His talk was entitled "The New Cold War: Hackers, Drones, and Cyber Spies" and his thesis was that the "Global War on Terror" is actually over, and than we have entered a new era. In Department of Defense documents, the abbreviation GWOT (Global War on Terror, or, Global War on Terrorism) was frequently used, but is now less so. Instead, Mr. Harris hypothesizes, we are in what he terms a "New Cold War" - beginning around the time at which Osama Bin Laden died, or perhaps a bit earlier, around the time of Hurricane Katrina. Those events would mark the end of the GWOT, and naturally the 9/11 attacks would mark its beginning.
The good news is that, according to Mr. Harris, we won the GWOT. The New Cold War is marked by a different anti-terrorism strategy, in which the drone (or 'RPA' for remotely piloted aircraft) is central. Obama has ordered more drone attacks in a single year than Bush ordered in his entire presidency. This marks a shift in tactics. Drones and assassinations are the hallmarks of this new anti-terrorism strategy.
Another aspect of the New Cold War is that it involves conflicts not on battlefields. Traditionally, military strategists have identified four domains: land, sea, air, and space. A fifth domain is now added: cyberspace. The Obama administration sees cyberspace as a strategic domain. We are entering an era which will feature conflicts not on battlefields, using new and unknown technologies.
It has now become an explicit objective of our military to defend its own cyberspace, and the cyberspace of our civilians.
The dawn of this New Cold War can be traced back to a meeting including Vice-President Dick Cheney, President Bush, and Director of National Intelligence John M. McConnell, among others. At this meeting, the ground action in Iraq was discussed, including the surge which would eventually and decisively turn the tide of the war in favor of America. The next item discussed was an introduction to the serious possibility of cyber attacks.
McConnell posed the question, what if 9/11 had been a cyber attack directed at our nation's financial system? It would have had far worse economic consequences than the actual WTC attack did. It would be a true nightmare scenario. Other administration officials at the meeting confirmed McConnell's description. This was a turning point in American defense strategy. President Bush said that we would have to do everything we could to defend our cyberspace.
At this point in time - the meeting in question would have been in 2007 - this was not a new problem, but there was a new awareness of it at the highest levels of government. Since that time, significant concrete steps have been taken.
The CIA hosted a meeting of major Department of Defense contractors. It informed them that China had been able to gain access to the computers of these contractors, and obtain classified information, for example, about the technology of the joint strike fighter aircraft. The CIA told the contractors that new and strict security would be implemented. This resulted in the Defense Industrial Base Initiative, which is to facilitate collaboration between different private-sector contractors and various security-related government agencies as they work toward better cyber-security.
After receiving his first classified security briefing about cyber-defense issues, prior to the November 2008 election, Obama commented that while he had previously been afraid of losing the election, he was now afraid of winning. Yet Obama has demonstrated perhaps somewhat more intuitive awareness of cyber issues, perhaps related to his age and own personal use of electronics.
In May 2009, Obama gave a speech, stating clearly that there was evidence of foreign organizations were penetrating, or attempting to penetrate, the computer networks which control the electrical power grid. These organizations seemed to be the Chinese government and shadowy entities inside Russia.
Soon thereafter, Google stated that it had evidence that the Chinese government was hacking into personal Gmail accounts.
The Obama administration stated, in November 2011, that Russians entities and the Chinese government had essentially an organized crime venture, stealing data and other intellectual property from U.S. companies.
Observers have speculated that the 'Stuxnet' virus (more properly, a 'worm') was designed by the intelligence or military agencies of some country (possibly Israel or the U.S.), because it seems to target the Iranian nuclear facilities. In any case, the Stuxnet infection at Iranian weapons facilities did slow Iran's progress in building nuclear weapons, and in doing so, may have bought a few months or years of security and peace, and delayed whatever heated confrontation between Iran and the bulk of the world's nations may yet occur.
Turning to drones, or UAV's (unmanned aerial vehicles), Mr. Harris observed that warfare is becoming not only mechanized, but self-running. Compared to a WWII bomber, which required a crew of ten men, UAV's can be controlled by one individual, and with greater accuracy. The trend is toward creating drones which will not require minute-by-minute control, but rather be given merely a general assignment (e.g., take out the target located at certain coordinates) and the drone will proceed to sort out the details for itself.
Drones will be able to communicate with each other and perform group assignments. In WWII, a raid of one thousand planes was staffed by ten thousand crewmen in the air. In the future, a raid of one thousand drones could be staffed by a small handful of computer operators on the ground, and they would only be needed to launch the operation - once given their orders, the drones would be self-directed.
Naturally, the United States is not the only country to realize this. China is actively developing more advanced generations of drones. Drones could do more than surveillance or bombing. In addition to photo-reconnaissance, drones would be capable of activating atomic, biological, or chemical weapons.
It is worth noting that drones will probably be a part of civilian life (in contexts not related to defense or security) in the future. Obvious applications include crop-dusters and cargo flights. The security concern here is that a terrorist could hack into the controls of a civilian drone, deflect it from its private-sector tasks, and use it to create danger.
Drones will be able to not only fly, but also move underwater, on the surface of the water, and on land. Capabilities like climbing up the outside of a tall building may allow drones to, for example, play a major role in rescuing hostages taken by terrorists.
In comparing the "Old Cold War" to the "New Cold War," Mr. Harris notes that both involved expanding the concept of "domain", involved the expansion and innovation of technology, and involved proxies. The U.S. military now has standardized the notion of 'info ops' - informational operations including hacking into a terrorist's cell phone or text messages and discovering who is posting what on the web.
Looking at both the drone aircraft and the issues around cyber-security, Shane Harris noted that there are issues around what is called 'supply-chain security' - many processors, chips, LCD screens, and plasma screens are built outside the U.S. (often East Asia or Pacific Rim areas), and at least two threats exist: first, in the diplomatic tensions leading up to an actual shooting war, suppliers could cut off the flow of such parts into America; second, such parts as do come in could, now or in the future, have hidden features which would be built into them for the purpose of giving a potential enemy of the U.S. - more likely a sovereign state than a terrorist group - access into either cyber capacity or drones, to either neutralize those drones and capacities, or co-opt those drones and capacities for uses other than those assigned to them by the U.S.
Shane Harris gave thought-provoking insight into the nature of security and defense in the coming decades.
