Alert! The US Has Declared a "State of War" with China

Flash! This just in from the Wall Street Journal:

The Pentagon has concluded that computer sabotage coming from another country can constitute an act of war, a finding that for the first time opens the door for the U.S. to respond using traditional military force.

Since the Chinese have hacked US government and military sights a large number of times over the last few year, I expect the nuclear missiles are now on their way to Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, etc. Look out below!

Oh wait... the article goes on to say:

In part, the Pentagon intends its plan as a warning to potential adversaries of the consequences of attacking the U.S. in this way. "If you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks," said a military official.

What?

Oh... I guess this is like the Democracies reponse to Hitler in the 1930s.

• When Hitler seized the Ruhr, the western democracies warned him that was unacceptable behaviour.


• When Hitler seized Austria in the Anschluss, the western democracies made it very clear that this was unacceptable behaviour by a modern state and could lead to war.


• When Hitler threatened to take the Sudentanland, the western democracies said this was completely unacceptable militaristic behaviour, but you can have the Sudentenland because we are going to let you get away with this once, but that is all.


• When Hitler seized the Dantzig corridor and invaded Poland, the western democracies said this was an "act of war" and put their militaries on "war footing" and them promptly sad and watched while Hitler and Stalin divided up Poland and decimated that country. This was the infamous "Sitzkrig" or "phoney war".

After reviewing a little history, I now have the proper "context" to understand this new US policy of computer sabotage being interpreted as "constituting an act of war". The US is following the policy prescriptions of the western democracies by making lots of threatening noises, but clearly intends to do nothing. This "act of war" nonsense is just throwing dust up. It makes the world more dangerous because it isn't clear what and when the US will react violently to an assault from outlaw nations like China. It makes us all more unsafe not safer.

My advice to the US: If you want to be taken seriously, then say what you mean and mean what you say. Don't go throwing around the words "constitute an act of war" unless you seriously mean it. Otherwise, when you want to warn a rogue nation like China that their actions "constitute an act of war", they won't believe you!

Oh... and if this is a new US policy, then publishing it as study paper within the Pentagon is not the way to put a nation like China on notice. If this is really going to be US policy, the US President needs to address Congress and ask for an endorsement through a vote for the policy that "a cyber attack constitutes an act of war upon the US and the US will unleash the full might of its military in response". That will get China's attention. Shuffling papers in the Pentagon will only get a chuckle out of the Chinese.

Oh... and yet another thought. If the US views cyber attacks this seriously, then it should immediately mandate a requirement to make the Internet more secure. It should enforce the requirement that all traffic be subject to protocols that make it simple and clear as to who sent what to whom when where and how over the Internet. Until that is done, the idea of "going to war" over a cyber attack makes no sense because it is just too hard to know who did what to whom on the current Internet infrastructure.