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Transfer of military and infrastructure to the internet allows hackers to shut down our society
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Transfer of military and infrastructure to the internet allows hackers to shut down our society.Samuelson 13 Samuelson: Internet Armageddon? RobertSamuelson, Times Dispatch | Posted: Monday, July 1, 2013 12:00 amhttp://www.timesdispatch.com/opinion/their-opinion/columnists-blogs/robert-samuelson/samuelson-internet-armageddon/article_34e6bb6a-e1cb-5d18-8db7-decf84abd790.html?mode=print By cyberwarfare, I mean the capacity of groups — whether nations or not — to attack, disrupt and possibly destroy the institutions and networks that underpin everyday life. These would be power grids, pipelines, communication and financial systems, business record-keeping and supply-chain operations, railroads and airlines, databases of all types (from hospitals to government agencies). The list runs on. So much depends on the Internet that its vulnerability to sabotage invites doomsday visions of the breakdown of order and trust. In a report, the Defense Science Board, an advisory group to the Pentagon, acknowledged “staggering losses” of information involving weapons design and combat methods to hackers (not identified, but probably Chinese). Hackers might disarm military units. “U.S. guns, missiles and bombs may not fire, or may be directed against our own troops,” the report said. It also painted a specter of social chaos from a full-scale cyberassault. There would be “no electricity, money, communications, TV, radio or fuel (electrically pumped). In a short time, food and medicine distribution systems would be ineffective.” I don’t know the odds of this technological Armageddon. I doubt anyone does. The fears may be wildly exaggerated, as Thomas Rid of Kings College London argues in his book “Cyber War Will Not Take Place” (already published in Britain, due out this fall in the United States). In living memory, there are many threats that, with hindsight, seemed hyped: the “missile gap” in 1960; the Y2K phenomenon in 2000 (the date change would allegedly disable many computer chips); and, so far, the prophecies of widespread terrorism after 9/11. Still, the Internet creates new avenues for conflict and mayhem. Until now, the motives for hacking — aside from political activists determined to make some point — have mostly involved larceny and business espionage. Among criminals, “the Internet is seen as the easiest, fastest way to make money,” says Richard Bejtlich, chief security officer for Mandiant, a cybersecurity firm. Recently, federal prosecutors alleged that a gang of cyberthieves had stolen $45 million by hacking into databases of prepaid debit cards and then draining cash from ATMs. Stealing trade secrets likely dwarfs ordinary crime. From its clients, Mandiant identifies four industries as receiving the bulk of attacks: aerospace and defense, 31 percent; energy, oil and gas, 17 percent; pharmaceuticals, 15 percent; and finance, 11 percent. Mandiant identified one unit of China’s People’s Liberation Army that allegedly has hacked 141 companies and organizations since 2006, removing “technology blueprints, propriety manufacturing processes, test results, business plans.” What’s unclear is how “infrastructure” systems (electricity grids and the like) have been penetrated and, on command, might be compromised. In the mid-1980s, most of these systems were self-contained. They relied on dedicated phone lines and private communications networks. They were hard to infiltrate. Since then, many systems switched to the Internet. “It’s cheaper,” says James Andrew Lewis, an Internet expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The architects of these conversions apparently underestimated the risk of sabotage. Now is key—Hackers are targeting infrastructure to undermine our military and economy TSAI December 5th Staff writer for Stars and Stripes.com Military among victims of SC revenue department cyberattackBy JOYCE TSAI Stars and Stripes Published: December 5, 2012www.stripes.com/news/military-among-victims-of-sc-revenue-department-cyberattack-1.199456 WASHINGTON – Military members and their families are among the victims of what is being called the largest cyberattack of its kind against a state government agency. The cyberattack on South Carolina’s Department of Revenue, led to the pilfering of Social Security numbers and a wealth of other personal financial data from millions who filed South Carolina tax returns since 1998. In addition to raiding the tax records of 3.8 million taxpayers, international hackers in August and September also stole the Social Security numbers of about 1.9 million dependents – as well as information from nearly 700,000 businesses, 3.3 million bank accounts and 5,000 credit cards. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., sent a letter to the Defense Department leadership urging them to notify all military members and their families of the security breach. Since 1998, many military members have rotated through the state’s numerous bases and may now be living overseas. Samantha Cheek, a Department of Revenue spokeswoman, said the state recognized that this cyberattack was “a significant issue” for military members, “in light of the uniquely mobile natures of their service.” All affected taxpayers should receive letters of notification from the state, she said. But anyone who filed a tax return since 1998 in the state should take the following steps to protect themselves: Defense personnel should visit ProtectMyID.com/SCDOR and use the activation code SCDOR123 or call Experian’s national consumer assistance center at (866) 578-5422 by Jan. 31 to determine whether their information is at risk. If so, enroll in identity theft protection, which is being offered free for one year by the state, along with $1 million in identity theft insurance. Also current and former South Carolina business owners should contact Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp. at dandb.com/sc/ or (800) 279-9881 to sign up for free credit monitoring services for a year. Graham said in a Nov. 28 press conference that the data breach served as an example of the type of threat that could lead someday to “a major cyberattack against our national security infrastructure: our power plants, our aviation systems, our financial systems.” He and other Congressional members have been pushing for the passage of cybersecurity legislation that would ensure that businesses do more to protect customers from cyberattack. Impact—Russia War Cyber Attacks empirically destroys US – Russian relations. Further attacks guarantee conflict. Ashmore 09 William C. Ashmore 08/09 Impact of Alleged Russian Cyber Attacks http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA504991 (William Ashmore is a Major in the US Army) The cyber attack on Estonia demonstrated the importance of legal obligations for the U.S. in rendering support to its allies during a cyber attack. 58 The cyber attack also showed the vulnerability of an IT system, raising the question, if it could happen to Estonia could another trans-national cyber attack of this magnitude happen in the U.S. 59 The convention on cybercrime, which the U.S. is a party to, outlines principles for providing mutual assistance regarding cyber crime. 60 The convention does not mention cyber attacks or cyber war but treats such activities as crimes. 61 Because only 23 countries have agreed to this treaty its force in the international community is limited. 62 Several members of NATO are participating in the Cyber Defense Center of Excellence that was established in Estonia, but the U.S. only agreed to the creation of the cyber defense center as an observer. The cyber defense center is working on issues of cyber security that affect NATO along with the U.S. 63 What will the U.S.’s response be if a cyber attack destroys infrastructure and kills citizens in an allied country, and then that ally declares war because of the attack? The plausibility of such an attack was demonstrated in 2007 when scientists from the Idaho National Laboratory demonstrated how a cyber attack could cause a power plant to overload its system, begin to smoke, and then break down which caused physical damage to equipment. Currently, both international law and NATO’s framework lack coherent responses that are legal in the event of such an attack. The cyber attackers could limit options for the U.S. under such a scenario by routing their cyber attack through countries which do not have laws or agreements to cooperate with the U.S. The cyber attacker could remain completely anonymous if the country where the attack was routed through refused to hand over information identifying the cyber attackers. 64 Cyber attacks on the U.S. government IT infrastructure are not new. In March 1998 a cyber attack was launched against computer systems of the U.S. government, private universities and research labs computer systems that lasted for over three years. Government investigators named the attacks “Moonlight Maze.” The cyber attacks targeted gaining access to sensitive but unclassified information. 65 John Adams, a National Security Agency (NSA) consultant says that government investigators have identified seven internet addresses involved in the cyber attacks that originated in Russia. Dion Stempfley, a former Pentagon computer analyst, believes that the U.S. prove that the Russian Federation government is sponsoring the attacks but there is evidence that they are allowing or otherwise permitting the cyber attacks. The cyber attacks which resulted in the theft of technical defense information were serious enough that the U.S. State Department issued a formal complaint to the Russian Federation. 66 In Global Trends 2025, a study conducted by the National Intelligence Council, states over the next two decades non-military aspects of warfare, including cyber, will be prominent. 67 According to Secure Works, a cyber security company, in 2008 over 20 million attacks originated from computers within the United States. 68 In 2008 the U.S. Department of Homeland Security created the National Cybersecurity Center to counter these threats. 69 The threats to the U.S. infrastructure and technology are moving at a much faster pace than the creation of government structures to counter the threat. Even a casual observer can see that there is a cyber threat to the U.S., but how is that connected to any Russian involvement in cyber attacks? There are three recent examples of how cyber attacks, that may have allegedly originated in Russia, that demonstrate danger for U.S. and Russian relations. These examples show how attacks against an IT structure were used as cyber pressure to influence nations or organizations. The first example is when Radio Free Europe’s internet sites in April 2008 in Eastern Europe were shut down because of a denial of service attack. The attack lasted two days and coincided with the planned coverage of the anniversary of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. The attacks effectively shut down the websites which stopped the flow of information from Radio Free Europe, a U.S. sponsored program. 70 Another example is the malware (malware is a term used to identify illegal computer access including computer viruses) attack on U.S. Department of Defense computer systems in November 2008. According to WMD Insights 71 the computer attacks are thought to have originated from Russia. The attacks seemed to target military computer systems and affected the U.S. central command along with computers in Iraq and Afghanistan. The attacks led to a ban on the use of external computer flash drives on military computers throughout the world. 72f None of their Russia defense applies—Relations alone will not solve cyber warfare. CSIS 11 US-Russia Diplomacy – The “Reset” of Relations in Cyberspace AUG 5, 2011 By Joshua McGee http://csis.org/blog/us-russia-diplomacy-reset-relations-cyberspace Through the expansion of the Internet, cyber security has become increasingly an international issue. Many international organizations and agreements could be used in order to address cybersecurity issues. Historically, the US and Russia have discussed with each other how to address cybersecurity, cyber governance, cybercrime, and cyber warfare. However since 2009, there has been a dramatic shift in the relationship, leading to increased cooperation and bilateral talks. Through this shift, the United States and Russia show that cooperation and progress are still possible in cyberspace despite differences.It is important for the United States and Russia to cooperate on cyber issues. Russian organized crime is known for being heavily involved in cybercrime that affects many internet users. Through phishing, DDOS, viruses, and Trojans, Russian hackers are able to collect banking information and gain control of personal computers in order to conduct future attacks. Russian law enforcement is largely ineffective in investigating cybercrime because often, elements in the Russian government profit from the highly lucrative business. Russian cybercrime directly affects many US Internet users. Because of these effects, it is in the best interest of the United States to engage with Russia to tackle cybercrime and broader cyber issues. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, a member of the G8, and a member of the BRICS grouping, it is apparent that Russia is important in the international stage. Because of both countries prominence on the international stage, Russia and the US should constantly have discussions about cyber security, cybercrime, and cyberwarfare. Overall, Russia has been concerned with creating international regimes to deal with cyber issues. In Russia’s perspective, the absence of a treaty justifies an arms race between nations. Russia has been promoting this “regime” approach through organizations like the United Nations (UN), and more specifically the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). Through the UN and ITU, Russia has promoted organizations such as the World Summit on the Information Society, the ITU High Level Expert Group on Information Security, and the International Multilateral Partnerships Against Cyber Threats (IMPACT). Political implications and protection have always been focal points for Russia when dealing with cyber issues. The Russian Information Security Doctrine from 2000 characterized information security as the “protection of its national interests in the information sphere defined by the totality of balanced interests of the individual, society, and the state.” This “international security” perspective of cyber issues can be seen in their priorities to secure support of state activities, counter destructive ideologies, and counter disruptions of stability and safety and functioning of national information infrastructure. Extinction Bostrom 2002 (Nick Bostrom, 2002. Professor of Philosophy and Global Studies at Yale. "Existential Risks: Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios and Related Hazards," 38, www.transhumanist.com/volume9/risks.html) A much greater existential risk emerged with the build-up of nuclear arsenals in the US and the USSR. An all-out nuclear war was a possibility with both a substantial probability and with consequences that might have been persistent enough to qualify as global and terminal. There was a real worry among those best acquainted with the information available at the time that a nuclear Armageddon would occur and that it might annihilate our species or permanently destroy human civilization. Russia and the US retain large nuclear arsenals that could be used in a future confrontation, either accidentally or deliberately. There is also a risk that other states may one day build up large nuclear arsenals. Note however that a smaller nuclear exchange, between India and Pakistan for instance, is not an existential risk, since it would not destroy or thwart humankind’s potential permanently. Impact – Russia Relations Cyber Attacks empirically destroys US – Russian relations. Further attacks guarantee conflict. Ashmore 09 William C. Ashmore 08/09 Impact of Alleged Russian Cyber Attacks http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA504991 (William Ashmore is a Major in the US Army) The cyber attack on Estonia demonstrated the importance of legal obligations for the U.S. in rendering support to its allies during a cyber attack. 58 The cyber attack also showed the vulnerability of an IT system, raising the question, if it could happen to Estonia could another trans-national cyber attack of this magnitude happen in the U.S. 59 The convention on cybercrime, which the U.S. is a party to, outlines principles for providing mutual assistance regarding cyber crime. 60 The convention does not mention cyber attacks or cyber war but treats such activities as crimes. 61 Because only 23 countries have agreed to this treaty its force in the international community is limited. 62 Several members of NATO are participating in the Cyber Defense Center of Excellence that was established in Estonia, but the U.S. only agreed to the creation of the cyber defense center as an observer. The cyber defense center is working on issues of cyber security that affect NATO along with the U.S. 63 What will the U.S.’s response be if a cyber attack destroys infrastructure and kills citizens in an allied country, and then that ally declares war because of the attack? The plausibility of such an attack was demonstrated in 2007 when scientists from the Idaho National Laboratory demonstrated how a cyber attack could cause a power plant to overload its system, begin to smoke, and then break down which caused physical damage to equipment. Currently, both international law and NATO’s framework lack coherent responses that are legal in the event of such an attack. The cyber attackers could limit options for the U.S. under such a scenario by routing their cyber attack through countries which do not have laws or agreements to cooperate with the U.S. The cyber attacker could remain completely anonymous if the country where the attack was routed through refused to hand over information identifying the cyber attackers. 64 Cyber attacks on the U.S. government IT infrastructure are not new. In March 1998 a cyber attack was launched against computer systems of the U.S. government, private universities and research labs computer systems that lasted for over three years. Government investigators named the attacks “Moonlight Maze.” The cyber attacks targeted gaining access to sensitive but unclassified information. 65 John Adams, a National Security Agency (NSA) consultant says that government investigators have identified seven internet addresses involved in the cyber attacks that originated in Russia. Dion Stempfley, a former Pentagon computer analyst, believes that the U.S. prove that the Russian Federation government is sponsoring the attacks but there is evidence that they are allowing or otherwise permitting the cyber attacks. The cyber attacks which resulted in the theft of technical defense information were serious enough that the U.S. State Department issued a formal complaint to the Russian Federation. 66 In Global Trends 2025, a study conducted by the National Intelligence Council, states over the next two decades non-military aspects of warfare, including cyber, will be prominent. 67 According to Secure Works, a cyber security company, in 2008 over 20 million attacks originated from computers within the United States. 68 In 2008 the U.S. Department of Homeland Security created the National Cybersecurity Center to counter these threats. 69 The threats to the U.S. infrastructure and technology are moving at a much faster pace than the creation of government structures to counter the threat. Even a casual observer can see that there is a cyber threat to the U.S., but how is that connected to any Russian involvement in cyber attacks? There are three recent examples of how cyber attacks, that may have allegedly originated in Russia, that demonstrate danger for U.S. and Russian relations. These examples show how attacks against an IT structure were used as cyber pressure to influence nations or organizations. The first example is when Radio Free Europe’s internet sites in April 2008 in Eastern Europe were shut down because of a denial of service attack. The attack lasted two days and coincided with the planned coverage of the anniversary of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. The attacks effectively shut down the websites which stopped the flow of information from Radio Free Europe, a U.S. sponsored program. 70 Another example is the malware (malware is a term used to identify illegal computer access including computer viruses) attack on U.S. Department of Defense computer systems in November 2008. According to WMD Insights 71 the computer attacks are thought to have originated from Russia. The attacks seemed to target military computer systems and affected the U.S. central command along with computers in Iraq and Afghanistan. The attacks led to a ban on the use of external computer flash drives on military computers throughout the world. 72f Russian relations key to solve nuclear war, proliferation, terrorism, energy, climate change Duedney and Ikenberry 9 (Daniel Deudney is Associate Professor of Political Science, Johns Hopkins University. His most recent book is Bounding Power: Republican Security Theory from the Polis to the Global Village (Princeton University Press, 2007). G. John Ikenberry is Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University and a Global Eminence Scholar at Kyung Hee University, Korea, http://www.princeton.edu/~gji3/51-607DeudneyandIkenberry.pdf) The premise of the new Obama policy is that the stakes in the relationship with Russia are very large – even larger than is widely appreciated. Its proponents recognise that achieving the goals of an American interestbased foreign policy in many areas – nuclear weapons and non-proliferation, terrorism, energy supply and climate change, and peaceful change in the former Soviet sphere – requires a cooperative relationship with Russia. 3 A further deterioration of relations will not only undermine these goals, but also holds the unappealing prospect of a return to the type of full-blown great-power rivalry that the Cold War seemed to end. Russia is not powerful enough to dominate the international system or to even be a full peer competitor, but it is capable of playing the role of spoiler. The reigniting of a nuclear arms race and a full-spectrum competitive relationship with Russia would be a major setback for fundamental American security interests. US stakes in the relationship with Russia are not as great as during the Cold War, but remain important because of the two countries’ joint vulnerability to nuclear devastation.
(Stephen, Failed Crusade, p. 196-205) These assurances are manifestly untrue and, coming from U.S. officials, editorialists, an scholars, inexplica bly myopic and irresponsible. Even leaving aside post Soviet Russia's enormou stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, “all of the major fault line of nuclear danger are growing," as we learn from a num ber of largely unheeded experts, and U.S. policy "simply has not kept up with the expansion of nuclear dangers inside Russia."The truth may not be politically correct or palatable, but the breakup of the Soviet state and Russia's "transition" have made us immeasurably less safe than we have ever been. To understand how unsafe, we must explore more fully a generalization made earlier in this book: What does it mean for our security when a nuclear-laden nation state is, depending on how we choose to charac terize Russia s condition today, disintegrating, collaps ing, or merely "highly unstable"?40 The short answer is, no one fully knows, because it has never happened before, which itself means that compared with the rel ative predictability of the Soviet system and the Cold War, we now live in an era of acute nuclear uncertain ty. The longer answer is that any significant degree of disintegration, instability, or civil warfare, all of which exist in Russia today, creates not one but several unprecedented nuclear dangers. The most widely acknowledged, almost to the point of obscuring the others, is proliferation-the danger that some of Russia's vast accumulation of nuclear weapons, components, or knowledge might be acquired by non-nuclear states or terrorist groups through theft and black-market transactions, scientific brain drain, or a decision by a money-starved Moscow regime to sell them. The threat derives primarily from Russia's decade long economic collapse. The government has lacked suf ficient funds to safeguard storehouses of nuclear materials properly or to pay maintenance personnel and scientists adequately, even regularly. (Nuclear workers actually went out on strike over unpaid wages several times in the 1990s and again in 2000, even though it is against Russian law.) Almost all of the existing U.S. programs to reduce nuclear threats inside Russia focus on proliferation. But even here, according to their official sponsors and other experts, the programs are "woefully inadequate" if we are "to prevent a catastrophe." By the end of 2000, for example, barely one-sixth of Russia's weapons-usable materials will be considered secure, and the "risks of `loose nukes' are larger today" than they were when the programs began. Moreover, Moscow seems to have no full inventory 0f such materials or perhaps even of its thousands of tactical nuclear weapons, and thus no sure way of knowing whether or not something is missing.*' Proliferation is the pinup of Russia's nuclear dangers, the subject of Western novels and movies, but it may not be the most serious. If a nuclear explosion is wait ing to happen, it is probably somewhere among Russia's scores of Soviet-era reactors at electrical power stations and on decommissioned submarines. Reactors, we are told, can be no less dangerous than nuclear weapons. And as the Senate's leading expert informed his col leagues in 1999, Russia's "reactors suffer from defi ciences in design, operator training, and safety procedures." Indeed, according to a Russian specialist, "none of our nuclear stations can be considered safe."42 The bell began tolling loudly on reactor catastrophes with the explosion at Chernobyl in 1986, the worst nuclear accident in history. Releasing more than a hun dred times the radiation of the two atomic bombs dropped 0n Japan in 1945, its lethal consequences are still unfolding fourteen years later. Since the early 1990s, many reports. including one by the Russian gov ernment itself in February 2000, have warned of the possibility of another "Chernobyl-type disaster" or, more exactly, of several accident-prone Russian power stations, even faulty research reactors.' (The world's most dangerous nuclear plants are said to be located in post-Communist Russia and other former Soviet republics.)' Scores of decommissioned but still not denuclearized Soviet-built submarines decaying in the far north great ly worsen the odds in this new kind of Russian roulette. Here too firsthand reports of "a nuclear accident wait ing to happen" are increasingly ominous. Ill-maintained floating reactors are highly vulnerable, and many sub marines are already leaking or dumping radioactive materials into the seas "like little Chernobyls in slow motion. Active-duty Russian nuclear ships also pose a serious threat, their aging missiles susceptible to explosions, one likely to detonate others. If that happens Russian expert warns, "We can end up with hundreds of Chernobyls. Why, then, all the U.S. official and unofficial assur ances that we are "immeasurably more secure" and ca stop worrying about "worst-case scenarios"? They clear ly derived from the single, entirely ideological assump tion that because the Soviet Union no longer exists, the threat of a Russian nuclear attack on the United States no longer exists and we need now worry only about rogue states." In truth, the possibility of such a Russ ian attack grew throughout the 1990s and is still growing Leave aside the warning that "a Russian version of Milosevic . . . armed with thousands of nuclear war warheads" – might come to power and consider the pro gressive disintegration of the country's nuclear-defense infrastructure. Russia still has some six thousand war heads on hair-trigger alert. They are to be launched or not launched depending on information about activity at U.S. missile sites provided by an early-warning net work of radars, satellites, and computers that now functions only partially and erratically. Russia's command-and-control personnel, who are hardly immune to the social hard ships and pathologies sweeping the nation, have bare ly a few minutes to evaluate any threatening information, which as already been false on occasion. (In 1995, a Norwegian weather rocket was briefly mistaken by Russian authorities for an incoming enemy mis sile.) These new post-Soviet technological and human cir cumstances of the nuclear age are, as American scien tists have warned repeatedly, "increasing the danger of an accidental or unauthorized "attack on the United States" from Russian territory. It is "arguably already the greatest threat to U.S. national survival. Assurances to the contrary, scientists emphasize, are "a gross mis representation of reality."' Readers may choose to believe that intentional nuclear war nonetheless remains unthinkable. In post- Soviet Russia, however, it has become not only increas ingly thinkable but speakable. The Kremlin's new security doctrine expanding conditions in which it would use such weapons may be merely semantic and nothing really new. But Russia's ferocious civil war in Chechnya, which did not end with the destruction of Grozny in 2000, is, as I have pointed out before, the first ever in a nuclear country. It has not yet included nuclear warfare, but both sides have crossed a rhetorical Rubicon. Since '999, sev eral Russian deputies and governors, and even a lead ing "liberal" newspaper, have proposed using nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons against Chechnya. Said one, think nuclear weapons should stop being virtual." Russian military spokesmen, we are told, "do not exclude that a nuclear attack could be carried out against the bases of international terrorists in Chechnya."49 And with that tiny republic in mind, the military has officially adopted a new concept of "limited" nuclear warfare in a single region, a threat against the Chechen resistance still being discussed in May 2000. From the other side, there were persistent reports that terrorists serving the Chechen "holy war" might blow up Russian nuclear power plants or weapons sites. The reports were serious enough to cause Moscow to redouble security at its nuclear facilities and go percent of Russians surveyed to say they fear the possibility.' Such threats on both sides may also be merely rhetorical, but it is an exceedingly dangerous rhetoric never before heard. If nothing else, there has been more loose talk in Russia since 1999 about using nuclear weapons than measures to .prevent loose nukes. And it will likely increase if the Chechens expand their new guerrilla tactics farther into Russia itself, as they have promised to do. And so, post-Soviet Russia still matters to America in the most fateful of ways. The Clinton administration has worsened the dangers incalculably by taking step after step that pushes a Russia coming apart at the nuclear seams to rely more and more on its nuclear stockpiles and infrastructures-by making financial aid conditional on economic "reforms" that impoverished and destabilized the state; by expanding NATO's mili tary might virtually to Russia's borders; by provocative ly demonstrating during the bombing of Yugoslavia the overwhelming superiority of U.S. conventional weapons; and more recently by threatening to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in order to build a missile defense system. Rarely, if ever, has there been such a reckless official disregard for U.S. national security or leadership failure to tell the American people about growing threats to their well-being. The Clinton administration and its many supporters in the media, think tanks, and acade mia never seem to connect the dots between their mis sionary zeal in Russia and the grave dangers being compounded there. In early 2000, one of the crusade's leading policymakers suddenly told us, after seven years of "happy talk," that "disasters are inescapable in the short run." He neglected to say that the disaster is unfolding in a country laden with twentieth-century devices of mass destruction and regressing toward the nineteenth century." Russia's potential for lethal catastrophies is the most important but not the only reason it still matters. Even in crises and weakness, Russia remains a great power because of its sheer size, which stretches across eleven time zones from Finland and Poland (if we consider Belarus) to China and nearby Alaska; its large portions of the world's energy and mineral reserves; its long his tory of world-class achievements and power; its highly educated present-day citizens; and, of course, its arse nals. All this makes Russia inherently not only a major power but a semi-global one. A "world without Russia" would therefore be globalization, to take the concept du jour, without a large part of the globe. Nor can many large international problems and con flicts be resolved without Russia, especially in a "post-Cold War order" that has at least as much inter national anarchy as order. From the Balkans and the Caspian to China and Iraq, from nuclear proliferation to conventional-arms transfers, from the environment and terrorism to drug trafficking and money laundering, Russia retains a capacity to affect world affairs for better or worse. On the one hand, it was Moscow's diplo matic intervention in Yugoslavia in 1999 that enabled a desperate Clinton administration to avoid sending American ground troops to Kosovo. On the other, the 1990s also brought the passage of narcotics westward across Russian territory, a flood of illegal Russian money into U.S. banks, and growing markets for Moscow's weapons and nuclear capabilities among states that already worry Washington." And then there are the vast geopolitical ramifications of developments in what is still the world's largest ter ritorial country. Nearly a fourth of planet Earth's pop ulation lives on the borders of the Russian Federation, including most of its major religions and many of its ethnic identities. Many, if not all, of these nations and peoples are likely to be directly or indirectly affected by what happens in post-Communist Russia, again for bet ter or worse-first and foremost the "near abroad," as Moscow calls the other fourteen former Soviet republics, but not them alone. Finally, there is a crucial futuristic reason why U.S. policy toward Russia must be given the highest priori ty and changed fundamentally. Contrary to those Amer icans who have "rushed to relegate Russia to the archives," believing it will always be enfeebled and may even break into more pieces, that longtime superpower will eventually recover from its present time of troubles, as it did after the revolution and civil war of 1917-21, indeed as it always has. But what kind of political state will rise from its knees? One that is democratic or despotic? One open to the West and eager to play a cooperative role in world affairs--or one bent on revising an international order shaped during its weakness and at its expense? One safeguarding and reducing its nuclear stockpiles or one multiplying and proliferating them among states that want them? The outcome will depend very significantly on how Russia is treated during its present-day agony, particularly by the United States. Whether it is treated wisely and compassionately or is bullied and humiliated, as a growing number of Russians believe they have been since the early 1990s. The next American president may make that decision, but our children and grandchildren will reap the benefits or pay the price. Relations key to solve the nuclear infrastructure – accidental conflict Cohen, 1 Stephen F. Cohen, Prof of Russian Studies @ NYU, June 25, 2001 http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010625&c=1&s=cohen In these and other ways, Russia has been plunging back into the nineteenth century. And, as a result, it has entered the twenty-first century with its twentieth-century systems of nuclear maintenance and control also in a state of disintegration. What does this mean? No one knows fully because nothing like this has ever happened before in a nuclear country. But one thing is certain: Because of it, we now live in a nuclear era much less secure than was the case even during the long cold war. Indeed, there are at least four grave nuclear threats in Russia today: There is, of course, the threat of proliferation, the only one generally acknowledged by our politicians and media--the danger that Russia's vast stores of nuclear material and know-how will fall into reckless hands. But, second, scores of ill-maintained Russian reactors on land and on decommissioned submarines--with the destructive capacity of nuclear weapons--are explosions waiting to happen. Third, also for the first time in history, there is a civil war in a nuclear land--in the Russian territory of Chechnya, where fanatics on both sides have threatened to resort to nuclear warfare. And most immediate and potentially catastrophic, there is Russia's decrepit early-warning system. It is supposed to alert Moscow if US nuclear missiles have been launched at Russia, enabling the Kremlin to retaliate immediately with its own warheads, which like ours remain even today on hairtrigger alert. The leadership has perhaps ten to twenty minutes to evaluate the information and make a decision. That doomsday warning system has nearly collapsed--in May, a fire rendered inoperable four more of its already depleted satellite components--and become a form of Russian nuclear roulette, a constant danger of false alarms and accidental launches against the United States.How serious are these threats? In the lifetime of this graduating class, the bell has already tolled at least four times. In 1983 a Soviet Russian satellite mistook the sun's reflection on a cloud for an incoming US missile. A massive retaliatory launch was only barely averted. In 1986 the worst nuclear reactor explosion in history occurred at the Soviet power station at Chernobyl. In 1995 Russia's early-warning system mistook a Norwegian research rocket for an American missile, and again a nuclear attack on the United States was narrowly averted. And just last summer, Russia's most modern nuclear submarine, the Kursk, exploded at sea. Think of these tollings as chimes on a clock of nuclear catastrophe ticking inside Russia. We do not know what time it is. It may be only dawn or noon. But it may already be dusk or almost midnight. The only way to stop that clock is for Washington and Moscow to acknowledge their overriding mutual security priority and cooperate fully in restoring Russia's economic and nuclear infrastructures, most urgently its early-warning system. Meanwhile, all warheads on both sides have to be taken off high-alert, providing days instead of minutes to verify false alarms. And absolutely nothing must be done to cause Moscow to rely more heavily than it already does on its fragile nuclear controls. These solutions seem very far from today's political possibilities. US-Russian relations are worse than they have been since the mid-1980s. The Bush Administration is threatening to expand NATO to Russia's borders and to abrogate existing strategic arms agreements by creating a forbidden missile defense system. Moscow threatens to build more nuclear weapons in response. Hope lies in recognizing that there are always alternatives in history and politics--roads taken and not taken. Little more than a decade ago, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, along with President Ronald Reagan and the first President George Bush, took a historic road toward ending the forty-year cold war and reducing the nuclear dangers it left behind. But their successors, in Washington and Moscow, have taken different roads, ones now littered with missed opportunities. If the current generation of leaders turns out to lack the wisdom or courage, and if there is still time, it may fall to your generation to choose the right road. Such leaders, or people to inform their vision and rally public support, may even be in this graduating class. Whatever the case, when the bell warning of impending nuclear catastrophe tolls again in Russia, as it will, know that it is tolling for you, too. And ask yourselves in the determined words attributed to Gorbachev, which remarkably echoed the Jewish philosopher Hillel, "If not now, when? If not us, who?" Impact—Power Grid Cyber-attacks on the power grid shut down the military, economy, and society. Damages are irreparable. Lovins 10 Amory B, Chairman and Chief Scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute, "DOD's Energy Challenge as Strategic Opportunity", Issue 57, 2nd Quarter 2010, www.ndu.edu/press/lib/images/jfq-57/lovins.pdf The Resilience Capability Resilience “combines efficient energy use with more diverse, dispersed, renewable supply—turning the loss of critical missions from energy supply failures (by accident or malice) from inevitable to near-impossible.” 37 This capability is vital because the: [a]lmost complete dependence of military installations on a fragile and vulnerable commercial power grid and other critical national infrastructure places critical military and Homeland defense missions at an unacceptably high risk of extended disruption. . . . [Backup generators and their fuel supplies at military installations are generally sized] for only shortterm commercial outages and seldom properly prioritized to critical loads because those are often not wired separately from non-essential loads. DOD’s approach to providing power to installations is based on assumptions that commercial power is highly reliable, subject to infrequent and short term outages, and backups can meet demands. [These assumptions are] . . . no longer valid and DOD must take a more rigorous risk-based approach to assuring adequate power to its critical missions. 38 The 2008 DSB Task Force found that the confluence of many risks to electric supply— grid overloads, natural disasters, sabotage or terrorism via physical or cyberattacks on the electric grid, and many kinds of interruptions to generating plants—hazards electricitydependent hydrocarbon delivery, the national economy, social stability, and DOD’s mission continuity. The U.S. electric grid was named by the National Academy of Engineering as the top engineering achievement of the 20 th century. It is very capital-intensive, complex, technologically unforgiving, usually reliable, but inherently brittle. It is responsible for ~98–99 percent of U.S. power failures, and occasionally blacking out large areas within seconds—because the grid requires exact synchrony across subcontinental areas and relies on components taking years to build in just a few factories or one (often abroad), and can be interrupted by a lightning bolt, rifle bullet, malicious computer program, untrimmed branch, or errant squirrel. Grid vulnerabilities are serious, inherent, and not amenable to quick fixes; current Federal investments in the “smart grid” do not even require simple mitigations. Indeed, the policy reflex to add more and bigger power plants and power lines after each regional blackout may make the next blackout more likely and severe, much as suppressing forest fires can accumulate fuel loadings that turn the next unsuppressed fire into an uncontrollable conflagration. Power-system vulnerabilities are even worse in-theater, where infrastructure and the capacity to repair it are often marginal: “attacks on the grid are one of the most common and effective tactics of insurgents in Iraq, and are increasingly seen in Afghanistan.” 39 Thus electric, not oil, vulnerabilities now hazard national and theater energy security. Simple exploitation of domestic electric vulnerabilities could take down DOD’s basic operating ability and the whole economy, while oil supply is only a gathering storm. Grid overload would crash the economy Jagdfeld 8/6 Aaron Jagdfeld, is president and chief executive officer of Generac Power Systems in Waukesha, WI. http://www.forbes.com/sites/deborahljacobs/2012/08/06/india-style-blackout-could-strike-the-u-s/ More people in the United States were affected by power outages last year than at any time in the industrial age. Yet what we faced during the past year pales in comparison to the largest electrical outage in world history that knocked out power to nearly 700 million people last week in India, crippling their economy.¶ The U.S. is one of the most developed nations in the world. Our day-to-day interactions are guided by technologies and innovations that rely upon the power grid. But as we continue to develop technological mastery, our power grid is aging and fragile, and its susceptibility to outages means our way of life could break down in an instant.¶ Unlike generations past, our lives and businesses are now connected through a vast network of computers and data centers that consume enormous amounts of electricity. Our homes are bigger, with more luxuries and appliances than ever. We count on power in ways our parents couldn’t imagine.Power quality is the measure of reliable power in our homes and businesses, and it has been declining steadily since 1990. During this time, demand for power has increased by 25%, but the infrastructure needed to transmit power to homes has increased by a mere 7%. We have become a digital society, but are burdened with an analog power grid—one that is inefficient and susceptible to weather, surging demand, and even terrorist attack.¶ Each outage comes at a cost; the average cost of a one-second outage among industrial and digital firms is about $1,477. That means the U.S. economy loses between $104 billion and $164 billion each year to power outages. Losses like that affect all of us. An outage lasting days, as in India, would represent hundreds of billions of dollars lost, taxing our already fragile economy.¶ Fixing our power grid is no simple feat. The best estimates put the price tag for a new grid at two trillion dollars, or about 14% of our current gross domestic product. There is no legitimate national plan to create a new grid, nor are there public funds available to fix the grid we have.¶ American utility companies are as constrained as the government when it comes to meaningful investment in grid improvement. The 3,200 utility companies that touch the power grid are regulated by an equal number of agencies, many of which exist solely to minimize cost to consumers. This is undeniably good for consumers in most cases, but it has left us with a broken power grid that no one is responsible for (or capable of) fixing. Shut down of the power grid is on par with a nuclear war Huff 12 Ethan A. Huff May 03, 2012 Hacking expert David Chalk says 100 percent certainty of catastrophic failure of smart energy grid within three years http://www.naturalnews.com/035755_power_grid_failure_blackouts.html#ixzz26CWc41lYhttp://www.naturalnews.com/035755_power_grid_failure_blackouts.html Smart grid technology is also vulnerable to failure from solar storms and digital warfare, both of which could quickly take down the entire system in an instant, leaving millions, and potentially billions, of people in the dark without power. Smart grid technology also comes with its own unique health and privacy risks that are being ignored by its proponents as well. "Unless we wake up and realize what we're doing, there is 100 percent certainty of total catastrophic failure of the entire power infrastructure within three years," adds Chalk. "This could actually be worse than a nuclear war, because it would happen everywhere. How governments and utilities are blindly merging the power grid with the Internet, and effectively without any protection, is insanity at its finest." Grid attacks go nuclear Andres and Breetz 11 Richard Andres, Professor of National Security Strategy at the National War College and a Senior Fellow and Energy and Environmental Security and Policy Chair in the Center for Strategic Research, Institute for National Strategic Studies, at the National Defense University, and Hanna Breetz, doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Small Nuclear Reactorsfor Military Installations:Capabilities, Costs, andTechnological Implications, www.ndu.edu/press/lib/pdf/StrForum/SF-262.pdf The DOD interest in small reactors derives largely from problems with base and logistics vulnerability. Over the last few years, the Services have begun to reexamine virtually every aspect of how they generate and use energy with an eye toward cutting costs, decreasing carbon emissions, and reducing energy-related vulnerabilities. These actions have resulted in programs that have significantly reduced DOD energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions at domestic bases. Despite strong efforts, however, two critical security issues have thus far proven resistant to existing solutions: bases’ vulnerability to civilian power outages, and the need to transport large quantities of fuel via convoys through hostile territory to forward locations. Each of these is explored below. Grid Vulnerability. DOD is unable to provide its bases with electricity when the civilian electrical grid is offline for an extended period of time. Currently, domestic military installations receive 99 percent of their electricity from the civilian power grid. As explained in a recent study from the Defense Science Board: DOD’s key problem with electricity is that critical missions, such as national strategic awareness and national command authorities, are almost entirely dependent on the national transmission grid . . . [which] is fragile, vulnerable, near its capacity limit, and outside of DOD control. In most cases, neither the grid nor on-base backup power provides sufficient reliability to ensure continuity of critical national priority functions and oversight of strategic missions in the face of a long term (several months) outage.7 The grid’s fragility was demonstrated during the 2003 Northeast blackout in which 50 million people in the United States and Canada lost power, some for up to a week, when one Ohio utility failed to properly trim trees. The blackout created cascading disruptions in sewage systems, gas station pumping, cellular communications, border check systems, and so forth, and demonstrated the interdependence of modern infrastructural systems.8 More recently, awareness has been growing that the grid is also vulnerable to purposive attacks. A report sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security suggests that a coordinated cyberattack on the grid could result in a third of the country losing power for a period of weeks or months.9 Cyberattacks on critical infrastructure are not well understood. It is not clear, for instance, whether existing terrorist groups might be able to develop the capability to conduct this type of attack. It is likely, however, that some nation-states either have or are working on developing the ability to take down the U.S. grid. In the event of a war with one of these states, it is possible, if not likely, that parts of the civilian grid would cease to function, taking with them military bases located in affected regions. Government and private organizations are currently working to secure the grid against attacks; however, it is not clear that they will be successful. Most military bases currently have backup power that allows them to function for a period of hours or, at most, a few days on their own. If power were not restored after this amount of time, the results could be disastrous. First, military assets taken offline by the crisis would not be available to help with disaster relief. Second, during an extended blackout, global military operations could be seriously compromised; this disruption would be particularly serious if the blackout was induced during major combat operations. During the Cold War, this type of event was far less likely because the United States and Soviet Union shared the common understanding that blinding an opponent with a grid blackout could escalate to nuclear war. America’s current opponents, however, may not share this fear or be deterred by this possibility. In 2008, the Defense Science Board stressed that DOD should mitigate the electrical grid’s vulnerabilities by turning military installations into “islands” of energy self-sufficiency. The department has made efforts to do so by promoting efficiency programs that lower power consumption on bases and by constructing renewable power generation facilities on selected bases. Unfortunately, these programs will not come close to reaching the goal of islanding the vast majority of bases. Even with massive investment in efficiency and renewables, most bases would not be able to function for more than a few days after the civilian grid went offline Unlike other alternative sources of energy, small reactors have the potential to solve DOD’s vulnerability to grid outages. Most bases have relatively light power demands when compared to civilian towns or cities. Small reactors could easily support bases’ power demands separate from the civilian grid during crises. In some cases, the reactors could be designed to produce enough power not only to supply the base, but also to provide critical services in surrounding towns during long-term outages. Strategically, islanding bases with small reactors has another benefit. One of the main reasons an enemy might be willing to risk reprisals by taking down the U.S. grid during a period of military hostilities would be to affect ongoing military operations. Without the lifeline of intelligence, communication, and logistics provided by U.S. domestic bases, American military operations would be compromised in almost any conceivable contingency. Making bases more resilient to civilian power outages would reduce the incentive for an opponent to attack the grid. An opponent might still attempt to take down the grid for the sake of disrupting civilian systems, but the powerful incentive to do so in order to win an ongoing battle or war would be greatly reduced. Grid failure shuts down US military operations Paul Stockton 11, assistant secretary of defense for Homeland Defense and Americas’ Security Affairs, “Ten Years After 9/11: Challenges for the Decade to Come”, http://www.hsaj.org/?fullarticle=7.2.11 The cyber threat to the DIB is only part of a much larger challenge to DoD. Potential adversaries are seeking asymmetric means to cripple our force projection, warfighting, and sustainment capabilities, by targeting the critical civilian and defense supporting assets (within the United States and abroad) on which our forces depend. This challenge is not limited to man-made threats; DoD must also execute its mission-essential functions in the face of disruptions caused by naturally occurring hazards.20 Threats and hazards to DoD mission execution include incidents such as earthquakes, naturally occurring pandemics, solar weather events, and industrial accidents, as well as kinetic or virtual attacks by state or non-state actors. Threats can also emanate from insiders with ties to foreign counterintelligence organizations, homegrown terrorists, or individuals with a malicious agenda. From a DoD perspective, this global convergence of unprecedented threats and hazards, and vulnerabilities and consequences, is a particularly problematic reality of the post-Cold War world. Successfully deploying and sustaining our military forces are increasingly a function of interdependent supply chains and privately owned infrastructure within the United States and abroad, including transportation networks, cyber systems, commercial corridors, communications pathways, and energy grids. This infrastructure largely falls outside DoD direct control. Adversary actions to destroy, disrupt, or manipulate this highly vulnerable homeland- and foreign-based infrastructure may be relatively easy to achieve and extremely tough to counter. Attacking such “soft,” diffuse infrastructure systems could significantly affect our military forces globally – potentially blinding them, neutering their command and control, degrading their mobility, and isolating them from their principal sources of logistics support. The Defense Critical Infrastructure Program (DCIP) under Mission Assurance seeks to improve execution of DoD assigned missions to make them more resilient. This is accomplished through the assessment of the supporting commercial infrastructure relied upon by key nodes during execution. By building resilience into the system and ensuring this support is well maintained, DoD aims to ensure it can "take a punch as well as deliver one."21 It also provides the department the means to prioritize investments across all DoD components and assigned missions to the most critical issues faced by the department through the use of risk decision packages (RDP).22 The commercial power supply on which DoD depends exemplifies both the novel challenges we face and the great progress we are making with other federal agencies and the private sector. Today’s commercial electric power grid has a great deal of resilience against the sort of disruptive events that have traditionally been factored into the grid’s design. Yet, the grid will increasingly confront threats beyond that traditional design basis. This complex risk environment includes: disruptive or deliberate attacks, either physical or cyber in nature; severe natural hazards such as geomagnetic storms and natural disasters with cascading regional and national impacts (as in NLE 11); long supply chain lead times for key replacement electric power equipment; transition to automated control systems and other smart grid technologies without robust security; and more frequent interruptions in fuel supplies to electricity-generating plants. These risks are magnified by globalization, urbanization, and the highly interconnected nature of people, economies, information, and infrastructure systems. The department is highly dependent on commercial power grids and energy sources. As the largest consumer of energy in the United States, DoD is dependent on commercial electricity sources outside its ownership and control for secure, uninterrupted power to support critical missions. In fact, approximately 99 percent of the electricity consumed by DoD facilities originates offsite, while approximately 85 percent of critical electricity infrastructure itself is commercially owned. This situation only underscores the importance of our partnership with DHS and its work to protect the nation’s critical infrastructure – a mission that serves not only the national defense but also the larger national purpose of sustaining our economic health and competitiveness. DoD has traditionally assumed that the commercial grid will be subject only to infrequent, weather-related, and short-term disruptions, and that available backup power is sufficient to meet critical mission needs. As noted in the February 2008 Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on DoD Energy Strategy, “In most cases, neither the grid nor on-base backup power provides sufficient reliability to ensure continuity of critical national priority functions and oversight of strategic missions in the face of a long term (several months) outage.”23 Similarly, a 2009 GAO Report on Actions Needed to Improve the Identification and Management of Electrical Power Risks and Vulnerabilities to DoD Critical Assets stated that DoD mission-critical assets rely primarily on commercial electric power and are vulnerable to disruptions in electric power supplies.24 Moreover, these vulnerabilities may cascade into other critical infrastructure that uses the grid – communications, water, transportation, and pipelines – that, in turn, is needed for the normal operation of the grid, as well as its quick recovery in emergency situations. To remedy this situation, the Defense Science Board (DSB) Task Force recommended that DoD take a broad-based approach, including a focused analysis of critical functions and supporting assets, a more realistic assessment of electricity outage cause and duration, and an integrated approach to risk management that includes greater efficiency, renewable resources, distributed generation, and increased reliability. DoD Mission Assurance is designed to carry forward the DSB recommendations. Yet, for a variety of reasons – technical, financial, regulatory, and legal – DoD has limited ability to manage electrical power demand and supply on its installations. As noted above, DHS is the lead agency for critical infrastructure protection by law and pursuant to Homeland Security Presidential Directive 7. The Department of Energy (DOE) is the lead agency on energy matters. And within DoD, energy and energy security roles and responsibilities are distributed and shared, with different entities managing security against physical, nuclear, and cyber threats; cost and regulatory compliance; and the response to natural disasters. And of course, production and delivery of electric power to most DoD installations are controlled by commercial entities that are regulated by state and local utility commissions. The resulting paradox: DoD is dependent on a commercial power system over which it does not – and never will – exercise control. 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