I believe they will win hands down. The financial and cyber vulnerabilities are at their maximum point and the US has done the minimum to close those vulnerabilities. If the Chinese can exploit that soon, they can create maximum internal disorder inside the US.
Chinese Cyberattack Continues
DHS warns about new ‘watering hole’ cyber attack vulnerability as a high-tech firm also reportedly is hit
BY: Bill Gertz
January 3, 2013 6:45 pm
Tkacik, director of the Future Asia Project at the International Assessment and Strategy Center (IASC), said the company probably was among hundreds of U.S. companies targeted for technology acquisition.
“The whole episode is yet another chapter in the ongoing morality play of America’s inability, unwillingness, or both, to confront the Chinese cyberthreat,” Tkacik said. “Alas, U.S. law prevents American intelligence and military cyberwarriors from conducting the same sweeping attacks against Chinese networks, but perhaps the time has come for Congress to fund a major expansion of [the National Security Agency's] and Defense Department’s network warfare capabilities and mandate them to go after Chinese financial, social, media, energy, and industrial networks in a big way. Otherwise we’re fighting the last war.”
Richard Fisher, a China affairs specialist with IASC, said the government should require publicizing information on Chinese-origin cyber attacks. “The time has come for Congress to demand annual reporting from the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security highlighting China’s global cyber war and its security and economic impact on Americans,” Fisher said. “Such a report required in order to galvanize both defensive and retaliatory policies."
http://freebeacon.com/chinese-cyberattack-continues/
State-sanctioned cyberattacks on the rise – Kaspersky
GMA News Online – Thu, Jan 3, 2013
However, a more urgent concern was the rise of nationally authorized cyberattacks that could usher in an era of cold "cyber-war", according to Kaspersky's Director of Global Research & Analysis, Costin Raiu.
“We expect more countries to develop cyber weapons - designed to steal information or sabotage systems - not least because the entry-level for developing such weapons is much lower than is the case with real-world weapons,” he cautioned.
Prime targets of such attacks include energy supply facilities, transportation controls, financial systems, telecommunications, and other critical infrastructure.
Government response to the increased threat of cyberattacks is likely to be heightened monitoring, a potential privacy breach that may put the role of law enforcement into question.
“Legal surveillance tools has wider implications for privacy and civil liberties. And as law enforcement agencies, and governments, try to get one step ahead of the criminals, it's likely that the use of such tools - and the debate surrounding their use - will continue,” Raiu pointed out.
http://ph.news.yahoo.com/state-sanction ... 13689.html
Still others say the whole concept is overblown.
"Digital Pearl Harbor is just a funding term, a way to get money for military and cybersecurity budgets," says John Robb, a former Air Force pilot who served in Special Operations Forces and is author of "Brave New War" about new modes of warfare. "It has no real relevance because we still live in a world dominated by nuclear weapons."
http://news.yahoo.com/cyber-pearl-harbo ... IAmxrQtDMD
Makes sense, but I think he's wrong.
Two in three Brits feel cyber enemies should be attacked before they pose security threat
London, Dec. 26 (ANI): Two in three people believe Britain should draw 'first blood' in the cyber war and attack state or hackers before they target their country.
The majority of the public believe pre-emptive strikes are justified if enemy states or hi-tech criminals pose a threat to national security.
Earlier this year, a committee of MPs and peers said Britain should declare cyber war on those who target the country through aggressive retaliatory strikes to destroy their operations, the Telegraph reports.
Hackers and foreign spies are bombarding government departments and businesses, which has become one of the 'greatest challenges' of modern times.
http://in.news.yahoo.com/two-three-brit ... 13823.html
The above article I found interesting from a GD standpoint.
Financial terrorism suspected in 2008 economic crash
Pentagon study sees element
The Washington Times
Monday, February 28, 2011
"The new battle space is the economy," he said. "We spend hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons systems each year. But a relatively small amount of money focused against our financial markets through leveraged derivatives or cyber efforts can result in trillions of dollars in losses. And, the perpetrators can remain undiscovered.
Regardless of the report's findings, U.S. officials and outside analysts said the Pentagon, the Treasury Department and U.S. intelligence agencies are not aggressively studying the threats to the United States posed by economic warfare and financial terrorism.
"Nobody wants to go there," one official said.
Because of secrecy surrounding global banking and finance, finding the exact identities of the attackers will be difficult.
Asked by The Times who he thought to be the most likely behind the financial attacks, Mr. Freeman said: "Unfortunately, the two major strategic threats, radical jihadists and the Chinese, are among the best positioned in the economic battle space.
The third phase is what Mr. Freeman states in the report was the main source of the economic system's vulnerability. "We have taken on massive public debt as the government was the only party who could access capital markets in late 2008 and early 2009," he said, placing the U.S. dollar's global reserve currency status at grave risk.
"This is the 'end game' if the goal is to destroy America," Mr. Freeman said, noting that in his view China's military "has been advocating the potential for an economic attack on the U.S. for 12 years or longer as evidenced by the publication of the book Unrestricted Warfare in 1999."
A few pieces of the article are quoted - there's lots more at the link.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... ash/print/
Supposing a war broke out between two developed nations already possessing full information technology, and relying upon traditional methods of operation, the attacking side would generally employ the modes of great depth, wide front, high strength, and three-dimensionality to launch a campaign assault against the enemy. Their method does not go beyond satellite reconnaissance, electronic countermeasures, large-scale air attacks plus precision attacks, ground outflanking, amphibious landings, air drops behind enemy lines ... the result is not that the enemy nation proclaims defeat, but rather one returns with one's own spears and feathers.
However, by using the combination method, a completely different scenario and game can occur: if the attacking side secretly musters large amounts of capital without the enemy nation being aware of this at all and launches a sneak attack against its financial markets, then after causing a financial crisis, buries a computer virus and hacker detachment in the opponent's computer system in advance, while at the same time carrying out a network attack against the enemy so that the civilian electricity network, traffic dispatching network, financial transaction network, telephone communications network, and mass media network are completely paralyzed, this will cause the enemy nation to fall into social panic, street riots, and a political crisis.
There is finally the forceful bearing down by the army, and military means are utilized in gradual stages until the enemy is forced to sign a dishonorable peace treaty. This admittedly does not attain to the domain spoken of by Sun Zi, wherein "the other army is subdued without fighting." However, it can be considered to be "subduing the other army through clever operations." It is very clear who was superior and who inferior when comparing these two methods of operation. This is, however, only a thought. However, it is certainly a feasible thought. Based on this thought, we need only shake the kaleidoscope of addition to be able to combine into an inexhaustible variety of methods of operation.
http://www.c4i.org/unrestricted.pdf
From Unrestricted Warfare, p. 145.