Book Review: Cyber War – The next threat to national security and what to do about it by Richard A. Clarke
Two of the most talked about issues are probably China and the cyber war. When it comes to both these issues, there seems to be developing some kind of a strong connection between the two with China’s fast development and progress in all areas. Richard Clarke, who served as a counterterrorism to Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, turned his attention to a new potential security catastrophe which is terrorism through computers.
In his book on cyber war, he provides an insight on the issue and will probably change the way people think about China. It is anyway very tough to understand all aspects of cyber war without studying the political angle to it. Clarke highlights three most terrifying concepts in his book. They are as follows:
US pioneered cyber war:
Cyber warfare technology is not something new. It was used by the US in their war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s. In collaboration with the Canadian government, they inserted a logic bomb into their software which sabotaged the Russian pipeline operations. It resulted in the biggest non-nuclear explosion ever. During the Gulf War, China paid very close attention to US’s warfare marked by high and advanced technology. They changed their own military strategy and started investing more in the battlefield of computers.
Economic warfare:
Billions of dollars is spent on funding the research. But with advanced technology and a few mouse clicks, China can steal these and take the results to the market. Most of America’s corporate world remains unsecured and unprotected against these threats.
When technology is disadvantaged:
Economic disadvantages can often be converted into military advantages as in the case of North Korea and other nations that have minimal computer based infrastructure. After the Gulf war, China came up with a book describing how such countries can have an upper hand in the case of cyber war. Hence, in the example of North Korea, it proves how it could have the upper hand because it doesn’t have computer infrastructure that could be turned off.
Cyber War has started the debate about the “new threat to national security” this simple to understand book will appeal to all readers but political and tech junkies and also futurologists and war heads will receive a stimulating fix.
