The US-NATO attack on Yugoslavia in 1999 was one of the first Pentagon 'field tests' of cyber warfare technology. I recall at the time reading in aerospace industry publications that the US used computer hacking technology to shut down the air defense systems in Yugoslavia prior to the US-NATO air attacks. As a result not one war plane from the 'western alliance' was lost during those bombing raids.
The Pentagon basically used cyber technology for the first time to crawl inside of Yugoslavian air defense systems and turned them off. You might recall that during the bombing of Belgrade US-NATO war planes hit the Chinese embassy killing three reporters. The US said, "Oh sorry, we used the wrong maps." Yeah, sure......
Following that one-sided war the Pentagon went on steroids creating the offensive cyber warfare program. By the year 2015, annual federal government spending on cyber security reached well over $13 billion, a compound increase of nine percent per year. The cyber security industry has flourished with new companies and their facilities expanding throughout the greater Washington-Virginia area like a metastasizing cancer.
The US is undoubtedly the world leader in cyber warfare technology but Russia, China and other nations have joined this new arms race. We frequently hear of claims about one nation hacking the other but confirming these charges is virtually impossible for the public or for the media - assuming the media was actually interested in learning the truth. When it comes to stories about cyber hacking most mainstream media are left to reading the news releases sent out by the US Cyber Command.
Lately we've been hearing that the US intends to create arrangements with NATO that if any one member of the corporate military alliance is 'cyber attacked' that this would be viewed as an attack on all of NATO and would trigger war. Proving that an alleged attack on one NATO member was actually real in the first place would be virtually impossible.
The cyber warfare program took off so big in large part because of the concerns of growing space debris orbiting the Earth at 15,000 mph. The old plan was just to blow up other nations satellites in order to ensure US 'control and domination' of space. But once the Space Command realized the full extent of the space junk problem they concluded that adding more debris would be quite problematic. Thus finding another way to 'disable' another nation's satellites during times of hostility became a priority.
Cyber Command was created in 2009 at the National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland. It uses NSA networks and has been headed by the Director of the National Security Agency since its inception.
The Strategic Command (STRATCOM), headquartered at Offutt AFB in Nebraska, oversees the Cyber Command as well as Global Strike; Space Command; Integrated Missile Defense; Strategic Nuclear Missiles & Bombers; and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance.
Bruce
Bruce,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your overview about Cyber Command. It gives me the creeps, although I've known bits and pieces. That they are now stating that a supposed cyber attack could be seen as provocation for war explains what happened with the claims that Russia hacked our election... which always seemed so bizarre to me, that even if true, could possibly be grounds for attacking a country. And yet, we've had this massive NATO buildup to attack Russia, based upon that false flag. This mindset is so alien to me. The NSA operates as part of the shadow government... and these people do not have the best interests of Americans at heart, let alone those of humanity. I think they are all deeply crazy.